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Service Chaining using Virtual Networks with BGP
draft-fm-bess-service-chaining-01

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This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Replaced".
Authors Rex Fernando , Stuart Mackie , Dhananjaya Rao , Bruno Rijsman , Maria Napierala
Last updated 2015-07-20 (Latest revision 2015-07-06)
Replaces draft-rfernando-bess-service-chaining, draft-mackie-sfc-using-virtual-networking
Replaced by draft-ietf-bess-service-chaining, draft-ietf-bess-service-chaining
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draft-fm-bess-service-chaining-01
INTERNET-DRAFT                                               R. Fernando
Intended Status: Informational                                     Cisco
Expires: January 6, 2016                                       S. Mackie
                                                                 Juniper
                                                                  D. Rao
                                                                   Cisco
                                                              B. Rijsman
                                                                 Juniper
                                                            M. Napierala
                                                                    AT&T
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                            July 5, 2015

            Service Chaining using Virtual Networks with BGP

                   draft-fm-bess-service-chaining-01

Abstract

   This document describes how service function chains (SFC) can be
   applied to traffic flows using routing in a virtual (overlay) network
   to steer traffic between service nodes. Chains can include services
   running in routers, on physical appliances or in virtual machines.
   Service chains have applicability at the subscriber edge, business
   edge and in multi-tenant datacenters. The routing function into SFCs
   and between service functions within an SFC can be performed by
   physical devices (routers), be virtualized inside hypervisors, or run
   as part of a host OS.

   A BGP control plane for route distribution is used to create virtual
   networks implemented using IP MPLS, VXLAN or other suitable
   encapsulation, where the routes within the virtual networks cause
   traffic to flow through a sequence of service nodes that apply packet
   processing functions to the flows. Two techniques are described: in
   one the service chain is implemented as a sequence of distinct VPNs
   between sets of service nodes that apply each service function; in
   the other, the routes within a VPN are modified through the use of
   special route targets and modified next-hop resolution to achieve the
   desired result.

   In both techniques, service chains can be created by manual
   configuration of routes and route targets in routing systems, or
   through the use of a controller which contains a topological model of
   the desired service chains.

   This document also contains discussion of load balancing between
 

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   network functions, symmetric forward and reverse paths when stateful
   services are involved, and use of classifiers to direct traffic into
   a service chain.

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

   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) 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
   (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 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
     1.1  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
   2  Service Function Chain Architecture Using Virtual Networking  .  8
     2.1 High Level Architecture  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
     2.2 Service Function Chain Logical Model . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
     2.3 Service Function Implemented in a Set of SF Instances  . . . 10
     2.4 SF Instance Connections to VRFs  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
       2.4.1 SF Instance in Physical Appliance  . . . . . . . . . . . 12
       2.4.2 SF Instance in a Virtualized Environment . . . . . . . . 12
     2.5 Encapsulation Tunneling for Transport  . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     2.6 SFC Creation Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
       2.6.1 SFC Provisioning Using Sequential VPNs . . . . . . . . . 14
       2.6.2 Modified-Route SFC Creation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
     2.7 Controller Function  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
     2.8 Variations on Setting Prefixes in an SFC . . . . . . . . . . 18
       2.8.1 Variation 1  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
       2.8.2 Variation 2  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
     2.9 Header Transforming Service Functions  . . . . . . . . . . . 19
   3 Load Balancing Along a Service Function Chain  . . . . . . . . . 20
     3.1 SF Instances Connected to Separate VRFs  . . . . . . . . . . 20
     3.2 SF Instances Connected to the Same VRF . . . . . . . . . . . 21
     3.3 Combination of Egress and Ingress VRF Load Balancing . . . . 21
     3.4 Forward and Reverse Flow Load Balancing  . . . . . . . . . . 23
       3.4.1 Issues with Equal Cost Multi-Path Routing  . . . . . . . 23
       3.4.2 Modified ECMP with Consistent Hash . . . . . . . . . . . 23
       3.4.3 ECMP with Flow Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
   4  Steering into SFCs Using a Classifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
   5  External Domain Co-ordination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
   6  Fine-grained steering using BGP Flow-Spec . . . . . . . . . . . 27
 

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   7  BGP-EVPN signaling  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
   8 Controller Federation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
   9  Summary and Conclusion  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
   10  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
   11  IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
   12  Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
   13  References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
     13.1 Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
     13.2  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

1 Introduction

   The purpose of networks is to allow computing systems to communicate
   with each other. Requests are usually made from the client or
   customer side of a network, and responses are generated by
   applications residing in a datacenter. Over time, the network between
   the client and the application has become more complex, and traffic
   between the client and the application is acted on by intermediate
   systems that apply network services. Some of these activities, like
   firewall filtering, subscriber attachment and network address
   translation are generally carried out in network devices along the
   traffic path, while others are carried out by dedicated appliances,
   such as media proxy and deep packet inspection (DPI). Deployment of
   these in-network services is complex, time-consuming and costly,
   since they require configuration of devices with vendor-specific
   operating systems, sometimes with co-processing cards, or deployment
   of physical devices in the network, which requires cabling and
   configuration of the devices that they connect to. Additionally,
   other devices in the network need to be configured to ensure that
   traffic is correctly steered through the systems that services are
   running on. The current mode of operations does not easily allow
   common operational processes to be applied to the lifecycle of
   services in the network, or for steering of traffic through them. The
   recent emergence of Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) [NFVE2E]
   to provide a standard deployment model for network services as
   software appliances, combined with Software Defined Networking (SDN)
   for more dynamic traffic steering can provide foundational elements
   that will allow network services to be deployed and managed far more
   efficiently and with more agility than is possible today. This
   document describes how the combination of several existing
   technologies can be used to create chains of functions, while
   preserving the requirements of scale, performance and reliability for
   service provider networks. The technologies employed are:

   o    Traffic flow between service functions described by routing and
 

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   network policies rather than by static physical or logical
   connectivity

   o    Packet header encapsulation in order to create virtual private
   networks using network overlays

   o    VRFs on both physical devices and in hypervisors to implement
   forwarding policies that are specific to each virtual network

   o    Optional use of a controller to calculate routes to be installed in
   routing systems to form a service chain. The controller uses a
   topological model that stores service function instance connectivity
   to network devices and intended connectivity between service
   functions.

   o    MPLS or other labeling to facilitate identification of the next
   interface to send packets to in a service function chain

   o    BGP or BGP-style signaling to distribute routes in order to create
   service function chains

   o    Distributed load balancing between service functions performed in
   the VRFs that service function instance connect to.

