Internet DRAFT - draft-ietf-bmwg-issu-meth
draft-ietf-bmwg-issu-meth
Benchmarking Working Group Sarah Banks
Internet Draft VSS Monitoring
Intended status: Informational Fernando Calabria
Expires: February 10, 2016 Cisco Systems
Gery Czirjak
Ramdas Machat
Juniper Networks
Aug 8, 2015
ISSU Benchmarking Methodology
draft-ietf-bmwg-issu-meth-02
Abstract
Modern forwarding devices attempt to minimize any control and data
plane disruptions while performing planned software changes, by
implementing a technique commonly known as In Service Software
Upgrade (ISSU) This document specifies a set of common methodologies
and procedures designed to characterize the overall behavior of a
Device Under Test (DUT), subject to an ISSU event.
Status of this Memo
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provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
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This Internet-Draft will expire on February 10, 2016.
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2015 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
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This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
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respect to this document.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction...................................................3
2. Conventions used in this document..............................4
3. Generic ISSU Process, phased approach..........................5
3.1. Software Download.........................................5
3.2. Software Staging..........................................6
3.3. Upgrade Run...............................................6
3.4. Upgrade Acceptance........................................7
4. Test Methodology...............................................7
4.1. Test Topology.............................................7
4.2. Load Model................................................8
5. ISSU Test Methodology..........................................9
5.1. Pre-ISSU recommended verifications........................9
5.2. Software Staging.........................................10
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5.3. Upgrade Run..............................................11
5.4. Post ISSU verification...................................11
5.5. ISSU under negative stimuli..............................12
6. ISSU Abort and Rollback.......................................12
7. Final Report - Data Presentation - Analysis...................13
7.1. Data collection considerations...........................15
8. Security Considerations.......................................15
9. IANA Considerations...........................................16
10. References...................................................16
10.1. Normative References....................................16
10.2. Informative References..................................16
11. Acknowledgments..............................................16
1. Introduction
As required by most Service Provider (SP) network operators, ISSU
functionality has been implemented by modern forwarding devices to
upgrade or downgrade from one software version to another with a
goal of eliminating the downtime of the router and/or the outage
of service. However, it is noted that while most operators desire
complete elimination of downtime, minimization of downtime and
service degradation is often the expectation.
The ISSU operation may apply in terms of an atomic version change of
the entire system software or it may be applied in a more modular
sense such as for a patch or maintenance upgrade. The procedure
described herein may be used to verify either approach, as may be
supported by the vendor hardware and software.
In support of this document, the desired behavior for an ISSU
operation can be summarized as follows:
- The software is successfully migrated, from one version to a
successive version or vice versa.
- There are no control plane interruptions throughout the process.
That is, the upgrade/downgrade could be accomplished while the device
remains "in service". It is noted however, that most service
providers will still undertake such actions in a maintenance window
(even in redundant environments) to minimize any risk.
- Interruptions to the forwarding plane are minimal to none.
- The total time to accomplish the upgrade is minimized, again to
reduce potential network outage exposure (e.g. an external failure
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event might impact the network as it operates with reduced
redundancy).
This document provides a set of procedures to characterize a given
forwarding device's ISSU behavior quantitatively, from the
perspective of meeting the above expectations.
Different hardware configurations may be expected to be benchmarked,
but a typical configuration for a forwarding device that supports
ISSU consists of at least one pair of Routing Processors (RP's) that
operate in a redundant fashion, and single or multiple Forwarding
Engines (Line Cards) that may or may not be redundant, as well as
fabric cards or other components as applicable. This does not
preclude the possibility that a device in question can perform ISSU
functions through the operation of independent process components,
which may be upgraded without impact to the overall operation of the
device. As an example, perhaps the software module involved in SNMP
functions can be upgraded without impacting other operations.
The concept of a multi-chassis deployment may also be characterized
by the current set of proposed methodologies, but the implementation
specific details (i.e. process placement and others) are beyond the
scope of the current document.
