Overview of EFM
Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM) effectively improves Ethernet management and maintenance capabilities and ensures the stable operation of networks.
Easy-to-use Ethernet techniques provide good bandwidth extensibility on low-cost hardware. With these advantages, Ethernet services and structures are the first choice for many enterprise networks. The increasing popularity of Ethernet applications encourages operators to use improved Ethernet operation, administration, and maintenance (OAM) functions to maintain and operate Ethernet networks.
Hierarchical Ethernet OAM needs to be provided based on the network architecture, as shown in Figure 1.
EFM is a link-level OAM mechanism that defines the specifications of the Ethernet physical layer and OAM used for user access. It provides link connectivity detection, link fault monitoring, remote fault notification, and remote loopback for a link between two directly connected devices.