   Virtualized environments can be supported without necessarily running
   BGP or MPLS natively. Messaging protocols such as NC/YANG, XMPP or
   OpenFlow may be used to signal forwarding information. Encapsulation
   mechanisms such as VXLAN or GRE may be used for overlay transport.
   The term "BGP-style", above, refers to this type of signaling.

   Traffic can be directed into service function chains using IP routing
   at each end of the service function chain, or be directed into the
   chain by a classifier function that can determine which service chain
   a traffic flow should pass through based on deep packet inspection
   (DPI) and/or subscriber identity. 

   The techniques can support an evolution from services implemented in
   physical devices attached to physical forwarding systems (routers) to
   fully virtualized implementations as well as intermediate hybrid
   implementations.

 

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1.1  Terminology

   This document uses the following acronyms and terms.

   Terms             Meaning
   -----             --------------------------------------------------
   AS                Autonomous System
   ASBR              Autonomous System Border Router
   CE                Customer Edge
   FW                Firewall
   I2RS              Interface to the Routing System
   L3VPN             Layer 3 VPN
   LB                Load Balancer
   NLRI              Network Layer Reachability Information [RFC4271]
   P                 Provider backbone router
   proxy-arp         proxy-Address Resolution Protocol
   RR                Route Reflector
   RT                Route Target
   SDN               Software Defined Network
   vCE               virtual Customer Edge router
   vFW               virtual Firewall
   vLB               virtual Load Balancer
   VM                Virtual Machine
   vPC               virtual Private Cloud
   vPE               virtual Provider Edge router
   VPN               Virtual Private Network
   VRF               VPN Routing and Forwarding table [RFC4364]
   vRR               virtual Route Reflector

   This document follows some of the terminology used in [draft-ietf-
   sfc-architecture] and adds some new terminology:

   Network Service:
      An externally visible service offered by a network operator; a
      service may consist of a single service function or a composite
      built from several service functions executed in one or more pre-
      determined sequences and delivered by software executing in
      physical or virtual devices

   Classification:
      Customer/network/service policy used to identify and select
      traffic flow(s) requiring certain outbound forwarding actions, in
      particular, to direct specific traffic flows into the ingress of a
      particular service function chain, or causing branching within a
      service function chain.

   Virtual Network:
 

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      A logical overlay network built using virtual links or packet
      encapsulation, over an existing network (the underlay).

   Service Function Chain (SFC):
      A service function chain defines an ordered set of service
      functions that must be applied to packets and/or frames selected
      as a result of classification. An SFC may be either a linear chain
      or a complex service graph with multiple branches. The term
      "Service Chain" is often used in place of "Service Function
      Chain".

   SFC Set:

      The pair of SFCs through which the forward and reverse directions
      of a given classified flow will pass.

   Service Function (SF):
      A logical function that is applied to packets.  A service function
      can act at the network layer or other OSI layers.  A service
      function can be embedded in one or more physical network elements,
      or can be implemented in one or more software instances running on
      physical or virtual hosts. One or multiple service functions can
      be embedded in the same network element or run on the same host. 
      Multiple instances of a service function can be enabled in the
      same administrative domain. We will also refer to "Service
      Function" as, simply, "Service" for simplicity.

      A non-exhaustive list of services includes: firewalls, DDOS
      protection, anti-malware/ant-virus systems, WAN and application
      acceleration, Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), server load balancers,
      network address translation, HTTP Header Enrichment functions,
      video optimization, TCP optimization, etc.

   SF Instance:
      An instance of software that implements the packet processing of a
      service function

   SF Instance Set: 
      A group of SF instances that, in parallel, implement a service
      function in an SFC. Routing System: A hardware or software system
      that performs layer 3 routing and/or forwarding functions. The
      term includes physical routers as well as hypervisor or Host OS
      implementations of the forwarding plane of a conventional router. 

   VRF:
      A subsystem within a routing system as defined in [RFC4364] that
      contains private routing and forwarding tables and has physical
      and/or logical interfaces associated with it. In the case of
 

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      hypervisor/Host OS implementations, the term refers only to the
      forwarding function of a VRF, and this will be referred to as a
      "VPN forwarder."

   Ingress VRF: 
      A VRF containing an ingress interface of a SF instance

   Egress VRF: 
      A VRF containing an egress interface of a SF instance

2  Service Function Chain Architecture Using Virtual Networking

   The techniques described in this document use virtual networks to
   implement service function chains. Service function chains can be
   implemented on devices that support existing MPLS VPN and BGP
   standards [RFC4364, RFC4271, RFC4760], but other encapsulations, such
   as VXLAN [RFC7348], can be used. Similarly, equivalent control plane
   protocols such as BGP-EVPN can also be used where supported.

   The following sections detail the building blocks of the SFC
   architecture, and outline the processes of route installation and
   subsequent route exchange to create an SFC.

2.1 High Level Architecture

   Service function chains can be deployed with or without a classifier.
   Use cases where SFCs may be deployed without a classifier include
   multi-tenant data centers, private and public cloud and virtual CPE
   for business services. Classifiers will primarily be used in mobile
   and wireline subscriber edge use cases. Use of a classifier is
   discussed in Section 4.

   A high-level architecture diagram of an SFC without a classifier,
   where traffic is routed into and out of the SFC, is shown in Figure
   1, below. An optional controller is shown that contains a topological
   model of the SFC and which configures the network resources to
   implement the SFC.

 

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                                         +-------------------------+
                                         |--- Data plane connection|
                                         |=== Encapsulation tunnel |
                                         | O  VRF                  |
                                         +-------------------------+

    Control       +------------------------------------------------+
    Plane         |                   Controller                   |
    .......       +-+------------+----------+----------+---------+-+
                    |            |          |          |         |
    Service         |    +---+   |  +---+   |  +---+   |         |
    Plane           |    |SF1|   |  |SF2|   |  |SF3|   |         |
                    |    +---+   |  +---+   |  +---+   |         |
     .......        /      | |   /    | |   /    | |   /         /
             +-----+    +--|-|--+  +--|-|--+  +--|-|--+   +-----+
             |     |    |  | |  |  |  | |  |  |  | |  |   |     |
     Net-A-->---O==========O O========O O========O O=========O---->Net-B
             |     |    |       |  |       |  |       |   |     |
     Data    | R-A |    |  R-1  |  |  R-2  |  |  R-3  |   | R-B |
     Plane   +-----+    +-------+  +-------+  +-------+   +-----+

                ^          ^ ^                               ^
                |          | |                               |
                |    Ingress Egress                          |
                |      VRF    VRF                            |
             SFC Entry                                    SFC Exit
                VRF                                         VRF

   Figure 1     - High level SFC Architecture

   Traffic from Network-A destined for Network-B will pass through the
   SFC composed of SF instances, SF1, SF2 and SF3. Routing system R-A
   contains a VRF (shown as "O" symbol) that is the SFC entry point.
   This VRF will advertise a route to reach Network-B into Network-A
   causing any traffic from a source in Network-A with a destination in
   Network-B to arrive in this VRF. The forwarding table in the VRF in
   R-A will direct traffic destined for Network-B into an encapsulation
   tunnel with destination R-1 and a label that identifies the ingress
   (left) interface of SF1 that R-1 should send the packets out on. The
   packets are processed by service instance SF-1 and arrive in the
   egress (right) VRF in R-1. The forwarding entries in the egress VRF
   direct traffic to the next ingress VRF using encapsulation tunneling.
   The process is repeated for each service instance in the SFC until
   packets arrive at the SFC exit VRF (in R B). This VRF is peered with
   Network-B and routes packets towards their destinations in the user
   data plane.

