Skip to main content

Deterministic Networking (DetNet) Data Plane - Tagged Cyclic Queuing and Forwarding (TCQF) for bounded latency with low jitter in large scale DetNets
draft-eckert-detnet-tcqf-01

The information below is for an old version of the document.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Active".
Authors Toerless Eckert , Stewart Bryant , Andrew G. Malis , Guangpeng Li
Last updated 2022-11-06
Replaces draft-eckert-detnet-mpls-tc-tcqf
RFC stream (None)
Formats
Stream Stream state (No stream defined)
Consensus boilerplate Unknown
RFC Editor Note (None)
IESG IESG state I-D Exists
Telechat date (None)
Responsible AD (None)
Send notices to (None)
draft-eckert-detnet-tcqf-01
DETNET                                                         T. Eckert
Internet-Draft                                Futurewei Technologies USA
Intended status: Standards Track                               S. Bryant
Expires: 10 May 2023                            University of Surrey ICS
                                                             A. G. Malis
                                                        Malis Consulting
                                                                   G. Li
                                    Huawei Network Technology Laboratory
                                                         6 November 2022

Deterministic Networking (DetNet) Data Plane - Tagged Cyclic Queuing and
  Forwarding (TCQF) for bounded latency with low jitter in large scale
                                DetNets
                      draft-eckert-detnet-tcqf-01

Abstract

   This memo specifies a forwarding method for bounded latency for
   Deterministic Networks.  It uses cycle tagging of packets for cyclic
   queuing and forwarding with multiple buffers (TCQF).  This memo
   standardizes tagging via the MPLS packet Traffic Class (TC) field for
   MPLS links and the IP/IPv6 DSCPfield for IP/IPv6 links.  The short-
   hand for this mechanism is Tagged Cyclic Queuing and Forwarding
   (TCQF).

   Target benefits of TCQF include low end-to-end jitter, ease of high-
   speed hardware implementation, optional ability to support large
   number of flow in large networks via DiffServ style aggregation by
   applying TCQF to the DetNet aggregate instead of each DetNet flow
   individually, and support of wide-area DetNet networks with arbitrary
   link latencies and latency variations.

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
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   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
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

Eckert, et al.             Expires 10 May 2023                  [Page 1]
Internet-Draft                 detnet-tcqf                 November 2022

   This Internet-Draft will expire on 10 May 2023.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2022 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/
   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 Revised BSD License text as
   described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are
   provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction (informative)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Using TCQF in the DetNet Architecture and MPLS forwarding plane
           (informative) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   3.  TCQF per-flow stateless forwarding (normative)  . . . . . . .   6
     3.1.  Configuration Data model and tag processing for MPLS TC
           tags  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     3.2.  Packet processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     3.3.  TCQF with MPLS label stack operations . . . . . . . . . .   8
     3.4.  TCQF with IP operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     3.5.  TCQF Pseudocode (normative) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   4.  TCQF Per-flow Ingress forwarding (normative)  . . . . . . . .  11
     4.1.  Ingress Flows Configuration Data Model  . . . . . . . . .  11
     4.2.  Ingress Flows Pseudocode  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   5.  Implementation, Deployment, Operations and Validation
           considerations (informative)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
     5.1.  High-Speed Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
     5.2.  Controller plane computation of cycle mappings  . . . . .  14
     5.3.  Link speed and bandwidth sharing  . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
     5.4.  Validation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
   6.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   7.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   8.  Changelog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   9.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
     9.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
     9.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20

Eckert, et al.             Expires 10 May 2023                  [Page 2]
Internet-Draft                 detnet-tcqf                 November 2022

1.  Introduction (informative)

   Cyclic Queuing and Forwarding (CQF), [IEEE802.1Qch], is an IEEE
   standardized queuing mechanism in support of deterministic bounded
   latency.  See also [I-D.ietf-detnet-bounded-latency], Section 6.6.

   CQF benefits for Deterministic QoS include the tightly bounded jitter
   it provides as well as the per-flow stateless operation, minimizing
   the complexity of high-speed hardware implementations and allowing to
   support on transit hops arbitrary number of DetNet flow in the
   forwarding plane because of the absence of per-hop, per-flow QoS
   processing.  In the terms of the IETF QoS architecture, CQF can be
   called DiffServ QoS technology, operating only on a traffic
   aggregate.

   CQFs is limited to only limited-scale wide-area network deployments
   because it cannot take the propagation latency of links into account,
   nor potential variations thereof.  It also requires very high
   precision clock synchronization, which is uncommon in wide-area
   network equipment beyond mobile network fronthaul.  See
   [I-D.eckert-detnet-bounded-latency-problems] for more details.

   This specification introduces and utilizes an enhanced form of CQF
   where packets are tagged with cycle identifiers for a limited number
   of cycles (such as 3...7) and hop-by-hop forwarded through the use of
   per-cycle buffers.  This multiple buffer forwarding overcome the
   distance and clock synchronization limitations of CQF.
   [I-D.qiang-DetNet-large-scale-DetNet] and
   [I-D.dang-queuing-with-multiple-cyclic-buffers] provide additional
   details about the background of TCQF.  TCQF does not depend on other
   elements of [RFC8655], so it can also be used in otherwise non-
   deterministic IP or MPLS networks to achieve bounded latency and low
   jitter.

