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Inter-Carrier OAM Requirements
draft-georgiades-opsawg-intercar-oam-req-01

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This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Expired".
Authors Oscar Gonzalez de Dios , Michael Georgiades , David Berechya , Filippo Cugini
Last updated 2011-11-24 (Latest revision 2011-05-24)
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draft-georgiades-opsawg-intercar-oam-req-01
OPSAWG WG                                                  M. Georgiades
Internet-Draft                                                  PrimeTel
Intended Status: Informational                                  F.Cugini
Expires: 27 May 2012                                                CNIT
                                                             D. Berechya
                                                                     NSN
                                                             O. Gonzalez
                                                                     TID
                                                       November 24, 2011

                    Inter-Carrier OAM Requirements 
            draft-georgiades-opsawg-intercar-oam-req-01.txt

Abstract

   This draft specifies requirements for inter-carrier OAM supporting
   end-to-end OAM functionality and mechanisms development in a multi-
   operator environment. It reviews the already proposed OAM
   requirements addressed in IETF [RFC5706, RFC5860], ITU-T [Y.1730],
   MEF [MEFOAM] and IEEE [IEEE1, IEEE2] which were mainly proposed on a
   per transport technology basis. This document specifies additional
   requirements for the inter-carrier OAM operations.   

Status of this Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted to IETF in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups.  Note that
   other groups may also distribute working documents as
   Internet-Drafts.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
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   The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at
   http://www.ietf.org/1id-abstracts.html

   The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
   http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html

 

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Copyright and License Notice

   Copyright (c) 2011 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
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document. Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
     1.1  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   2.  Inter-carrier OAM Gap Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
     3.1. OAM single region/single carrier transport network 
          requirements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
     3.2. OAM for inter-carrier transport networks  . . . . . . . . .  9
   4  Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   5  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
     5.1 List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   6  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

 

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1  Introduction

   OAM functionality is important in network operation and management
   for simplifying the operation and to reduce cost. It supports
   capabilities for fault management (including fault detection, fault
   notification and fault isolation), as well as performance degradation
   awareness. A distinction of inter-carrier OAM requirements is made
   from just the inter-operability requirements between carriers. The
   first may also cover technological issues and requirements which
   relate to end-to-end service delivery crossing domains but which
   could be agnostic to underlying transport technologies. This may also
   take into account different commercial administration as well as
   operation policies of carriers.

   OAM operations have been considered for different data transport
   technologies by different standard bodies. Some solution examples
   include ATM OAM ITU-T I.610 [I.610], IEEE 802.3-2008 [IEEE1], ITU-T
   Y.1730 [Y.1730], IETF RFC 5860, IETF RFC 5706 [RFC5706], IETF RFC
   5860 [RFC5860]. These protocols have been designed by different
   organizations in different standard bodies to handle three main
   functions namely: (A) Failure Detection and Diagnostics, (B)
   Recovery, and (C) Performance Monitoring for a particular technology
   including SONET & SDH, ATM, MPLS and Carrier Ethernet. Inter-working
   considerations between different OAM mechanisms proposed for the
   different transport technologies have been left for future studies.
   Although some of the proposed OAM protocols do mention
   interoperability considerations, requirement details and solutions
   for these are usually out of the scope. Moreover considering common
   syntax among protocols to resolve interoperability issues has proven
   difficult.                  

   OAM functions have been proposed mainly for fault management but also
   performance monitoring. Y.1731 [Y.1731] and RFC 5860 [RFC5860] list
   the following functions for Ethernet fault management: Continuity
   Check, Loopback, Link Trace, Alarm Indication Signal, Remote Defect
   Indication, Locked Signal, Test Signal, Automatic Protection
   Switching, Maintenance Communication Channel, Experimental OAM and
   Vendor Specific OAM. For Ethernet performance monitoring [Y.1731]
   lists the following necessary functions: loss measurement, delay
   measurement and throughput measurement. 

   A similar approach was followed for the development of other OAM
   mechanism mainly on a per transport technology basis. Although for
   example interworking between such mechanisms have been proposed e.g.
   MPLS-to-Ethernet OAM, inter-carrier OAM issues and associated service
   related technological issues due to these have not been addressed
   thoroughly. The later may result in the proposal of new
   functionality/mechanisms on a more generic common level (transport
 

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   technology agnostic) that can become more acceptable by operators for
   inter-carrier operations.  

