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RIFT Applicability and Operational Considerations
draft-ietf-rift-applicability-17

Document Type Active Internet-Draft (rift WG)
Authors Yuehua Wei , Zheng Zhang , Dmitry Afanasiev , Pascal Thubert , Tony Przygienda
Last updated 2024-06-20 (Latest revision 2024-06-17)
Replaces draft-wei-rift-applicability
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draft-ietf-rift-applicability-17
RIFT WG                                                      Y. Wei, Ed.
Internet-Draft                                                  Z. Zhang
Intended status: Informational                           ZTE Corporation
Expires: 19 December 2024                                   D. Afanasiev
                                                                  Yandex
                                                              P. Thubert
                                                           Cisco Systems
                                                           T. Przygienda
                                                        Juniper Networks
                                                            17 June 2024

           RIFT Applicability and Operational Considerations
                    draft-ietf-rift-applicability-17

Abstract

   This document discusses the properties, applicability and operational
   considerations of RIFT in different network scenarios.  It intends to
   provide a rough guide how RIFT can be deployed to simplify routing
   operations in Clos topologies and their 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
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   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 19 December 2024.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2024 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

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   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  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Problem Statement of Routing in Modern IP Fabric Fat Tree
           Networks  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   4.  Applicability of RIFT to Clos IP Fabrics  . . . . . . . . . .   5
     4.1.  Overview of RIFT  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     4.2.  Applicable Topologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
       4.2.1.  Horizontal Links  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
       4.2.2.  Vertical Shortcuts  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
       4.2.3.  Generalizing to any Directed Acyclic Graph  . . . . .   9
       4.2.4.  Reachability of Internal Nodes in the Fabric  . . . .  10
     4.3.  Use Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
       4.3.1.  Data Center Topologies  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
       4.3.2.  Metro Networks  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
       4.3.3.  Building Cabling  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
       4.3.4.  Internal Router Switching Fabrics . . . . . . . . . .  12
       4.3.5.  CloudCO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
   5.  Operational Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
     5.1.  South Reflection  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
     5.2.  Suboptimal Routing on Link Failures . . . . . . . . . . .  15
     5.3.  Black-Holing on Link Failures . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
     5.4.  Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
     5.5.  Miscabling  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  19
       5.5.1.  Miscabling Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  19
       5.5.2.  Miscabling considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
     5.6.  Multicast and Broadcast Implementations . . . . . . . . .  22
     5.7.  Positive vs. Negative Disaggregation  . . . . . . . . . .  23
     5.8.  Mobile Edge and Anycast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  24
     5.9.  IPv4 over IPv6  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  26
     5.10. In-Band Reachability of Nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  27
     5.11. Dual Homing Servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  28
     5.12. Fabric with A Controller  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  28
       5.12.1.  Controller Attached to ToFs  . . . . . . . . . . . .  29
       5.12.2.  Controller Attached to Leaf  . . . . . . . . . . . .  29
     5.13. Internet Connectivity Within Underlay . . . . . . . . . .  29
       5.13.1.  Internet Default on the Leaf . . . . . . . . . . . .  30
       5.13.2.  Internet Default on the ToFs . . . . . . . . . . . .  30
     5.14. Subnet Mismatch and Address Families  . . . . . . . . . .  30
     5.15. Anycast Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  30
     5.16. IoT Applicability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  31
     5.17. Key Management  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  32

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     5.18. TTL/HopLimit of 1 vs. 255 on LIEs/TIEs  . . . . . . . . .  33
   6.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  33
   7.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  33
   8.  Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  33
   9.  Contributors  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  33
   10. Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  34
   11. Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  35
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  36

1.  Introduction

   This document discusses the properties and applicability of "Routing
   in Fat Trees" [RIFT] in different deployment scenarios and highlights
   the operational simplicity of the technology compared to traditional
   routing solutions.  It also documents special considerations when
   RIFT is used with or without overlays and/or controllers, and how
   RIFT identifies miscablings and reroutes around node and link
   failures.

2.  Terminology

   This document uses the terminology of RIFT [RIFT].  The most
   frequently used terminologies defined in RIFT are listed here.  These
   terms are consistent with definition in RIFT [RIFT]

   Clos/Fat Tree:
      This document uses the terms Clos and Fat Tree interchangeably
      where it always refers to a folded spine-and-leaf topology with
      possibly multiple Points of Delivery (PoDs) and one or multiple
      Top of Fabric (ToF) planes.  Several modifications such as leaf-
      2-leaf shortcuts and multiple level shortcuts are possible and
      described further in the document.

   Crossbar:
      Physical arrangement of ports in a switching matrix without
      implying any further scheduling or buffering disciplines.

   Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG):
      A finite directed graph with no directed cycles (loops).  If links
      in a Clos are considered as either being all directed towards the
      top or vice versa, each of such two graphs is a DAG.

   Disaggregation:
      Process in which a node decides to advertise more specific
      prefixes Southwards, either positively to attract the
      corresponding traffic, or negatively to repel it.  Disaggregation
      is performed to prevent traffic loss and suboptimal routing to the
      more specific prefixes.

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   Leaf:
      A node without southbound adjacencies.  Level 0 implies a leaf in
      RIFT but a leaf does not have to be level 0.

   LIE:
      This is an acronym for a "Link Information Element" exchanged on
      all the system's links running RIFT to form _ThreeWay_ adjacencies
      and carry information used to perform RIFT Zero Touch Provisioning
      (ZTP) of levels.

   South Reflection:
      Often abbreviated just as "reflection", it defines a mechanism
      where South Node TIEs are "reflected" from the level south back up
      north to allow nodes in the same level without E-W links to be
      aware of each other's node Topology Information Elements (TIEs).

   Spine:
      Any nodes north of leaves and south of ToF nodes.  Multiple layers
      of spines in a PoD are possible.

   TIE:
      This is an acronym for a "Topology Information Element".  TIEs are
      exchanged between RIFT nodes to describe parts of a network such
      as links and address prefixes.  A TIE has always a direction and a
      type.  North TIEs (sometimes abbreviated as N-TIEs) are used when
      dealing with TIEs in the northbound representation and South-TIEs
      (sometimes abbreviated as S-TIEs) for the southbound equivalent.
      TIEs have different types such as node and prefix TIEs.

3.  Problem Statement of Routing in Modern IP Fabric Fat Tree Networks

   Clos [CLOS] topologies (called commonly a fat tree/network in modern
   IP fabric considerations as homonym to the original definition of the
   term Fat Tree [FATTREE]) have gained prominence in today's
   networking, primarily as a result of the paradigm shift towards a
   centralized data-center based architecture that deliver a majority of
   computation and storage services.

   Current routing protocols were geared towards a network with an
   irregular topology with isotropic properties, and low degree of
   connectivity.  When applied to Fat Tree topologies:

   *  They tend to need extensive configuration or provisioning during
      initialization and adding or removing nodes from the fabric.