   TCQF is likely especially beneficial when networks are architected to
   avoid per-hop, per-flow state even for traffic steering, which is the
   case for networks using SR-MPLS [RFC8402] for traffic steering of
   MPLS unicast traffic, SRv6 [RFC8986] for traffic steeering of IPv6
   unicast traffic and/or BIER-TE [I-D.ietf-bier-te-arch] for tree
   engineering of MPLS multicast traffic (using the TC and/or DSCP
   header fields of BIER packets according to [RFC8296]).

   In these networks, it is specifically undesirable to require per-flow
   signaling to non-edge forwarders (such as P-LSR in MPLS networks)
   solely for DetNet QoS because such per-flow state is unnecessary for
   traffic steering and would only be required for the bounded latency
   QoS mechanism and require likely even more complex hardware and
   manageability support than what was previously required for per-hop

Eckert, et al.             Expires 10 May 2023                  [Page 3]
Internet-Draft                 detnet-tcqf                 November 2022

   steering state (such as in RSVP-TE, [RFC4875]).  Note that the DetNet
   architecture [RFC8655] does not include full support for this
   DiffServ model, which is why this memo describes how to use TCQF with
   the DetNet architecture per-hop, per-flow processing as well as
   without it.

2.  Using TCQF in the DetNet Architecture and MPLS forwarding plane
    (informative)

   This section gives an overview of how the operations of TCQF relates
   to the DetNet architecture.  We first revisit QoS with DetNet in the
   absence of TCQF using an MPLS network as an example.

   DetNet MPLS       Relay       Transit         Relay       DetNet MPLS
   End System        Node         Node           Node        End System
      T-PE1          S-PE1        LSR-P          S-PE2       T-PE2
   +----------+                                             +----------+
   |   Appl.  |<------------ End-to-End Service ----------->|   Appl.  |
   +----------+   +---------+                 +---------+   +----------+
   | Service  |<--| Service |-- DetNet flow --| Service |-->| Service  |
   +----------+   +---------+  +----------+   +---------+   +----------+
   |Forwarding|   |Fwd| |Fwd|  |Forwarding|   |Fwd| |Fwd|   |Forwarding|
   +-------.--+   +-.-+ +-.-+  +----.---.-+   +-.-+ +-.-+   +---.------+
           :  Link  :    /  ,-----.  \   : Link :    /  ,-----.  \
           +........+    +-[ Sub-  ]-+   +......+    +-[ Sub-  ]-+
                           [Network]                   [Network]
                            `-----'                     `-----'
           |<- LSP -->| |<-------- LSP -----------| |<--- LSP -->|

           |<----------------- DetNet MPLS --------------------->|

                     Figure 1: A DetNet MPLS Network

   The above Figure 1, is copied from [RFC8964], Figure 2, and only
   enhanced by numbering the nodes to be able to better refer to them in
   the following text.

   Assume a DetNet flow is sent from T-PE1 to T-PE2 across S-PE1, LSR,
   S-PE2.  In general, bounded latency QoS processing is then required
   on the outgoing interface of T-PE1 towards S-PE1, and any further
   outgoing interface along the path.  When T-PE1 and S-PE2 know that
   their next-hop is a service LSR, their DetNet flow label stack may
   simply have the DetNet flows Service Label (S-Label) as its Top of
   Stack (ToS) LSE, explicitly indicating one DetNet flow.

Eckert, et al.             Expires 10 May 2023                  [Page 4]
Internet-Draft                 detnet-tcqf                 November 2022

   On S-PE1, the next-hop LSR is not DetNet aware, which is why S-PE1
   would need to send a label stack where the S-Label is followed by a
   Forwarding Label (F-Label), and LSR-P would need to perform bounded
   latency based QoS on that F-Label.

   For bounded latency QoS mechanisms relying on per-flow regulator
   state (aka: per-flow packet scheduling), such as in [TSN-ATS], this
   requires the use of a per-detnet flow F-Labels across the network
   from S-PE1 to S-PE2.  These could for for example be assigned/managed
   through RSVP-TE [RFC3209] enhanced as necessary with QoS parameters
   matching the underlying bounded latency mechanism (such as
   [TSN-ATS]).

   With TCQF, a sequence of LSR and DetNet service node implements TCQF
   with MPLS TC, ideally from T-PE1 (ingress) to T-PE2 (egress).  The
   ingress node needs to perform per-DetNet-flow per-packet
   "shaping"/"regulating" to assign each packet of a flow to a
   particular TCQF cycle.  This is specified in Section 4.

   All LSR/Service nodes after the ingress node only have to map a
   received TCQF tagged DetNet packet to the configured cycle on the
   output interface, not requiring any per-DetNet-flow QoS state.  These
   LSR/Service nodes do therefore also not require per-flow interactions
   with the controller plane for the purpose of bounded latency.