Since most modern forwarding devices, where ISSU would be
applicable, do consist of redundant RP's and hardware-separated
control plane and data plane functionality, this document will focus
on methodologies which would be directly applicable to those
platforms. It is anticipated that the concepts and approaches
described herein may be readily extended to accommodate other device
architectures as well.
2. Conventions used in this document
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 RFC-2119 [RFC 2119].
In this document, these words will appear with that interpretation
only when in ALL CAPS. Lower case uses of these words are not to be
interpreted as carrying RFC-2119 significance.
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3. Generic ISSU Process, phased approach
ISSU may be viewed as the behavior of a device when exposed to a
planned change in its software functionality. This may mean changes
to the core operating system, separate processes or daemons or even
of firmware logic in programmable hardware devices (e.g. CPLD/FPGA).
The goal of an ISSU implementation is to permit such actions with
minimal or no disruption to the primary operation of the device in
question.
ISSU may be user initiated through direct interaction with the
device or activated through some automated process on a management
system or even on the device itself. For the purposes of this
document, we will focus on the model where the ISSU action is
initiated by direct user intervention.
The ISSU process can be viewed as a series of different phases or
activities, as defined below. For each of these phases, the test
operator must record the outcome as well as any relevant
observations (defined further in the present document). Note that, a
given vendor implementation may or may not permit the abortion of
the in-progress ISSU at particular stages. There may also be certain
restrictions as to ISSU availability given certain functional
configurations (for example, ISSU in the presence of Bidirectional
Failure Detection (BFD) [RFC 5880] may not be supported). It is
incumbent upon the test operator to ensure that the DUT is
appropriately configured to provide the appropriate test
environment. As with any properly orchestrated test effort, the test
plan document should reflect these and other relevant details and
should be written with close attention to the expected production-
operating environment. The combined analysis of the results of each
phase will characterize the overall ISSU process with the main goal
of being able to identify and quantify any disruption in service
(from the data and control plane perspective) allowing operators to
plan their maintenance activities with greater precision.
3.1. Software Download
In this first phase, the requested software package may be
downloaded to the router and is typically stored onto a device. The
downloading of software may be performed automatically by the device
as part of the upgrade process, or it may be initiated separately.
Such separation allows an administrator to download the new code
inside or outside of a maintenance window; it is anticipated that
downloading new code and saving it to disk on the router will not
impact operations. In the case where the software can be downloaded
outside of the actual upgrade process, the administrator should do
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so; downloading software can skew timing results based on factors
that are often not comparative in nature. Internal compatibility
verification may be performed by the software running on the DUT, to
verify the checksum of the files downloaded as well as any other
pertinent checks. Depending upon vendor implementation, these
mechanisms may extend to include verification that the downloaded
module(s) meet a set of identified pre-requisites such as (but not
limited to) hardware or firmware compatibility, minimum software
requirements or even ensure that device is "authorized" to run the
target software.
Where such mechanisms are made available by the product, they
should be verified, by the tester, with the perspective of avoiding
operational issues in production. Verification should include both
positive verification (ensuring that an ISSU action should be
permitted) as well as negative tests (creation of scenarios where
the verification mechanisms would report exceptions).
3.2. Software Staging
In this second phase, the requested software package is loaded in
the pertinent components of a given forwarding device (typically the
RP in standby state). Internal compatibility verification may be
performed by the software running on the DUT, as part of the upgrade
process itself, to verify the checksum of the files downloaded as
well as any other pertinent checks. Depending upon vendor
implementation, these mechanisms may extend to include verification
that the downloaded module(s) meet a set of identified pre-
requisites such as hardware or firmware compatibility or minimum
software requirements. Where such mechanisms are made available by
the product, they should be verified, by the tester (again with the
perspective of avoiding operational issues in production). In this
case, the execution of these checks is within scope of the upgrade
time, and should be included in the testing results. Once the new
software is downloaded to the pertinent components of the DUT, the
upgrade begins and the DUT begins to prepare itself for upgrade.