   *  For link state routing protocols, all nodes including spine and
      leaf nodes learn the entire network topology and routing
      information, which is in fact, not needed on the leaf nodes during

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      normal operation.  They flood significant amounts of duplicate
      link state information between spine and leaf nodes during
      topology updates and convergence events, requiring that additional
      CPU and link bandwidth be consumed.  This may impact the stability
      and scalability of the fabric, make the fabric less reactive to
      failures, and prevent the use of cheaper hardware at the lower
      levels (i.e. spine and leaf nodes).

4.  Applicability of RIFT to Clos IP Fabrics

   Further content of this document assumes that the reader is familiar
   with the terms and concepts used in OSPF (Open Shortest Path First)
   [RFC2328], OSPF for IPv6 [RFC5340] and IS-IS (Intermediate System to
   Intermediate System) [ISO10589-Second-Edition] link-state protocols.
   The sections of RIFT [RIFT] outline the requirements of routing in IP
   fabrics and RIFT protocol concepts.

4.1.  Overview of RIFT

   RIFT is a dynamic routing protocol that is tailored for use in Clos,
   Fat-Tree, and other anisotropic topologies.  A core property
   therefore of RIFT is that its operation is sensitive to the structure
   of the fabric - it is anisotropic.  RIFT acts as a link-state
   protocol when "pointing north", advertising southwards routes to
   northwards peers (parents) through flooding and database
   synchronization.  When "pointing south", RIFT operates hop-by-hop
   like a distance- vector protocol, typically advertising a fabric
   default route towards the Top of Fabric (ToF, aka superspine) to
   southwards peers (children).

   The fabric default is typically the default route, as described in
   Section 6.3.8 "Southbound Default Route Origination" of RIFT [RIFT].
   The ToF nodes may alternatively originate more specific prefixes (P')
   southbound instead of the default route.  In such a scenario, all
   addresses carried within the RIFT domain must be contained within P',
   and it is possible for a leaf that acts as gateway to the Internet to
   advertise the default route instead.

   RIFT floods flat link-state information northbound only so that each
   level obtains the full topology of levels south of it.  That
   information is never flooded east-west or back south again.  So a top
   tier node has full set of prefixes from the Shortest Path First (SPF)
   calculation.

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   In the southbound direction, the protocol operates like a "fully
   summarizing, unidirectional" path-vector protocol or rather a
   distance-vector with implicit split horizon.  Routing information,
   normally just the default route, propagates one hop south and is "re-
   advertised" by nodes at next lower level.

              +---------------+       +----------------+
              |      ToF      |       |       ToF      |     LEVEL 2
      +       ++------+--+--+-+       ++-+--+----+-----+
      |        |      |  |  |          | |  |    |        ^
      +        |      |  |  +-------------------------+   |
      Distance |   +-------------------+ |  |    |    |   |
      Vector   |   |  |  |               |  |    |    |   +
      South    |   |  |  |      +--------+  |    |    |   Link-State
      +        |   |  |  |      |           |    |    |   Flooding
      |        |   |  +----------------+    |    |    |   North
      v        |   |     |      |      |    |    |    |   +
              ++---+-+   +------+    +-+----+   ++----++  |
              |SPINE |   |SPINE |    | SPINE|   | SPINE|  |  LEVEL 1
      +       ++----++   ++---+-+    +-+--+-+   ++----++  |
      +        |    |     |   |        |  |      |    |   |     ^ N
      Distance |    +-------+ |        |  +--------+  |   |     |   E
      Vector   |          | | |        |         | |  |   |  +------>
      South    |  +-------+ | |        |  +------+ |  |   |     |
      +        |  |         | |        |  |        |  |   |     +
      v       ++--++      +-+-++      ++--++      ++--++  +
              |LEAF|      |LEAF|      |LEAF|      |LEAF|     LEVEL 0
              +----+      +----+      +----+      +----+

                          Figure 1: RIFT overview

   A spine node has only information necessary for its level, which is
   all destinations south of the node based on SPF calculation, default
   route, and potentially disaggregated routes.

   RIFT combines the advantage of both link-state and distance-vector:

   *  Fastest possible convergence

   *  Automatic detection of topology

   *  Minimal routes/information on Top-of-Rack (ToR) switches, aka leaf
      nodes

   *  High degree of ECMP

   *  Fast de-commissioning of nodes

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   *  Maximum propagation speed with flexible prefixes in an update

   So there are two types of link-state database which are "north
   representation" North Topology Information Elements (N-TIEs) and
   "south representation" South Topology Information Elements (S-TIEs).
   The N-TIEs contain a link-state topology description of lower levels
   and S-TIEs carry simply default and disaggregated routes for the
   lower levels.

   RIFT also eliminates major disadvantages of link-state and distance-
   vector with:

   *  Reduced and balanced flooding

   *  Level constrained automatic neighbor discovery

   To achieve this, RIFT builds on the art of IGPs, not only OSPF and
   IS-IS but also MANET and IoT (Internet of Things), to provide unique
   features:

   *  Automatic (positive or negative) route disaggregation of
      northwards routes upon fallen leaves

   *  Recursive operation in the case of negative route disaggregation

   *  Anisotropic routing that extends a principle seen in RPL [RFC6550]
      to wide superspines

   *  Optimal flooding reduction that derives from the concept of a
      "multipoint relay" (MPR) found in OLSR [RFC3626] and balances the
      flooding load over northbound links and nodes.

   Additional advantages that are unique to RIFT are listed below, the
   details of which can be found in RIFT [RIFT].

   *  True ZTP (Zero Touch Provisioning)

   *  Minimal blast radius on failures

   *  Can utilize all paths through fabric without looping

   *  Simple leaf implementation that can scale down to servers

   *  Key-Value store

   *  Horizontal links used for protection only

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4.2.  Applicable Topologies

   Albeit RIFT is specified primarily for "proper" Clos or Fat Tree
   topologies, the protocol natively supports Points of Delivery (PoD)
   concepts, which, strictly speaking, are not found in the original
   Clos concept.

   Further, the specification explains and supports operations of multi-
   plane Clos variants where the protocol recommends the use of inter-
   plane rings at the Top-of-Fabric level to allow the reconciliation of
   topology view of different planes to make the negative disaggregation
   viable in case of failures within a plane.  These observations hold
   not only in case of RIFT but also in the generic case of dynamic
   routing on Clos variants with multiple planes and failures in bi-
   sectional bandwidth, especially on the leafs.

4.2.1.  Horizontal Links

   RIFT is not limited to pure Clos divided into PoD and multi-planes
   but supports horizontal (East-West) links below the top of fabric
   level.  Those links are used only for last resort northbound
   forwarding when a spine loses all its northbound links or cannot
   compute a default route through them.