   Per-flow state therefore is only required on nodes that are DetNet
   service nodes, or when explicit, per-DetNet flow steering state is
   desired, instead of ingress steering through e.g.: SR-MPLS.

   Operating TCQF per-flow stateless across a service node, such as
   S-PE1, S-PE2 in the picture is only one option.  It is of course
   equally feasible to Have one TCQF domain from T-PE1 to S-PE2, start a
   new TCQF domain there, running for example up to S-PE2 and start
   another one to T-PE2.

   A service node must act as an egress/ingress edge of a TCQF domain if
   it needs to perform operations that do change the timing of packets
   other than the type of latency that can be considered in
   configuration of TCQF (see Section 5.2).

   For example, if T-PE1 is ingress for a TCQF domain, and T-PE2 is the
   egress, S-PE1 could perform the DetNet Packet Replication Function
   (PRF) without having to be a TQCF edge node as long as it does not
   introduce latencies not included in the TCQF setup and the controller
   plane reserves resources for the multitude of flows created by the
   replication taking the allocation of resources in the TCQF cycles
   into account.

Eckert, et al.             Expires 10 May 2023                  [Page 5]
Internet-Draft                 detnet-tcqf                 November 2022

   Likewise, S-PE2 could perform the Packet Elimination Function without
   being a TCQF edge node as this most likely does not introduce any
   non-TCQF acceptable latency - and the controller plane accordingly
   reserves only for one flow the resources on the S-PE2->T-PE2 leg.

   If on the other hand, S-PE2 was to perform the Packet Reordering
   Function (PRF), this could create large peaks of packets when out-of-
   order packets are released together.  A PRF would either have to take
   care of shaping out those bursts for the traffic of a flow to again
   conform to the admitted CIR/PIR, or else the service node would have
   to be a TCQF egress/ingress, performing that shaping itself as an
   ingress function.

3.  TCQF per-flow stateless forwarding (normative)

3.1.  Configuration Data model and tag processing for MPLS TC tags

   The following data model summarizes the configuration parameters as
   required for TCQF and discussed in further sections. 'tcqf' includes
   the parameters independent of the tagging on an interface. 'tcqf_*'
   describes the parameters for interfaces using MPLS TC and IP DSCP
   tagging.

   # Encapsulation agnostic data
   tcqf
   +-- uint16 cycles
   +-- uint16 cycle_time
   +-- uint32 cycle_clock_offset
   +-- if_config[oif] # Outgoing InterFace
       +-- uint32 cycle_clock_offset
       +-- cycle_map[iif] # Incoming InterFace
           +--uint8 oif_cycle[iif_cycle]

   # MPLS TC tagging specific data
   tcqf_tc[oif]
   +--uint8 tc[oif_cycle]

   # IP/IPv6 DSCP tagging specific data
   tcqf_dscp[oif]
   +--uint8 dscp[oif_cycle]

                  Figure 2: TCQF Configuration Data Model

3.2.  Packet processing

   This section explains the TCQF packet processing and through it,
   introduces the semantic of the objects in Figure 2

Eckert, et al.             Expires 10 May 2023                  [Page 6]
Internet-Draft                 detnet-tcqf                 November 2022

   tcqf contains the router wide configuration of TCQF parameters,
   independent of the specific tagging mechanism on any interface.  Any
   interface can have a different tagging method.  This document uses
   the term router when it is irrelevant whether forwarding is for IP or
   MPLS packet, and the term Label Switched Router (LSR) to indicate
   MPLS is used, or IP router to indicate IP or IPv6 are used.

   The model represents a single TQCF domain, which is a set of
   interfaces acting both as ingress (iif) and egress (oif) interfaces,
   capable to forward TCQF packets amongst each other.  A router may
   have multiple TCQF domains each with a set of interfaces disjoint
   from those of any other TCQF domain.

   tcqf.cycles is the number of cycles used across all interfaces in the
   TCQF domain. routers MUST support 3 and 4 cycles.  To support
   interfaces with MPLS TC tagging, 7 or less cycles MUST be used across
   all interfaces in the CQF domain.

   The unit of tcqf.cycle_time is micro-seconds. routers MUST support
   configuration of cycle-times of 20,50,100,200,500,1000,2000 usec.

   Cycles start at an offset of tcqf.cycle_clock_offset in units of nsec
   as follows.  Let clock1 be a timestamp of the local reference clock
   for TCQF, at which cycle 1 starts, then:

   tcqf.cycle_clock_offset = (clock1 mod (tcqf.cycle_time * tcqf.cycles)
   )

   The local reference clock of the LSR/router is expected to be
   synchronized with the neighboring LSR/router in TCQF domain.
   tcqf.cycle_clock_offset can be configurable by the operator, or it
   can be read-only.  In either case will the operator be able to
   configure working TCQF forwarding through appropriately calculated
   cycle mapping.

   tcqf.if_config[oif] is optional per-interface configuration of TCQF
   parameters. tcqf.if_config[oif].cycle_clock_offset may be different
   from tcqf.cycle_clock_offset, for example, when interfaces are on
   line cards with independently synchronized clocks, or when non-
   uniform ingress-to-egress propagation latency over a complex router/
   LSR fabric makes it beneficial to allow per-egress interface or line
   card configuration of cycle_clock_offset.  It may be configurable or
   read-only.

