An MA represents a logical grouping of monitored entities within its Domain. It can therefore represent a set of Maintenance association End Points (MEPs), each configured with the same Maintenance Association ID (MAID) and MD Level, established to verify the integrity of a single service instance.
The following figure shows MD level assignment in accordance with the 802.1ag standard. As shown in the figure, MIPs can be associated with MEPs. However, MIPs can also function independently of MEPs.