   A full-mesh connectivity between nodes on the same level can be
   employed and that allows N-SPF to provide for any node losing all its
   northbound adjacencies (as long as any of the other nodes in the
   level are northbound connected) to still participate in northbound
   forwarding.

   Note that a "ring" of horizontal links at any level below ToF does
   not provide a "ring-based protection" scheme since the SPF
   computation would have to deal necessarily with breaking of "loops",
   an application for which RIFT is not intended.

4.2.2.  Vertical Shortcuts

   Through relaxations of the specified adjacency forming rules, RIFT
   implementations can be extended to support vertical "shortcuts".  The
   RIFT specification itself does not provide the exact details since
   the resulting solution suffers from either much larger blast radius
   with increased flooding volumes or in case of maximum aggregation
   routing, bow-tie problems.

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4.2.3.  Generalizing to any Directed Acyclic Graph

   RIFT is an anisotropic routing protocol, meaning that it has a sense
   of direction (northbound, southbound, east-west) and that it operates
   differently depending on the direction.

   Since a DAG provides a sense of north (the direction of the DAG) and
   of south (the reverse), it can be used to apply RIFT——an edge in the
   DAG that has only incoming vertices is a ToF node.

   There are a number of caveats though:

   *  The DAG structure must exist before RIFT starts, so there is a
      need for a companion protocol to establish the logical DAG
      structure.

   *  A generic DAG does not have a sense of east and west.  The
      operation specified for east-west links and the southbound
      reflection between nodes are not applicable.  Also ZTP will derive
      a sense of depth that will eliminate some links.  Variations of
      ZTP could be derived to meet specific objectives, e.g., make it so
      that most routers have at least 2 parents to reach the ToF.

   *  RIFT applies to any Destination-Oriented DAG (DODAG) where there's
      only one ToF node and the problem of disaggregation does not
      exist.  In that case, RIFT operates very much like RPL [RFC6550],
      but using Link State for southbound routes (downwards in RPL's
      terms).  For an arbitrary DAG with multiple destinations (ToFs)
      the way disaggregation happens has to be considered.

   *  Positive disaggregation expects that most of the ToF nodes reach
      most of the leaves, so disaggregation is the exception as opposed
      to the rule.  When this is no longer true, it makes sense to turn
      off disaggregation and route between the ToF nodes over a ring, a
      full mesh, transit network, or a form of area zero.  There again,
      this operation is similar to RPL operating as a single DODAG with
      a virtual root.

   *  In order to aggregate and disaggregate routes, RIFT requires that
      all the ToF nodes share the full knowledge of the prefixes in the
      fabric.  This can be achieved with a ring as suggested by "RIFT"
      [RIFT], by some preconfiguration, or using a synchronization with
      a common repository where all the active prefixes are registered.

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4.2.4.  Reachability of Internal Nodes in the Fabric

   RIFT does not require that nodes have reachable addresses in the
   fabric, though it is clearly desirable for operational purposes.
   Under normal operating conditions this can be easily achieved by
   injecting the node's loopback address into North and South Prefix
   TIEs or other implementation specific mechanisms.

   Special considerations arise when a node loses all northbound
   adjacencies, but is not at the top of the fabric.  If a spine node
   loses all northbound links, the spine node doesn't advertise default
   route.  But if the level of the spine node is auto-determined by ZTP,
   it will "fall down" as depicted in Figure 8.

4.3.  Use Cases

4.3.1.  Data Center Topologies

4.3.1.1.  Data Center Fabrics

   RIFT is suited for applying in data center (DC) IP fabrics underlay
   routing, vast majority of which seem to be currently (and for the
   foreseeable future) Clos architectures.  It significantly simplifies
   operation and deployment of such fabrics as described in Section 5
   for environments compared to extensive proprietary provisioning and
   operational solutions.

4.3.1.2.  Adaptations to Other Proposed Data Center Topologies

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                         .  +-----+        +-----+
                         .  |     |        |     |
                         .+-+ S0  |        | S1  |
                         .| ++---++        ++---++
                         .|  |   |          |   |
                         .|  | +------------+   |
                         .|  | | +------------+ |
                         .|  | |              | |
                         .| ++-+--+        +--+-++
                         .| |     |        |     |
                         .| | A0  |        | A1  |
                         .| +-+--++        ++---++
                         .|   |  |          |   |
                         .|   |  +------------+ |
                         .|   | +-----------+ | |
                         .|   | |             | |
                         .| +-+-+-+        +--+-++
                         .+-+     |        |     |
                         .  | L0  |        | L1  |
                         .  +-----+        +-----+

                          Figure 2: Level Shortcut

   RIFT is not strictly limited to Clos topologies.  The protocol only
   requires a sense of "compass rose directionality" either achieved
   through configuration or derivation of levels.  So, conceptually,
   shortcuts between levels could be included.  Figure 2 depicts an
   example of a shortcut between levels.  In this example, sub-optimal
   routing will occur when traffic is sent from L0 to L1 via S0's
   default route and back down through A0 or A1.  In order to avoid
   that, only default routes from A0 or A1 are used, all leaves would be
   required to install each other's routes.

   While various technical and operational challenges may require the
   use of such modifications, discussion of those topics are outside the
   scope of this document.

4.3.2.  Metro Networks

   The demand for bandwidth is increasing steadily, driven primarily by
   environments close to content producers (server farms connection via
   DC fabrics) but in proximity to content consumers as well.  Consumers
   are often clustered in metro areas with their own network
   architectures that can benefit from simplified, regular Clos
   structures and hence from RIFT.

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4.3.3.  Building Cabling

   Commercial edifices are often cabled in topologies that are either
   Clos or its isomorphic equivalents.  The Clos can grow rather high
   with many levels.  That presents a challenge for traditional routing
   protocols (except BGP[RFC4271] and by now largely phased-out
   PNNI[PNNI]) which do not support an arbitrary number of levels which
   RIFT does naturally.  Moreover, due to the limited sizes of
   forwarding tables in network elements of building cabling, the
   minimum FIB size RIFT maintains under normal conditions is cost-
   effective in terms of hardware and operational costs.

4.3.4.  Internal Router Switching Fabrics

   It is common in high-speed communications switching and routing
   devices to use switch fabrics which are interconnection networks
   inside the devices connecting the input ports to their output ports.
   For example, crossbar is one of the switch fabric techniques while a
   crossbar is not feasible due to cost, head-of-line blocking or size
   trade-offs.  And normally such fabrics are not self-healing or rely
   on 1:1 or 1+1 protection schemes but it is conceivable to use RIFT to
   operate Clos fabrics that can deal effectively with interconnections
   or subsystem failures in such module.  RIFT is not IP specific and
   hence any link addressing connecting internal device subnets is
   conceivable.

