Performance monitoring of pseudowire emulation

1. A method comprising:

forwarding to a network device an advertisement label mapping message that requests an establishment of an active performance monitoring control channel;

processing a reply label mapping message sent from the network device in response to the advertisement label mapping message;

establishing a pseudowire and the active performance monitoring control channel associated with the pseudowire;

inserting a channel type field in a control word of an active performance monitoring message to indicate that the active performance monitoring message carries performance testing related information;

generating the active performance monitoring message; and

sending the active performance monitoring message over the active performance monitoring control channel.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the method further includes:

actively monitoring the pseudowire using the active performance monitoring control channel.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein actively monitoring the pseudowire includes evaluating at least one of:

throughput, latency, packet loss, or jitter.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein forwarding to a the network device the advertisement label mapping message includes:

including a code in a connectivity verification types field within a virtual circuit connectivity verification parameter field in the advertisement label mapping message.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein processing the reply label mapping message includes:

determining if the network device supports active performance monitoring, based on values within a connectivity verification types field within a virtual circuit connectivity verification parameter field in the reply label mapping message.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein forwarding to the network device the advertisement label mapping message includes:

inserting a code in a control channel types field within a virtual circuit connectivity verification parameter field in the advertisement label mapping message to request the establishment of the active performance monitoring control channel.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein processing the reply label mapping message includes:

determining if the network device supports the active performance monitoring control channel based on values within a control channel types field within a virtual circuit connectivity verification parameter field in the reply label mapping message.

8. A device comprising:

one or more processors to:

signal an active performance monitoring control channel to a remote device by sending a request message;

establish a pseudowire that includes the active performance monitoring control channel based on a response message from the remote device;

insert a channel type field in a control word in each of a plurality of test messages to indicate that the test messages carry performance testing related information;

generate the test messages; and

actively monitor the pseudowire by sending the test messages to the remote device through the active performance monitoring control channel.

9. The device of claim 8 , wherein the request message includes:

at least one of a pseudowire ID forwarding equivalence class type-length-value element or a generalized pseudowire ID forwarding equivalence class type-length-value element.

10. The device of claim 9 , wherein the request message includes a forwarding equivalence class type-length-value.

11. The device of claim 9 , wherein the generalized pseudowire ID forwarding equivalence class type-length-value element includes:

an interface parameters sub-type-length-value.

12. The device of claim 11 , wherein the interface parameters sub-type-length-value includes:

a virtual circuit connectivity verification parameter field.

13. The device of claim 8 , wherein the response message includes:

a control channel types field; and

a connectivity verification types field.

14. The device of claim 8 , further comprising:

line cards that receive and send packets to and from circuits that are connected to the device.

15. The device of claim 14 , wherein the circuits include at least one attachment circuit for one of asynchronous transfer mode packets, frame relay packets, or time division multiplexed packets.

16. A device comprising:

means for indicating an active performance monitoring capability and a pseudowire emulation capability to a network device;

means for establishing a pseudowire that includes an active performance monitoring control channel based on a response from the network device;

means for inserting a channel type field in a control word in each of a plurality of active performance monitoring messages to indicate that the active performance monitoring messages carry performance testing related information;

means for generating the active performance monitoring messages; and

means for transmitting the active performance monitoring messages over the pseudowire.

17. A device comprising:

one or more processors configured to:

receive from a network device an advertisement label mapping message that requests an establishment of an active performance monitoring control channel;

send a reply label mapping message to the network device in response to the advertisement label mapping message;

establish a pseudowire that includes the active performance monitoring control channel; and

receive a test message that includes a channel type field in a control word of the test message, the channel type field indicating that the test message carries performance testing related information.

18. The device of claim 17 , wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:

actively monitor the pseudowire using the active performance monitoring control channel.

19. The device of claim 18 , wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:

evaluate at least one of throughput, latency, packet loss, or jitter.