Depending on the vendor implementation, it is expected that
redundant hardware pieces within the DUT are upgraded, including the
backup or secondary RP.
3.3. Upgrade Run
In this phase, a switchover of RPs may take place, where one RP is
now upgraded with the new version of software. More importantly, the
"Upgrade Run" phase is where the internal changes made to
information and state stored on the router, on disk and in memory,
are either migrated to the "new" version of code, or
transformed/rebuilt to meet the standards of the new version of
code, and pushed onto the appropriate pieces of hardware. It is
within this phase that any outage(s) on the control or forwarding
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plane may be expected to be observed. This is the critical phase of
the ISSU, where the control plane should not be impacted and any
interruptions to the forwarding plane should be minimal to none. For
some implementations, the above two steps may be concatenated into
one monolithic operation. In such case, the calculation of the
respective ISSU time intervals may need to be adapted accordingly.
If any control or data plane interruptions are observed within this
stage, they should be recorded as part of the results document.
3.4. Upgrade Acceptance
In this phase, the new version of software must be running in all
the physical nodes of the logical forwarding device. (RP's and LC's
as applicable). At this point, configuration control is returned to
the operator and normal device operation i.e. outside of ISSU-
oriented operation, is resumed.
4. Test Methodology
As stated by [RFC 6815], the Test Topology Setup must be part
of an ITE (Isolated Test Environment)
The reporting of results must take into account the repeatability
considerations from Section 4 of [RFC 2544]. It is RECOMMENDED to
perform multiple trials and report average results. The results are
reported in a simple statement including the measured frame loss and
ISSU impact times.
4.1. Test Topology
The hardware configuration of the DUT (Device Under test) should be
identical to the one expected to be or currently deployed in
production in order for the benchmark to have relevance. This would
include the number of RP's, hardware version, memory and initial
software release, any common chassis components, such as fabric
hardware in the case of a fabric-switching platform and the specific
LC's (version, memory, interfaces type, rate etc.)
For the Control and Data plane, differing configuration approached
may be utilized. The recommended approach relies on "mimicking" the
existing production data and control plane information, in order to
emulate all the necessary Layer1 through Layer3 communications and,
if appropriate, the upper layer characteristics of the network, as
well as end to end traffic/communication pairs. In other words,
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design a representative load model of the production environment and
deploy a collapsed topology utilizing test tools and/or external
devices, where the DUT will be tested. Note that, the negative
impact of ISSU operations is likely to impact scaled, dynamic
topologies to a greater extent than simpler, static environments. As
such, this methodology (based upon production configuration) is
advised for most test scenarios.
The second, more simplistic approach is to deploy an ITE
"Isolated test Environment" in which end-points are "directly"
connected to the DUT. In this manner, control plane information is
kept to a minimum (only connected interfaces) and only a basic data
plane only a basic data plane of sources and destinations is applied.
If this methodology is selected, care must be taken to understand
that the systemic behavior of the ITE may not be identical to that
experienced by a device in a production network role. That is,
control plane validation may be minimal to none with this
methodology. Consequently, if this approach is chosen, comparison
with at least one production configuration is recommended in order
to understand the direct relevance and limitations of the
test exercise.
4.2. Load Model
In consideration of the defined test topology, a load model must be
developed to exercise the DUT while the ISSU event is introduced.
This applied load should be defined in such a manner as to provide a
granular, repeatable verification of the ISSU impact on transit
traffic. Sufficient traffic load (rate) should be applied to permit
timing extrapolations at a minimum granularity of 100 milliseconds
e.g. 100Mbps for a 10Gbps interface. The use of steady traffic
streams rather than bursty loads is preferred to simplify analysis.
The traffic should be patterned to provide a broad range of source
and destination pairs, which resolve to a variety of FIB (forwarding
information base) prefix lengths. If the production network
environment includes multicast traffic or VPN's (L2, L3 or IPSec) it
is critical to include these in the model.
