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EVPN multi-homing port-active load-balancing
draft-ietf-bess-evpn-mh-pa-02

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This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Active".
Authors Patrice Brissette , Ali Sajassi , Luc André Burdet , Samir Thoria , Bin Wen , Eddie Leyton , Jorge Rabadan
Last updated 2021-05-26 (Latest revision 2021-02-22)
Replaces draft-brissette-bess-evpn-mh-pa
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draft-ietf-bess-evpn-mh-pa-02
BESS Working Group                                     P. Brissette, Ed.
Internet-Draft                                                A. Sajassi
Intended status: Standards Track                              LA. Burdet
Expires: November 27, 2021                                     S. Thoria
                                                           Cisco Systems
                                                                  B. Wen
                                                                 Comcast
                                                               E. Leyton
                                                        Verizon Wireless
                                                              J. Rabadan
                                                                   Nokia
                                                            May 26, 2021

              EVPN multi-homing port-active load-balancing
                     draft-ietf-bess-evpn-mh-pa-02

Abstract

   The Multi-Chassis Link Aggregation Group (MC-LAG) technology enables
   establishing a logical link-aggregation connection with a redundant
   group of independent nodes.  The purpose of multi-chassis LAG is to
   provide a solution to achieve higher network availability, while
   providing different modes of sharing/balancing of traffic.  EVPN
   standard defines EVPN based MC-LAG with single-active and all-active
   multi-homing load-balancing mode.  The current draft expands on
   existing redundancy mechanisms supported by EVPN and introduces
   support of port-active load-balancing mode.  In the current document,
   port-active load-balancing mode is also referred to as per interface
   active/standby.

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."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on November 27, 2021.

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Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2021 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 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  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
     1.1.  Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   2.  Multi-Chassis Ethernet Bundles  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   3.  Port-active load-balancing procedure  . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   4.  Algorithm to elect per port-active PE . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     4.1.  Capability Flag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     4.2.  Modulo-based Designated Forwarder Algorithm . . . . . . .   6
     4.3.  HRW Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     4.4.  Preferred-DF Algorithm  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   5.  Convergence considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     5.1.  Primary / Backup per Ethernet-Segment . . . . . . . . . .   7
     5.2.  Backward Compatibility  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   6.  Applicability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   7.  Overall Advantages  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   8.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   9.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   10. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     10.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     10.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10

1.  Introduction

   EVPN, as per [RFC7432], provides all-active per flow load balancing
   for multi-homing.  It also defines single-active with service carving
   mode, where one of the PEs, in redundancy relationship, is active per
   service.

   While these two multi-homing scenarios are most widely utilized in
   data center and service provider access networks, there are scenarios
   where active-standby per interface multi-homing redundancy is useful

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   and required.  The main consideration for this mode of redundancy is
   the determinism of traffic forwarding through a specific interface
   rather than statistical per flow load balancing across multiple PEs
   providing multi-homing.  The determinism provided by active-standby
   per interface is also required for certain QOS features to work.
   While using this mode, customers also expect minimized convergence
   during failures.  A new term of load-balancing mode, port-active
   load- balancing is then defined.

   This draft describes how that new redundancy mode can be supported
   via EVPN

                    +-----+
                    | PE3 |
                    +-----+
                 +-----------+
                 |  MPLS/IP  |
                 |  CORE     |
                 +-----------+
               +-----+   +-----+
               | PE1 |   | PE2 |
               +-----+   +-----+
                  |         |
                  I1       I2
                    \     /
                     \   /
                     +---+
                     |CE1|
                     +---+

                         Figure 1: MC-LAG Topology

   Figure 1 shows a MC-LAG multi-homing topology where PE1 and PE2 are
   part of the same redundancy group providing multi-homing to CE1 via
   interfaces I1 and I2.  Interfaces I1 and I2 are Bundle-Ethernet
   interfaces running LACP protocol.  The core, shown as IP or MPLS
   enabled, provides wide range of L2 and L3 services.  MC-LAG
   multi-homing functionality is decoupled from those services in the
   core and it focuses on providing multi-homing to CE.  With per-port
   active/standby redundancy, only one of the two interface I1 or I2
   would be in forwarding, the other interface will be in standby.  This
   also implies that all services on the active interface are in active
   mode and all services on the standby interface operate in standby
   mode.