1.1  Terminology

   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 [RFC2119].

   OAM

      Operation, Administration and Maintenance Maintenance Entity (ME)
      It represents an entity that requires management.

   MEG

      Maintenance Entity Group (MEG) consists of the MEs that belong to
      the same service inside a common OAM domain. For a Point-to-Point
      EVC, a MEG contains a single ME. For a Multipoint-to-Multipoint
      EVC of n UNIs, a MEG contains n*(n-1)/2 MEs.

   OAM transparency

      This term refers to the ability to allow transparent carrying of
      OAM packets belonging to higher level MEGs across other lower
      level MEGs when the MEGs are nested.

   In-service OAM

      It refers to OAM actions which are carried out while the data
      traffic is not interrupted with an expectation that data traffic
      remains transparent to OAM actions.

   Out-of-service OAM

      It refers to OAM actions which are carried out while the data
      traffic is interrupted.

   On-demand OAM

      It refers to OAM actions which are initiated via manual
      intervention for a limited time to carry out diagnostics.

   Proactive OAM 

      It refers to OAM actions which are carried out continuously to
      permit proactive reporting of fault and/or performance results.
 

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   On-path service NSP

      A transit NSP who is used as a traffic carrier or service provider
      of a particular service.   

   Service-based OAM

      Service Level OAM relates to any operations which are associated
      with a particular service. A good example is the delivery of the
      agreed throughput (service issue) as opposed to allocated
      bandwidth for the link/segment (network resource issue).

   Network-based OAM

      Network-based OAM relates to any operations which are associated
      with a particular network links, network segments, network
      resources etc. A good example is the delivery of the agreed
      bandwidth on a network segment (network resource issue) as opposed
      to the actual throughput delivered (service issue).

   Carrier

      A carrier is an organization that provides communications and
      networking services; Also referred to as a Network Service
      Provider (NSP) in the draft.

   Region

      A region is considered to be a collection of network elements
      under a single technology.

   Domain

      A domain is considered to be any collection of network elements
      within a common sphere of address management or path computational
      responsibility. Examples of such domains include IGP areas and
      Autonomous Systems;

2.  Inter-carrier OAM Gap Analysis

   To handle different possible scenarios for OAM it is important to
   first categorize the network scope that OAM support will be designed
   for. The network scope may contain homogenous technological domains
   (or regions), heterogeneous domains, and even different carriers
   (network operators). Moreover it may be composed by elements
   belonging to different technologies and having different switching
   capabilities. The major data transport technologies are considered
 

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   including Multi-Protocol Label Switching - Transport Profile (MPLS-
   TP), Wavelength Switched Optical Networks (WSON) and corresponding
   switching capabilities like Packet Switching Capability (PSC) and
   Lambda Switching Capability (LSC) respectively.

      |<-----------------Inter-Carrier OAM---------------->| 
                |<------------------Inter-Region OAM----------------->|
                               |<----------Inter-Carrier OAM--------->|
                        |<---Inter-Region OAM--->|
   |<---Intra-Carrier OAM--->| |<--Intra-Carrier OAM--->|<-Intra-C.-->|
   |<-IntraDom-><-IntraDom-->| |<-IntraDom-><-IntraDom->|<-IntraDom-->|
   --------------------------  ------------------------   ------------
    +---------+   +--------+ | | +--------+    +-----+ | | +-------+
    |         |   |        | | | |        |    |     | | | |       | 
   -| IP/MPLS |-- |IP/MPLS |-| | |MPLS-TP |--- | ETH |---- |  OTN  |-- 
    |         |   |        | | | |        |    |     | | | |       | 
    +---------+   +--------+ | | +--------+    +-----+ | | +-------+
   Operator/Carrier 1        | | Operator/Carrier 2    | | Carrier 3   
   --------------------------  ------------------------   ------------
          Figure 1 End-to-end OAM Operation Areas Definitions
                                    