4.3.5.  CloudCO

   The Cloud Central Office (CloudCO) is a new stage of telecom Central
   Office.  It takes the advantage of Software Defined Networking (SDN)
   and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) in conjunction with general
   purpose hardware to optimize current networks.  The following figure
   illustrates this architecture at a high level.  It describes a single
   instance or macro-node of cloud CO that provides a number of Value
   Added Services (VAS), a Broadband Access Abstraction (BAA), and
   virtualized network services.  An Access I/O module faces a Cloud CO
   access node, and the Customer Premises Equipments (CPEs) behind it.
   A Network I/O module is facing the core network.  The two I/O modules
   are interconnected by a leaf and spine fabric [TR-384].

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        +---------------------+           +----------------------+
        |         Spine       |           |     Spine            |
        |         Switch      |           |     Switch           |
        +------+---+------+-+-+           +--+-+-+-+-----+-------+
        |      |   |      | | |              | | | |     |       |
        |      |   |      | | +-------------------------------+  |
        |      |   |      | |                | | | |     |    |  |
        |      |   |      | +-------------------------+  |    |  |
        |      |   |      |                  | | | |  |  |    |  |
        |      |   +----------------------+  | | | |  |  |    |  |
        |      |          |               |  | | | |  |  |    |  |
        |  +---------------------------------+ | | |  |  |    |  |
        |  |   |          |               |    | | |  |  |    |  |
        |  |   |   +-----------------------------+ |  |  |    |  |
        |  |   |   |      |               |    |   |  |  |    |  |
        |  |   |   |      |   +--------------------+  |  |    |  |
        |  |   |   |      |   |           |    |      |  |    |  |
        +--+ +-+---+--+ +-+---+--+     +--+----+--+ +-+--+--+ +--+
        |L | | Leaf   | | Leaf   |     |  Leaf    | | Leaf  | |L |
        |S | | Switch | | Switch |     |  Switch  | | Switch| |S |
        ++-+ +-+-+-+--+ +-+-+-+--+     +--+-+--+--+ ++-+--+-+ +-++
         |     | | |      | | |           | |  |     | |  |     |
         |   +-+-+-+--+ +-+-+-+--+     +--+-+--+--+ ++-+--+-+   |
         |   |Compute | |Compute |     | Compute  | |Compute|   |
         |   |Node    | |Node    |     | Node     | |Node   |   |
         |   +--------+ +--------+     +----------+ +-------+   |
         |   || VAS5 || || vDHCP||     || vRouter|| ||VAS1 ||   |
         |   |--------| |--------|     |----------| |-------|   |
         |   |--------| |--------|     |----------| |-------|   |
         |   || VAS6 || || VAS3 ||     || v802.1x|| ||VAS2 ||   |
         |   |--------| |--------|     |----------| |-------|   |
         |   |--------| |--------|     |----------| |-------|   |
         |   || VAS7 || || VAS4 ||     ||  vIGMP || ||BAA  ||   |
         |   |--------| |--------|     |----------| |-------|   |
         |   +--------+ +--------+     +----------+ +-------+   |
         |                                                      |
        ++-----------+                                +---------++
        |Network I/O |                                |Access I/O|
        +------------+                                +----------+

                Figure 3: An example of CloudCO architecture

   The Spine-Leaf architecture deployed inside CloudCO meets the network
   requirements of adaptable, agile, scalable and dynamic.

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5.  Operational Considerations

   RIFT presents the features for organizations building and operating
   IP fabrics to simplify the operation and deployments while achieving
   many desirable properties of a dynamic routing protocol on such a
   substrate:

   *  RIFT only floods routing information to the devices that need it.

   *  RIFT allows for Zero Touch Provisioning within the protocol.  In
      its most extreme version, RIFT does not rely on any specific
      addressing and for IP fabric can operate using IPv6 ND [RFC4861]
      only.

   *  RIFT has provisions to detect common IP fabric miscabling
      scenarios.

   *  RIFT negotiates automatically BFD per link.  This allows for IP
      and micro-BFD [RFC7130] to replace Link Aggregation Groups (LAGs)
      which do hide bandwidth imbalances in case of constituent
      failures.  Further automatic link validation techniques similar to
      [RFC5357] could be supported as well.

   *  RIFT inherently solves many problems associated with the use of
      traditional routing topologies with dense meshes and high degrees
      of ECMP by including automatic bandwidth balancing, flood
      reduction and automatic disaggregation on failures while providing
      maximum aggregation of prefixes in default scenarios.  ECMP in
      RIFT eliminates the need for more Loop-Free Alternates procedures.

   *  RIFT reduces FIB size towards the bottom of the IP fabric where
      most nodes reside and allows with that for cheaper hardware on the
      edges and introduction of modern IP fabric architectures that
      encompass e.g. server multi-homing.

   *  RIFT provides valley-free routing and with that is loop free.  A
      valley-free path allows reversal of direction at most once from a
      packet heading northbound to southbound while permitting traversal
      of horizontal links in the northbound phase.  This allows the use
      of any such valley-free path in bi-sectional fabric bandwidth
      between two destinations irrespective of their metrics which can
      be used to balance load on the fabric in different ways.  Valley-
      free routing eliminates the need for any specific micro-loop
      avoidance procedures for RIFT.

   *  RIFT includes a key-value distribution mechanism which allows for
      future applications such as automatic provisioning of basic
      overlay services or automatic key roll-overs over whole fabrics.

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   *  RIFT is designed for minimum delay in case of prefix mobility on
      the fabric.  In conjunction with [RFC8505], RIFT can differentiate
      anycast advertisements from mobility events and retain only the
      most recent advertisement in the latter case.

   *  Many further operational and design points collected over many
      years of routing protocol deployments have been incorporated in
      RIFT such as fast flooding rates, protection of information
      lifetimes and operationally recognizable remote ends of links and
      node names.

5.1.  South Reflection

   South reflection is a mechanism that South Node TIEs are "reflected"
   back up north to allow nodes in same level without east-west links to
   "see" each other.

   For example, in Figure 4, Spine111\Spine112\Spine121\Spine122
   reflects Node S-TIEs from ToF21 to ToF22 separately.  Respectively,
   Spine111\Spine112\Spine121\Spine122 reflects Node S-TIEs from ToF22
   to ToF21 separately.  So ToF22 and ToF21 see each other's node
   information as level 2 nodes.

   In an equivalent fashion, as the result of the south reflection
   between Spine121-Leaf121-Spine122 and Spine121-Leaf122-Spine122,
   Spine121 and Spine 122 knows each other at level 1.

