Internet DRAFT - draft-bookham-rtgwg-nfix-arch
draft-bookham-rtgwg-nfix-arch
RTG Working Group C. Bookham, Ed.
Internet-Draft A. Stone
Intended status: Informational Nokia
Expires: 13 February 2024 J. Tantsura
Nvidia
M. Durrani
Equinix Inc
B. Decraene
Orange
12 August 2023
An Architecture for Network Function Interconnect
draft-bookham-rtgwg-nfix-arch-07
Abstract
The emergence of technologies such as 5G, the Internet of Things
(IoT), and Industry 4.0, coupled with the move towards network
function virtualization, means that the service requirements demanded
from networks are changing. This document describes an architecture
for a Network Function Interconnect (NFIX) that allows for
interworking of physical and virtual network functions in a unified
and scalable manner across wide-area network and data center domains
while maintaining the ability to deliver against SLAs.
Requirements Language
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14
[RFC2119][RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals,
as shown here.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
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Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
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material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
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This Internet-Draft will expire on 13 February 2024.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2023 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/
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Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
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provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5. Theory of Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5.1. VNF Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5.2. Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5.3. Use of a Centralized Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5.4. Routing and LSP Underlay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
5.4.1. Intra-Domain Routing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
5.4.2. Inter-Domain Routing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.4.3. Intra-Domain and Inter-Domain Traffic-Engineering . . 15
5.5. Service Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5.6. Service Differentiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
5.7. Automated Service Activation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
5.8. Service Function Chaining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
5.9. Stability and Availability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
5.9.1. IGP Reconvergence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
5.9.2. Data Center Reconvergence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
5.9.3. Exchange of Inter-Domain Routes . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.9.4. Controller Redundancy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
5.9.5. Path and Segment Liveliness . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
5.10. Scalability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
5.10.1. Asymmetric Model B for VPN Families . . . . . . . . 30
6. Illustration of Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
6.1. Reference Topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
6.2. PNF to PNF Connectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
6.3. VNF to PNF Connectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
6.4. VNF to VNF Connectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
7. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
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8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
9. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
10. Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
11. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
12. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
12.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
12.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
1. Introduction
With the introduction of technologies such as 5G, the Internet of
Things (IoT), and Industry 4.0, service requirements are changing.
In addition to the ever-increasing demand for more capacity, these
services have other stringent service requirements that need to be
met such as ultra-reliable and/or low-latency communication.
Parallel to this, there is a continued trend to move towards network
function virtualization. Operators are building digitalized
infrastructure capable of hosting numerous virtualized network
functions (VNFs). Infrastructure that can scale in and scale out
depending on the application demand and can deliver flexibility and
service velocity. Much of this virtualization activity is driven by
the afore-mentioned emerging technologies as new infrastructure is
deployed in support of them. To try and meet the new service
requirements some of these VNFs are becoming more dispersed, so it is
common for networks to have a mix of centralized medium- or large-
sized sized data centers together with more distributed smaller
‘edge-clouds’. VNFs hosted within these data centers require
seamless connectivity to each other, and to their existing physical
network function (PNF) counterparts. This connectivity also needs to
deliver against agreed SLAs.
Coupled with the deployment of virtualization is automation. Many of
these VNFs are deployed within SDN-enabled data centers where
automation is simply a must-have capability to improve service
activation lead-times. The expectation is that services will be
instantiated in an abstract point-and-click manner and be
automatically created by the underlying network, dynamically adapting
to service connectivity changes as virtual entities move between
hosts.
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This document describes an architecture for a Network Function
Interconnect (NFIX) that allows for interworking of physical and
virtual network functions in a unified and scalable manner. It
describes a mechanism for establishing connectivity across multiple
discreet domains in both the wide-area network (WAN) and the data
center (DC) while maintaining the ability to deliver against SLAs.
To achieve this NFIX works with the underlying topology to build a
unified over-the-top topology.
The NFIX architecture described in this document does not define any
new protocols but rather outlines an architecture utilizing a
collaboration of existing standards-based protocols.
2. Terminology
* A physical network function (PNF) refers to a network device such
as a Provider Edge (PE) router that connects physically to the
wide-area network.
* A virtualized network function (VNF) refers to a network device
such as a provider edge (PE) router that is hosted on an
application server. The VNF may be bare-metal in that it consumes
the entire resources of the server, or it may be one of numerous
virtual functions instantiated as a VM or number of containers on
a given server that is controlled by a hypervisor or container
management platform.
* A Data Center Border (DCB) router refers to the network function
that spans the border between the wide-area and the data center
networks, typically interworking the different encapsulation
techniques employed within each domain.
* An Interconnect controller is the controller responsible for
managing the NFIX fabric and services.
* A DC controller is the term used for a controller that resides
within an SDN-enabled data center and is responsible for the DC
network(s)
3. Motivation
Industrial automation and business-critical environments use
applications that are demanding on the network. These applications
present different requirements from low-latency to high-throughput,
to application-specific traffic conditioning, or a combination. The
evolution to 5G equally presents challenges for mobile back-, front-
and mid-haul networks. The requirement for ultra-reliable low-
latency communication means that operators need to re-evaluate their
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network architecture to meet these requirements.
At the same time, the service edge is evolving. Where the service
edge device was historically a PNF, the adoption of virtualization
means VNFs are becoming more commonplace. Typically, these VNFs are
hosted in some form of data center environment but require end-to-end
connectivity to other VNFs and/or other PNFs. This represents a
challenge because generally transport layer connectivity differs
between the WAN and the data center environment. The WAN includes
all levels of hierarchy (core, aggregation, access) that form the
networks footprint, where transport layer connectivity using IP/MPLS
is commonplace. In the data center native IP is commonplace,
utilizing network virtualization overlay (NVO) technologies such as
virtual extensible LAN (VXLAN) [RFC7348], network virtualization
using generic routing encapsulation (NVGRE) [RFC7637], or generic
network virtualization encapsulation (GENEVE) [I-D.ietf-nvo3-geneve].
There is a requirement to seamlessly integrate these islands and
avoid heavy-lifting at interconnects as well as providing a means to
provision end-to-end services with a single touch point at the edge.
The service edge boundary is also changing. Some functions that were
previously reasonably centralized are now becoming more distributed.
One reason for this is to attempt to deal with low latency
requirements. Another reason is that operators seek to reduce costs
by deploying low/medium-capacity VNFs closer to the edge. Equally,
virtualization also sees some of the access network moving towards
the core. Examples of this include cloud-RAN or Software-Defined
Access Networks.
Historically service providers have architected data centers
independently from the wide-area network, creating two independent
domains or islands. As VNFs become part of the service landscape the
service data-path must be extended across the WAN into the data
center infrastructure, but in a manner that still allows operators to
meet deterministic performance requirements. Methods for stitching
WAN and DC infrastructures together with some form of service-
interworking at the data center border have been implemented and
deployed, but this service-interworking approach has several
limitations:
* The data center environment typically uses encapsulation
techniques such as VXLAN or NVGRE while the WAN typically uses
encapsulation techniques such as MPLS [RFC3031]. Underlying
optical infrastructure might also need to be programmed. These
are incompatible and require interworking at the service layer.
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* It typically requires heavy-touch service provisioning on the data
center border. In an end-to-end service, midpoint provisioning is
undesirable and should be avoided.
* Automation is difficult; largely due to the first two points but
with additional contributing factors. In the virtualization world
automation is a must-have capability.
* When a service is operating at Layer 3 in a data center with
redundant interconnects the risk of routing loops exists. There
is no inherent loop avoidance mechanism when redistributing routes
between address families so extreme care must be taken. Proposals
such as the Domain Path (D-PATH) attribute
[I-D.ietf-bess-evpn-ipvpn-interworking] attempt to address this
issue but as yet are not widely implemented or deployed.
* Some or all the above make the service-interworking gateway
cumbersome with questionable scaling attributes.
Hence there is a requirement to create an open, scalable, and unified
network architecture that brings together the wide-area network and
data center domains. It is not an architecture e xclusively targeted
at greenfield deployments, nor does it require a flag day upgrade to
deploy in a brownfield network. It is an evolutionary step to a
consolidated network that uses the constructs of seamless MPLS
[I-D.ietf-mpls-seamless-mpls] as a baseline and extends upon that to
include topologies that may not be link-state based and to provide
end-to-end path control. Overall the NFIX architecture aims to
deliver the following:
* Allows for an evolving service edge boundary without having to
constantly restructure the architecture.
* Provides a mechanism for providing seamless connectivity between
VNF to VNF, VNF to PNF, and PNF to PNF, with deterministic SLAs,
and with the ability to provide differentiated SLAs to suit
different service requirements.
* Delivers a unified transport fabric using Segment Routing (SR)
[RFC8402] where service delivery mandates touching only the
service edge without imposing additional encapsulation
requirements in the DC.
* Embraces automation by providing an environment where any end-to-
end connectivity can be instantiated in a single request manner
while maintaining SLAs.
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4. Requirements
The following section outlines the requirements that the proposed
solution must meet. From an overall perspective, the proposed
generic architecture must:
* Deliver end-to-end transport LSPs using traffic-engineering (TE)
as required to meet appropriate SLAs for the service using(s)
using those LSPs. End-to-end refers to VNF and/or PNF
connectivity or a combination of both.
* Provide a solution that allows for optimal end-to-end path
placement; where optimal not only meets the requirements of the
path in question but also meets the global network objectives.
* Support varying types of VNF physical network attachment and
logical (underlay/overlay) connectivity.
* Facilitate automation of service provision. As such the solution
should avoid heavy-touch service provisioning and decapsulation/
encapsulation at data center border routers.
* Provide a framework for delivering logical end-to-end networks
using differentiated logical topologies and/or constraints.
* Provide a high level of stability; faults in one domain should not
propagate to another domain.
* Provide a mechanism for homogeneous end-to-end OAM.
* Hide/localize instabilities in the different domains that
participate in the end-to-end service.
* Provide a mechanism to minimize the label-stack depth required at
path head-ends for SR-TE LSPs.
* Offer a high level of scalability.
* Although not considered in-scope of the current version of this
document, the solution should not preclude the deployment of
multicast. This subject may be covered in later versions of this
document.
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5. Theory of Operation
This section describes the NFIX architecture including the building
blocks and protocol machinery that is used to form the fabric. Where
considered appropriate rationale is given for selection of an
architectural component where other seemingly applicable choices
could have been made.