For mixed protocol environments (e.g. IPv4 and IPv6), frames should
be distributed between the different protocols. The distribution
should approximate the network conditions of deployment. In all
cases, the details of the mixed protocol distribution must be
included in the reporting.
The feature, protocol timing and other relevant configurations
should be matched to the expected production environment. Deviations
from the production templates may be deemed necessary by the test
operator (for example, certain features may not support ISSU or the
test bed may not be able to accommodate such). However, the impact
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of any such divergence should be clearly understood and the
differences must be recorded in the results documentation. It is
recommended that an NMS system be deployed, preferably similar to
that utilized in production. This will allow for monitoring of the
DUT while it is being tested both in terms of supporting the system
resource impact analysis as well as from the perspective of
detecting interference with non-transit (management) traffic as a
result of the ISSU operation. Additionally, a DUT management session
other than snmp-based, typical of usage in production, should be
established to the DUT and monitored for any disruption. It is
suggested that the actual test exercise be managed utilizing direct
console access to the DUT, if at all possible to avoid the
possibility that a network interruption impairs execution of the
test exercise.
All in all, the load model should attempt to simulate the production
network environment to the greatest extent possible in order to
maximize the applicability of the results generated.
5. ISSU Test Methodology
As previously described, for the purposes of this test document, the
ISSU process is divided into three main phases. The following
methodology assumes that a suitable test topology has been
constructed per section 4. A description of the methodology to be
applied for each of the above phases follows:
5.1. Pre-ISSU recommended verifications
1. Verify that enough hardware and software resources are available
to complete the Load operation (enough disk space).
2. Verify that the redundancy states between RPs and other nodes are
as expected (e.g. redundancy on, RP's synchronized).
3. Verify that the device, if running NSR (Non Stop Routing)
capable routing protocols, is in a "ready" state; that is,
that the sync between RPs is complete and the system is ready
for failover, if necessary.
4. Gather a configuration snapshot of the device and all of its
applicable components.
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5. Verify that the node is operating in a "steady" state (that is,
no critical or maintenance function is being currently performed).
6. Note any other operational characteristics that the tester may
deem applicable to the specific implementation deployed.
5.2. Software Staging
1. Establish all relevant protocol adjacencies and stabilize routing
within the test topology. In particular, ensure that the scaled
levels of the dynamic protocols are dimensioned as specified by the
test topology plan.
2. Clear relevant logs and interface counters to simplify analysis.
If possible, set logging timestamps to a highly granular mode. If
the topology includes management systems, ensure that the
appropriate polling levels have been applied, sessions established
and that the responses are per expectation.
3. Apply the traffic loads as specified in the load model previously
developed for this exercise.
4. Document an operational baseline for the test bed with relevant
data supporting the above steps (include all relevant load
characteristics of interest in the topology e.g. routing load,
traffic volumes, memory and CPU utilization)
5. Note the start time (T0) and begin the code change process
utilizing the appropriate mechanisms as expected to be used in
production (e.g. active download with TFTP/FTP/SCP/etc. or direct
install from local or external storage facility). In order to ensure
that ISSU process timings are not skewed by the lack of a network
wide synchronization source, the use of a network NTP source is
encouraged.
6. Take note of any logging information and command line interface
(CLI) prompts as needed (this detail will be vendor-specific)
Respond to any DUT prompts in a timely manner.
7. Monitor the DUT for the reload of secondary RP to the new
software level. Once the secondary has stabilized on the new code,
note the completion time. The duration of these steps will be
recorded as "T1".
8. Review system logs for any anomalies, check that relevant dynamic
protocols have remained stable and note traffic loss if any. Verify
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that deployed management systems have not identified any unexpected
behavior.
5.3. Upgrade Run
The following assumes that the software load step and upgrade step
are discretely controllable. If not, maintain the afore-mentioned
timer and monitor for completion of the ISSU as described below.
1. Note the start time and initiate the actual upgrade procedure
2. Monitor the operation of the secondary route processor while it
initializes with the new software and assumes mastership of the DUT.