5.2.  Suboptimal Routing on Link Failures

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                  +--------+          +--------+
                  | ToF21  |          |  ToF22 |                LEVEL 2
                  ++--+-+-++          ++-+--+-++
                   |  | | |            | |  | +
                   |  | | |            | |  | linkTS8
      +------------+  | +-+linkTS3+-+  | |  | +-------------+
      |               |   |         |  | |  +               |
      |    +---------------------------+ |  linkTS7         |
      |    |          |   |         +    +  +               |
      |    |          |   +-------+linkTS4+------------+    |
      |    |          |             +    +  |          |    |
      |    |          |    +-------------+--+          |    |
      |    |          |    |        |  linkTS6         |    |
    +-+----+-+      +-+----+-+     ++--------+       +-+----+-+
    |Spine111|      |Spine112|     |Spine121 |       |Spine122| LEVEL 1
    +-+---+--+      +-+----+-+     +-+---+---+       +-+----+-+
      |   |           |    |         |   |             |    |
      |   +-------------+  |         +   ++XX+linkSL6+---+  +
      |               | |  |      linkSL5              | |  linkSL8
      |   +-----------+ |  |         +   +---+linkSL7+-+ |  +
      |   |             |  |         |   |               |  |
    +-+---+-+        +--+--+-+     +-+---+-+          +--+--+-+
    |Leaf111|        |Leaf112|     |Leaf121|          |Leaf122| LEVEL 0
    +-+-----+        +-+-----+     +-----+-+          +-+-----+
      +                +                 +              +
    Prefix111        Prefix112     Prefix121          Prefix122

          Figure 4: Suboptimal routing upon link failure use case

   As shown in Figure 4, as the result of the south reflection between
   Spine121-Leaf121-Spine122 and Spine121-Leaf122-Spine122, Spine121 and
   Spine 122 knows each other at level 1.

   Without disaggregation mechanism, when linkSL6 fails, the packet from
   leaf121 to prefix122 will probably go up through linkSL5 to linkTS3
   then go down through linkTS4 to linkSL8 to Leaf122 or go up through
   linkSL5 to linkTS6 then go down through linkTS8 and linkSL8 to
   Leaf122 based on pure default route.  It's the case of suboptimal
   routing or bow-tieing.

   With disaggregation mechanism, when linkSL6 fails, Spine122 will
   detect the failure according to the reflected node S-TIE from
   Spine121.  Based on the disaggregation algorithm provided by RIFT,
   Spine122 will explicitly advertise prefix122 in Disaggregated Prefix
   S-TIE PrefixTIEElement(prefix122, cost 1).  The packet from leaf121
   to prefix122 will only be sent to linkSL7 following a longest-prefix
   match to prefix 122 directly then go down through linkSL8 to Leaf122
   .

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5.3.  Black-Holing on Link Failures

                   +--------+          +--------+
                   | ToF 21 |          | ToF 22 |                LEVEL 2
                   ++-+--+-++          ++-+--+-++
                    | |  | |            | |  | +
                    | |  | |            | |  | linkTS8
     +--------------+ |  +-+linkTS3+X+  | |  | +--------------+
     linkTS1          |    |         |  | |  +                |
     +    +-----------------------------+ |  linkTS7          |
     |    |           +    |         +    +  +                |
     |    |      linkTS2   +-------+linkTS4+X+----------+     |
     |    +           +              +    +  |          |     |
     |   linkTS5      +-+    +------------+--+          |     |
     |    +             |    |       |  linkTS6         |     |
   +-+----+-+         +-+----+-+    ++-------+        +-+-----++
   |Spine111|         |Spine112|    |Spine121|        |Spine122| LEVEL 1
   +-+---+--+         ++----+--+    +-+---+--+        +-+----+-+
     |   |             |    |         |   |             |    |
     +   +---------------+  |         +   +---+linkSL6+---+  +
     linkSL1           | |  |      linkSL5              | |  linkSL8
     +   +--+linkSL3+--+ |  |         +   +---+linkSL7+-+ |  +
     |   |               |  |         |   |               |  |
   +-+---+-+          +--+--+-+     +-+---+-+          +--+--+-+
   |Leaf111|          |Leaf112|     |Leaf121|          |Leaf122| LEVEL 0
   +-+-----+          +-+-----+     +-----+-+          +-----+-+
     +                  +                 +                  +
   Prefix111          Prefix112     Prefix121          Prefix122

             Figure 5: Black-holing upon link failure use case

   This scenario illustrates a case when double link failure occurs and
   with that black-holing can happen.

   Without disaggregation mechanism, when linkTS3 and linkTS4 both fail,
   the packet from leaf111 to prefix122 would suffer 50% black-holing
   based on pure default route.  The packet supposed to go up through
   linkSL1 to linkTS1 then go down through linkTS3 or linkTS4 will be
   dropped.  The packet supposed to go up through linkSL3 to linkTS2
   then go down through linkTS3 or linkTS4 will be dropped as well.
   It's the case of black-holing.

   With disaggregation mechanism, when linkTS3 and linkTS4 both fail,
   ToF22 will detect the failure according to the reflected node S-TIE
   of ToF21 from Spine111\Spine112.  Based on the disaggregation
   algorithm provided by RIFT, ToF22 will explicitly originate an S-TIE
   with prefix 121 and prefix 122, that is flooded to spines 111, 112,
   121 and 122.

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   The packet from leaf111 to prefix122 will not be routed to linkTS1 or
   linkTS2.  The packet from leaf111 to prefix122 will only be routed to
   linkTS5 or linkTS7 following a longest-prefix match to prefix122.

5.4.  Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP)

   RIFT is designed to require a very minimal configuration to simplify
   its operation and avoid human errors; based on that minimal
   information, Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP) auto configures the key
   operational parameters of all the RIFT nodes, including the SystemID
   of the node that must be unique in the RIFT network and the level of
   the node in the Fat Tree, which determines which peers are northwards
   "parents" and which are southwards "children".

   ZTP is always on, but its decisions can be overridden when a network
   administrator prefers to impose its own configuration.  In that case,
   it is the responsibility of the administrator to ensure that the
   configured parameters are correct, in other words that the SystemID
   of each node is unique, and that the administratively set levels
   truly reflect the relative position of the nodes in the fabric.  It
   is recommended to let ZTP configure the network, and when not, it is
   recommended to configure the level of all the nodes to avoid an
   undesirable interaction between ZTP and the manual configuration.

   ZTP requires that the administrator points out the Top-of-Fabric
   (ToF) nodes to set the baseline from which the fabric topology is
   derived.  The Top-of-Fabric nodes are configured with TOP_OF_FABRIC
   flag which are initial 'seeds' needed for other ZTP nodes to derive
   their level in the topology.  ZTP computes the level of each node
   based on the Highest Available Level (HAL) of the potential parent(s)
   nearest that baseline, which represents the superspine.  In a
   fashion, RIFT can be seen as a distance-vector protocol that computes
   a set of feasible successors towards the superspine and auto-
   configures the rest of the topology.