   The value of -1 for tcqf.if_config[oif].cycle_clock_offset is used to
   indicate that the domain wide tcqf.cycle_clock_offset is to be used
   for oif.  This is the only permitted negative number for this
   parameter.

Eckert, et al.             Expires 10 May 2023                  [Page 7]
Internet-Draft                 detnet-tcqf                 November 2022

   When a packet is received from iif with a cycle value of iif_cycle
   and the packet is routed towards oif, then the cycle value (and
   buffer) to use on oif is
   tcqf.if_config[oif].cycle_map[iif].oif_cycle[iif_cycle].  This is
   called the cycle mapping and is must be configurable.  This cycle
   mapping always happens when the packet is received with a cycle tag
   on an interface in a TCQF domain and forwarded to another interface
   in the same TCQF domain.

   tcqf_tc[oif].tc[oif_cycle] defines how to map from the internal cycle
   number oif_cycle to an MPLS TC value on interface oif. tcqf_tc[oif]
   MUST be configured, when oif uses MPLS.  This oif_cycle <=> tc
   mapping is not only used to map from internal cycle number to MPLS TC
   tag when sending packets, but also to map from MPLS TC tag to the
   internal cycle number when receiving packets.  Likewise,
   tcqf_dscp[oif] MUST be configured, when oif uses IP/IPv6.

   This data model does not determine whether interfaces use MPLS or IP/
   IPv6 encapsulation.  This is determined by the setup of the DetNet
   domain.  A mixed use of MPLS and IP/IPv6 interfaces is possible with
   this data model, but at the time of writing this document not
   supported by DetNet.

3.3.  TCQF with MPLS label stack operations

   In the terminology of [RFC3270], TCQF QoS as defined here, is TC-
   Inferred-PSC LSP (E-LSP) behavior: Packets are determined to belong
   to the TCQF PSC solely based on the TC of the received packet.

   The internal cycle number SHOULD be assigned from the Top of Stack
   (ToS) MPLS label TC bits before any other label stack operations
   happens.  On the egress side, the TC value of the ToS MPLS label
   SHOULD be assigned from the internal cycle number after any label
   stack processing.

   With this order of processing, TCQF can support forwarding of packets
   with any label stack operations such as label swap in the case of LDP
   or RSVP-TE created LSP, Penultimate Hop Popping (PHP), or no label
   changes from SID hop-by-hop forwarding and/or SID/label pop as in the
   case of SR-MPLS traffic steering.

Eckert, et al.             Expires 10 May 2023                  [Page 8]
Internet-Draft                 detnet-tcqf                 November 2022

3.4.  TCQF with IP operations

   As how DetNet domains are currently assumed to be single
   administrative network operator domains, this document does not ask
   for standardization of the DSCP to use with TCQF.  Instead,
   deployments wanting to use TCQF with IP/IPv6 encapsulation need to
   assign within their domain DSCP from the xxxx11 "EXP/LU" Codepoint
   space according to [RFC2474], Section 6.  This allows up to 16 DSCP
   for intradomain use.

3.5.  TCQF Pseudocode (normative)

   The following pseudocode restates the forwarding behavior of
   Section 3 in an algorithmic fashion as pseudocode.  It uses the
   objects of the TCQF configuration data model defined in Section 3.1.

 void receive(pak) {
   // Receive side TCQF - retrieve cycle of received packet
   // from packet internal header
   iif = pak.context.iif
   if (tcqf.if_config[iif]) { // TCQF enabled on iif
     if (tcqf_tc[iif]) {      // MPLS TCQF enabled on iif
       tc = pak.mpls_header.lse[tos].tc
       pak.context.tcqf_cycle = map_tc2cycle( tc, tcqf_tc[iif])
     } else
     if (tcqf_dscp[iif]) {      // IP TCQF enabled on iif
       dscp = pak.ip_header.dscp
       pak.context.tcqf_cycle = map_dscp2cycle( dscp, tcqf_dscp[iif])
     } else // ... other encaps
   }
   forward(pak);
 }

 // ... Forwarding including any label stack operations

 void forward(pak) {
   oif = pak.context.oif = forward_process(pak)

   if(ingres_flow_enqueue(pak))
     return // ingress packets are only enqueued here.

   if(pak.context.tcqf_cycle) // non TCQF packets cycle is 0
     if(tcqf.if_config[oif]) {    // TCQF enabled on OIF
       // Map tcqf_cycle iif to oif - encap agnostic
       cycle = pak.context.tcqf_cycle
             = map_cycle(cycle,
               tcqf.if_config[oif].cycle_map[[iif])

Eckert, et al.             Expires 10 May 2023                  [Page 9]
Internet-Draft                 detnet-tcqf                 November 2022