   In the example, each pair of ingress and egress VRFs are configured 
 

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   in separate routing systems, but such pairs could be collocated in
   the same routing system, and it is possible for the ingress and
   egress VRFs for a given SF instance to be in different routing
   systems. The SFC entry and exit VRFs can be collocated in the same
   routing system, and the service instances can be local or remote from
   either or both of the routing systems containing the entry and exit
   VRFs, and from each other.

   The controller is responsible for configuring the VRFs in each
   routing system, installing the routes in each of the VRFs to
   implement the SFC, and, in the case of virtualized services, may
   instantiate the service instances.

2.2 Service Function Chain Logical Model

   A service function chain is a set of logically connected service
   functions through which traffic can flow. Each egress interface of
   one service function is logically connected to an ingress interface
   of the next service function.

                      +------+   +------+   +------+
          Network-A-->| SF-1 |-->| SF-2 |-->| SF-3 |-->Network-B 
                      +------+   +------+   +------+

   Figure 2     - A Chain of Service Functions

   In Figure 2, above, a service function chain has been created that
   connects Network-A to Network-B, such that traffic from a host in
   Network-A to a host in Network-B will traverse the service function
   chain.

   As defined in [draft-ietf-sfc-architecture], a service function chain
   can be uni-directional or bi-directional. In this document, in order
   to allow for the possibility that the forward and reverse paths may
   not be symmetrical, SFCs are defined as uni-directional, and the term
   "SFC set" is used to refer to a pair of forward and reverse direction
   SFCs for some set of routed or classified traffic.

2.3 Service Function Implemented in a Set of SF Instances

   A service function instance is a software system that acts on packets
   that arrive on an ingress interface of that software system. Service
   function instances may run on a physical appliance or in a virtual
   machine. A service function instance may be transparent at layer 2
   and/or 3, and may support branching across multiple egress interfaces
   and may support aggregation across ingress interfaces. For
   simplicity, the examples in this document have a single ingress and a
   single egress interface.
 

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   Each service function in a chain can be implemented by a single
   service function instance, or by a set of instances in order to
   provide scale and resilience. 

   +------------------------------------------------------------------+
   | Logical Service Functions Connected in a Chain                   |
   |                                                                  |
   |                +--------+            +--------+                  |
   |       Net-A--->|  SF-1  |----------->|  SF-2  |--->Net-B         |
   |                +--------+            +--------+                  |
   |                                                                  |
   +------------------------------------------------------------------+
   | Service Function Instances Connected by Virtual Networks         |
   |       ......                ......                               |
   |      :      :   +------+   :      :                              |
   |      :      :-->|SFI-11|-->:      :               ......         |
   |      :      :   +------+   :      :   +------+   :      :        |
   |      :      :              :      :-->|SFI-21|-->:      :        |
   |      :      :   +------+   :      :   +------+   :      :        |
   |   A->: VN-1 :-->|SFI-12|-->: VN-2 :              : VN-3 :-->B    |
   |      :      :   +------+   :      :   +------+   :      :        |
   |      :      :              :      :-->|SFI-22|-->:      :        |
   |      :      :   +------+   :      :   +------+   :      :        |
   |      :      :-->|SFI-13|-->:      :               ''''''         |
   |      :      :   +------+   :      :                              |
   |       ''''''                ''''''                               |
   +------------------------------------------------------------------+

   Figure 3     - Service Functions Are Composed of SF Instances
                Connected Via Virtual Networks

   In Figure 3, service function SF-1 is implemented in three service
   function instances, SFI-11, SFI-12, and SFI-13. Service function SF-2
   is implemented in two SF instances. The service function instances
   are connected to the next service function in the chain using a
   virtual network, VN-2. Additionally, a virtual network (VN-1) is used
   to enter the SFC and another (VN-3) is used at the exit.

   The logical connection between two service functions is implemented
   using a virtual network that contains egress interfaces for instances
   of one service function, and ingress interfaces of instances of the
   next service function. Traffic is directed across the virtual network
   between the two sets of service function instances using layer 3
   forwarding (e.g. an MPLS VPN) or layer 2 forwarding (e.g. a VXLAN).

   The virtual networks could be described as "directed half-mesh", in
 

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   that the egress interface of each SF instance of one service function
   can reach any ingress interface of the SF instances of the connected
   service function.

   Details on how routing across virtual networks is achieved, and
   requirements on load balancing across ingress interfaces are
   discussed in later sections of this document.

2.4 SF Instance Connections to VRFs

   SF instances can be deployed as software running on physical
   appliances, or in virtual machines running on a hypervisor. These two
   options are described in more detail in the following sections.

2.4.1 SF Instance in Physical Appliance

   The case of a SF instance running on a physical appliance is shown in
   Figure 4, below.

              +---------------------------------+
              |                                 |
              | +-----------------------------+ |
              | | Service Function Instance   | |
              | +-------^-------------|-------+ |
              |         |   Host      |         |
              +---------|-------------|---------+
                        |             | 
                +------ |-------------|-------+
                |       |             |       |
                |  +----|----+  +-----v----+  |
          ---------+ Ingress |  | Egress   +---------
          --------->   VRF   |  |   VRF    ---------->
          ---------+         |  |          +---------
                |  +---------+  +----------+  |
                |        Routing System       |
                +-----------------------------+

   Figure 4     - Ingress and Egress VRFs for a Physical Routing System
                and Physical SF Instance

   The routing system is a physical device and the service function
   instance is implemented as software running in a physical appliance
   (host) connected to it. Transport between VRFs on different routing
   systems that are connected to other SF instances in an SFC is via
   encapsulation tunnels, such as MPLS over GRE, or VXLAN.