   The auto configuration mechanism computes a global maximum of levels
   by diffusion.  The derivation of the level of each node happens then
   based on Link Information Elements (LIEs) received from its neighbors
   whereas each node (with possibly exceptions of configured leaves)
   tries to attach at the highest possible point in the fabric.  This
   guarantees that even if the diffusion front reaches a node from
   "below" faster than from "above", it will greedily abandon already
   negotiated level derived from nodes topologically below it and
   properly peer with nodes above.

   The achieved equilibrium can be disturbed massively by all nodes with
   highest level either leaving or entering the domain (with some finer
   distinctions not explained further).  It is therefore recommended

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   that each node is multi-homed towards nodes with respective HAL
   offerings.  Fortunately, this is the natural state of things for the
   topology variants considered in RIFT.

   A RIFT node may also be configured to confine it to the leaf role
   with the LEAF_ONLY flag.  A leaf node can also be configured to
   support leaf-2-leaf procedures with the LEAF_2_LEAF flag.  In either
   case the node cannot be TOP_OF_FABRIC and its level cannot be
   configured.  RIFT will fully determine the node's level after it is
   attached to the topology and ensure that the node is at the "bottom
   of the hierarchy" (southernmost).

5.5.  Miscabling

5.5.1.  Miscabling Examples

        +----------------+              +-----------------+
        |     ToF21      |       +------+      ToF22      |   LEVEL 2
        +-------+----+---+       |      +----+---+--------+
        |       |    |   |       |      |    |   |        |
        |       |    |   +----------------------------+   |
        |   +---------------------------+    |   |    |   |
        |   |   |    |           |           |   |    |   |
        |   |   |    |   +-----------------------+    |   |
        |   |   +------------------------+   |        |   |
        |   |        |   |       |       |   |        |   |
      +-+---+--+   +-+---+--+    |    +--+---+-+  +--+---+-+
      |Spine111|   |Spine112|    |    |Spine121|  |Spine122| LEVEL 1
      +-+---+--+   ++----+--+    |    +--+---+-+  +-+----+-+
        |   |       |    |       |       |   |       |    |
        |   +---------+  |     link-M    |   +---------+  |
        |           | |  |       |       |           | |  |
        |   +-------+ |  |       |       |   +-------+ |  |
        |   |         |  |       |       |   |         |  |
      +-+---+-+    +--+--+-+     |     +-+---+-+    +--+--+-+
      |Leaf111|    |Leaf112+-----+     |Leaf121|    |Leaf122| LEVEL 0
      +-------+    +-------+           +-------+    +-------+

                Figure 6: A single plane miscabling example

   Figure 6 shows a single plane miscabling example.  It's a perfect Fat
   Tree fabric except link-M connecting Leaf112 to ToF22.

   The RIFT control protocol can discover the physical links
   automatically and be able to detect cabling that violates Fat Tree
   topology constraints.  It reacts accordingly to such miscabling
   attempts, at a minimum preventing adjacencies between nodes from
   being formed and traffic from being forwarded on those miscabled

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   links.  Leaf112 will in such scenario use link-M to derive its level
   (unless it is leaf) and can report links to Spine111 and Spine112 as
   miscabled unless the implementations allows horizontal links.

   Figure 7 shows a multiple plane miscabling example.  Since Leaf112
   and Spine121 belong to two different PoDs, the adjacency between
   Leaf112 and Spine121 can not be formed.  Link-W would be detected and
   prevented.

      +-------+    +-------+           +-------+    +-------+
      |ToF  A1|    |ToF  A2|           |ToF  B1|    |ToF  B2| LEVEL 2
      +-------+    +-------+           +-------+    +-------+
      |       |    |       |           |       |    |       |
      |       |    |       +-----------------+ |    |       |
      |       +--------------------------+   | |    |       |
      |     +------+                   | |   | +------+     |
      |     |        +-----------------+ |   |      | |     |
      |     |        |   +--------------------------+ |     |
      |  A  |        | B |               | A |        |  B  |
      +-----+--+   +-+---+--+         +--+---+-+   +--+-----+
      |Spine111|   |Spine112|     +---+Spine121|   |Spine122| LEVEL 1
      +-+---+--+   ++----+--+     |   +--+---+-+   +-+----+-+
        |   |       |    |        |      |   |       |    |
        |   +---------+  |        |      |   +---------+  |
        |           | |  |      link-W   |           | |  |
        |   +-------+ |  |        |      |   +-------+ |  |
        |   |         |  |        |      |   |         |  |
      +-+---+-+    +--+--+-+      |    +-+---+-+    +--+--+-+
      |Leaf111|    |Leaf112+------+    |Leaf121|    |Leaf122| LEVEL 0
      +-------+    +-------+           +-------+    +-------+
     +--------PoD#1----------+       +---------PoD#2---------+

               Figure 7: A multiple plane miscabling example

   RIFT provides an optional level determination procedure in its Zero
   Touch Provisioning mode.  Nodes in the fabric without their level
   configured determine it automatically.  This can have possibly
   counter-intuitive consequences however.  One extreme failure scenario
   is depicted in Figure 8 and it shows that if all northbound links of
   spine11 fail at the same time, spine11 negotiates a lower level than
   Leaf11 and Leaf12.

   To prevent such scenario where leafs are expected to act as switches,
   LEAF_ONLY flag can be set for Leaf111 and Leaf112.  Since level -1 is
   invalid, Spine11 would not derive a valid level from the topology in
   Figure 8.  It will be isolated from the whole fabric and it would be
   up to the leafs to declare the links towards such spine as miscabled.

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           +-------+    +-------+        +-------+    +-------+
           |ToF  A1|    |ToF  A2|        |ToF  A1|    |ToF  A2|
           +-------+    +-------+        +-------+    +-------+
           |       |    |       |                |            |
           |    +-------+       |                |            |
           +    +  |            |  ====>         |            |
           X    X  +------+     |                +------+     |
           +    +         |     |                       |     |
           +----+--+    +-+-----+                     +-+-----+
           |Spine11|    |Spine12|                     |Spine12|
           +-+---+-+    ++----+-+                     ++----+-+
             |   |       |    |                        |    |
             |   +---------+  |                        |    |
             |   +-------+ |  |                +-------+    |
             |   |         |  |                |            |
           +-+---+-+    +--+--+-+        +-----+-+    +-----+-+
           |Leaf111|    |Leaf112|        |Leaf111|    |Leaf112|
           +-------+    +-------+        +-+-----+    +-+-----+
                                           |            |
                                           |   +--------+
                                           |   |
                                         +-+---+-+
                                         |Spine11|
                                         +-------+

                           Figure 8: Fallen spine

5.5.2.  Miscabling considerations

   There are scenarios where operators may want to leverage ZTP and
   implement additional cabling constraints that go beyond the
   previously described topology violations.  Enforcing cabling down to
   specific level, node, and port combinations might make it simpler for
   onsite staff to perform troubleshooting activities or replace optical
   transceivers and/or cabling as the physical layout will be consistent
   across the fabric.  This is especially true for densely connected
   fabrics where it is difficult to physically manipulate those
   components.  It is also easy to imagine other models, such as one
   where the strict port requirement is relaxed.