At this point, pay particular attention to any indications of
control plane disruption, traffic impact or other anomalous
behavior. Once the DUT has converged upon the new code and returned
to normal operation note the completion time and log the duration of
this step as T2.
3. Review the syslog data in the DUT and neighboring devices for any
behavior, which would be disruptive in a production environment
(linecard reloads, control plane flaps etc.). Examine the traffic
generators for any indication of traffic loss over this interval. If
the Test Set reported any traffic loss, note the number of frames
lost as "TP_frames". If the test set also provides outage duration,
note this as TP_time (alternatively this may be calculated as
TP/offered pps (packets per second) load).
4. Verify the DUT status observations as per any NMS systems
managing the DUT and its neighboring devices. Document the observed
CPU and memory statistics both during the ISSU upgrade event and
after and ensure that memory and CPU have returned to an expected
(previously baselined) level.
5.4. Post ISSU verification
The following describes a set of post-ISSU verification tasks that
are not directly part of the ISSU process, but are recommended for
execution in order to validate a successful upgrade:
1. Configuration delta analysis
Examine the post-ISSU configurations to determine if any changes
have occurred either through process error or due to differences
in the implementation of the upgraded code.
2. Exhaustive control plane analysis
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Review the details of the RIB and FIB to assess whether any
unexpected changes have been introduced in the forwarding paths.
3. Verify that both RPs are up and that the redundancy mechanism for
the control plane is enabled and fully synchronized.
4. Verify that no control plane (protocol) events or flaps were
detected.
5. Verify that no L1 and or L2 interface flaps were observed.
6. Document the hitless operation or presence of an outage based
upon the counter values provided by the Test Set.
5.5. ISSU under negative stimuli
As an OPTIONAL Test Case, the operator may want to perform an ISSU
test while the DUT is under stress by introducing route churn to any
or all of the involved phases of the ISSU process.
One approach relies on the operator to gather statistical
information from the production environment and determine a specific
number of routes to flap every 'fixed' or 'variable' interval.
Alternatively, the operator may wish to simply pre-select a fixed
number of prefixes to flap. As an example, an operator may decide to
flap 1% of all the BGP routes every minute and restore them 1 minute
afterwards. The tester may wish to apply this negative stimulus
throughout the entire ISSU process or most importantly, during the
run phase. It is important to ensure that these routes, which are
introduced solely for stress proposes, must not overlap the ones
(per the Load Model) specifically leveraged to calculate the TP
(recorded outage). Furthermore, there should NOT be 'operator
induced' control plane - protocol adjacency flaps for the duration
of the test process as it may adversely affect the characterization
of the entire test exercise. For example, triggering IGP adjacency
events may force re-computation of underlying routing tables with
attendant impact to the perceived ISSU timings. While not
recommended, if such trigger events are desired by the test
operator, care should be taken to avoid the introduction of
unexpected anomalies within the test harness.
6. ISSU Abort and Rollback
Where a vendor provides such support, the ISSU process could be
aborted for any reason by the operator. However, the end results and
behavior may depend on the specific phase where the process was
aborted. While this is implementation dependent, as a general
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recommendation, if the process is aborted during the "Software
Download" or "Software Staging" phases, no impact to service or
device functionality should be observed. In contrast, if the process
is aborted during the "Upgrade Run" or "Upgrade Accept" phases, the
system may reload and revert back to the previous software release
and as such, this operation may be service affecting. Where vendor
support is available, the abort/rollback functionality should be
verified and the impact, if any, quantified generally following the
procedures provided above.
7. Final Report - Data Presentation - Analysis
All ISSU impact results are summarized in a simple statement
describing the "ISSU Disruption Impact" including the measured frame
loss and impact time, where impact time is defined as the time frame
determined per the TP reported outage. These are considered to be
the primary data points of interest.
However, the entire ISSU operational impact should also be
considered in support of planning for maintenance and as such
additional reporting points are included.