5.1. VNF Assumptions
For the sake of simplicity, references to VNF are made in a broad
sense. Equally, the differences between VNF and Container Network
Function (CNF) are largely immaterial for the purposes of this
document, therefore VNF is used to represent both. The way in which
a VNF is instantiated and provided network connectivity will differ
based on environment and VNF capability, but for conciseness this is
not explicitly detailed with every reference to a VNF. Common
examples of VNF variants include but are not limited to:
* A VNF that functions as a routing device and has full IP routing
and MPLS capabilities. It can be connected simultaneously to the
data center fabric underlay and overlay and serves as the NVO
tunnel endpoint [RFC8014]. Examples of this might be a
virtualized PE router, or a virtualized Broadband Network Gateway
(BNG).
* A VNF that functions as a device (host or router) with limited IP
routing capability. It does not connect directly to the data
center fabric underlay but rather connects to one or more external
physical or virtual devices that serve as the NVO tunnel
endpoint(s). It may however have single or multiple connections
to the overlay. Examples of this might be a mobile network
control or management plane function.
* A VNF that has no routing capability. It is a virtualized
function hosted within an application server and is managed by a
hypervisor or container host. The hypervisor/container host acts
as the NVO endpoint and interfaces to some form of SDN controller
responsible for programming the forwarding plane of the
virtualization host using, for example, OpenFlow. Examples of
this might be an Enterprise application server or a web server
running as a virtual machine and front-ended by a virtual routing
function such as OVS/xVRS/VTF.
Where considered necessary exceptions to the examples provided above
or focus on a particular scenario will be highlighted.
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5.2. Overview
The NFIX architecture makes no assumptions about how the network is
physically composed, nor does it impose any dependencies upon it. It
also makes no assumptions about IGP hierarchies and the use of areas/
levels or discrete IGP instances within the WAN is fully endorsed to
enhance scalability and constrain fault propagation. This could
apply for instance to a hierarchical WAN from core to edge or from
WAN to LAN connections. The overall architecture uses the constructs
of seamless MPLS as a baseline and extends upon that. The concept of
decomposing the network into multiple domains is one that has been
widely deployed and has been proven to scale in networks with large
numbers of nodes.
The proposed architecture uses segment routing (SR) as its preferred
choice of transport. Segment routing is chosen for construction of
end-to-end LSPs given its ability to traffic-engineer through source-
routing while concurrently scaling exceptionally well due to its lack
of network state other than the ingress node. This document uses SR
instantiated on an MPLS forwarding plane(SR-MPLS), although it does
not preclude the use of SRv6 either now or at some point in the
future. The rationale for selecting SR-MPLS is simply maturity and
more widespread applicability across a potentially broad range of
network devices. This document may be updated in future versions to
include more description of SRv6 applicability.
5.3. Use of a Centralized Controller
It is recognized that for most operators the move towards the use of
a controller within the wide-area network is a significant change in
operating model. In the NFIX architecture it is a necessary
component. Its use is not simply to offload inter-domain path
calculation from network elements; it provides many more benefits:
* It offers the ability to enforce constraints on paths that
originate/terminate on different network elements, thereby
providing path diversity, and/or bidirectionality/co-routing, and/
or disjointness.
* It avoids collisions, re-tries, and packing problems that has been
observed in networks using distributed TE path calculation, where
head-ends make autonomous decisions.
* A controller can take a global view of path placement strategies,
including the ability to make path placement decisions over a high
number of LSPs concurrently as opposed to considering each LSP
independently. In turn, this allows for ‘global’ optimization of
network resources such as available capacity.
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* A controller can make decisions based on near-real-time network
state and optimize paths accordingly. For example, if a network
link becomes congested it may recompute some of the paths
transiting that link to other links that may not be quite as
optimal but do have available capacity. Or if a link latency
crosses a certain threshold, it may select to reoptimize some
latency-sensitive paths away from that link.
* The logic of a controller can be extended beyond pure path
computation and placement. If the controller is aware of
services, service requirements, and available paths within the
network it can cross-correlate between them and ensure that the
appropriate paths are used for the appropriate services.
* The controller can provide assurance and verification of the
underlying SLA provided to a given service.
As the main objective of the NFIX architecture is to unify the data
center and wide-area network domains, using the term controller is
not sufficiently succinct. The centralized controller may need to
interface to other controllers that potentially reside within an SDN-
enabled data center. Therefore, to avoid interchangeably using the
term controller for both functions, we distinguish between them
simply by using the terms ‘DC controller’ which as the name suggests
is responsible for the DC, and ‘Interconnect controller’ responsible
for managing the extended SR fabric and services.
The Interconnect controller learns wide-area network topology
information and allocation of segment routing SIDs within that domain
using BGP link-state [RFC7752] with appropriate SR extensions.
Equally it learns data center topology information and Prefix-SID
allocation using BGP labeled unicast [RFC8277] with appropriate SR
extensions, or BGP link-state if a link-state IGP is used within the
data center. If Route-Reflection is used for exchange of BGP link-
state or labeled unicast NLRI within one or more domains, then the
Interconnect controller need only peer as a client with those Route-
Reflectors in order to learn topology information.
Where BGP link-state is used to learn the topology of a data center
(or any IGP routing domain) the BGP-LS Instance Identifier (Instance-
ID) is carried within Node/Link/Prefix NLRI and is used to identify a
given IGP routing domain. Where labeled unicast BGP is used to
discover the topology of one or more data center domains there is no
equivalent way for the Interconnect controller to achieve a level of
routing domain correlation. The controller may learn some splintered
connectivity map consisting of 10 leaf switches, four spine switches,
and four DCB’s, but it needs some form of key to inform it that leaf
switches 1-5, spine switches 1 and 2, and DCB’s 1 and 2 belong to
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data center 1, while leaf switches 6-10, spine switches 3 and 4, and
DCB’s 3 and 4 belong to data center 2. What is needed is a form of
‘data center membership identification’ to provide this correlation.
Optionally this could be achieved at BGP level using a standard
community to represent each data center, or it could be done at a
more abstract level where for example the DC controller provides the
membership identification to the Interconnect controller through an
application programming interface (API).
Understanding real-time network state is an important part of the
Interconnect controllers role, and only with this information is the
controller able to make informed decisions and take preventive or
corrective actions as necessary. There are numerous methods
implemented and deployed that allow for harvesting of network state,
including (but not limited to) IPFIX [RFC7011], Netconf/YANG
[RFC6241][RFC6020], streaming telemetry, BGP link-state [RFC7752]
[I-D.ietf-idr-te-lsp-distribution], and the BGP Monitoring Protocol
(BMP) [RFC7854].
5.4. Routing and LSP Underlay
This section describes the mechanisms and protocols that are used to
establish end-to-end LSPs; where end-to-end refers to VNF-to-VNF,
PNF-to-PNF, or VNF-to-PNF.
5.4.1. Intra-Domain Routing
In a seamless MPLS architecture domains are based on geographic
dispersion (core, aggregation, access). Within this document a
domain is considered as any entity with a captive topology; be it a
link-state topology or otherwise. Where reference is made to the
wide-area network domain, it refers to one or more domains that
constitute the wide-area network domain.
This section discusses the basic building blocks required within the
wide-area network and the data center, noting from above that the
wide-area network may itself consist of multiple domains.
5.4.1.1. Wide-Area Network Domains
The wide-area network includes all levels of hierarchy (core,
aggregation, access) that constitute the networks MPLS footprint as
well as the data Center border routers. Each domain that constitutes
part of the wide-area network runs a link-state interior gateway
protocol (IGP) such as ISIS or OSPF, and each domain may use IGP-
inherent hierarchy (OSPF areas, ISIS levels) with an assumption that
visibility is domain-wide using, for example, L2 to L1
redistribution. Alternatively, or additionally, there may be
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multiple domains that are split by using separate and distinct
instances of IGP. There is no requirement for IGP redistribution of
any link or loopback addresses between domains.
Each IGP should be enabled with the relevant extensions for segment
routing [RFC8667][RFC8665], and each SR-capable router should
advertise a Node-SID for its loopback address, and an Adjacency-SID
(Adj-SID) for every connected interface (unidirectional adjacency)
belonging to the SR domain. SR Global Blocks (SRGB) can be allocated
to each domain as deemed appropriate to specific network
requirements. Border routers belonging to multiple domains have an
SRGB for each domain.
The default forwarding path for intra-domain LSPs that do not require
TE is simply an SR LSP containing a single label advertised by the
destination as a Node-SID and representing the ECMP-aware shortest
path to that destination. Intra-domain TE LSPs are constructed as
required by the Interconnect controller. Once a path is calculated
it is advertised as an explicit SR Policy
[I-D.ietf-spring-segment-routing-policy] containing one or more paths
expressed as one or more segment-lists, which may optionally contain
binding SIDs if requirements dictate. An SR Policy is identified
through the tuple [headend, color, endpoint] and this tuple is used
extensively by the Interconnect controller to associate services with
an underlying SR Policy that meets its objectives.
To provide support for ECMP the Entropy Label [RFC6790][RFC8662]
should be utilized. Entropy Label Capability (ELC) should be
advertised into the IGP using the IS-IS Prefix Attributes TLV
[I-D.ietf-isis-mpls-elc] or the OSPF Extended Prefix TLV
[I-D.ietf-ospf-mpls-elc] coupled with the Node MSD Capability sub-TLV
to advertise Entropy Readable Label Depth (ERLD) [RFC8491][RFC8476]
and the base MPLS Imposition (BMI). Equally, support for ELC
together with the supported ERLD should be signaled in BGP using the
BGP Next-Hop Capability [I-D.ietf-idr-next-hop-capability]. Ingress
nodes and or DCBs should ensure sufficient entropy is applied to
packets to exercise available ECMP links.
5.4.1.2. Data Center Domain
The data center domain includes all fabric switches, network
virtualization edge (NVE), and the data center border routers. The
data center routing design may align with the framework of [RFC7938]
running eBGP single-hop sessions established over direct point-to-
point links, or it may use an IGP for dissemination of topology
information. This document focuses on the former, simply because the
ue of an IGP largely makes the data centers behaviour analogous to
that of a wide-area network domain.
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The chosen method of transport or encapsulation within the data
center for NFIX is SR-MPLS over IP/UDP [RFC8663] or, where possible,
native SR-MPLS. The choice of SR-MPLS over IP/UDP or native SR-MPLS
allows for good entropy to maximize the use of equal-cost Clos fabric
links. Native SR-MPLS encapsulation provides entropy through use of
the Entropy Label, and, like the wide-area network, support for ELC
together with the support ERLD should be signaled using the BGP Next-
Hop Capability attribute. As described in [RFC6790] the ELC is an
indication from the egress node of an MPLS tunnel to the ingress node
of the MPLS tunnel that is is capable of processing an Entropy Label.