   Figure 9 illustrates an example where the first port on Leaf1 must
   connect to the first port on Spine1, the second port on Leaf1 must
   connect to the first port on Spine2, and so on.  Consider a case
   where (Leaf1, Port1) and (Leaf1, Port2) were reversed.  RIFT would
   not consider this to be miscabled by default, however, an operator
   might want to.

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           +--------+    +--------+    +--------+    +--------+
           | Spine1 |    | Spine2 |    | Spine3 |    | Spine4 |
           +-1------+    +-1------+    +-1------+    +-1------+
             +             +             +             +
             |  +----------+             |             |
             |  |                        |             |
             |  |  +---------------------+             |
             |  |  |                                   |
             |  |  |  +--------------------------------+
             |  |  |  |
             |  |  |  |
             |  |  |  |
             |  |  |  |
             +  +  +  +
           +-1--2--3--4--+
           |   Leaf1     |   ......
           +-------------+

                           Figure 9: Fallen spine

   RIFT allows implementations to provide programmable plugins that can
   adjust ZTP operation or capture information during computation.
   While defining this is outside the scope of this document, such a
   mechanism could be used to extend miscabling functionality.

   For other protocols to achieve this, it would require additional
   operational overhead.  Consider a fabric that is using unnumbered
   OSPF links, it is still very likely that a miscabled link will form
   an adjacency.  Each attempts to move cables to the correct port may
   result in the need for additional troubleshooting as other links will
   become miscabled in the process.  Without automation to explicitly
   tell the operator which ports need to be moved where, the process
   becomes manually intensive and error-prone very quickly.  Or if the
   problem goes unnoticed, result in suboptimal performance in the
   fabric.

5.6.  Multicast and Broadcast Implementations

   RIFT supports both multicast and broadcast implementations.  While a
   multicast implementation is preferred, there might cases where a
   broadcast implementation is optimal or even required.  For example,
   operating systems on IoT devices and embedded devices may not have
   the required multicast support.  Another example is containers, which
   in some cases do support multicast, but tend to be very CPU-
   inefficient and difficult to tune.

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5.7.  Positive vs. Negative Disaggregation

   Disaggregation is the procedure whereby RIFT [RIFT] advertises a more
   specific route southwards as an exception to the aggregated fabric-
   default north.  Disaggregation is useful when a prefix within the
   aggregation is reachable via some of the parents but not the others
   at the same level of the fabric.  It is mandatory when the level is
   the ToF since a ToF node that cannot reach a prefix becomes a black
   hole for that prefix.  The hard problem is to know which prefixes are
   reachable by whom.

   In the general case, RIFT [RIFT] solves that problem by
   interconnecting the ToF nodes.  So the ToF nodes can exchange the
   full list of prefixes that exist in the fabric and figure out when a
   ToF node lacks reachability to some prefixes.  This requires
   additional ports at the ToF, typically 2 ports per ToF node to form a
   ToF-spanning ring.  RIFT [RIFT] also defines the southbound
   reflection procedure that enables a parent to explore the direct
   connectivity of its peers, meaning their own parents and children;
   based on the advertisements received from the shared parents and
   children, it may enable the parent to infer the prefixes its peers
   can reach.

   When a parent lacks reachability to a prefix, it may disaggregate the
   prefix negatively, i.e., advertise that this parent can be used to
   reach any prefix in the aggregation except that one.  The Negative
   Disaggregation signaling is simple and functions transitively from
   ToF to top-of-pod (ToP) and then from ToP to Leaf.  But it is hard
   for a parent to figure which prefix it needs to disaggregate, because
   it does not know what it does not know; it results that the use of a
   spanning ring at the ToF is required to operate the Negative
   Disaggregation.  Also, though it is only an implementation problem,
   the programming of the FIB is complex compared to normal routes, and
   may incur recursions.

   The more classical alternative is, for the parents that can reach a
   prefix that peers at the same level cannot, to advertise a more
   specific route to that prefix.  This leverages the normal longest
   prefix match in the FIB, and does not require a special
   implementation.  But as opposed to the Negative Disaggregation, the
   Positive Disaggregation is difficult and inefficient to operate
   transitively.

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   Transitivity is not needed to a grandchild if all its parents
   received the Positive Disaggregation, meaning that they shall all
   avoid the black hole; when that is the case, they collectively build
   a ceiling that protects the grandchild.  But until then, a parent
   that received a Positive Disaggregation may believe that some peers
   are lacking the reachability and readvertise too early, or defer and
   maintain a black hole situation longer than necessary.

   In a non-partitioned fabric, all the ToF nodes see one another
   through the reflection and can figure if one is missing a child.  In
   that case it is possible to compute the prefixes that the peer cannot
   reach and disaggregate positively without a ToF-spanning ring.  The
   ToF nodes can also ascertain that the ToP nodes are connected each to
   at least a ToF node that can still reach the prefix, meaning that the
   transitive operation is not required.

   The bottom line is that in a fabric that is partitioned (e.g., using
   multiple planes) and/or where the ToP nodes are not guaranteed to
   always form a ceiling for their children, it is mandatory to use the
   Negative Disaggregation.  On the other hand, in a highly symmetrical
   and fully connected fabric, (e.g., a canonical Clos Network), the
   Positive Disaggregation methods allows to save the complexity and
   cost associated to the ToF-spanning ring.

   Note that in the case of Positive Disaggregation, the first ToF
   node(s) that announces a more-specific route attracts all the traffic
   for that route and may suffer from a transient incast.  A ToP node
   that defers injecting the longer prefix in the FIB, in order to
   receive more advertisements and spread the packets better, also keeps
   on sending a portion of the traffic to the black hole in the
   meantime.  In the case of Negative Disaggregation, the last ToF
   node(s) that injects the route may also incur an incast issue; this
   problem would occur if a prefix that becomes totally unreachable is
   disaggregated.

5.8.  Mobile Edge and Anycast

   When a physical or a virtual node changes its point of attachment in
   the fabric from a previous-leaf to a next-leaf, new routes must be
   installed that supersede the old ones.  Since the flooding flows
   northwards, the nodes (if any) between the previous-leaf and the
   common parent are not immediately aware that the path via previous-
   leaf is obsolete, and a stale route may exist for a while.  The
   common parent needs to select the freshest route advertisement in
   order to install the correct route via the next-leaf.  This requires
   that the fabric determines the sequence of the movements of the
   mobile node.