2.4.2 SF Instance in a Virtualized Environment

 

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   In virtualized environments, a routing system with VRFs that act as
   VPN forwarders is resident in the hypervisor/Host OS, and is co-
   resident in the host with one or more SF instances that run in
   virtual machines. The egress VPN forwarder performs tunnel
   encapsulation to send packets to other physical or virtual routing
   systems with attached SF instances to form an SFC. The tunneled
   packets are sent through the physical interfaces of the host to the
   other hosts or physical routers. This is illustrated in Figure 5,
   below.

             +-------------------------------------+
             |   +-----------------------------+   | 
             |   | Service Function Instance   |   | 
             |   +-------^-------------|-------+   | 
             |           |             |           | 
             | +---------|-------------|---------+ | 
             | | +-------|-------------|-------+ | | 
             | | |       |             |       | | | 
             | | |  +----|----+  +-----v----+  | | | 
        ------------+ Ingress |  |  Egress  +----------- 
        ------------>   VRF   |  |   VRF    ------------> 
        ------------+         |  |          +----------- 
             | | |  +---------+  +----------+  | | | 
             | | |       Routing System        | | | 
             | | +-----------------------------+ | | 
             | |      Hypervisor or Host OS      | | 
             | +---------------------------------+ | 
             |                Host                 | 
             +-------------------------------------+

   Figure 5     - Ingress and Egress VRFs for a Virtual Routing 
                System and Virtualized SF Instance

   When more than one instance of an SF is running on a hypervisor, they
   can be connected to the same VRF for scale out of an SF within an
   SFC.

   The routing mechanisms in the VRFs into and between service function
   instances, and the encapsulation tunneling between routing systems
   are identical in the physical and virtual implementation of SFCs
   described in this document. Physical and virtual service functions
   can be mixed as needed with different combinations of physical and
   virtual routing systems.

2.5 Encapsulation Tunneling for Transport

   Encapsulation tunneling is used to transport packets between SF
 

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   instances in the chain and, when a classifier is not used, from the
   originating network into the SFC and from the SFC into the
   destination network.

   The tunnels can be MPLS over GRE [RFC4023], MPLS over UDP [draft-
   ietf-mpls-in-udp], MPLS over MPLS [RFC3031], VXLAN [RFC7348], or
   another suitable encapsulation method. 

   Tunneling may be enabled in each routing system as part of a base
   configuration or may be configured by the controller. Tunnel
   encapsulations may be configured by the controller or signaled using
   BGP.

2.6 SFC Creation Procedure

   This section describes how service chains are created using two
   methods:

   o    Sequential VPNs - where a conventional VPN is created between each
   set of SF instances to create the links in the SFC

   o    Route Modification - where each routing system modifies advertised
   routes that it receives, to realize the links in an SFC on the basis
   of a special service topology RT and a route-policy that describes
   the service chain logical topology

   In both cases the controller, when present, is responsible for
   creating ingress and egress VRFs, configuring the interfaces
   connected to SF instances in each VRF and configuring RTs for each
   VRF. Additionally, in the second method, the controller also sends
   the route-policy containing the service chain logical topology to
   each routing system. If a controller is not used, these procedures
   will require to be performed manually or through scripting, for
   instance.

   The following sub-sections describe how RT configuration, local route
   installation and route distribution occurs in each of the methods. 

2.6.1 SFC Provisioning Using Sequential VPNs

   The task of the controller in this method of SFC provisioning is to
   create a set of VPNs that carry traffic to the destination network
   through instances of each service function in turn. This is achieved
   by configuring RTs such that the egress VRFs of one set of SF
   instances import an RT that is an export RT for the ingress VRFs of
   the next, logically connected, set of SF instances.

   The process of SFC creation is as follows
 

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      1.        Controller creates a VRF in each routing system that is
      connected to a service instance that will be used in the SFC

      2.        Controller configures each VRF to contain the logical interface
      that connects to a SF instance.

      3.        Controller implements route target import and export policies
      in the VRFs using the same route targets for the egress VRFs of a
      service function and the ingress VRFs of the next logically
      connected service function in the SFC. 

      4.        Controller installs a static route in each ingress VRF whose
      next hop is the interface that a SF instance is connected to. The
      prefix for the route is the destination network to be reached by
      passing through the SFC.

      5.        Routing systems advertise the static routes via BGP as VPN
      routes with next hop being the IP address of the router, with an
      encapsulation specified and a label that identifies the service
      instance interface.

      6.        Routing systems containing VRFs with matching route targets
      receive the updates.

      7.        Routes are installed in egress VRFs with matching import
      targets. The egress VRFs of each SF instance will now contain VPN
      routes to one or more routers containing ingress VRFs for SF
      instances of the next service function in the SFC.

   In the case of physical routers, the creation and configuration of
   VRFs, interfaces and local static routes can be performed
   programmatically using Netconf; and BGP route distribution can use a
   route reflector (which may be part of the controller). In the
   virtualized case, where a VPN forwarder is present, creation and
   configuration of VRFs, interfaces and installation of routes can be
   performed using a single protocol like XMPP, NC/YANG or an equivalent
   programmatic interface.

   Also in the virtualized case, routes in the ingress and egress VRFs
   can be calculated by the controller based on its internal knowledge
   of the required SFC topology and the connectivity of SF instances to
   routing systems. In this case the routes are directly installed and
   no route advertisement is necessary.

   As discussed further in Section 3, egress VRFs can load balance
   across the multiple next hops advertised from the next set of ingress
   VRFs.
 

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   Routes to the destination network via the first set of SF instances
   are advertised to the gateway router for the source network, and the
   egress VRFs of the last SF instance set have routes via the
   destination network gateway router.

2.6.2 Modified-Route SFC Creation

   In this method of SFC configuration, all the VRFs connected to SF
   instances are configured with same import and export RT, so they form
   a VPN-connected mesh between the SF instance interfaces. This is
   termed the "Service VPN". A route is configured or learnt in each VRF
   with destination being the IP address of the connected SF instance
   via an interface configured in the VRF. The interface may be a
   physical or logical interface. The routing system that hosts such a
   VRF advertises a VPN route for each locally connected SF instance,
   with a forwarding label that enables it to forward incoming traffic
   from other routing systems to the connected SF instance. The VPN
   routes may be advertised via an RR or the controller, which then
   sends these updates to all the other routing systems that have VRFs
   with the service VPN RT. At this point all the VRFs have a route to
   reach every SF instance. The same IP address is used for each SF
   instance in a set, enabling load-balancing among multiple SF
   instances in the set.

   The controller sends a route-policy to each routing system in the
   VPN, that describes the logical topology of each service chain that
   it belongs to. The route-policy contains entries in the form of a
   tuple for each service chain:

         {Service-topology-name, Service-topology-RT, Service-node-
   sequence} where Service-node-sequence is simply an ordered list of
   the service function instance IP addresses that are in the chain.