The BGP Next-Hop Capability is a non-transitive attribute which is
modified or deleted when the next-hop is changed to reflect the
capabilities of the new next-hop. If we assume that the path of a
BGP-signaled LSP transits through multiple ASNs, and/or a single ASN
with multiple next-hops, then it is not possible for the ingress node
to determine the ELC of the egress node. Without this end-to-end
signaling capability the entropy label must only be used when it is
explicitly known, through configuration or other means, that the
egress node has support for it. Entropy for SR-MPLS over IP/UDP
encapsulation uses the source UDP port for IPv4 and the Flow Label
for IPv6. Again, the ingress network function should ensure
sufficient entropy is applied to exercise available ECMP links.
Another significant advantage of the use of native SR-MPLS or SR-MPLS
over IP/UDP is that it allows for a lightweight interworking function
at the DCB without the requirement for midpoint provisioning;
interworking between the data center and the wide-area network
domains becomes an MPLS label swap/continue action.
Loopback addresses of network elements within the data center are
advertised using labeled unicast BGP with the addition of SR Prefix
SID extensions [RFC8669] containing a globally unique and persistent
Prefix-SID. The data-plane encapsulation of SR-MPLS over IP/UDP or
native SR-MPLS allows network elements within the data center to
consume BGP Prefix-SIDs and legitimately use those in the
encapsulation.
5.4.2. Inter-Domain Routing
Inter-domain routing is responsible for establishing connectivity
between any domains that form the wide-area network, and between the
wide-area network and data center domains. It is considered unlikely
that every end-to-end LSP will require a TE path, hence there is a
requirement for a default end-to-end forwarding path. This default
forwarding path may also become the path of last resort in the event
of a non-recoverable failure of a TE path. Similar to the seamless
MPLS architecture this inter-domain MPLS connectivity is realized
using labeled unicast BGP [RFC8277] with the addition of SR Prefix
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SID extensions.
Within each wide-area network domain all service edge routers, DCBs,
and ABRs/ASBRs form part of the labeled BGP mesh, which can be either
full-mesh, or more likely based on the use of route-reflection. Each
of these routers advertises its respective loopback addresses into
labeled BGP together with an MPLS label and a globally unique Prefix-
SID. Routes are advertised between wide-area network domains by
ABRs/ASBRs that impose next-hop-self on advertised routes. The
function of imposing next-hop-self for labeled routes means that the
ABR/ASBR allocates a new label for advertised routes and programs a
label-swap entry in the forwarding plane for received and advertised
routes. In short it becomes part of the forwarding path.
DCB routers have labeled BGP sessions towards the wide-area network
and labeled BGP sessions towards the data center. Routes are
bidirectionally advertised between the domains subject to policy,
with the DCB imposing itself as next-hop on advertised routes. As
above, the function of imposing next-hop-self for labeled routes
implies allocation of a new label for advertised routes and a label-
swap entry being programmed in the forwarding plane for received and
advertised labels. The DCB thereafter becomes the anchor point
between the wide-area network domain and the data center domain.
Within the wide-area network next-hops for labeled unicast routes
containing Prefix-SIDs are resolved to SR LSPs, and within the data
center domain next-hops for labeled unicast routes containing Prefix-
SIDs are resolved to SR LSPs or IP/UDP tunnels. This provides end-
to-end connectivity without a traffic-engineering capability.
+---------------+ +----------------+ +---------------+
| Data Center | | Wide-Area | | Wide-Area |
| +-----+ Domain 1 +-----+ Domain ‘n’ |
| | DCB | | ABR | |
| +-----+ +-----+ |
| | | | | |
+---------------+ +----------------+ +---------------+
<-- SR/SRoUDP --> <---- IGP/SR ----> <--- IGP/SR ---->
<--- BGP-LU ---> NHS <--- BGP-LU ---> NHS <--- BGP-LU --->
Figure 1
Default Inter-Domain Forwarding Path
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5.4.3. Intra-Domain and Inter-Domain Traffic-Engineering
The capability to traffic-engineer intra- and inter-domain end-to-end
paths is considered a key requirement in order to meet the service
objectives previously outlined. To achieve optimal end-to-end path
placement the key components to be considered are path calculation,
path activation, and FEC-to-path binding procedures.
In the NFIX architecture end-to-end path calculation is performed by
the Interconnect controller. The mechanics of how the objectives of
each path is calculated is beyond the scope of this document. Once a
path is calculated based upon its objectives and constraints, the
path is advertised from the controller to the LSP headend as an
explicit SR Policy containing one or more paths expressed as one or
more segment-lists. An SR Policy is identified through the tuple
[headend, color, endpoint] and this tuple is used extensively by the
Interconnect controller to associate services with an underlying SR
Policy that meets its objectives.
The segment-list of an SR Policy encodes a source-routed path towards
the endpoint. When calculating the segment-list the Interconnect
controller makes comprehensive use of the Binding-SID (BSID),
instantiating BSID anchors as necessary at path midpoints when
calculating and activating a path. The use of BSID is considered
fundamental to segment routing as described in
[I-D.filsfils-spring-sr-policy-considerations]. It provides opacity
between domains, ensuring that any segment churn is constrained to a
single domain. It also reduces the number of segments/labels that
the headend needs to impose, which is particularly important given
that network elements within a data center generally have limited
label imposition capabilities. In the context of the NFIX
architecture it is also the vehicle that allows for removal of heavy
midpoint provisioning at the DCB.
For example, assume that VNF1 is situated in data center 1, which is
interconnected to the wide-area network via DCB1. VNF1 requires
connectivity to VNF2, situated in data center 2, which is
interconnected to the wide-area network via DCB2. Assuming there is
no existing TE path that meet VNF1’s requirements, the Interconnect
controller will:
* Instantiate an SR Policy on DCB1 with BSID n and a segment-list
containing the relevant segments of a TE path to DCB2. DCB1
therefore becomes a BSID anchor.
* Instantiate an SR Policy on VNF1 with BSID m and a segment-list
containing segments {DCB1, n, VNF2}.
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+---------------+ +----------------+ +---------------+
| Data Center 1 | | Wide-Area | | Data Center 2 |
| +----+ +----+ 3 +----+ +----+ |
| |VNF1| |DCB1|-1 / \ 5--|DCB2| |VNF2| |
| +----+ +----+ \ / \ / +----+ +----+ |
| | | 2 4 | | |
+---------------+ +----------------+ +---------------+
SR Policy SR Policy
BSID m BSID n
{DCB1,n,VNF2} {1,2,3,4,5,DCB2}
Figure 2
Traffic-Engineered Path using BSID
In the above figure a single DCB is used to interconnect two domains.
Similarly, in the case of two wide-area domains the DCB would be
represented as an ABR or ASBR. In some single operator environments
domains may be interconnected using adjacent ASBRs connected via a
distinct physical link. In this scenario the procedures outlined
above may be extended to incorporate the mechanisms used in Egress
Peer Engineering (EPE) [I-D.ietf-spring-segment-routing-central-epe]
to form a traffic-engineered path spanning distinct domains.
5.4.3.1. Traffic-Engineering and ECMP
Where the Interconnect controller is used to place SR policies,
providing support for ECMP requires some consideration. An SR Policy
is described with one or more segment-lists, end each of those
segment-lists may or may not provide ECMP as a sum instruction and
each SID itself may or may not support ECMP forwarding. When an
individual SID is a BSID, an ECMP path may or may not also be nested
within. The Interconnect controller may choose to place a path
consisting entirely of non-ECMP-aware Adj-SIDs (each SID representing
a single adjacency) such that the controller has explicit hop-by-hop
knowledge of where that SR-TE LSP is routed. This is beneficial to
allow the controller to take corrective action if the criteria that
was used to initially select a particular link in a particular path
subsequently changes. For example, if the latency of a link
increases or a link becomes congested and a path should be rerouted.
If ECMP-aware SIDs are used in the SR policy segment-list (including
Node-SIDs, Adj-SIDs representing parallel links, and Anycast SIDs) SR
routers are able to make autonomous decisions about where traffic is
forwarded. As a result, it is not possible for the controller to
fully understand the impact of a change in network state and react to
it. With this in mind there are a number of approaches that could be
adopted:
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* If there is no requirement for the Interconnect controller to
explicitly track path on a hop-by-hop basis, ECMP-aware SIDs may
be used in the SR policy segment-list. This approach may require
multiple [ELI, EL] pairs to be inserted at the ingress node; for
example, above and below a BSID to provide entropy in multiple
domains.
* If there is a requirement for the Interconnect controller to
explicitly track paths on a hop-by-hop to provide the capability
to reroute them based on changes in network state, SR policy
segment-lists should be constructed of non-ECMP-aware Adj-SIDs.
* A hybrid approach that allows for a level of ECMP (at the headend)
together with the ability for the Interconnect controller to
explicitly track paths is to instantiate an SR policy consisting
of a set of segment-lists, each containing non-ECMP-aware Adj-
SIDs. Each segment-list will be assigned a weight to allow for
ECMP or UCMP. This approach does however imply computation and
programing of two paths instead of one.
* Another hybrid approach might work as follows. Redundant DCBs
advertise an Anycast-SID ‘A’ into the data center, and also
instantiate an SR policy with a segment-list consisting of non-
ECMP-aware Adj-SIDs meeting the required connectivity and SLA.
The BSID value of this SR policy ‘B’ must be common to both
redundant DCBs, but the calculated paths are diverse. Indeed,
multiple segment-lists could be used in this SR policy. A VNF
could then instantiate an SR policy with a segment-list of {A, B}
to achieve ECMP in the data center and TE in the wide-area network
with the option of ECMP at the BSID anchor
5.5. Service Layer
The service layer is intended to deliver Layer 2 and/or Layer 3 VPN
connectivity between network functions to create an overlay utilizing
the routing and LSP underlay described in section 5.4. To do this
the solution employs the EVPN and/or VPN-IPv4/IPv6 address families
to exchange Layer 2 and Layer 3 Network Layer Reachability
Information (NLRI). When these NLRI are exchanged between domains it
is typical for the border router to set next-hop-self on advertised
routes. With the proposed routing and LSP underlay however, this is
not required and EVPN/VPN-IPv4/IPv6 routes should be passed end-to-
end without transit routers modifying the next-hop attribute.