   Figure 1 shows how in a real end-to-end network scenarios, different
   OAM areas of operation are depicted and the granularity level can be
   summarized as follows:

      i) Inter-Carrier OAM (between different network operators, same 
      or different technologies) 
      ii) Inter-Region OAM (between regions of different technologies, 
      same or different carriers)
      iii) Intra-Carrier OAM (within a single carrier, between 
      homogenous or heterogeneous regions i.e. different technologies) 
      iv) Intra-Domain OAM (i.e. single technology, single domain)

   Such identification of the OAM signaling range granularity proves
   necessary for accommodating for single/multi-operator environment,
   single/multi-regions or a combination of these. Intra-domain OAM e.g
   section or link OAM etc. are not in the scope of this draft.  

   It is worth noting that, until now, little attention has been paid to
   the inter-region/inter-carrier cases and no clear distinction from
   intra-region/intra-carrier requirements has been made by
   standardization bodies. 

   Requirements for Operational, Administration and Maintenance have
   already been defined in detail by ITU-T, IETF and MEF, regarding the 
     single-domain scenario.
 

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   OAM Requirements considered so far depend mainly on the data
   transport network technology they aim to support. RFC 5860 [RFC5860]
   for example has defined OAM requirements for OAM functionality for
   MPLS networks.Similarly Y.1730 defined requirements for OAM functions
   in Ethernet-based networks.

   Different OAM protocols have been recommended and used for different
   data transport technologies. Also different Networks Service
   Providers (NSPs) may choose to use different OAM standards to monitor
   their operation, maintenance and fault detection, checking network
   devices possibly from different vendors, different models and
   different releases. This could be due to the fact that an operator
   may want to monitor different technological domains, different
   topologies or even multiple heterogeneous domains and hence OAM at a
   different plane or OSI stack level. Moreover a Network Service
   Provider may want to achieve service OAM provisioning for reserved
   resources across multiple-carriers.   This gives rise to several
   considerations when dealing with interconnected heterogeneous
   networks and inter-NSP scenarios particularly in cases where the end-
   to-end OAM control information is of interest e.g. for ensuring end-
   to-end network support for a particular service. 

   Current OAM functionalities do not guarantee network OAM aligned to a
   associated with a particular service.  The majority of OAM standards
   are there to support network transport technologies and are not
   sufficient to adequately support end-to-end network services in
   inter-carrier scenarios. Inter-working between OAM for different
   technologies may not be sufficient to achieve inter-carrier OAM
   cooperation.

   This draft aims to emphasize on end-to-end inter-carrier OAM
   requirements and the need to consider a twofold set of requirements
   derived both from technological aspects derived from the need to
   satisfy network operation associated to a particular service but also
   technical requirements derived from inter-carrier business
   considerations associated to a particular service. 

   Inter carrier OAM involves any technological and technical aspects,
   that once developed will motivate synergy between operators for OAM
   and will offer more reliable and trustful means for co-operation.
   Furthermore some network events that are detected and measured by end
   to end OAM such as failures may require customer compensation and, in
   consequence, inter carrier reimbursements. The current OAM system
   does not clearly provide trusted means for determining the location
   and the duration of failures in the environment of multi carrier
   where each carrier uses different systems for measuring and logging
   the events, and one carriers may not rely on the other carrier's
   measuring.  
 

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   Another important differentiation which is depicted in this draft and
   it is of great importance particularly in inter-carrier operations is
   Service Level OAM vs. Network Level OAM. 

   Service Level OAM relates to any operations which are associated with
   a particular service. A good example will be the delivery of the
   agreed throughput (service issue) as opposed to allocated bandwidth
   for the link/segment (network resource issue). Network-based OAM
   relates to any operations which are associated with a particular
   network links, network segments, network resources etc. A good
   example will be the delivery of the agreed bandwidth on a network
   segment (network resource issue) as opposed to the actual throughput
   delivered (service issue).

3.1. OAM single region/single carrier transport network requirements

   Both IETF and ITU-T have identified OAM requirements for a single
   region transport network, for different technologies. In general the
   requirements can be grouped under these two main
   categories:architectural requirements and functional requirements.
   Most of the single domain OAM requirements are relevant for the inter
   domain as well. The most important architectural requirements are: a)
   Independence of the OAM level from service and underlying networks,
   b) Bidirectional application of OAM mechanisms should be possible, c)
   Application of OAM functions to unidirectional point-to-point and
   point-to-multipoint connections should be possible.

