Reactive mechanism for in-situ operation, administration, and maintenance traffic

One or more non-transitory computer readable storage media encoded with instructions that, when executed by a processor of a first network element, cause the processor to:

• assign, at the first network element, a plurality of discriminator identifiers associated with a plurality of discriminators, wherein each discriminator of the plurality of discriminators is mapped to a specified action for the first network element;
• receive, at the first network element, a data packet sent from a second network element, the data packet including one or more headers, wherein the one or more headers include an in-situ operation, administration, and maintenance (IOAM) header comprising telemetry data associated with the data packet and a bidirectional forwarding detection (BFD) field including a specified discriminator identifier;
• determine whether the specified discriminator identifier in the BFD field of the IOAM header matches one of the plurality of discriminator identifiers assigned to the plurality of discriminators;
• and
• upon determining that the specified discriminator identifier matches a first discriminator identifier of the plurality of discriminator identifiers, initiate a seamless bidirectional forwarding detection (S-BFD) reflector session to transmit a response packet to the second network element according to a first action mapped to a first discriminator associated with the first discriminator identifier.

An apparatus comprising:

• a plurality of network ports configured to receive inbound packets and to send outbound packets;
• a memory;
• a processor coupled to the memory and to the plurality of network ports, wherein the processor is configured to:
• assign a plurality of discriminator identifiers associated with a plurality of discriminators, wherein each discriminator of the plurality of discriminators is mapped to a specified action for a first network element;
• receive a data packet sent from a second network element, the data packet including one or more headers, wherein the one or more headers include an in-situ operation, administration, and maintenance (IOAM) header comprising telemetry data associated with the data packet and a bidirectional forwarding detection (BFD) field including a specified discriminator identifier;
• determine whether the specified discriminator identifier in the BFD field of the IOAM header matches one of the plurality of discriminator identifiers assigned to the plurality of discriminators;
• and
• upon determining that the specified discriminator identifier matches a first discriminator identifier of the plurality of discriminator identifiers, initiate a seamless bidirectional forwarding detection (S-BFD) reflector session to transmit a response packet to the second network element according to a first action mapped to a first discriminator associated with the first discriminator identifier.