Section 5.4.2 describes the use of labeled unicast BGP to exchange
inter-domain routes to establish a default forwarding path. Labeled-
unicast BGP is used to exchange prefix reachability between service
edge routers, with domain border routes imposing next-hop-self on
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routes advertised between domains. This provides a default inter-
domain forwarding path and provides the required connectivity to
establish inter-domain BGP sessions between service edges for the
exchange of EVPN and/or VPN-IPv4/IPv6 NLRI. If route-reflection is
used for the EVPN and/or VPN-IPv4/IPv6 address families within one or
more domains, it may be desirable to create inter-domain BGP sessions
between route-reflectors. In this case the peering addresses of the
route-reflectors should also be exchanged between domains using
labeled unicast BGP. This creates a connectivity model analogous to
BGP/MPLS IP-VPN Inter-AS option C [RFC4364].
+----------------+ +----------------+ +----------------+
| +----+ | | +----+ | | +----+ |
+----+ | RR | +----+ | RR | +----+ | RR | +----+
| NF | +----+ | DCI| +----+ | DCI| +----+ | NF |
+----+ +----+ +----+ +----+
| Domain | | Domain | | Domain |
+----------------+ +----------------+ +----------------+
<-------> <-----> NHS <-- BGP-LU ---> NHS <-----> <------>
<-------> <--------- EVPN/VPN-IPv4/v6 ----------> <------>
Figure 3
Inter-Domain Service Layer
EVPN and/or VPN-IPv4/v6 routes received from a peer in a different
domain will contain a next-hop equivalent to the router that sourced
the route. The next-hop of these routes can be resolved to labeled-
unicast route (default forwarding path) or to an SR policy (traffic-
engineered forwarding path) as appropriate to the service
requirements. The exchange of EVPN and/or VPN-IPv4/IPv6 routes in
this manner implies that Route-Distinguisher and Route-Target values
remain intact end-to-end.
The use of end-to-end EVPN and/or VPN-IPv4/IPv6 address families
without the imposition of next-hop-self at border routers complements
the gateway-less transport layer architecture. It negates the
requirement for midpoint service provisioning and as such provides
the following benefits:
* Avoids the translation of MAC/IP EVPN routes to IP-VPN routes (and
vice versa) that is typically associated with service
interworking.
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* Avoids instantiation of MAC-VRFs and IP-VPNs for each tenant
resident in the DCB.
* Avoids provisioning of demarcation functions between the data
center and wide-area network such as QoS, access-control,
aggregation and isolation.
5.6. Service Differentiation
As discussed in section 5.4.3, the use of TE paths is a key
capability of the NFIX solution framework described in this document.
The Interconnect controller computes end-to-end TE paths between NFs
and programs DC nodes, DCBs, ABR/ASBRs, via SR Policy, with the
necessary label forwarding entries for each [headend, color,
endpoint]. The collection of [headend, endpoint] pairs for the same
color constitutes a logical network topology, where each topology
satisfies a given SLA requirement.
The Interconnect controller discovers the endpoints associated to a
given topology (color) upon the reception of EVPN or IPVPN routes
advertised by the endpoint. The EVPN and IPVPN NLRIs are advertised
by the endpoint nodes along with a color extended community which
identifies the topology to which the owner of the NLRI belongs. At a
coarse level all the EVPN/IPVPN routes of the same VPN can be
advertised with the same color, and therefore a TE topology would be
established on a per-VPN basis. At a more granular level IPVPN and
especially EVPN provide a more granular way of coloring routes, that
will allow the Interconnect controller to associate multiple
topologies to the same VPN. For example:
* All the EVPN MAC/IP routes for a given VNF may be advertised with
the same color. This would allow the Interconnect controller to
associate topologies per VNF within the same VPN; that is, VNF1
could be blue (e.g., low-latency topology) and VNF2 could be green
(e.g., high-throughput).
* The EVPN MAC/IP routes and Inclusive Multicast Ethernet Tag (IMET)
route for VNF1 may be advertised with different colors, e.g., red
and brown, respectively. This would allow the association of
e.g., a low-latency topology for unicast traffic to VNF1 and best-
effort topology for BUM traffic to VNF1.
* Each EVPN MAC/IP route or IP-Prefix route from a given VNF may be
advertised with different color. This would allow the association
of topologies at the host level or host route granularity.
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5.7. Automated Service Activation
The automation of network and service connectivity for instantiation
and mobility of virtual machines is a highly desirable attribute
within data centers. Since this concerns service connectivity, it
should be clear that this automation is relevant to virtual functions
that belong to a service as opposed to a virtual network function
that delivers services, such as a virtual PE router.
Within an SDN-enabled data center, a typical hierarchy from top to
bottom would include a policy engine (or policy repository), one or
more DC controllers, numerous hypervisors/container hosts that
function as NVO endpoints, and finally the virtual
machines(VMs)/containers, which we’ll refer to generically as
virtualization hosts.
The mechanisms used to communicate between the policy engine and DC
controller, and between the DC controller and hypervisor/container
are not relevant here and as such they are not discussed further.
What is important is the interface and information exchange between
the Interconnect controller and the data center SDN functions:
* The Interconnect controller interfaces with the data center policy
engine and publishes the available colors, where each color
represents a topological service connectivity map that meets a set
of constraints and SLA objectives. This interface is a
straightforward API.
* The Interconnect controller interfaces with the DC controller to
learn overlay routes. This interface is BGP and uses the EVPN
Address Family.
With the above framework in place, automation of network and service
connectivity can be implemented as follows:
* The virtualization host is turned-up. The NVO endpoint notifies
the DC controller of the startup.
* The DC controller retrieves service information, IP addressing
information, and service ‘color’ for the virtualization host from
the policy engine. The DC controller subsequently programs the
associated forwarding information on the virtualization host.
Since the DC controller is now aware of MAC and IP address
information for the virtualization host, it advertises that
information as an EVPN MAC Advertisement Route into the overlay.
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* The Interconnect controller receives the EVPN MAC Advertisement
Route (potentially via a Route-Reflector) and correlates it with
locally held service information and SLA requirements using Route
Target and Color communities. If the relevant SR policies are not
already in place to support the service requirements and logical
connectivity, including any binding-SIDs, they are calculated and
advertised to the relevant headends.
The same automated service activation principles can also be used to
support the scenario where virtualization hosts are moved between
hypervisors/container hosts for resourcing or other reasons. We
refer to this simply as mobility. If a virtualization host is turned
down the parent NVO endpoint notifies the DC controller, which in
turn notifies the policy engine and withdraws any EVPN MAC
Advertisement Routes. Thereafter all associated state is removed.
When the virtualization host is turned up on a different hypervisor/
container host, the automated service connectivity process outlined
above is simply repeated.
5.8. Service Function Chaining
Service Function Chaining (SFC) defines an ordered set of abstract
service functions and the subsequent steering of traffic through
them. Packets are classified at ingress for processing by the
required set of service functions (SFs) in an SFC-capable domain and
are then forwarded through each SF in turn for processing. The
ability to dynamically construct SFCs containing the relevant SFs in
the right sequence is a key requirement for operators.
To enable flexible service function deployment models that support
agile service insertion the NFIX architecture adopts the use of BGP
as the control plane to distribute SFC information. The BGP control
plane for Network Service Header (NSH) SFC
[I-D.ietf-bess-nsh-bgp-control-plane] is used for this purpose and
defines two route types; the Service Function Instance Route (SFIR)
and the Service Function Path Route (SFPR).
The SFIR is used to advertise the presence of a service function
instance (SFI) as a function type (i.e. firewall, TCP optimizer) and
is advertised by the node hosting that SFI. The SFIR is advertised
together with a BGP Tunnel Encapsulation attribute containing details
of how to reach that particular service function through the underlay
network (i.e. IP address and encapsulation information).
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The SFPRs contain service function path (SFP) information and one
SFPR is originated for each SFP. Each SFPR contains the service path
identifier (SPI) of the path, the sequence of service function types
that make up the path (each of which has at least one instance
advertised in an SFIR), and the service index (SI) for each listed
service function to identify its position in the path.
Once a Classifier has determined which flows should be mapped to a
given SFP, it imposes an NSH [RFC8300] on those packets, setting the
SPI to that of the selected service path (advertised in an SFPR), and
the SI to the first hop in the path. As NSH is encapsulation
agnostic, the NSH encapsulated packet is then forwarded through the
appropriate tunnel to reach the service function forwarder (SFF)
supporting that service function instance (advertised in an SFIR).
The SFF removes the tunnel encapsulation and forwards the packet with
the NSH to the relevant SF based upon a lookup of the SPI/SI. When
it is returned from the SF with a decremented SI value, the SFF
forwards the packet to the next hop in the SFP using the tunnel
information advertised by that SFI. This procedure is repeated until
the last hop of the SFP is reached.
The use of the NSH in this manner allows for service chaining with
topological and transport independence. It also allows for the
deployment of SFIs in a condensed or dispersed fashion depending on
operator preference or resource availability. Service function
chains are built in their own overlay network and share a common
underlay network, where that common underlay network is the NFIX
fabric described in section 5.4. BGP updates containing an SFIR or
SFPR are advertised in conjunction with one or more Route Targets
(RTs), and each node in a service function overlay network is
configured with one or more import RTs. As a result, nodes will only
import routes that are applicable and that local policy dictates.
This provides the ability to support multiple service function
overlay networks or the construction of service function chains
within L3VPN or EVPN services.
Although SFCs are constructed in a unidirectional manner, the BGP
control plane for NSH SFC allows for the optional association of
multiple paths (SFPRs). This provides the ability to construct a
bidirectional service function chain in the presence of multiple
equal-cost paths between source and destination to avoid problems
that SFs may suffer with traffic asymmetry.
The proposed SFC model can be considered decoupled in that the use of
SR as a transport between SFFs is completely independent of the use
of NSH to define the SFC. That is, it uses an NSH-based SFC and SR
is just one of many encapsulations that could be used between SFFs.
A similar more integrated approach proposes encoding a service
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function as a segment so that an SFC can be constructed as a segment-
list. In this case it can be considered an SR-based SFC with an NSH-
based service plane since the SF is unaware of the presence of the
SR. Functionally both approaches are very similar and as such both
could be adopted and could work in parallel. Construction of SFCs
based purely on SR (SF is SR-aware) are not considered at this time.
5.9. Stability and Availability
Any network architecture should have the capability to self-restore
following the failure of a network element. The time to reconverge
following the failure needs to be minimal to avoid evident
disruptions in service. This section discusses protection mechanisms
that are available for use and their applicability to the proposed
architecture.
5.9.1. IGP Reconvergence
Within the construct of an IGP topology the Topology Independent Loop
Free Alternate (TI-LFA) [I-D.ietf-rtgwg-segment-routing-ti-lfa] can
be used to provide a local repair mechanism that offers both link and
node protection.
TI-LFA is a repair mechanism, and as such it is reactive and
initially needs to detect a given failure. To provide fast failure
detection the Bidirectional Forwarding Mechanism (BFD) is used.