       // MPLS TC-TCQF
       if(tcqf.tc[oif]) {
         pak.mpls_header.lse[tos].tc = map_cycle2tc(cycle, tcqf_tc[oif])
       } else
       // IP TCQF enabled on iif
       if (tcqf_dscp[oif]) {
         pak.ip_header.dscp = map_cycle2dscp(cycle, tcqf_dscp[oif])
       } // else...  other future encap/tagging options for TCQF

       tcqf_enqueue(pak, oif.cycleq[cycle])
       return
     } else {
       // Forwarding of egress TCQF packets [1]
     }
   }
   // ... non TCQF OIF forwarding [2]
 }

 // Started when TCQF is enabled on an interface
 // dequeues packets from oif.cycleq
 // independent of encapsulation
 void send_tcqf(oif) {
   cycle = 1
   cc =  tcqf.cycle_time *
         tcqf.cycle_time
   o =   tcqf.cycle_clock_offset
   nextcyclestart = floor(tnow / cc) * cc + cc + o

   while(1) {
     ingres_flow_2_tcqf(oif,cycle)
     while(tnow < nextcyclestart) { }
     while(pak = dequeue(oif.cycleq(cycle)) {
       send(pak)
     }
     cycle = (cycle + 1) mod tcqf.cycles + 1
     nextcyclestart += tcqf.cycle_time
   }
 }

                       Figure 3: TCQF Pseudocode

   Processing of ingress TCQF packets is performed via
   ingres_flow_enqueue(pak) and ingres_flow_2_tcqf(oif,cycle) as
   explained in Section 4.2.

Eckert, et al.             Expires 10 May 2023                 [Page 10]
Internet-Draft                 detnet-tcqf                 November 2022

   Processing of egres TCQF packet is out-of-scope.  It can performed by
   any non-TCQF packet forwarding mechanism such as some strict priority
   queuing in [2], and packets could accordingly be marked with an
   according packet header traffic class indicator for such a traffic
   class in [1].

4.  TCQF Per-flow Ingress forwarding (normative)

   Ingress flows in the context of this text are packets of flows that
   enter the router from a non-TCQF interface and need to be forwarded
   to an interface with TCQF.

   In the most simple case, these packets are sent by the source and the
   router is the first-hop router.  In another case, the routers ingress
   interface connects to a hop where the previous router(s) did perform
   a different bounded latency forwarding mechanism than TCQF.

4.1.  Ingress Flows Configuration Data Model

   # Extends above defined tcqf
   tcqf
   ...
   | Ingress Flows, see below (TBD:
   +-- iflow[flowid]
       +-- uint32 csize # in bits

              Figure 4: TCQF Ingress Configuration Data Model

   The data model shown in Figure 4 expands the tcqf data model from
   Figure 2.  For every DetNet flow for which this router is the TCQF
   ingress, the controller plane has to specify a maximum number of bits
   called csize (cycle size) that are permitted to go into each
   individual cycle.

   Note, that iflow[flowid].csize is not specific to the sending
   interface because it is a property of the DetNet flow.

4.2.  Ingress Flows Pseudocode

   When a TCQF ingress is received, it first has to be enqueued into a
   per-flow queue.  This is necessary because the permitted burst size
   for the flow may be larger than what can fit into a single cycle, or
   even into the number of cycles used in the network.

Eckert, et al.             Expires 10 May 2023                 [Page 11]
Internet-Draft                 detnet-tcqf                 November 2022

   bool ingres_flow_enqueue(pak) {
     if(!pak.context.tcqf_cycle &&
         flowid = match_detnetflow(pak)) {
       police(pak) // according to RFC9016 5.5
       enqueue(pak, flowq[oif][flowid])
       return true
     }
     return false
   }

                 Figure 5: TCQF Ingress Enqueue Pseudocode

   ingres_flow_enqueue(pak) as shown in Figure 5 performs this enqueuing
   of the packet.  Its position in the DetNet/TCQF forwarding code is
   shown in Figure 3.

   police(pak): If the router is not only the TCQF ingress router, but
   also the first-hop router from the source, ingres_flow_enqueue(pak)
   will also be the place where policing of the flows packet according
   to the Traffic Specification of the flow would happen - to ensure
   that packets violating the Traffic Specification will not be
   forwarded, or be forwarded with lower priority (e.g.: as best
   effort).  This policing and resulting forwarding action is not
   specific to TCQF and therefore out of scope for this text.  See
   [RFC9016], section 5.5.

   void ingres_flow_2_tcqf(oif, cycle) {
     foreach flowid in flowq[oif][*] {
       free = tcqf.iflow[flowid].csize
       q = flowq[oif][flowid]
       while(notempty(q) &&
             (l = head(q).size) <= free) {
         pak = dequeue(q)
         free -= l
         tcqf_enqueue(pak, oif.cycleq[cycle])
       }
     }
   }

                     Figure 6: TCQF Ingress Pseudocode

   ingres_flow_2_tcqf(oif, cycle) as shown in Figure 6 transfers ingress
   DetNet flow packets from their per-flow queue into the queue of the
   cycle that will be sent next.  The position of ingres_flow_2_tcqf()
   in the DetNet/TCQF forwarding code is shown in Figure 3.