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1.1.  Requirements Language

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].

2.  Multi-Chassis Ethernet Bundles

   When a CE is multi-homed to a set of PE nodes using the [802.1AX]
   Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP), the PEs must act as if they
   were a single LACP speaker for the Ethernet links to form a bundle,
   and operate as a Link Aggregation Group (LAG).  To achieve this, the
   PEs connected to the same multi-homed CE must synchronize LACP
   configuration and operational data among them.  Interchassis
   Communication Protocol (ICCP) has been used for that purpose.  EVPN
   LAG simplifies greatly that solution.  Along with the simplification
   comes few assumptions:

   o  CE device connected to Multi-homing PEs may has a single LAG with
      all its active links i.e. Links in the Ethernet Bundle operate in
      all-active load-balancing mode.

   o  Same LACP parameters MUST be configured on peering PEs such as
      system id, port priority and port key.

   Any discrepancies from this list is left for future study.
   Furthermore, mis-configuration and mis-wiring detection across
   peering PEs are also left for further study.

3.  Port-active load-balancing procedure

   Following steps describe the proposed procedure with EVPN LAG to
   support port-active load-balancing mode:

   a.  The Ethernet-Segment Identifier (ESI) MUST be assigned per access
       interface as described in [RFC7432], which may be auto derived or
       manually assigned.  Access interface MAY be a Layer-2 or Layer-3
       interface.  The usage of ESI over Layer-3 interfce is newly
       described in this document.

   b.  Ethernet-Segment (ES) MUST be configured in port-active load-
       balancing mode on peering PEs for specific access interface

   c.  Peering PEs MAY exchange only Ethernet-Segment (ES) route
       (Route Type-4) when ESI is configured on a Layer-3 interface.

   d.  PEs in the redundancy group leverage the DF election defined in
       [RFC8584] to determine which PE keeps the port in active mode and

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       which one(s) keep it in standby mode.  While the DF election
       defined in [RFC8584] is per [ES, Ethernet Tag] granularity, for
       port-active mode of multi-homing, the DF election is done per
       [ES].  The details of this algorithm are described in Section 4.

   e.  DF router MUST keep corresponding access interface in up and
       forwarding active state for that Ethernet-Segment

   f.  Non-DF routers MAY bring and keep peering access interface
       attached to it in operational down state.  If the interface is
       running LACP protocol, then the non-DF PE MAY also set the LACP
       state to OOS (Out of Sync) as opposed to interface state down.
       This allows for better convergence on standby to active
       transition.

   g.  For EVPN-VPWS service, the usage of primary/backup bits of EVPN
       Layer2 attributes extended community [RFC8214] is highly
       recommended to achieve better convergence.

4.  Algorithm to elect per port-active PE

   The ES routes, running in port-active load-balancing mode, are
   advertised with a new capability in the DF Election Extended
   Community as defined in [RFC8584].  Moreover, the ES associated to
   the port leverages existing procedure of single-active, and signals
   single-active bit along with Ethernet-AD per-ES route.  Finally, as
   in [RFC7432], the ESI-label based split-horizon procedures should be
   used to avoid transient echo'ed packets when Layer-2 circuits are
   involved.

4.1.  Capability Flag

   [RFC8584] defines a DF Election extended community, and a Bitmap
   field to encode "capabilities" to use with the DF election algorithm
   in the DF algorithm field.  Bitmap (2 octets) is extended by the
   following value:

                            1 1 1 1 1 1
        0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |D|A|     |P|                   |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

   Figure 2: Amended Bitmap field in the DF Election Extended Community

      Bit 0: 'Don't Preempt' bit, as explained in
      [I-D.ietf-bess-evpn-pref-df].

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      Bit 1: AC-Influenced DF Election, as explained in [RFC8584].

      Bit 5: (corresponds to Bit 25 of the DF Election Extended
      Community and it is defined by this document): P bit or
      'Port Mode' bit (P hereafter), determines that the DF-Algorithm
      should be modified to consider the port only and not the Ethernet
      Tags.