Consideration needs to be given to the restoration capabilities of
the underlying transmission when deciding values for message
intervals and multipliers to avoid race conditions, but failure
detection in the order of 50 milliseconds can reasonably be
anticipated. Where Link Aggregation Groups (LAG) are used, micro-BFD
[RFC7130] can be used to similar effect. Indeed, to allow for
potential incremental growth in capacity it is not uncommon for
operators to provision all network links as LAG and use micro-BFD
from the outset.
5.9.2. Data Center Reconvergence
Clos fabrics are extremely common within data centers, and
fundamental to a Clos fabric is the ability to load-balance using
Equal Cost Multipath (ECMP). The number of ECMP paths will vary
dependent on the number of devices in the parent tier but will never
be less than two for redundancy purposes with traffic hashed over the
available paths. In this scenario the availability of a backup path
in the event of failure is implicit. Commonly within the DC, rather
than computing protect paths (like LFA), techniques such as ‘fast
rehash’ are often utilized. In this particular case, the failed
next-hop is removed from the multi-path forwarding data structure and
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traffic is then rehashed over the remaining active paths.
In BGP-only data centers this relies on the implementation of BGP
multipath. As network elements in the lower tier of a Clos fabric
will frequently belong to different ASNs, this includes the ability
to load-balance to a prefix with different AS_PATH attribute values
while having the same AS_PATH length; sometimes referred to as
‘multipath relax’ or ‘multipath multiple-AS’ [RFC7938].
Failure detection relies upon declaring a BGP session down and
removing any prefixes learnt over that session as soon as the link is
declared down. As links between network elements predominantly use
direct point-to-point fiber, a link failure should be detected within
milliseconds. BFD is also commonly used to detect IP layer failures.
5.9.3. Exchange of Inter-Domain Routes
Labeled unicast BGP together with SR Prefix-SID extensions are used
to exchange PNF and/or VNF endpoints between domains to create end-
to-end connectivity without TE. When advertising between domains we
assume that a given BGP prefix is advertised by at least two border
routers (DCBs, ABRs, ASBRs) making prefixes reachable via at least
two next-hops.
BGP Prefix Independent Convergence (PIC) [I-D.ietf-rtgwg-bgp-pic]
allows failover to a pre-computed and pre-installed secondary next-
hop when the primary next-hop fails and is independent of the number
of destination prefixes that are affected by the failure. When the
primary BGP next-hop fails, it should be clear that BGP PIC depends
on the availability o f a secondary next-hop in the Pathlist. To
ensure that multiple paths to the same destination are visible the
BGP ADD-PATH [RFC7911] can be used to allow for advertisement of
multiple paths for the same address prefix. Dual-homed EVPN/IP-VPN
prefixes also have the alternative option of allocating different
Route-Distinguishers (RDs). To trigger the switch from primary to
secondary next-hop PIC needs to detect the failure and many
implementations support ‘next-hop tracking’ for this purpose. Next-
hop tracking monitors the routing-table and if the next-hop prefix is
removed will immediately invalidate all BGP prefixes learnt through
that next-hop. In the absence of next-hop tracking, multihop BFD
[RFC5883] could optionally be used as a fast failure detection
mechanism.
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5.9.4. Controller Redundancy
With the Interconnect controller providing an integral part of the
networks’ capabilities a redundant controller design is clearly
prudent. To this end we can consider both availability and
redundancy. Availability refers to the survivability of a single
controller system in a failure scenario. A common strategy for
increasing the availability of a single controller system is to build
the system in a high-availability cluster such that it becomes a
confederation of redundant constituent parts as opposed to a single
monolithic system. Should a single part fail, the system can still
survive without the requirement to failover to a standby controller
system. Methods for detection of a failure of one or more member
parts of the cluster are implementation specific.
To provide contingency for a complete system failure a geo-redundant
standby controller system is required. When redundant controllers
are deployed a coherent strategy is needed that provides a master/
standby election mechanism, the ability to propagate the outcome of
that election to network elements as required, an inter-system
failure detection mechanism, and the ability to synchronize state
across both systems such that the standby controller is fully aware
of current state should it need to transition to master controller.
Master/standby election, state synchronisation, and failure detection
between geo-redundant sites can largely be considered a local
implementation matter. The requirement to propagate the outcome of
the master/standby election to network elements depends on a) the
mechanism that is used to instantiate SR policies, and b) whether the
SR policies are controller-initiated or headend-initiated, and these
are discussed in the following sub-sections. In either scenario,
state of SR policies should be advertised northbound to both master/
standby controllers using either PCEP LSP State Report messages or SR
policy extensions to BGP link-state
[I-D.ietf-idr-te-lsp-distribution].
5.9.4.1. SR Policy Initiator
Controller-initiated SR policies are suited for auto-creation of
tunnels based on service route discovery and policy-driven route/flow
programming and are ephemeral. Headend-initiated tunnels allow for
permanent configuration state to be held on the headend and are
suitable for static services that are not subject to dynamic changes.
If all SR policies are controller-initiated, it negates the
requirement to propagate the outcome of the master/standby election
to network elements. This is because headends have no requirement
for unsolicited requests to a controller, and therefore have no
requirement to know which controller is master and which one is
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standby. A headend may respond to a message from a controller, but
it is not unsolicited.
If some or all SR policies are headend-initiated, then the
requirement to propagate the outcome of the master/standby election
exists. This is further discussed in the following sub-section.
5.9.4.2. SR Policy Instantiation Mechanism
While candidate paths of SR policies may be provided using BGP, PCEP,
Netconf, or local policy/configuration, this document primarily
considers the use of PCEP or BGP.
When PCEP [RFC5440][RFC8231][RFC8281] is used for instantiation of
candidate paths of SR policies
[I-D.barth-pce-segment-routing-policy-cp] every headend/PCC should
establish a PCEP session with the master and standby controllers. To
signal standby state to the PCC the standby controller may use a PCEP
Notification message to set the PCEP session into overload state.
While in this overload state the standby controller will accept path
computation LSP state report (PCRpt) messages without delegation but
will reject path computation requests (PCReq) and any path
computation reports (PCRpt) with the delegation bit set. Further,
the standby controller will not path computation originate initiate
messages (PCInit) or path computation update request messages
(PCUpd). In the event of the failure of the master controller, the
standby controller will transition to active and remove the PCEP
overload state. Following expiration of the PCEP redelegation
timeout at the PCC any LSPs will be redelegated to the newly
transitioned active controller. LSP state is not impacted unless
redelegation is not possible before the state timeout interval
expires.
When BGP is used for instantiation of SR policies every headend
should establish a BGP session with the master and standby controller
capable of exchanging SR TE Policy SAFI. Candidate paths of SR
policies are advertised only by the active controller. If the master
controller should experience a failure, then SR policies learnt from
that controller may be removed before they are re-advertised by the
standby (or newly-active) controller. To minimize this possibility
BGP speakers that advertise and instantiate SR policies can implement
Long Lived Graceful Retart (LLGR) [I-D.ietf-idr-long-lived-gr], also
known as BGP persistence, to retain existing routes treated as least-
preferred until the new route arrives. In the absence of LLGR, two
other alternatives are possible:
* Provide a static backup SR policy.
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* Fallback to the default forwarding path.
5.9.5. Path and Segment Liveliness
When using traffic-engineered SR paths only the ingress router holds
any state. The exception here is where BSIDs are used, which also
implies some state is maintained at the BSID anchor. As there is no
control plane set-up, it follows that there is no feedback loop from
transit nodes of the path to notify the headend when a non-adjacent
point of the SR path fails. The Interconnect controller however is
aware of all paths that are impacted by a given network failure and
should take the appropriate action. This action could include
withdrawing an SR policy if a suitable candidate path is already in
place, or simply sending a new SR policy with a different segment-
list and a higher preference value assigned to it.
Verification of data plane liveliness is the responsibility of the
path headend. A given SR policy may be associated with multiple
candidate paths and for the sake of clarity, we’ll assume two for
redundancy purposes (which can be diversely routed). Verification of
the liveliness of these paths can be achieved using seamless BFD
(S-BFD)[RFC7880], which provides an in-band failure detection
mechanism capable of detecting failure in the order of tens of
milliseconds. Upon failure of the active path, failover to a
secondary candidate path can be activated at the path headend.
Details of the actual failover and revert mechanisms are a local
implementation matter.
S-BFD provides a fast and scalable failure detection mechanism but is
unlikely to be implemented in many VNFs given their inability to
offload the process to purpose-built hardware. In the absence of an
active failure detection mechanism such as S-BFD the failover from
active path to secondary candidate path can be triggered using
continuous path validity checks. One of the criteria that a
candidate path uses to determine its validity is the ability to
perform path resolution for the first SID to one or more outgoing
interface(s) and next-hop(s). From the perspective of the VNF
headend the first SID in the segment-list will very likely be the DCB
(as BSID anchor) but could equally be another Prefix-SID hop within
the data center. Should this segment experience a non-recoverable
failure, the headend will be unable to resolve the first SID and the
path will be considered invalid. This will trigger a failover action
to a secondary candidate path.
Injection of S-BFD packets is not just constrained to the source of
an end-to-end LSP. When an S-BFD packet is injected into an SR
policy path it is encapsulated with the label stack of the associated
segment-list. It is possible therefore to run S-BFD from a BSID
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anchor for just that section of the end-to-end path (for example,
from DCB to DCB). This allows a BSID anchor to detect failure of a
path and take corrective action, while maintaining opacity between
domains.
5.10. Scalability
There are many aspects to consider regarding scalability of the NFIX
architecture. The building blocks of NFIX are standards-based
technologies individually designed to scale for internet provider
networks. When combined they provide a flexible and scalable
solution:
* BGP has been proven to scale and operate with millions of routes
being exchanged. Specifically, BGP labeled unicast has been
deployed and proven to scale in existing seamless-MPLS networks.
* By placing forwarding instructions in the header of a packet,
segment routing reduces the amount of state required in the
network allowing the scale of greater number of transport tunnels.
This aids in the feasibility of the NFIX architecture to permit
the automated aspects of SR policy creation without having an
impact on the state in the core of the network.
* The choice of utilizing native SR-MPLS or SR over IP in the data
center continues to permit horizontal scaling without introducing
new state inside of the data center fabric while still permitting
seamless end to end path forwarding integration.
* BSIDs play a key role in the NFIX architecture as their use
provides the ability to traffic-engineer across large network
topologies consisting of many hops regardless of hardware
capability at the headend. From a scalability perspective the use
of BSIDs facilitates better scale due to the fact that detailed
information about the SR paths in a domain has been abstracted and
localized to the BSID anchor point only. When BSIDs are re-used
amongst one or many headends they reduce the amount of path
calculation and updates required at network edges while still
providing seamless end to end path forwarding.