Eckert, et al.             Expires 10 May 2023                 [Page 12]
Internet-Draft                 detnet-tcqf                 November 2022

5.  Implementation, Deployment, Operations and Validation considerations
    (informative)

5.1.  High-Speed Implementation

   High-speed implementations with programmable forwarding planes of
   TCQF packet forwarding require Time-Gated Queues for the cycle
   queues, such as introduced by [IEEE802.1Qbv] and also employed in CQF
   [IEEE802.1Qch].

   Compared to CQF, the accuracy of clock synchronization across the
   nodes is reduced as explained in Section 5.2 below.

   High-speed forwarding for ingress packets as specified in Section 4
   above would require to pass packets first into a per-flow queue and
   then re-queue them into a cycle queue.  This is not ideal for high
   speed implementations.  The pseudocode for ingres_flow_enqueue() and
   ingres_flow_2_tcqf(), like the rest of the pseudocode in this
   document is only meant to serve as the most compact and hopefully
   most easy to read specification of the desired externally observable
   behavior of TCQF - but not as a guidance for implementation,
   especially not for high-speed forwarding planes.

   High-speed forward could be implemented with single-enqueueing into
   cycle queues as follows:

   Let B[f] be the maximum amount of data that the router would need to
   buffer for ingress flow f at any point in time.  This can be
   calculated from the flows Traffic Specification.  For example, when
   using the parameters of [RFC9016], section 5.5.

   B[f] <= MaxPacketsPerInterval*MaxPayloadSize*8

   maxcycles = max( ceil( B[f] / tcqf.iflow[f].csize) | f)

   Maxcycles is the maximum number of cycles required so that packets
   from all ingress flows can be directly enqueued into maxcycles
   queues.  The router would then not cycle across tcqf.cycles number of
   queues, but across maxcycles number of queues, but still cycling
   across tcqf.cycles number of cycle tags.

   Calculation of B[f] and in result maxcycles may further be refined
   (lowered) by additionally known constraints such as the bitrates of
   the ingress interface(s) and TCQF output interface(s).

Eckert, et al.             Expires 10 May 2023                 [Page 13]
Internet-Draft                 detnet-tcqf                 November 2022

5.2.  Controller plane computation of cycle mappings

   The cycle mapping is computed by the controller plane by taking at
   minimum the link, interface serialization and node internal
   forwarding latencies as well as the cycle_clock_offsets into account.

   Router  . O1
    R1     . | cycle 1 | cycle 2 | cycle 3 | cycle 1 |
           .    .
           .     ............... Delay D
           .                    .
           .                    O1'
           .                     | cycle 1 |
   Router  .   | cycle 1 | cycle 2 | cycle 3 | cycle 1 |
     R2    .   O2

   CT  = cycle_time
   C   = cycles
   CC  = CT * C
   O1  = cycle_clock_offset router R1, interface towards R2
   O2  = cycle_clock_offset router R2, output interface of interest
   O1' = O1 + D

                      Figure 7: Calculation reference

   Consider in Figure 7 that Router R1 sends packets via C = 3 cycles
   with a cycle_clock offset of O1 towards Router R2.  These packets
   arrive at R2 with a cycle_clock offset of O1' which includes through
   D all latencies incurred between releasing a packet on R1 from the
   cycle buffer until it can be put into a cycle buffer on R2:
   serialization delay on R1, link delay, non_CQF delays in R1 and R2,
   especially forwarding in R2, potentially across an internal fabric to
   the output interface with the sending cycle buffers.

   A = ( ceil( ( O1' - O2 ) / CT) + C + 1) mod CC
   map(i) = (i - 1 + A) mod C + 1

                    Figure 8: Calculating cycle mapping

   Figure 8 shows a formula to calculate the cycle mapping between R1
   and R2, using the first available cycle on R2.  In the example of
   Figure 7 with CT = 1, (O1' - O2) =~ 1.8, A will be 0, resulting in
   map(1) to be 1, map(2) to be 2 and map(3) to be 3.

   The offset "C" for the calculation of A is included so that a
   negative (O1 - O2) will still lead to a positive A.

Eckert, et al.             Expires 10 May 2023                 [Page 14]
Internet-Draft                 detnet-tcqf                 November 2022

   In general, D will be variable [Dmin...Dmax], for example because of
   differences in serialization latency between min and max size
   packets, variable link latency because of temperature based length
   variations, link-layer variability (radio links) or in-router
   processing variability.  In addition, D also needs to account for the
   drift between the synchronized clocks for R1 and R2.  This is called
   the Maximum Time Interval Error (MTIE).

   Let A(d) be A where O1' is calculated with D = d.  To account for the
   variability of latency and clock synchronization, map(i) has to be
   calculated with A(Dmax), and the controller plane needs to ensure
   that that A(Dmin)...A(Dmax) does cover at most (C - 1) cycles.