   Every service function chain has a single unique service-topology-RT
   that is provisioned on all participating routing systems in the
   relevant VRFs.

   The VRF in the routing system that connects to the destination
   network is configured to attach the Service-topology-RT to exported
   routes, and the VRF in the gateway router of the source network will
   import routes using Service-topology-RT. A controller may also be
   used to originate the Service-topology-RT attached routes.

   Route-policies may be described in a variety of formats in addition
   to that described above. For instance, it would be possible to use
   YANG as a modeling language.

   Using Figure 1 for reference, when the gateway R-B advertises a VPN
 

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   route to Network-B, it attaches the Service-topology-RT. BGP route
   updates are sent to all the routing systems in the service VPN. The
   routing systems perform a modified set of actions for next-hop
   resolution and route installation in the ingress VRFs compared to
   normal BGP VPN behavior in routing systems, but no changes are
   required in the operation of the BGP protocol itself. The
   modification of behavior in the routing systems allows the automatic
   and constrained flow of traffic through the service chain.

   Each routing system in the service VPN will process the VPN route to
   Network-B via R-B as follows:

      1.        If the routing system contains VRFs that import the Service-
      topology-RT, continue, otherwise ignore the route.

      2.        The routing system identifies the position and role
      (ingress/egress) of each of its VRFs in the SFC by comparing the
      IP address of the route in the VRF to the connected SF instance
      with those in the Service-node-sequence in the route-policy.
      Alternatively, the controller may provision the specific service
      node IP to be used as the next-hop in each VRF, in the route-
      policy.

      3.        The routing system modifies the next-hop of the imported route
      with the Service-topology-RT, to select the appropriate next-hop
      as per the route-policy. It ignores the next-hop and label in the
      received route. It resolves the selected next-hop in the VRF
      routing table.

         a. The imported route to Network-B in the ingress VRF is
         modified to have a next-hop of the IP address of the logically
         connected SF instance.

         b. The imported route to Network-B in the egress VRF is
         modified to have a next hop of the IP address of the next SF
         instance in the SFC.

      4. The egress VRFs for the last service function install the VPN
      route via the gateway R-B unmodified.

   Note that the modified routes are not re-advertised into the VPN by
   the various routing systems in the SFC.

   Similar to the sequential VPN method, VRF configuration and creation,
   and routing-policy installation can be performed manually or via
   scripting, or a controller could be used to automate the process.

 

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2.7 Controller Function 

   The purpose of the controller is to manage instantiation of SFCs in
   networks and datacenters. When an SFC is to be instantiated, a model
   of the desired topology (service functions, number of instances,
   connectivity) is built in the controller either via an API or GUI.
   The controller then selects resources in the infrastructure that will
   support the SFC and configures them. This can involve instantiation
   of SF instances to implement each service function, the instantiation
   of VRFs that will form virtual networks between SF instances, and
   installation of routes to cause traffic to flow into and between SF
   instances.

   For simplicity, in this document, the controller is assumed to
   contain all the required features for management of SFCs. In actual
   implementations, these features may be distributed among multiple
   inter-connected systems. E.g. An overarching orchestrator might
   manage the overall SFC model, sending instructions to a separate
   virtual machine manager to instantiate service function instances,
   and to a virtual network manager to set up the service chain
   connections between them.

   The controller can also perform necessary BGP signaling and route
   distribution actions as described throughout this document.

2.8 Variations on Setting Prefixes in an SFC

2.8.1 Variation 1

   In the configuration methods described above, the network prefixes
   for each network (Network-A and Network-B in the example above)
   connected to the SFC are used in the routes that direct traffic
   through the SFC. This creates an operational linkage between the
   implementation of the SFC and the insertion of the SFC into a
   network.

   For instance, subscriber network prefixes will normally be segmented
   across subscriber attachment points such as broadband or mobile
   gateways. This means that each SFC would have to be configured with
   the subscriber network prefixes whose traffic it is handling. 

   In a variation of the SFC configuration method described above, the
   prefixes used in each direction can be such that they include all
   possible addresses at each side of the SFC. For example, in Figure 1,
   the prefix for Network-A could include all subscriber IP addresses
   and the prefix for Network-B could be the default route, 0/0.

 

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   Using this technique, the same routes can be installed in all
   instances of an SFC that serve different groups of subscribers in
   different geographic locations. 

   The routes forwarding traffic into a SF instance and to the next SF
   instance are installed when an SFC is initially built, and each time
   a SF instance is connected into the SFC, but there is no requirement
   for VRFs to be reconfigured when traffic from different networks pass
   through the service chain, so long as their prefix is included in the
   prefixes in the VRFs along the SFC.

   In this variation, it is assumed that no subscriber-originated
   traffic will enter the SFC destined for an IP address also in the
   subscriber network address range. This will not be a restriction in
   many cases.

2.8.2 Variation 2

   As another slight variation of the above, a network prefix may be
   disaggregated and spread out among various gateway routers, for
   instance, in the case of virtual machines in a data-center. In order
   to reduce the scaling requirements on the routing systems along the
   SFC, the aggregate network prefix may be advertised with the Service-
   topology-RT and used in the traffic forwarding along the SFC.

   Where there is a gateway router for the destination network that can
   aggregate the prefixes, none of the routing systems along the SFC
   need to receive the more-specific routes. If there is not, the
   service chain can be divided into two parts such that only the egress
   VRFs of the last SF instance import the more specific routes; and the
   rest of the VRFs only import the aggregate prefix. For instance, this
   may be done by using two different Service-topology-RTs for more-
   specific and aggregate routes.

   In the simplest case, a default route is used to direct forwarding
   along the SFC upto the last SF instance, while the source network's
   gateway routers and the egress VRF of the last SF instance use the
   destination network's prefixes.

2.9 Header Transforming Service Functions

   If a service function performs an action that changes the source
   address in the packet header (e.g., NAT), the routes that were
   installed as described above may not support reverse flow traffic.
   The solution to this is for the controller modify the routes in the
   reverse direction to direct traffic into instances of the
   transforming service function. The original routes with a source
   prefix (Network-A in Figure 2) are replaced with a route that has a
 

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   prefix that includes all the possible addresses that the source
   address could be mapped to. In the case of network address
   translation, this would correspond to the NAT pool. 

3 Load Balancing Along a Service Function Chain

   One of the key concepts driving NFV [NFVE2E]is the idea that each
   service function along an SFC can be separately scaled by changing
   the number of service function instances that implement it. This
   requires that load balancing be performed before entry into each
   service function. In this architecture, load balancing is performed
   in either or both of egress and ingress VRFs depending on the type of
   load balancing being performed, and if more than one service instance
   is connected to the same ingress VRF.