   The functional requirements are split into two further sub-categories
   with regard to the task they are facing with: fault detection and
   locating and performance monitoring. The main OAM mechanisms required
   by the joint ITU-T - IETF working group for fault management are: 

   Continuity check / verification, Alarm suppression, Lock indication,
   Diagnostic test, Trace-route, Remote defect indication.

   The main OAM mechanisms required by the joint ITU-T - IEFT working
   group for performance monitoring are: a) Packet loss measurement, b)
   Delay and jitter measurement,  

   On the other hand MEF, more focused on service OAM, has specified the
   following list of requirements: a) Service OAM should discover other
   elements in the Metro Ethernet Networks (MEN); (b)Service OAM should
   monitor the connectivity status of other elements (active, not-
   active, partially active); (c) Performance monitoring should estimate
   Frame Loss Ratio (FLR) Performance, Frame Delay Performance, and
   Frame Delay Variation (FDV) Performance; OAM frames should be
   prevented from "leaking" outside the appropriate OAM domain to which
 

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   they apply; (e)the OAM frames should traverse the same paths as the
   service frames, (f)the OAM should be independent of but allow
   interoperability with the underlying transport layer and its OAM
   capabilities; (g) the OAM should be independent of the application
   layer technologies and OAM capabilities.

3.2. OAM for inter-carrier transport networks

   This subsection deals with inter-carrier and hence also inter-region
   issues in the existing standards. The goal is to identify gaps and to
   discuss new requirements to fill these gaps. In many cases network
   services traverse several carriers and regions, and in long distance
   services this is the most probable case. A multi-carrier and multi-
   regional environment poses special technical and commercial OAM
   requirements that should be defined and addressed. 

   In particular, OAM in multi-carrier networks has commercial aspects
   that do not exist in single carrier networks. Indeed, in case of
   failure or out-of-SLA service delivery, the violating carrier should
   compensate its partner carriers or the end customer. Based on the
   information made available by the OAM tools, the carriers should
   agree on the root cause.

   Unfortunately, at present the existing standards do not have trusted
   mechanism to support these commercial issues. Furthermore, the out-
   of-service duration is a significant factor when calculating the
   compensation/penalty in case of failure. Yet, currently, each service
   provider measures the out-of-service duration independently; as a
   result, it is difficult to agree on the out-of-service duration and,
   as a consequence, on the amount of compensation. The existing
   standards for OAM in transport networks do not clearly address the
   above mentioned problems; therefore, in a multi-carrier environment,
   the following requirements may be specifically defined by considering
   that Inter-carrier OAM should address or reference how inter-region
   or inter-technology requirements are addressed. Technological inter-
   operability issues and inter-region OAM issues should be addressed
   separately to inter-carrier considerations.  

      A. Inter-carrier OAM system SHOULD be supported by MEs that are
      handled by different operators (carriers). 

      B. Inter-carrier OAM system SHOULD provide in-service reliable
      means to the network service providers (NSPs) to prove, in case of
      failure, which is the failing transit carrier or transit NSP etc.

      C. Inter-carrier OAM system SHOULD provide optional in-service
      notification messages that could be used to inform on-path service
      NSPs of other on-path NSPs service degradation. This includes for
 

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      example any deviation from the SLA agreement and related
      parameters (Jitter, Packet Loss, Throughput etc.).   

      D. Inter-carrier OAM system SHOULD provide reliable means to
      measure an NSP's out-of-service provisioning duration; such
      measurement could be agreed by all involved parties. 

      E. Inter-carrier OAM SHOULD provide means for confidentiality and
      privacy between involved carriers. 

      F. Inter-carrier OAM SHOULD have the option of disclosing
      information forwarded by transit NSPs that are not involved under
      the same inter-carrier OAM agreement. 

      G. Inter-carrier OAM system MAY have the ability to interwork with
      the PCE architecture and traffic engineering databases, aiming at
      improving reliability and accuracy in path computations, and
      performing correlation of OAM information for location and
      tracking of failures.