   If it does cover C cycles, then C and/or CT are chosen too small, and
   the controller plane needs to use larger numbers for either.

   This (C - 1) limitation is based on the understanding that there is
   only one buffer for each cycle, so a cycle cannot receive packets
   when it is sending packets.  While this could be changed by using
   double buffers, this would create additional implementation
   complexity and not solve the limitation for all cases, because the
   number of cycles to cover [Dmin...Dmax] could also be (C + 1) or
   larger, in which case a tag of 1...C would not suffice.

5.3.  Link speed and bandwidth sharing

   TCQF hops along a path do not need to have the same bitrate, they
   just need to use the same cycle time.  The controller plane has to
   then be able to take the TCQF capacity of each hop into account when
   admitting flows based on their Traffic Specification and TCQF csize.

   TCQF does not require to be allocated 100% of the link bitrate.  When
   TCQF has to share a link with other traffic classes, queuing just has
   to be set up to ensure that all data of a TCQF cycle buffer can be
   sent within the TCQF cycle time.  For example by making the TCQF
   cycle queues the highest priority queues and then limiting their
   capacity through admission control to leave time for other queues to
   be served as well.

5.4.  Validation

   [LDN] describes an experimental validation of TCQF with high-speed
   forwarding hardware and provides further details on the mathematical
   models.

Eckert, et al.             Expires 10 May 2023                 [Page 15]
Internet-Draft                 detnet-tcqf                 November 2022

6.  Security Considerations

   TBD.

7.  IANA Considerations

   This document has no IANA considerations.

8.  Changelog

   [RFC-editor: please remove]

   Initial draft name: draft-eckert-detnet-mpls-tc-tcqf

   00

   Initial version

   01

   Added new co-author.

   Changed Data Model to "Configuration Data Model",

   and changed syntax from YANG tree to a non-YANG tree, removed empty
   section targeted for YANG model.  Reason: the configuration
   parameters that we need to specify the forwarding behavior is only a
   subset of what likely would be a good YANG model, and any work to
   define such a YANG model not necessary to specify the algorithm would
   be scope creep for this specification.  Better done in a separate
   YANG document.  Example additional YANG aspects for such a document
   are how to map parameters to configuration/operational space, what
   additional operational/monitoring parameter to support and how to map
   the YANG objects required into various pre-existing YANG trees.

   Improved text in forwarding section, simplified sentences, used
   simplified configuration data model.

   02

   Refresh

   03

   Added ingress processing, and further implementation considerations.

   New draft name: draft-eckert-detnet-tcqf

Eckert, et al.             Expires 10 May 2023                 [Page 16]
Internet-Draft                 detnet-tcqf                 November 2022

   00

   Added text for DSCP based tagging of IP/IPv6 packets, therefore
   changing the original, MPLS-only centric scope of the document,
   necessitating a change in name and title.

   This was triggered by the observation of David Black at the IETF114
   DetNet meeting that with DetNet domains being single administrative
   domains, it is not necessary to have standardized (cross
   administrative domain) DSCP for the tagging of IP/IP6 packets for
   TCQF.  Instead it is sufficient to use EXP/LU DSCP code space and
   assignment of these is a local matter of a domain as is that of TC
   values when MPLS is used.  Standardized DSCP in the other hand would
   have required likely work/oversight by TSVWG.

   In any case, the authors feel that with this insight, there is no
   need to constrain single-domain definition of TCQF to only MPLS, but
   instead both MPLS and IP/IPv6 tagging can be easily specified in this
   one draft.

   01

   Added new co-author.

9.  References

9.1.  Normative References

   [RFC2474]  Nichols, K., Blake, S., Baker, F., and D. Black,
              "Definition of the Differentiated Services Field (DS
              Field) in the IPv4 and IPv6 Headers", RFC 2474,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2474, December 1998,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2474>.

   [RFC3270]  Le Faucheur, F., Wu, L., Davie, B., Davari, S., Vaananen,
              P., Krishnan, R., Cheval, P., and J. Heinanen, "Multi-
              Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) Support of Differentiated
              Services", RFC 3270, DOI 10.17487/RFC3270, May 2002,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3270>.

   [RFC8655]  Finn, N., Thubert, P., Varga, B., and J. Farkas,
              "Deterministic Networking Architecture", RFC 8655,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8655, October 2019,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8655>.

Eckert, et al.             Expires 10 May 2023                 [Page 17]
Internet-Draft                 detnet-tcqf                 November 2022

   [RFC8964]  Varga, B., Ed., Farkas, J., Berger, L., Malis, A., Bryant,
              S., and J. Korhonen, "Deterministic Networking (DetNet)
              Data Plane: MPLS", RFC 8964, DOI 10.17487/RFC8964, January
              2021, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8964>.

9.2.  Informative References

   [I-D.dang-queuing-with-multiple-cyclic-buffers]
              Liu, B. and J. Dang, "A Queuing Mechanism with Multiple
              Cyclic Buffers", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-
              dang-queuing-with-multiple-cyclic-buffers-00, 22 February
              2021, <https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-dang-queuing-
              with-multiple-cyclic-buffers-00.txt>.