3.1 SF Instances Connected to Separate VRFs

   If SF instances implementing a service in an SFC are each connected
   to separate VRFs(e.g. instances are connected to different routers or
   are running on different hosts), load balancing is performed in the
   egress VRFs of the previous service, or in the VRF that is the entry
   to the SFC. The controller distributes  BGP multi-path routes to the
   egress VRFs. The destination prefix of each route is the ultimate
   destination network, or its representative aggregate or default. The
   next-hops in the ECMP set are BGP next-hops of the service instances
   attached to ingress VRFs of the next service in the SFC. The load
   balancing corresponds to BGP Multipath, which requires that the route
   distinguishers for each route are distinct in order to recognize that
   distinct paths should be used. Hence, each VRF in a distributed, SFC
   environment should have a unique route distinguisher.

                      +------+             +-------------------------+
                 O----|SFI-11|---O         |--- Data plane connection|
                //    +------+   \\        |=== Encapsulation tunnel |
               //                 \\       | O  VRF                  |
              //                   \\      | *  Load balancer        |
             //                     \\     +-------------------------+
            //        +------+       \\
   Net-A-->O*====O----|SFI-12|---O====O-->Net-B
            \\        +------+       //
             \\                     //
              \\                   //
               \\                 //
                \\    +------+   //
                 O----|SFI-13|---O
                      +------+
 

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   Figure 6       - Load Balancing across SF Instances Connected 
                to Different VRFs

   In the diagram, above, a service function is implemented in three
   service instances each connected to separate VRFs. Traffic from
   Network-A arrives at VRF at the start of the SFC, and is load
   balanced across the service instances using a set of ECMP routes with
   next hops being the addresses of the routing systems containing the
   ingress VRFs and with labels that identify the ingress interfaces of
   the service instances. 

3.2 SF Instances Connected to the Same VRF

   When SF instances implementing a service in an SFC are connected to
   the same ingress VRF, load balancing is performed in the ingress VRF
   across the service instances connected to it. The controller will
   install routes in the ingress VRF to the destination network with the
   interfaces connected to each service instance as next hops. The
   ingress VRF will then use ECMP to load balance across the service
   instances.

                      +------+            +-------------------------+
                      |SFI-11|            |--- Data plane connection|
                      +------+            |=== Encapsulation tunnel |
                     /        \           | O  VRF                  |
                    /          \          | *  Load balancer        |
                   /            \         +-------------------------+
                  /   +------+   \
   Net-A-->O====O*----|SFI-12|----O====O-->Net-B
                  \   +------+   /
                   \            /
                    \          / 
                     \        /  
                      +------+   
                      |SFI-13|
                      +------+   

   Figure 7       - Load Balancing across SF Instances Connected to
                the Same VRF

   In the diagram, above, a service is implemented by three service
   instances that are connected to the same ingress and egress VRFs. The
   ingress VRF load balances across the ingress interfaces using ECMP,
   and the egress traffic is aggregated in the egress VRF.

3.3 Combination of Egress and Ingress VRF Load Balancing
 

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   In Figure 8, below, an example SFC is shown where load balancing is
   performed in both ingress and egress VRFs. 

                                        +-------------------------+
                                        |--- Data plane connection|
                       +------+         |=== Encapsulation tunnel |
                       |SFI-11|         | O  VRF                  |
                       +------+         | *  Load balancer        |
                      /        \        +-------------------------+
                     /          \
                    /  +------+  \          +------+
                  O*---|SFI-12|---O*====O---|SFI-21|---O
                 //    +------+    \\  //   +------+   \\
                //                  \\//                \\
               //                    \\                  \\
              //                    //\\                  \\
             //        +------+    //  \\   +------+       \\
    Net-A-->O*====O----|SFI-13|---O*====O---|SFI-22|---O====O-->Net-B
                       +------+             +------+           
           ^      ^               ^     ^              ^    ^
           |      |               |     |              |    |
           |    Ingress         Egress  |              |    |
           |                          Ingress        Egress |
        SFC Entry                                        SFC Exit

   Figure 8       - Load Balancing across SF Instances

   In Figure 8, above, an SFC is composed of two services implemented by
   three service instances and two service instances, respectively. The
   service instances SFI-11 and SFI-12 are connected to the same ingress
   and egress VRFs, and all the other service instances are connected to
   separate VRFs. 

   Traffic entering the SFC from Network-A is load balanced across the
   ingress VRFs of the first service function by the chain entry VRF,
   and then load balanced again across the ingress interfaces of SFI-11
   and SFI-12 by the shared ingress VRF. Note that use of standard ECMP
   will lead to an uneven distribution of traffic between the three
   service instances (25% to SFI-11, 25% to SFI-12, and 50% to SFI-13).
   This issue can be mitigated through the use of BGP link bandwidth
   extended community [draft-ietf-idr-link-bandwidth].

   After traffic passes through the first set of service instances, it
   is load balanced in each of the egress VRFs of the first set of
   service instances across the ingress VRFs of the next set of service
 

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   instances.

3.4 Forward and Reverse Flow Load Balancing

   This section discusses requirements in load balancing for forward and
   reverse paths when stateful service functions are deployed.

3.4.1 Issues with Equal Cost Multi-Path Routing

   As discussed in the previous sections, load balancing in the forward
   SFC in the above example can automatically occur with standard BGP,
   if multiple equal cost routes to Network-B are installed into all the
   ingress VRFs, and each route directs traffic through a different
   service function instance in the next set. The multiple BGP routes in
   the routing table will translate to Equal Cost Multi-Path in the
   forwarding table. The hash used in the load balancing algorithm (per
   packet, per flow or per prefix) is implementation specific. 

   If a service function is stateful, it is required that forward flows
   and reverse flows always pass through the same service function
   instance. ECMP does not provide this capability, since the hash
   calculation will see different input data for the same flow in the
   forward and reverse directions (since the source and destination
   fields are reversed).

   Additionally, if the number of SF instances changes, either
   increasing to expand capacity, or decreases (planned, or due to a SF
   instance failure), the hash table in ECMP is recalculated, and most
   flows will be directed to a different SF instance and user sessions
   will be disrupted.

   There are a number of ways to satisfy the requirements of symmetric
   forward/reverse paths for flows and minimal disruption when SF
   instances are added to or removed from a set. Two techniques that can
   be employed are described in the following sections.

3.4.2 Modified ECMP with Consistent Hash

   Symmetric forwarding into each side of an SF instance set can be
   achieved with a small modification to ECMP if the packet headers are
   preserved after passing through a SF instance set. In this case, each
   packet's 5-tuple data can be used in a hashing function, provided the
   source and destination IP address and port information are swapped in
   the reverse calculation and that the same or no hash salt is used for
   both directions. This method only requires that the list of available
   service function instances is consistently maintained in all the load
   balancers, rather than maintaining a distributed flow table. 