4  Summary

      The exiting OAM standards do not clearly address the specific
      needs of: inter-carrier, inter-region (inter-technology) as well
      as different layer defined OAM requirements such as on the network
      level, service level etc. This draft aimed to achieve this and
      focuses on the inter-carrier requirements only. The majority of
      these requirements were derived from the nature of service
      provisioning between different network service providers.  

      OAM is an essential tool set for network operation and service
      provisioning, and in case of inter-carrier it can help to settle
      responsibility disputes in case of failures and performance
      degradations. This document reviews the existing OAM standards,
      identifies gaps, and discusses new requirements for the inter
      domain and inter carrier scenarios.

5  Acknowledgements

      This draft has been produced by the following three projects which
      are funded by the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme
      (FP7/2007-2013):

      STRONGEST (FP7-ICT-247674); http://www.ict-strongest.eu/);

      ETICS (FP7-ICT-248567); http://www.ict-etics.eu/);

      MAINS (FP7-ICT-247706; http://www.ist-mains.eu/);
 

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5.1 List of Contributors

      Michael Georgiades, Primetel, Cyprus;

      Filipo Cugini, CNIT, Italy;

      David Berechya, NSN, Israel;

      Oscar Gonzalez, TID (Telefonica), Spain;

      Nurit Sprecher, NSN, Israel; 

6  References

   [RFC5860] Vigourex, M., Ward, D.,  Betts, M.,  Bocci, M., Busi, I.,
              "Requirements for Operations, Administration, and
              Maintenance (OAM) in MPLS Transport Networks", RFC 5860,
              May 2010.

   [I.610] ITU-T Recommendation I.610, "B-ISDN operation and maintenance
              principles and functions", February 1999.   

   [IEEE1] IEEE 802.3-2008, IEEE Standard for Information technology -
              Telecommunications and information exchange between
              systems--Local and metropolitan area networks--Specific
              requirements Part 3: Carrier Sense Multiple Access with
              Collision Detection (CSMA/CD) Access Method and Physical
              Layer Specifications. Institute of Electrical and
              Electronics Engineers, 2977 pages, ISBN: 9730738157979,
              December 2008.

   [IEEE2] IEEE 802.1ag, "Virtual Bridged Local Area Networks -
              Amendment 5: Connectivity Fault Management, IEEE 802.1
              Committee", December 2007.

   [MEFOAM] MEF, "Service OAM Requirements & Framework - Phase 1
              Technical Specification, Metro Ethernet Forum", April
              2007.

   [Y1710] ITU-T Recommendation Y.1710(2002), "Requirements for OAM
              Functionality for MPLS Networks", January 2001.

   [Y1730] Recommendation Y.1730, "Requirements for OAM functions in
              Ethernet based networks", January 2004.

   [Y1731] ITU-T Recommendation Y.1731 - OAM functions and mechanisms
 

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              for Ethernet based networks, January 2006.

   [RFC5706] Harringhton, D., "Guidelines for Considering Operations and
              Management of New Protocols and Protocol Extensions", RFC
              5706, November 2009. 

   [RFC4378] Allan, D. , Nadeau, T.,  A framework for Multi-Protocol
              Label Switching (MPLS) Operations and Management (OAM),
              RFC4378, February 2006.

Authors' Addresses

   Michael Georgiades
   Telecom Researcher (R&D)
   The Maritime Center, PrimeTel PLC,
   Omonia Avenue 141, 3045 Limassol, Cyprus
   Email1: michaelg@prime-tel.com
   Email2: m.georgiades@ieee.org

   Filippo Cugini
   CNIT National Lab of Photonic Networks
   Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna (SSSUP)
   via Moruzzi 1, 56124 Pisa, Italy
   Email: filippo.cugini@cnit.it

   David Berechya
   Research, Multi-Layer Networks and Resilience
   Nokia Siemens Networks
   3 Hanagar St.
   Hod Hasharon 45240, Israel
   Email: david.berechya@nsn.com

   Oscar Gonzalez
   Telefonica I+D
   Ramon de la Cruz, 82-84
   Madrid,   28006
   Email: ogondio@tid.es

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