   [I-D.eckert-detnet-bounded-latency-problems]
              Eckert, T. T. and S. Bryant, "Problems with existing
              DetNet bounded latency queuing mechanisms", Work in
              Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-eckert-detnet-bounded-
              latency-problems-00, 12 July 2021,
              <https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-eckert-detnet-
              bounded-latency-problems-00.txt>.

   [I-D.ietf-bier-te-arch]
              Eckert, T. T., Menth, M., and G. Cauchie, "Tree
              Engineering for Bit Index Explicit Replication (BIER-TE)",
              Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-bier-te-arch-
              13, 25 April 2022, <https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-
              ietf-bier-te-arch-13.txt>.

   [I-D.ietf-detnet-bounded-latency]
              Finn, N., Le Boudec, J., Mohammadpour, E., Zhang, J., and
              B. Varga, "DetNet Bounded Latency", Work in Progress,
              Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-detnet-bounded-latency-10, 8
              April 2022, <https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-
              detnet-bounded-latency-10.txt>.

   [I-D.qiang-DetNet-large-scale-DetNet]
              Qiang, L., Geng, X., Liu, B., Eckert, T. T., Geng, L., and
              G. Li, "Large-Scale Deterministic IP Network", Work in
              Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-qiang-detnet-large-scale-
              detnet-05, 2 September 2019,
              <https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-qiang-detnet-large-
              scale-detnet-05.txt>.

Eckert, et al.             Expires 10 May 2023                 [Page 18]
Internet-Draft                 detnet-tcqf                 November 2022

   [IEEE802.1Qbv]
              IEEE Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) Task Group., "IEEE
              Standard for Local and metropolitan area networks --
              Bridges and Bridged Networks - Amendment 25: Enhancements
              for Scheduled Traffic", 2015.

   [IEEE802.1Qch]
              IEEE Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) Task Group., "IEEE
              Std 802.1Qch-2017: IEEE Standard for Local and
              Metropolitan Area Networks - Bridges and Bridged Networks
              - Amendment 29: Cyclic Queuing and Forwarding", 2017.

   [LDN]      Liu, B., Ren, S., Wang, C., Angilella, V., Medagliani, P.,
              Martin, S., and J. Leguay, "Towards Large-Scale
              Deterministic IP Networks", IEEE 2021 IFIP Networking
              Conference (IFIP Networking),
              doi 10.23919/IFIPNetworking52078.2021.9472798, 2021.

   [RFC3209]  Awduche, D., Berger, L., Gan, D., Li, T., Srinivasan, V.,
              and G. Swallow, "RSVP-TE: Extensions to RSVP for LSP
              Tunnels", RFC 3209, DOI 10.17487/RFC3209, December 2001,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3209>.

   [RFC4875]  Aggarwal, R., Ed., Papadimitriou, D., Ed., and S.
              Yasukawa, Ed., "Extensions to Resource Reservation
              Protocol - Traffic Engineering (RSVP-TE) for Point-to-
              Multipoint TE Label Switched Paths (LSPs)", RFC 4875,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC4875, May 2007,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4875>.

   [RFC8296]  Wijnands, IJ., Ed., Rosen, E., Ed., Dolganow, A.,
              Tantsura, J., Aldrin, S., and I. Meilik, "Encapsulation
              for Bit Index Explicit Replication (BIER) in MPLS and Non-
              MPLS Networks", RFC 8296, DOI 10.17487/RFC8296, January
              2018, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8296>.

   [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>.

   [RFC8986]  Filsfils, C., Ed., Camarillo, P., Ed., Leddy, J., Voyer,
              D., Matsushima, S., and Z. Li, "Segment Routing over IPv6
              (SRv6) Network Programming", RFC 8986,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8986, February 2021,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8986>.

Eckert, et al.             Expires 10 May 2023                 [Page 19]
Internet-Draft                 detnet-tcqf                 November 2022

   [RFC9016]  Varga, B., Farkas, J., Cummings, R., Jiang, Y., and D.
              Fedyk, "Flow and Service Information Model for
              Deterministic Networking (DetNet)", RFC 9016,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9016, March 2021,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9016>.

   [TSN-ATS]  Specht, J., "P802.1Qcr - Bridges and Bridged Networks
              Amendment: Asynchronous Traffic Shaping", IEEE , 9 July
              2020, <https://1.ieee802.org/tsn/802-1qcr/>.

Authors' Addresses

   Toerless Eckert
   Futurewei Technologies USA
   2220 Central Expressway
   Santa Clara,  CA 95050
   United States of America
   Email: tte@cs.fau.de

   Stewart Bryant
   University of Surrey ICS
   Email: s.bryant@surrey.ac.uk

   Andrew G. Malis
   Malis Consulting
   Email: agmalis@gmail.com

   Guangpeng Li
   Huawei Network Technology Laboratory
   Email: liguangpeng@huawei.com

Eckert, et al.             Expires 10 May 2023                 [Page 20]