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* The architecture of NFIX continues to use an independent DC
controller. This allows continued independent scaling of data
center management in both policy and local forwarding functions,
while off-loading the end-to-end optimal path placement and
automation to the Interconnect controller. The optimal path
placement is already a scalable function provided in a PCE
architecture. The Interconnect controller must compute paths, but
it is not burdened by the management of virtual entity lifecycle
and associated forwarding policies.
It must be acknowledged that with the amalgamation of the technology
building blocks and the automation required by NFIX, there is an
additional burden on the Interconnect controller. The scaling
considerations are dependent on many variables, but an implementation
of a Interconnect controller shares many overlapping traits and
scaling concerns as PCE, where the controller and PCE both must:
* Discover and listen to topological state changes of the IP/MPLS
topology.
* Compute traffic-engineered intra and inter domain paths across
large service provider topologies.
* Synchronize, track and update thousands of LSPs to network devices
upon network state changes.
Both entail topologies that contain tens of thousands of nodes and
links. The Interconnect controller in an NFIX architecture takes on
the additional role of becoming end to end service aware and
discovering data center entities that were traditionally excluded
from a controllers scope. Although not exhaustive, an NFIX
Interconnect controller is impacted by some of the following:
* The number of individual services, the number of endpoints that
may exist in each service, the distribution of endpoints in a
virtualized environment, and how many data centers may exist.
Medium or large sized data centers may be capable to host more
virtual endpoints per host, but with the move to smaller edge-
clouds the number of headends that require inter-connectivity
increases compared to the density of localized routing in a
centralized data center model. The outcome has an impact on the
number of headend devices which may require tunnel management by
the Interconnect controller.
* Assuming a given BSID satisfies SLA, the ability to re-use BSIDs
across multiple services reduces the number of paths to track and
manage. However, the number of color or unique SLA definitions,
and criteria such as bandwidth constraints impacts WAN traffic
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distribution requirements. As BSIDs play a key role for VNF
connectivity, this potentially increases the number of BSID paths
required to permit appropriate traffic distribution. This also
impacts the number of tunnels which may be re-used on a given
headend for different services.
* The frequency of virtualized hosts being created and destroyed and
the general activity within a given service. The controller must
analyze, track, and correlate the activity of relevant BGP routes
to track addition and removal of service host or host subnets, and
determine whether new SR policies should be instantiated, or stale
unused SR policies should be removed from the network.
* The choice of SR instantiation mechanism impacts the number of
communication sessions the controller may require. For example,
the BGP based mechanism may only require a small number of
sessions to route reflectors, whereas PCEP may require a
connection to every possible leaf in the network and any BSID
anchors.
* The number of hops within one or many WAN domains may affect the
number of BSIDs required to provide transit for VNF/PNF, PNF/PNF,
or VNF/VNF inter-connectivity.
* Relative to traditional WAN topologies, traditional data centers
are generally topologically denser in node and link connectivity
which is required to be discovered by the Interconnect controller,
resulting in a much larger, dense link-state database on the
Interconnect controller.
5.10.1. Asymmetric Model B for VPN Families
With the instantiation of multiple TE paths between any two VNFs in
the NFIX network, the number of SR Policy (remote endpoint, color)
routes, BSIDs and labels to support on VNFs becomes a choke point in
the architecture. The fact that some VNFs are limited in terms of
forwarding resources makes this aspect an important scale issue.
As an example, if VNF1 and VNF2 in Figure 1 are associated to
multiple topologies 1..n, the Interconnect controller will
instantiate n TE paths in VNF1 to reach VNF2:
[VNF1,color-1,VNF2] --> BSID 1
[VNF1,color-2,VNF2] --> BSID 2
...
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[VNF1,color-n,VNF2] --> BSID n
Similarly, m TE paths may be instantiated on VNF1 to reach VNF3,
another p TE paths to reach VNF4, and so on for all the VNFs that
VNF1 needs to communicate with in DC2. As it can be observed, the
number of forwarding resources to be instantiated on VNF1 may
significantly grow with the number of remote [endpoint, color] pairs,
compared with a best-effort architecture in which the number
forwarding resources in VNF1 grows with the number of endpoints only.
This scale issue on the VNFs can be relieved by the use of an
asymmetric model B service layer. The concept is illustrated in
Figure 3.
+------------+
<-------------------------------------| WAN |
| SR Policy +-------------------| Controller |
| BSID m | SR Policy +------------+
v {DCI1,n,DCI2} v BSID n
{1,2,3,4,5,DCI2}
+----------------+ +----------------+ +----------------+
| +----+ | | | | +----+ |
+----+ | RR | +----+ +----+ | RR | +----+
|VNF1| +----+ |DCI1| |DCI2| +----+ |VNF2|
+----+ +----+ +----+ +----+
| DC1 | | WAN | | DC2 |
+----------------+ +----------------+ +----------------+
<-------- <-------------------------- NHS <------ <------
EVPN/VPN-IPv4/v6(colored)
+-----------------------------------> +------------->
TE path to DCI2 ECMP path to VNF2
(BSID to segment-list
expansion on DCI1)
Figure 4
Asymmetric Model B Service Layer
Consider the different n topologies needed between VNF1 and VNF2 are
really only relevant to the different TE paths that exist in the WAN.
The WAN is the domain in the network where there can be significant
differences in latency, throughput or packet loss depending on the
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sequence of nodes and links the traffic goes through. Based on that
assumption, for traffic from VNF1 to DCB2 in Figure 4, traffic from
DCB2 to VNF2 can simply take an ECMP path. In this case an
asymmetric model B Service layer can significantly relieve the scale
pressure on VNF1.
From a service layer perspective, the NFIX architecture described up
to now can be considered ‘symmetric’, meaning that the EVPN/IPVPN
advertisements from e.g., VNF2 in Figure 2, are received on VNF1 with
the next-hop of VNF2, and vice versa for VNF1’s routes on VNF2. SR
Policies to each VNF2 [endpoint, color] are then required on the
VNF1.
In the ‘asymmetric’ service design illustrated in Figure 4, VNF2’s
EVPN/IPVPN routes are received on VNF1 with the next-hop of DCB2, and
VNF1’s routes are received on VNF2 with next-hop of DCB1. Now SR
policies instantiated on VNFs can be reduced to only the number of TE
paths required to reach the remote DCB. For example, considering n
topologies, in a symmetric model VNF1 has to be instantiated with n
SR policy paths per remote VNF in DC2, whereas in the asymmetric
model of Figure 4, VNF1 only requires n SR policy paths per DC, i.e.,
to DCB2.
Asymmetric model B is a simple design choice that only requires the
ability (on the DCB nodes) to set next-hop-self on the EVPN/IPVPN
routes advertised to the WAN neighbors and not do next-hop-self for
routes advertised to the DC neighbors. With this option, the
Interconnect controller only needs to establish TE paths from VNFs to
remote DCBs, as opposed to VNFs to remote VNFs.
6. Illustration of Use
For the purpose of illustration, this section provides some examples
of how different end-to-end tunnels are instantiated (including the
relevant protocols, SID values/label stacks etc.) and how services
are then overlaid onto those LSPs.
6.1. Reference Topology
The following network diagram illustrates the reference network
topology that is used for illustration purposes in this section.
Within the data centers leaf and spine network elements may be
present but are not shown for the purpose of clarity.
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+----------+
|Controller|
+----------+
/ | \
+----+ +----+ +----+ +----+
~ ~ ~ ~ | R1 |----------| R2 |----------| R3 |-----|AGN1| ~ ~ ~ ~
~ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ ~
~ DC1 | / | | DC2 ~
+----+ | L=5 +----+ L=5 / | +----+ +----+
| Sn | | +-------| R4 |--------+ | |AGN2| | Dn |
+----+ | / M=20 +----+ M=20 | +----+ +----+
~ | / | | ~
~ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ | R5 |-----| R6 |----| R7 |-----| R8 |-----|AGN3| ~ ~ ~ ~
+----+ +----+ +----+ +----+ +----+
Figure 5
Reference Topology
The following applies to the reference topology in figure 5:
* Data center 1 and data center 2 both run BGP/SR. Both data
centers run leaf/spine topologies, which are not shown for the
purpose of clarity.
* R1 and R5 function as data center border routers for DC 1. AGN1
and AGN3 function as data center border routers for DC 2.
* Routers R1 through R8 form an independent ISIS-OSPF/SR instance.
* Routers R3, R8, AGN1, AGN2, and AGN2 form an independent ISIS-
OSPF/SR instance.
* All IGP link metrics within the wide area network are metric 10
except for links R5-R4 and R4-R3 which are both metric 20.
* All links have a unidirectional latency of 10 milliseconds except
for links R5-R4 and R4-R3 which both have a unidirectional latency
of 5 milliseconds.
* Source ‘Sn’ and destination ‘Dn’ represent one or more network
functions.
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6.2. PNF to PNF Connectivity
The first example demonstrates the simplest form of connectivity; PNF
to PNF. The example illustrates the instantiation of a
unidirectional TE path from R1 to AGN2 and its consumption by an EVPN
service. The service has a requirement for high-throughput with no
strict latency requirements. These service requirements are
catalogued and represented using the color blue.
* An EVPN service is provisioned at R1 and AGN2.
* The Interconnect controller computes the path from R1 to AGN2 and
calculates that the optimal path based on the service requirements
and overall network optimization is R1-R5-R6-R7-R8-AGN3-AGN2. The
segment-list to represent the calculated path could be constructed
in numerous ways. It could be strict hops represented by a series
of Adj-SIDs. It could be loose hops using ECMP-aware Node-SIDs,
for example {R7, AGN2}, or it could be a combination of both Node-
SIDs and Adj-SIDs. Equally, BSIDs could be used to reduce the
number of labels that need to be imposed at the headend. In this
example, strict Adj-SID hops are used with a BSID at the area
border router R8, but this should not be interpreted as the only
way a path and segment-list can be represented.
* The Interconnect controller advertises a BGP SR Policy to R8 with
BSID 1000, and a segment-list containing segments {AGN3, AGN2}.
* The Interconnect controller advertises a BGP SR Policy to R1 with
BSID 1001, and a segment-list containing segments {R5, R6, R7, R8,
1000}. The policy is identified using the tuple [headed = R1,
color = blue, endpoint = AGN2].
* AGN2 advertises an EVPN MAC Advertisement Route for MAC M1, which
is learned by R1. The route has a next-hop of AGN2, an MPLS label
of L1, and it carries a color extended community with the value
blue.