 

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   In the SFC architecture described in this document, when SF instances
   are added or removed, the controller is required to configure (or
   remove) static routes to the SF instances. The controller could
   configure the load balancing function in VRFs that connect to each
   added (or removed) SF instance as part of the same network
   transaction as route updates to ensure that the load balancer
   configuration is synchronized with the set of SF instances.

   The effect of rehashing when SF instances are added or removed can be
   minimized, or even eliminated using variations of the technique of
   consistent hashing [consistent-hash]. Details are outside the scope
   of this document.

3.4.3 ECMP with Flow Table

   A second refinement that can ensure forward/reverse flow consistency,
   and also provides stability when the number of SF instances changes
   ("flow-stickiness"), is the use of dynamically configured IP flow
   tables in the VRFs. In this technique, flow tables are used to ensure
   that existing flows are unaffected if the number of ECMP routes
   changes, and that forward and reverse traffic passes through the same
   SF instance in each set of SF instances implementing a service
   function.

   The flow tables are set up as follows:
      1.        User traffic with a new 5-tuple enters an egress VRF from a
      connected SF instance.

      2.        The VRF calculates the ECMP hash across available routes (i.e.,
      ECMP group) to the ingress interfaces of the SF instances in the
      next SF instance set.

      3.        The VRF creates a new flow entry for the 5-tuple traffic with
      the next-hop being the chosen downstream ECMP group member
      (determined in the step 2. above) . All subsequent packets for the
      same flow will be forwarded using flow lookup and, hence, will use
      the same next-hop. 

      4.        The encapsulated packet arrives in the routing system that
      hosts the ingress VRF for the selected SF instance. 

      5.        The ingress VRF of the next service instance determines if the
      packet came from a routing system that is in an ECMP group in the
      reverse direction(i.e., from this ingress VRF back to the previous
      set of SF instances). 

      6.        If an ECMP group is found, the ingress VRF creates a reverse
      flow entry for the 5-tuple with next-hop of the tunnel on which
 

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      traffic arrived. 

      7.        The packet is sent into the SF instance connected to the
      ingress VRF.

   The above method ensures that forward and reverse flows pass through
   the same SF instances, and that if the number of ECMP routes changes
   when SF instances are added or removed, all existing flows will
   continue to flow through the same SF instances, but new flows will
   use the new ECMP hash. The only flows affected will be those that
   were passing through an SF instance that was removed, and those will
   be spread among the remaining SF instances using the updated ECMP
   hash.

4  Steering into SFCs Using a Classifier

   In many applications of SFCs, a classifier will be used to direct
   traffic into SFCs. The classifier inspects the first or first few
   packets in a flow to determine which SFC the flow should be sent
   into. The decision criteria can include the IP 5-tuple of the header,
   and/or analysis of the payload of packets using deep packet
   inspection. Integration with a subscriber management system such as
   PCRF or AAA will usually be required in order to identify which SFC
   to send traffic to based on subscriber policy.

   An example logical architecture is shown in Figure 9, below where a
   classifier is external to a physical router.

                   +----------+
                   | PCRF/AAA |
                   +-----+----+
                         :
                         :
   Subscriber      +-----+------+
      Traffic----->| Classifier |
                   +------------+
                       |   |
               +-------|---|------------------------+
               |       |   |             Router     |
               |       |   |                        |
               |       O   O                  X--------->Internet
               |       |   |                 / \    |
               |       |   |                O   O   |
               +-------|---|----------------|---|---+
                       |   |  +---+   +---+ |   |
                       |   +--+ U +---+ V +-+   |
                       |      +---+   +---+     |
 

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                       |                        |
                       |  +---+   +---+   +---+ |
                       +--+ X +---+ Y +---+ Z +-+
                          +---+   +---+   +---+ 

   Figure 9 - Subscriber/Application-Aware Steering with a Classifier

   In the diagram, the classifier receives subscriber traffic and sends
   the traffic out of one of two logical interfaces, depending on
   classification criteria. The logical interfaces of the classifier are
   connected to VRFs in a router that are entries to two SFCs (shown as
   O in the diagram).

   In this scenario, the exit VRF for each SFC does not peer with a
   gateway or proxy node in the destination network and packets are
   forwarded using IP lookup in the main routing table or in a VRF that
   the exit traffic from the SFCs is directed into (shown as X in the
   diagram).

   An alternative would be where the classifier is itself a distributed,
   virtualized service function, but with multiple egress interfaces. In
   that case, each virtual classifier instance could be attached to a
   set of VRFs that connect to different SFCs. Each chain entry VRF
   would load balance across the first SF instance set in its SFC. The
   reverse flow table mechanism described in Section 3.4.3 could be
   employed to ensure that flows return to the originating classifier
   instance which may maintain subscriber context and perform charging
   and accounting.

5  External Domain Co-ordination

   It is likely that SFCs will be managed as a separate administrative
   domain from the networks that they receive traffic from, and send
   traffic to. If the connected networks use BGP for route distribution,
   the controller in the SFC domain can join the network domains by
   creating BGP peering sessions with routing systems or route
   reflectors in those network domains.

   In order to steer traffic from the network domains into an SFC, the
   controller will advertise a destination network's prefixes into the
   peering network domain with a BGP next-hop and label associated with
   the SFC entry point, that may be on a routing system attached to the
   first SF instance. This advertisement may be over regular MP-BGP/VPN
   peering which assumes existing standard VPN routing/forwarding
   behavior on the network domain's routers (PEs/ASBRs).

 

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   An operational benefit of this approach is also that the SFC topology
   within a domain need not be exposed to other domains.

6  Fine-grained steering using BGP Flow-Spec

   When steering traffic from a network domain's existing routing
   systems into an SFC is desired based on attributes of the packet
   flow, [FLOWSPEC] is a signaling option that can be used. In this
   case, the controller advertises a flow-spec route to the network
   domain's routing systems or route reflectors with the appropriate
   next-hop or Service-topology-RT for the SFC entry point.

7  BGP-EVPN signaling

   In a DC environment, routing systems are likely to use VXLAN based
   overlays and a BGP EVPN control plane (DC-OVERLAY). For the solution
   designs described earlier in the document, the BGP VPN routes for
   both the SF instances and the destination networks are advertised via
   BGP-EVPN, using type-2 and type-5 route types.