4.2.  Modulo-based Designated Forwarder Algorithm

   The default DF Election algorithm, or modulus-based algorithm as in
   [RFC7432] and updated by [RFC8584], is used here, at the granularity
   of ES only.  Given the fact, ES-Import RT community inherits from ESI
   only byte 1-6, many deployments differentiate ESI within these bytes
   only.  For Modulo calculation, bytes 3-6 are used to determine the
   designated forwarder using Modulo-based DF assignment.

4.3.  HRW Algorithm

   Highest Random Weight (HRW) algorithm defined in [RFC8584] MAY also
   be used and signaled, and modified to operate at the granularity of
   [ES] rather than per [ES, VLAN].

   [RFC8584] describes computing a 32 bit CRC over the concatenation of
   Ethernet Tag and ESI.  For port-active load-balancing mode, the
   Ethernet Tag is simply removed from the CRC computation.

4.4.  Preferred-DF Algorithm

   When the new capability 'Port-Mode' is signaled, the algorithm is
   modified to consider the port only and not any associated Ethernet
   Tags.  Furthermore, the "port-based" capability MUST be compatible
   with the 'DP' capability (for non-revertive).  The AC-DF bit MUST be
   set to zero.  When an AC (sub-interface) goes down, it does not
   influence the DF election.

5.  Convergence considerations

   To improve the convergence, upon failure and recovery, when
   port-active load-balancing mode is used, some advanced
   synchronization between peering PEs may be required.  Port-active is
   challenging in a sense that the "standby" port is in down state.  It
   takes some time to bring a "standby" port in up-state and settle the
   network.  For IRB and L3 services, ARP / ND cache may be
   synchronized.  Moreover, associated VRF tables may also be
   synchronized.  For L2 services, MAC table synchronization may be
   considered.

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   Finally, for Bundle-Ethernet interface where LACP is running the
   ability to set the "standby" port in "out-of-sync" state a.k.a
   "warm-standby" can be leveraged.

5.1.  Primary / Backup per Ethernet-Segment

   The L2 Info Extended Community MAY be advertised in Ethernet A-D
   per ES routes for fast convergence.  Only the P and B bits are
   relevant to this specification.  When advertised, the L2 Info
   Extended Community SHALL have only P or B bits set and all other bits
   must be zero.  MTU must also be zero.  Remote PE receiving optional
   L2 Info Extended Community on Ethernet A-D per ES routes SHALL
   consider only P and B bits.  P and B bits received on Ethernet A-D
   per EVI routes per [RFC8214] are overridden.

5.2.  Backward Compatibility

   Implementations that comply with [RFC7432] or [RFC8214] only (i.e.,
   implementations that predate this specification) will not advertise
   the L2 Info Extended Community in Ethernet A-D per ES routes.  That
   means that all remote PEs in the ES will not receive P and B bit per
   ES and will continue to receive and honour the P and B bits Ethernet
   A-D per EVI routes.  Similarly, an implementation that complies with
   [RFC7432] or [RFC8214] only and that receives a L2 Info Extended
   Community will ignore it and will continue to use the default path
   resolution algorithm.

6.  Applicability

   A common deployment is to provide L2 or L3 service on the PEs
   providing multi-homing.  The services could be any L2 EVPN such as
   EVPN VPWS, EVPN [RFC7432], etc.  L3 service could be in VPN context
   [RFC4364] or in global routing context.  When a PE provides first hop
   routing, EVPN IRB could also be deployed on the PEs.  The mechanism
   defined in this draft is used between the PEs providing the L2 and/or
   L3 service, when the requirement is to use per port active.

   A possible alternate solution is the one described in this draft is
   MC-LAG with ICCP [RFC7275] active-standby redundancy.  However, ICCP
   requires LDP to be enabled as a transport of ICCP messages.  There
   are many scenarios where LDP is not required e.g. deployments with
   VXLAN or SRv6.  The solution defined in this draft with EVPN does not
   mandate the need to use LDP or ICCP and is independent of the
   underlay encapsulation.