* R1 has a valid SR policy [color = blue, next-hop = AGN2] with
segment-list {R5, R6, R7, R8, 1000}. R1 therefore associates the
MAC address M1 with that policy and programs the relevant
information into the forwarding path.
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* The Interconnect controller also learns the EVPN MAC Route
advertised by AGN2. The purpose of this is two-fold. It allows
the controller to correlate the service overlay with the
underlying transport LSPs, thus creating a service connectivity
map. It also allows the controller to dynamically create LSPs
based upon service requirements if they do not already exist, or
to optimize them if network conditions change.
6.3. VNF to PNF Connectivity
The next example demonstrates VNF to PNF connectivity and illustrates
the instantiation of a unidirectional TE path from S1 to AGN2. The
path is consumed by an IP-VPN service that has a basic set of service
requirements and as such simply uses IGP metric as a path computation
objective. These basic service requirements are cataloged and
represented using the color red.
In this example S1 is a VNF with full IP routing and MPLS capability
that interfaces to the data center underlay/overlay and serves as the
NVO tunnel endpoint.
* An IP-VPN service is provisioned at S1 and AGN2.
* The Interconnect controller computes the path from S1 to AGN2 and
calculates that the optimal path based on IGP metric is
R1-R2-R3-AGN1-AGN2.
* The Interconnect controller advertises a BGP SR Policy to R1 with
BSID 1002, and a segment-list containing segments {R2, R3, AGN1,
AGN2}.
* The Interconnect controller advertises a BGP SR Policy to S1 with
BSID 1003, and a segment-list containing segments {R1, 1002}. The
policy is identified using the tuple [headend = S1, color = red,
endpoint = AGN2].
* Source S1 learns an VPN-IPv4 route for prefix P1, next-hop AGN2.
The route has an VPN label of L1, and it carries a color extended
community with value red.
* S1 has a valid SR policy [color = red, endpoint = AGN2] with
segment-list {R1, 1002} and BSID 1003. S1 therefore associates
the VPN-IPv4 prefix P1 with that policy and programs the relevant
information into the forwarding path.
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* As in the previous example the Interconnect controller also learns
the VPN-IPv4 route advertised by AGN2 in order to correlate the
service overlay with the underlying transport LSPs, creating or
optimizing them as required.
6.4. VNF to VNF Connectivity
The last example demonstrates VNF to VNF connectivity and illustrates
the instantiation of a unidirectional TE path from S2 to D2. The
path is consumed by an EVPN service that requires low latency as a
service requirement and as such uses latency as a path computation
objective. This service requirement is cataloged and represented
using the color green.
In this example S2 is a VNF that has no routing capability. It is
hosted by hypervisor H1 that in turn has an interface to a DC
controller through which forwarding instructions are programmed. H1
serves as the NVO tunnel endpoint and overlay next-hop.
D2 is a VNF with partial routing capability that is connected to a
leaf switch L1. L1 connects to underlay/overlay in data center 2 and
serves as the NVO tunnel endpoint for D2. L1 advertises BGP Prefix-
SID 9001 into the underlay.
* The relevant details of the EVPN service are entered in the data
center policy engines within data center 1 and 2.
* Source S2 is turned-up. Hypervisor H1 notifies its parent DC
controller, which in turn retrieves the service (EVPN)
information, color, IP and MAC information from the policy engine
and subsequently programs the associated forwarding entries onto
S2. The DC controller also dynamically advertises an EVPN MAC
Advertisement Route for S2’s IP and MAC into the overlay with
next-hop H1. (This would trigger the return path set-up between
L1 and H2 not covered in this example.)
* The DC controller in data center 1 learns an EVPN MAC
Advertisement Route for D2, MAC M, next-nop L1. The route has an
MPLS label of L2, and it carries a color extended community with
the value green.
* The Interconnect controller computes the path between H1 and L1
and calculates that the optimal path based on latency is
R5-R4-R3-AGN1.
* The Interconnect controller advertises a BGP SR Policy to R5 with
BSID 1004, and a segment-list containing segments {R4, R3, AGN1}.
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* The Interconnect controller advertises a BGP SR Policy to the DC
controller in data center 1 with BSID 1005 and a segment-list
containing segments {R5, 1004, 9001}. The policy is identified
using the tuple [headend = H1, color = green, endpoint = L1].
* The DC controller in data center 1 has a valid SR policy [color =
green, endpoint = L1] with segment-list {R5, 1004, 9001} and BSID
1005. The controller therefore associates the MAC Advertisement
Route with that policy, and programs the associated forwarding
rules into S2.
* As in the previous example the Interconnect controller also learns
the MAC Advertisement Route advertised by D2 in order to correlate
the service overlay with the underlying transport LSPs, creating
or optimizing them as required.
7. Conclusions
The NFIX architecture provides an evolutionary path to a unified
network fabric. It uses the base constructs of seamless-MPLS and
adds end-to-end LSPs capable of delivering against SLAs, seamless
data center interconnect, service differentiation, service function
chaining, and a Layer-2/Layer-3 infrastructure capable of
interconnecting PNF-to-PNF, PNF-to-VNF, and VNF-to-VNF.
NFIX establishes a dynamic, seamless, and automated connectivity
model that overcomes the operational barriers and interworking issues
between data centers and the wide-area network and delivers the
following using standards-based protocols:
* A unified routing control plane: Multiprotocol BGP (MP-BGP) to
acquire inter-domain NLRI from the IP/MPLS underlay and the
virtualized IP-VPN/EVPN service overlay.
* A unified forwarding control plane: SR provides dynamic service
tunnels with fast restoration options to meet deterministic
bandwidth, latency and path diversity constraints. SR utilizes
the appropriate data path encapsulation for seamless, end-to-end
connectivity between distributed edge and core data centers across
the wide-area network.
* Service Function Chaining: Leverage SFC extensions for BGP and
segment routing to interconnect network and service functions into
SFPs, with support for various data path implementations.
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* Service Differentiation: Provide a framework that allows for
construction of logical end-to-end networks with differentiated
logical topologies and/or constraints through use of SR policies
and coloring.
* Automation: Facilitates automation of service provisioning and
avoids heavy service interworking at DCBs.
NFIX is deployable on existing data center and wide-area network
infrastructures and allows the underlying data forwarding plane to
evolve with minimal impact on the services plane.
8. Security Considerations
The NFIX architecture based on SR-MPLS is subject to the same
security concerns as any MPLS network. No new protocols are
introduced, hence security issues of the protocols encompassed by
this architecture are addressed within the relevant individual
standards documents. It is recommended that the security framework
for MPLS and GMPLS networks defined in [RFC5920] are adhered to.
Although [RFC5920] focuses on the use of RSVP-TE and LDP control
plane, the practices and procedures are extendable to an SR-MPLS
domain.
The NFIX architecture makes extensive use of Multiprotocol BGP, and
it is recommended that the TCP Authentication Option (TCP-AO)
[RFC5925] is used to protect the integrity of long-lived BGP sessions
and any other TCP-based protocols.
Where PCEP is used between controller and path headend the use of
PCEPS [RFC8253] is recommended to provide confidentiality to PCEP
communication using Transport Layer Security (TLS).
9. Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge Mustapha Aissaoui, Wim
Henderickx, and Gunter Van de Velde.
10. Contributors
The following people contributed to the content of this document and
should be considered co-authors.
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Juan Rodriguez
Nokia
United States of America
Email: juan.rodriguez@nokia.com
Jorge Rabadan
Nokia
United States of America
Email: jorge.rabadan@nokia.com
Nick Morris
Verizon
United States of America
Email: nicklous.morris@verizonwireless.com
Eddie Leyton
Verizon
United States of America
Email: edward.leyton@verizonwireless.com
Figure 6
11. IANA Considerations
This memo does not include any requests to IANA for allocation.
12. References
12.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997,
<http://xml.resource.org/public/rfc/html/rfc2119.html>.
[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.
12.2. Informative References
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[I-D.ietf-nvo3-geneve]
Gross, J., Ganga, I., and T. Sridhar, "Geneve: Generic
Network Virtualization Encapsulation", Work in Progress,
Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-nvo3-geneve-16, 7 March 2020,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-nvo3-
geneve-16>.
[I-D.ietf-mpls-seamless-mpls]
Leymann, N., Decraene, B., Filsfils, C., Konstantynowicz,
M., and D. Steinberg, "Seamless MPLS Architecture", Work
in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-mpls-seamless-
mpls-07, 28 June 2014,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-mpls-
seamless-mpls-07>.
[I-D.ietf-bess-evpn-ipvpn-interworking]
Rabadan, J., Sajassi, A., Rosen, E. C., Drake, J., Lin,
W., Uttaro, J., and A. Simpson, "EVPN Interworking with
IPVPN", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-bess-
evpn-ipvpn-interworking-08, 5 July 2023,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-bess-
evpn-ipvpn-interworking-08>.
[I-D.ietf-spring-segment-routing-policy]
Filsfils, C., Talaulikar, K., Voyer, D., Bogdanov, A., and
P. Mattes, "Segment Routing Policy Architecture", Work in
Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-spring-segment-
routing-policy-22, 22 March 2022,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-spring-
segment-routing-policy-22>.
[I-D.ietf-rtgwg-segment-routing-ti-lfa]
Litkowski, S., Bashandy, A., Filsfils, C., Francois, P.,
Decraene, B., and D. Voyer, "Topology Independent Fast
Reroute using Segment Routing", Work in Progress,
Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-rtgwg-segment-routing-ti-lfa-
11, 30 June 2023, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/
draft-ietf-rtgwg-segment-routing-ti-lfa-11>.
[I-D.ietf-bess-nsh-bgp-control-plane]
Farrel, A., Drake, J., Rosen, E. C., Uttaro, J., and L.
Jalil, "BGP Control Plane for the Network Service Header
in Service Function Chaining", Work in Progress, Internet-
Draft, draft-ietf-bess-nsh-bgp-control-plane-18, 21 August
2020, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-
bess-nsh-bgp-control-plane-18>.
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[I-D.ietf-idr-te-lsp-distribution]
Previdi, S., Talaulikar, K., Dong, J., Chen, M., Gredler,
H., and J. Tantsura, "Distribution of Traffic Engineering
(TE) Policies and State using BGP-LS", Work in Progress,
Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-idr-te-lsp-distribution-19, 24
January 2023, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/
draft-ietf-idr-te-lsp-distribution-19>.
[I-D.barth-pce-segment-routing-policy-cp]
Koldychev, M., Sivabalan, S., Barth, C., Peng, S., and H.