8 Controller Federation

   When SFCs are distributed geographically, or in very large-scale
   environments, there may be multiple SFC controllers present. If there
   is a requirement for SFCs to span controller domains there may be a
   requirement to exchange information between controllers. Again, a BGP
   session between controllers can be used to exchange route information
   as described in the previous sections and allow such domain spanning
   SFCs to be created.

9  Summary and Conclusion

   The architecture for service function chains described in this
   document uses virtual networks implemented as overlays in order to
   create service function chains. The virtual networks use standards-
   based encapsulation tunneling, such as MPLS over GRE/UDP or VXLAN, to
   transport packets into an SFC and between service function instances
   without routing in the user address space. Two methods of installing
   routes to form service chains are described.

   In environments with physical routers, a controller may operate in
   tandem with existing BGP route reflectors, and would contain the SFC
   topology model, and the ability to install the local static interface
   routes to SF instances. In a virtualized environment, the controller
   can emulate route refection internally and simply install required
   routes directly without advertisements occurring.

10  Security Considerations
 

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   The security considerations for SFCs are broadly similar to those
   concerning the data, control and management planes of any device
   placed in a network. Details are out of scope for this document.

11  IANA Considerations

   There are no IANA considerations.

 

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12  Acknowledgements

   This document was prepared using 2-Word-v2.0.template.dot.

   This document is a merged specification based on earlier drafts
   [draft-rfernando-bess-service-chaining] and [draft-mackie-sfc-using-
   virtual-networking].

   The authors would like to thank D. Daino, D.R. Lopez, D. Bernier, W.
   Haeffner, A. Farrel, L. Fang, and N. So, for their contributions to
   the earlier drafts. The authors would also like to thank the
   following individuals for their review and feedback on the original
   proposals: E. Rosen, J. Guchard, P. Quinn, P. Bosch, D. Ward, A.
   Ganesan, T. Morin, N. Seth, G. Pildush and N. Bitar.

13  References

13.1 Normative References

        None

13.2  Informative References

   [NFVE2E]  "Network Functions Virtualisation: End to End Architecture,
              http://docbox.etsi.org/ISG/NFV/70-DRAFT/0010/NFV-
              0010v016.zip".

   [RFC2328]  J. Moy, "OSPF Version 2", RFC 2328, April, 1998.

   [draft-merged-sfc-architecture] Halpern, J. and Pignataro, C.,
              "Service Function Chaining (SFC) Architecture", draft-
              ietf-sfc-architecture-09 June 2015.

   [RFC4364] Rosen, E. and Y. Rekhter, "BGP/MPLS IP Virtual Private
              Networks (VPNs)", RFC 4364, February 2006.

   [RFC4271]  Rekhter, Y., Li, T., and S. Hares, "A Border Gateway
              Protocol 4 (BGP-4)", RFC 4271, January 2006.

   [RFC4760] Bates, T., Chandra, R., Katz, D., and Y. Rekhter,
              "Multiprotocol Extensions for BGP-4", RFC 4760, January
              2007.

   [RFC7348] Mahalingam, M., et al. "VXLAN: A Framework for Overlaying
              Virtualized Layer 2 Networks over Layer 3 Networks.", RFC
              7348, August 2014.
 

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   [draft-ietf-l3vpn-end-system] Marques, P., et al., "BGP-signaled end-
              system IP/VPNs", draft-ietf-l3vpn-end-system-04, October
              2, 2014.

   [FLOWSPEC]  Marques, P., Sheth, N., Raszuk, R., et al.,
              "Dissemination of Flow Specification Rules", RFC 5575,
              August 2009.

   [draft-ietf-bess-evpn-overlay-01] A. Sajassi, et al, "A Network
              Virtualization Overlay Solution using EVPN", draft-ietf-
              bess-evpn-overlay, February 2015.

   [draft-ietf-sfc-nsh] Quinn, P., et al, "Network Service Header",
              draft-ietf-sfc-nsh-00, March 2015.

   [draft-niu-sfc-mechanism] Niu, L., Li, H., and Jiang, Y., "A Service
              Function Chaining Header and its Mechanism", draft-niu-
              sfc-mechanism-00, January 2014.

   [draft-rijsman-sfc-metadata-considerations] B. Rijsman, et al.
              "Metadata Considerations", draft-rijsman-sfc-metadata-
              considerations-00, February 12, 2014

   [RFC6241] Enns, R., Bjorklund, M., Schoenwaelder, J., and A. Bierman,
              "Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF)", RFC 6241, June
              2011.

   [RFC4023] Worster, T., Rekhter, Y., and E. Rosen, "Encapsulating MPLS
              in IP or Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE)", RFC 4023,
              March 2005.

   [RFC7510] Xu, X., Sheth, N. et al, "Encapsulating MPLS in UDP", RFC
              7510, April 2015.

   [draft-ietf-i2rs-architecture] Atlas, A., Halpern, J., Hares, S.,
              Ward, D., and T Nadeau, "An Architecture for the Interface
              to the Routing System", draft-ietf-i2rs-architecture, work
              in progress, March 2015.

   [consistent-hash] Karger, D.; Lehman, E.; Leighton, T.; Panigrahy,
              R.; Levine, M.; Lewin, D. (1997). "Consistent Hashing and
              Random Trees: Distributed Caching Protocols for Relieving
              Hot Spots on the World Wide Web". Proceedings of the
              Twenty-ninth Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing.
              ACM Press New York, NY, USA. pp. 654-663.

   [draft-ietf-idr-link-bandwidth] P. Mohapatra, R. Fernando, "BGP Link
              Bandwidth Extended Community", draft-ietf-idr-link-
 

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              bandwidth, work in progress.

   [I-D.fang-l3vpn-virtual-pe]
              L. Fang, et al., "BGP/MPLS IP VPN Virtual PE",
              draft-fang-l3vpn-virtual-pe, work in progress.

   [I-D.ietf-i2rs-problem-statement]
              Atlas, A., Nadeau, T., and D. Ward, "Interface to the
              Routing System Problem Statement",
              draft-ietf-i2rs-problem-statement, work in progress.

 

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Authors' Addresses

   Rex Fernando
   Cisco
   170 W Tasman Dr
   San Jose, CA
   Email: rex@cisco.com

   Stuart Mackie
   Juniper Networks
   1133 Innovation Way
   Sunnyvale, CA 94089
   USA
   Email: wsmackie@juniper.net

   Dhananjaya Rao
   Cisco
   170 W Tasman Dr
   San Jose, CA
   Email: dhrao@cisco.com

   Bruno Rijsman
   Juniper Networks
   1133 Innovation Way
   Sunnyvale, CA 94089
   USA
   Email: brijsman@juniper.net

   Maria Napierala
   AT&T
   200 Laurel Avenue
   Middletown, NJ 07748
   Email: mnapierala@att.com

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