Software download/secondary update T1
Upgrade/Run T2
ISSU Traffic Disruption (Frame Loss) TP_frames
ISSU Traffic Impact Time (milliseconds) TP Time
ISSU Housekeeping Interval T
(Time for both RP's up on new code and fully synced - Redundancy
restored)
Total ISSU Maintenance Window T4 (sum of T1+T2+T3)
The results reporting must provide the following information:
DUT hardware and software detail
Test Topology definition and diagram (especially as related to the
ISSU operation)
Load Model description including protocol mixes and any divergence
from the production environment
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Time Results as per above
Anomalies Observed during ISSU
Anomalies Observed in post-ISSU analysis
It is RECOMMENDED that the following parameters be reported
as outlined below:
Parameter Units or Examples
---------------------------------------------------------------
Traffic Load Frames per second and bits per Second
Disruption (average) Frames
Impact Time (average) Milliseconds
Number of trials Integer count
Protocols IPv4, IPv6, MPLS, etc.
Frame Size Octets
Port Media Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE),
Packet over SONET (POS), etc.
Port Speed 10 Gbps, 1 Gbps, 100 Mbps, etc.
Interface Encaps Ethernet, Ethernet VLAN,
PPP, High-Level Data Link
Control(HDLC),etc.
Number of Prefixes Integer count
flapped (ON Interval) (Optional # of prefixes / Time
(minutes)
flapped (OFF Interval) (Optional # of prefixes / Time
(minutes)
Document any configuration deltas, which are observed after the
ISSU upgrade has taken effect. Note differences, which are driven
by changes in the patch or release level as well as items, which
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are aberrant changes due to software faults. In either of these
cases, any unexpected behavioral changes should be analyzed and a
determination made as to the impact of the change (be it
functional variances or operational impacts to existing scripts or
management mechanisms.
7.1. Data collection considerations
When a DUT is undergoing an ISSU operation, it's worth noting that
the DUT's data collection and reporting of data, such as counters,
interface statistics, log messages, etc., may not be accurate. As
such, one should NOT rely on the DUTs data collection methods, but
rather, should use the test tools and equipment to collect data used
for reporting in Section 7. Care and consideration should be paid in
testing or adding new test cases, such that the desired data can be
collected from the test tools themselves, or other external
equipment, outside of the DUT itself.
8. Security Considerations
All BMWG memos are limited to testing in a laboratory Isolated Test
Environment (ITE), thus avoiding accidental interruption to
production networks due to test activities.
All benchmarking activities are limited to technology
characterization using controlled stimuli in a laboratory
environment with dedicated address space and the other constraints
[RFC 2544]
The benchmarking network topology will be an independent test setup
and must NOT be connected to devices that may forward the test
traffic into a production network or misroute traffic to the test
management network.
Further, benchmarking is performed on a "black-box" basis, relying
solely on measurements observable external to the device under test/
system under test (DUT/SUT).
Special capabilities should NOT exist in the DUT/SUT specifically
for benchmarking purposes. Any implications for network security
arising from the DUT/SUT should be identical in the lab and in
production networks.
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9. IANA Considerations
There are no IANA actions required by this memo.
10. References
10.1. Normative References
[RFC 2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC 2544] S. Bradner , J. McQuaid "Benchmarking Methodology
for Network Interconnect Devices" RFC 2544 ,
March 1999
10.2. Informative References
[RFC 5880] D. Katz, D. Ward "Bidirectional Forwarding Detection
(BFD)" RFC 5880 , June 2010
[RFC 6815] S. Bradner, K. Dubray , J. McQuaid, A. Morton
?Applicability Statement for RFC 2544:
Use on Production Networks Considered Harmful?
RFC 6815 , November 2012
11. Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Vibin Thomas for his valued review and
feedback.
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Authors' Addresses
Sarah Banks
VSS Monitoring
Email: sbanks@encrypted.net
Fernando Calabria
Cisco Systems
Email: fcalabri@cisco.com
Gery Czirjak
Juniper Networks
Email: gczirjak@juniper.net
Ramdas Machat
Juniper Networks
Email: rmachat@juniper.net
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