Bidgoli, "PCEP extension to support Segment Routing Policy
Candidate Paths", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-
barth-pce-segment-routing-policy-cp-06, 2 June 2020,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-barth-pce-
segment-routing-policy-cp-06>.
[I-D.filsfils-spring-sr-policy-considerations]
Filsfils, C., Talaulikar, K., Król, P. G., Horneffer, M.,
and P. Mattes, "SR Policy Implementation and Deployment
Considerations", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-
filsfils-spring-sr-policy-considerations-09, 24 April
2022, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-
filsfils-spring-sr-policy-considerations-09>.
[I-D.ietf-rtgwg-bgp-pic]
Bashandy, A., Filsfils, C., and P. Mohapatra, "BGP Prefix
Independent Convergence", Work in Progress, Internet-
Draft, draft-ietf-rtgwg-bgp-pic-19, 1 April 2023,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-rtgwg-
bgp-pic-19>.
[I-D.ietf-isis-mpls-elc]
Xu, X., Kini, S., Psenak, P., Filsfils, C., Litkowski, S.,
and M. Bocci, "Signaling Entropy Label Capability and
Entropy Readable Label Depth Using IS-IS", Work in
Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-isis-mpls-elc-13, 28
May 2020, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-
ietf-isis-mpls-elc-13>.
[I-D.ietf-ospf-mpls-elc]
Xu, X., Kini, S., Psenak, P., Filsfils, C., Litkowski, S.,
and M. Bocci, "Signaling Entropy Label Capability and
Entropy Readable Label Depth Using OSPF", Work in
Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-ospf-mpls-elc-15, 1
June 2020, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-
ietf-ospf-mpls-elc-15>.
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[I-D.ietf-idr-next-hop-capability]
Decraene, B., Kompella, K., and W. Henderickx, "BGP Next-
Hop dependent capabilities", Work in Progress, Internet-
Draft, draft-ietf-idr-next-hop-capability-08, 8 June 2022,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-idr-
next-hop-capability-08>.
[I-D.ietf-spring-segment-routing-central-epe]
Filsfils, C., Previdi, S., Dawra, G., Aries, E., and D.
Afanasiev, "Segment Routing Centralized BGP Egress Peer
Engineering", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-
ietf-spring-segment-routing-central-epe-10, 21 December
2017, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-
spring-segment-routing-central-epe-10>.
[I-D.ietf-idr-long-lived-gr]
Uttaro, J., Chen, E., Decraene, B., and J. Scudder,
"Support for Long-lived BGP Graceful Restart", Work in
Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-idr-long-lived-gr-06,
12 July 2023, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/
draft-ietf-idr-long-lived-gr-06>.
[RFC7938] Lapukhov, P., Premji, A., and J. Mitchell, Ed., "Use of
BGP for Routing in Large-Scale Data Centers", RFC 7938,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7938, August 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7938>.
[RFC7752] Gredler, H., Ed., Medved, J., Previdi, S., Farrel, A., and
S. Ray, "North-Bound Distribution of Link-State and
Traffic Engineering (TE) Information Using BGP", RFC 7752,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7752, March 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7752>.
[RFC8277] Rosen, E., "Using BGP to Bind MPLS Labels to Address
Prefixes", RFC 8277, DOI 10.17487/RFC8277, October 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8277>.
[RFC8667] Previdi, S., Ed., Ginsberg, L., Ed., Filsfils, C.,
Bashandy, A., Gredler, H., and B. Decraene, "IS-IS
Extensions for Segment Routing", RFC 8667,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8667, December 2019,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8667>.
[RFC8665] Psenak, P., Ed., Previdi, S., Ed., Filsfils, C., Gredler,
H., Shakir, R., Henderickx, W., and J. Tantsura, "OSPF
Extensions for Segment Routing", RFC 8665,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8665, December 2019,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8665>.
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[RFC8669] Previdi, S., Filsfils, C., Lindem, A., Ed., Sreekantiah,
A., and H. Gredler, "Segment Routing Prefix Segment
Identifier Extensions for BGP", RFC 8669,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8669, December 2019,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8669>.
[RFC8663] Xu, X., Bryant, S., Farrel, A., Hassan, S., Henderickx,
W., and Z. Li, "MPLS Segment Routing over IP", RFC 8663,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8663, December 2019,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8663>.
[RFC7911] Walton, D., Retana, A., Chen, E., and J. Scudder,
"Advertisement of Multiple Paths in BGP", RFC 7911,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7911, July 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7911>.
[RFC7880] Pignataro, C., Ward, D., Akiya, N., Bhatia, M., and S.
Pallagatti, "Seamless Bidirectional Forwarding Detection
(S-BFD)", RFC 7880, DOI 10.17487/RFC7880, July 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7880>.
[RFC4364] Rosen, E. and Y. Rekhter, "BGP/MPLS IP Virtual Private
Networks (VPNs)", RFC 4364, DOI 10.17487/RFC4364, February
2006, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4364>.
[RFC5920] Fang, L., Ed., "Security Framework for MPLS and GMPLS
Networks", RFC 5920, DOI 10.17487/RFC5920, July 2010,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5920>.
[RFC7011] Claise, B., Ed., Trammell, B., Ed., and P. Aitken,
"Specification of the IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX)
Protocol for the Exchange of Flow Information", STD 77,
RFC 7011, DOI 10.17487/RFC7011, September 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7011>.
[RFC6241] Enns, R., Ed., Bjorklund, M., Ed., Schoenwaelder, J., Ed.,
and A. Bierman, Ed., "Network Configuration Protocol
(NETCONF)", RFC 6241, DOI 10.17487/RFC6241, June 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6241>.
[RFC6020] Bjorklund, M., Ed., "YANG - A Data Modeling Language for
the Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF)", RFC 6020,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6020, October 2010,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6020>.
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[RFC7854] Scudder, J., Ed., Fernando, R., and S. Stuart, "BGP
Monitoring Protocol (BMP)", RFC 7854,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7854, June 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7854>.
[RFC8300] Quinn, P., Ed., Elzur, U., Ed., and C. Pignataro, Ed.,
"Network Service Header (NSH)", RFC 8300,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8300, January 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8300>.
[RFC5440] Vasseur, JP., Ed. and JL. Le Roux, Ed., "Path Computation
Element (PCE) Communication Protocol (PCEP)", RFC 5440,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5440, March 2009,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5440>.
[RFC7348] Mahalingam, M., Dutt, D., Duda, K., Agarwal, P., Kreeger,
L., Sridhar, T., Bursell, M., and C. Wright, "Virtual
eXtensible Local Area Network (VXLAN): A Framework for
Overlaying Virtualized Layer 2 Networks over Layer 3
Networks", RFC 7348, DOI 10.17487/RFC7348, August 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7348>.
[RFC7637] Garg, P., Ed. and Y. Wang, Ed., "NVGRE: Network
Virtualization Using Generic Routing Encapsulation",
RFC 7637, DOI 10.17487/RFC7637, September 2015,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7637>.
[RFC3031] Rosen, E., Viswanathan, A., and R. Callon, "Multiprotocol
Label Switching Architecture", RFC 3031,
DOI 10.17487/RFC3031, January 2001,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3031>.
[RFC8014] Black, D., Hudson, J., Kreeger, L., Lasserre, M., and T.
Narten, "An Architecture for Data-Center Network
Virtualization over Layer 3 (NVO3)", RFC 8014,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8014, December 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8014>.
[RFC8402] Filsfils, C., Ed., Previdi, S., Ed., Ginsberg, L.,
Decraene, B., Litkowski, S., and R. Shakir, "Segment
Routing Architecture", RFC 8402, DOI 10.17487/RFC8402,
July 2018, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8402>.
[RFC5883] Katz, D. and D. Ward, "Bidirectional Forwarding Detection
(BFD) for Multihop Paths", RFC 5883, DOI 10.17487/RFC5883,
June 2010, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5883>.
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[RFC8231] Crabbe, E., Minei, I., Medved, J., and R. Varga, "Path
Computation Element Communication Protocol (PCEP)
Extensions for Stateful PCE", RFC 8231,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8231, September 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8231>.
[RFC8281] Crabbe, E., Minei, I., Sivabalan, S., and R. Varga, "Path
Computation Element Communication Protocol (PCEP)
Extensions for PCE-Initiated LSP Setup in a Stateful PCE
Model", RFC 8281, DOI 10.17487/RFC8281, December 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8281>.
[RFC5925] Touch, J., Mankin, A., and R. Bonica, "The TCP
Authentication Option", RFC 5925, DOI 10.17487/RFC5925,
June 2010, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5925>.
[RFC8253] Lopez, D., Gonzalez de Dios, O., Wu, Q., and D. Dhody,
"PCEPS: Usage of TLS to Provide a Secure Transport for the
Path Computation Element Communication Protocol (PCEP)",
RFC 8253, DOI 10.17487/RFC8253, October 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8253>.
[RFC6790] Kompella, K., Drake, J., Amante, S., Henderickx, W., and
L. Yong, "The Use of Entropy Labels in MPLS Forwarding",
RFC 6790, DOI 10.17487/RFC6790, November 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6790>.
[RFC8662] Kini, S., Kompella, K., Sivabalan, S., Litkowski, S.,
Shakir, R., and J. Tantsura, "Entropy Label for Source
Packet Routing in Networking (SPRING) Tunnels", RFC 8662,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8662, December 2019,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8662>.
[RFC8491] Tantsura, J., Chunduri, U., Aldrin, S., and L. Ginsberg,
"Signaling Maximum SID Depth (MSD) Using IS-IS", RFC 8491,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8491, November 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8491>.
[RFC8476] Tantsura, J., Chunduri, U., Aldrin, S., and P. Psenak,
"Signaling Maximum SID Depth (MSD) Using OSPF", RFC 8476,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8476, December 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8476>.
Authors' Addresses
Bookham, et al. Expires 13 February 2024 [Page 45]
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Colin Bookham (editor)
Nokia
740 Waterside Drive
Almondsbury, Bristol
United Kingdom
Email: colin.bookham@nokia.com
Andrew Stone
Nokia
600 March Road
Kanata, Ontario
Canada
Email: andrew.stone@nokia.com
Jeff Tantsura
Nvidia
Email: jefftant.ietf@gmail.com
Muhammad Durrani
Equinix Inc
1188 Arques Ave
Sunnyvale CA,
United States of America
Email: mdurrani@equinix.com
Bruno Decraene
Orange
38-40 Rue de General Leclerc
92794 Issey Moulineaux cedex 9
France
Email: bruno.decraene@orange.com
Bookham, et al. Expires 13 February 2024 [Page 46]