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7.  Overall Advantages

   The use of port-active multi-homing brings the following benefits to
   EVPN networks:

   a.  Open standards based per interface single-active redundancy
       mechanism that eliminates the need to run ICCP and LDP.

   b.  Agnostic of underlay technology (MPLS, VXLAN, SRv6) and
       associated services (L2, L3, Bridging, E-LINE, etc).

   c.  Provides a way to enable deterministic QOS over MC-LAG attachment
       circuits.

   d.  Fully compliant with [RFC7432], does not require any new protocol
       enhancement to existing EVPN RFCs.

   e.  Can leverage various DF election algorithms e.g. modulo, HRW,
       etc.

   f.  Replaces legacy MC-LAG ICCP-based solution, and offers following
       additional benefits:

   g.

       *  Efficiently supports 1+N redundancy mode (with EVPN using BGP
          RR) where as ICCP requires full mesh of LDP sessions among PEs
          in redundancy group.

       *  Fast convergence with mass-withdraw is possible with EVPN, no
          equivalent in ICCP

   h.  Customers want per interface single-active redundancy, but don't
       want to enable LDP (e.g. they may be running VXLAN or SRv6 in the
       network).  Currently there is no alternative to this.

8.  Security Considerations

   The same Security Considerations described in [RFC7432] are valid for
   this document.

9.  IANA Considerations

   This document solicits the allocation of the following values:

   o  Bit 5 in the [RFC8584] DF Election Capabilities registry, with
      name "P" (port mode load-balancing) Capability" for port-active
      ES.

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10.  References

10.1.  Normative References

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

   [RFC7432]  Sajassi, A., Ed., Aggarwal, R., Bitar, N., Isaac, A.,
              Uttaro, J., Drake, J., and W. Henderickx, "BGP MPLS-Based
              Ethernet VPN", RFC 7432, DOI 10.17487/RFC7432, February
              2015, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7432>.

   [RFC8214]  Boutros, S., Sajassi, A., Salam, S., Drake, J., and J.
              Rabadan, "Virtual Private Wire Service Support in Ethernet
              VPN", RFC 8214, DOI 10.17487/RFC8214, August 2017,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8214>.

   [RFC8584]  Rabadan, J., Ed., Mohanty, S., Ed., Sajassi, A., Drake,
              J., Nagaraj, K., and S. Sathappan, "Framework for Ethernet
              VPN Designated Forwarder Election Extensibility",
              RFC 8584, DOI 10.17487/RFC8584, April 2019,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8584>.

10.2.  Informative References

   [I-D.ietf-bess-evpn-pref-df]
              Rabadan, J., Sathappan, S., Przygienda, T., Lin, W.,
              Drake, J., Sajassi, A., and satyamoh@cisco.com,
              "Preference-based EVPN DF Election", draft-ietf-bess-evpn-
              pref-df-07 (work in progress), March 2021.

   [RFC4364]  Rosen, E. and Y. Rekhter, "BGP/MPLS IP Virtual Private
              Networks (VPNs)", RFC 4364, DOI 10.17487/RFC4364, February
              2006, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4364>.

   [RFC7275]  Martini, L., Salam, S., Sajassi, A., Bocci, M.,
              Matsushima, S., and T. Nadeau, "Inter-Chassis
              Communication Protocol for Layer 2 Virtual Private Network
              (L2VPN) Provider Edge (PE) Redundancy", RFC 7275,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7275, June 2014,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7275>.

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Authors' Addresses

   Patrice Brissette (editor)
   Cisco Systems
   Ottawa, ON
   Canada

   Email: pbrisset@cisco.com

   Ali Sajassi
   Cisco Systems
   USA

   Email: sajassi@cisco.com

   Luc Andre Burdet
   Cisco Systems
   Canada

   Email: lburdet@cisco.com

   Samir Thoria
   Cisco Systems
   USA

   Email: sthoria@cisco.com

   Bin Wen
   Comcast
   USA

   Email: Bin_Wen@comcast.com

   Edward Leyton
   Verizon Wireless
   USA

   Email: edward.leyton@verizonwireless.com

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   Jorge Rabadan
   Nokia
   USA

   Email: jorge.rabadan@nokia.com

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