Skip to main content

Interface to the Routing System
charter-ietf-i2rs-00-09

The information below is for an older proposed charter
Document Proposed charter Interface to the Routing System WG (i2rs) Snapshot
Title Interface to the Routing System
Last updated 2013-01-21
State IESG Review (Charter for Approval, Selected by Secretariat)
WG State Proposed
IESG Responsible AD Martin Vigoureux
Charter edit AD Adrian Farrel
Send notices to (None)

charter-ietf-i2rs-00-09

Working Group Name:
Interfaces to the Routing System (I2RS)

IETF Area:
Routing Area

Chair(s):
TBD
Routing Area Director(s):
Adrian Farrel
Routing Area Advisor:
Adrian Farrel
Operations Area Advisor:
TBD

Mailing Lists:
General Discussion: i2rs@ietf.org
To Subscribe: https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/i2rs
Archive: http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/i2rs/current/maillist.html

Description of Working Group:

In an IP routed network, the routing system:

  • Distributes topology and other state (network metadata)
  • Uses this network metadata to determine the best paths to each given reachable
    destination attached to the network
  • Communicates these decisions to the forwarding plane of each forwarding device in the
    network.

That is, the routing system is the collection of entities, protocols and processes that
collectively build the forwarding tables that are exported into the entities that
constitute the network's forwarding plane.

While processes participating in the routing system are often colocated with the local
forwarding elements, this isn't a necessary condition. Thus, the routing system includes
control plane protocols and processes that compute routes and paths for data packets,
wherever the processes implementing those protocols and processes may be running.

I2RS facilitates real-time or event driven interaction with the routing system through a
collection of protocol-based control or management interfaces. These allow information,
policies, and operational parameters to be injected into and retrieved (as read or by
notification) from the routing system while retaining data consistency and coherency
across the routers and routing infrastructure, and among multiple interactions with the
routing system. The I2RS interfaces will co-exist with existing configuration and
management systems and interfaces.

It is envisioned that users of the I2RS interfaces will be management applications,
network controllers, and user applications that make specific demands on the network.

The I2RS working group works to develop a high-level framework and architecture that
describes the basic building-blocks necessary to enable the specific use cases, and that
will lead to an understanding of the abstract informational models and requirements for
encodings and protocols for the I2RS interfaces. Small and well-scoped use cases are
critical to constrain the scope of the work and achieve sufficient focus for the working
group to deliver successful outcomes. Initial work within the working group will be
limited to a single administrative domain.

The working group is chartered to work on the following items:

  • High-level architecture and framework for I2RS including considerations of policy and
    security.

  • Tightly scoped key use cases for operational use of I2RS as follows:
    o Interactions with the Routing Information Base (RIB). Allowing read and write
    access to the RIB, but no direct access to the Forwarding Information Base (FIB).
    o Control and analysis of the operation of the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) including
    the setting and activation of policies related to the protocol.
    o Control, optimization, and choice of traffic exit points from networks based on more
    information than provided by the dynamic control plane.
    o Distributed reaction to network-based attacks through rapid modification of the
    control plane behavior to reroute traffic for one destination while leaving
    standard mechanisms (filters, metrics, and policy) in place for other routes.
    o Service layer routing to improve on existing hub-and-spoke traffic.
    o The ability to extract information about topology from the network. Injection and
    creation of topology will not be considered as an initial work item.

    Other use cases may be adopted by the working group only through rechartering.

  • Abstract information models consistent with the use cases.

  • Requirements for I2RS protocols and encoding languages.

  • An analysis of existing IETF and other protocols and encoding languages against the
    requirements.

The working group is not currently chartered to develop protocols, encoding languages, or
data models. The objective of this work effort is to arrive at common standards for these
items, but these items are dependent on the progress of the topics listed above. Work for
these items will be conducted in this working group only after a re-charter, and/or may
be carried out in another working group with specific responsibility for the protocol or
encoding language.

Goals and Milestones:

Jul 2013 : Request publication of an Informational document defining the problem statement
Jul 2013 : Request publication of an Informational document defining the highlevel
architecture and framework
Aug 2013 : Request publication of Informational documents describing use cases
Sep 2013 : Request publication of an Informational document defining the protocol
requirements
Sep 2013 : Request publication of an Informational document defining encoding language
requirements
Nov 2013 : Request publication of Standards Track documents specifying information models
Nov 2013 : Request publication of an Informational document providing an analysis of
existing IETF and other protocols and encoding languages against the
requirements
Dec 2013 : Consider re-chartering