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   On the one hand, a classical sequence counter provides a total order
   for a while but it will eventually wrap.  On the other hand, a
   timestamp provides a permanent order but it may miss a movement that
   happens too quickly vs.  the granularity of the timing information.
   It is not envisioned that an average fabric supports Precision Time
   Protocol [IEEEstd1588] in the short term, nor that the precision
   available with the Network Time Protocol [RFC5905] (in the order of
   100 to 200ms) may not be necessarily enough to cover, e.g., the fast
   mobility of a Virtual Machine.

   Section 6.8.4 "Mobility" of RIFT [RIFT] specifies a hybrid method
   that combines a sequence counter from the mobile node and a timestamp
   from the network taken at the leaf when the route is injected.  If
   the timestamps of the concurrent advertisements are comparable (i.e.,
   more distant than the precision of the timing protocol), then the
   timestamp alone is used to determine the relative freshness of the
   routes.  Otherwise, the sequence counter from the mobile node, if
   available, is used.  One caveat is that the sequence counter must not
   wrap within the precision of the timing protocol.  Another is that
   the mobile node may not even provide a sequence counter, in which
   case the mobility itself must be slower than the precision of the
   timing.

   Mobility must not be confused with anycast.  In both cases, a same
   address is injected in RIFT at different leaves.  In the case of
   mobility, only the freshest route must be conserved, since mobile
   node changed its point of attachment for a leaf to the next.  In the
   case of anycast, the node may be either multihomed (attached to
   multiple leaves in parallel) or reachable beyond the fabric via
   multiple routes that are redistributed to different leaves; either
   way, in the case of anycast, the multiple routes are equally valid
   and should be conserved.  Without further information from the
   redistributed routing protocol, it is impossible to sort out a
   movement from a redistribution that happens asynchronously on
   different leaves.  RIFT [RIFT] expects that anycast addresses are
   advertised within the timing precision, which is typically the case
   with a low-precision timing and a multihomed node.  Beyond that time
   interval, RIFT interprets the lag as a mobility and only the freshest
   route is retained.

   When using IPv6 [RFC8200], RIFT suggests to leverage [RFC8505] as the
   IPv6 ND interaction between the mobile node and the leaf.  This
   provides not only a sequence counter but also a lifetime and a
   security token that may be used to protect the ownership of an
   address [RFC8928].  When using [RFC8505], the parallel registration
   of an anycast address to multiple leaves is done with the same
   sequence counter, whereas the sequence counter is incremented when
   the point of attachment changes.  This way, it is possible to

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   differentiate a mobile node from a multihomed node, even when the
   mobility happens within the timing precision.  It is also possible
   for a mobile node to be multihomed as well, e.g., to change only one
   of its points of attachment.

5.9.  IPv4 over IPv6

   RIFT allows advertising IPv4 prefixes over IPv6 RIFT network.  IPv6
   Address Family (AF) configures via the usual Neighbor Discovery (ND)
   mechanisms and then V4 can use V6 next-hops analogous to [RFC8950].
   It is expected that the whole fabric supports the same type of
   forwarding of address families on all the links.  RIFT provides an
   indication whether a node is v4 forwarding capable and
   implementations are possible where different routing tables are
   computed per address family as long as the computation remains loop-
   free.

                            +-----+        +-----+
                 +---+---+  | ToF |        | ToF |
                     ^      +--+--+        +-----+
                     |      |  |           |     |
                     |      |  +-------------+   |
                     |      |     +--------+ |   |
                     +      |     |          |   |
                    V6      +-----+        +-+---+
                 Forwarding |Spine|        |Spine|
                     +      +--+--+        +-----+
                     |      |  |           |     |
                     |      |  +-------------+   |
                     |      |     +--------+ |   |
                     |      |     |          |   |
                     v      +-----+        +-+---+
                 +---+---+  |Leaf |        | Leaf|
                            +--+--+        +--+--+
                               |              |
                  IPv4 prefixes|              |IPv4 prefixes
                               |              |
                           +---+----+     +---+----+
                           |   V4   |     |   V4   |
                           | subnet |     | subnet |
                           +--------+     +--------+

                         Figure 10: IPv4 over IPv6

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5.10.  In-Band Reachability of Nodes

   RIFT doesn't precondition that nodes of the fabric have reachable
   addresses.  But the operational reasons to reach the internal nodes
   may exist.  Figure 11 shows an example that the network management
   station (NMS) attaches to leaf1.

                         +-------+      +-------+
                         | ToF1  |      | ToF2  |
                         ++---- ++      ++-----++
                          |     |        |     |
                          |     +----------+   |
                          |     +--------+ |   |
                          |     |          |   |
                         ++-----++      +--+---++
                         |Spine1 |      |Spine2 |
                         ++-----++      ++-----++
                          |     |        |     |
                          |     +----------+   |
                          |     +--------+ |   |
                          |     |          |   |
                         ++-----++      +--+---++
                         | Leaf1 |      | Leaf2 |
                         +---+---+      +-------+
                             |
                             |NMS

                  Figure 11: In-Band reachability of node

   If NMS wants to access Leaf2, it simply works.  Because loopback
   address of Leaf2 is flooded in its Prefix North TIE.

   If NMS wants to access Spine2, it simply works too.  Because spine
   node always advertises its loopback address in the Prefix North TIE.
   NMS may reach Spine2 from Leaf1-Spine2 or Leaf1-Spine1-ToF1/
   ToF2-Spine2.

   If NMS wants to access ToF2, ToF2's loopback address needs to be
   injected into its Prefix South TIE.  This TIE must be seen by all
   nodes at the level below - the spine nodes in Figure 11 – that must
   form a ceiling for all the traffic coming from below (south).
   Otherwise, the traffic from NMS may follow the default route to the
   wrong ToF Node, e.g., ToF1.

   In case of failure between ToF2 and spine nodes, ToF2's loopback
   address must be disaggregated recursively all the way to the leaves.
   In a partitioned ToF, even with recursive disaggregation a ToF node
   is only reachable within its plane.

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   A possible alternative to recursive disaggregation is to use a ring
   that interconnects the ToF nodes to transmit packets between them for
   their loopback addresses only.  The idea is that this is mostly
   control traffic and should not alter the load balancing properties of
   the fabric.

5.11.  Dual Homing Servers

   Each RIFT node may operate in Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP) mode.  It
   has no configuration (unless it is a Top-of-Fabric at the top of the
   topology or the must operate in the topology as leaf and/or support
   leaf-2-leaf procedures) and it will fully configure itself after
   being attached to the topology.

                 +---+         +---+         +---+
                 |ToF|         |ToF|         |ToF|      ToF
                 +---+         +---+         +---+
                 |   |         |   |         |   |
                 |   +----------------+      |   |
                 |          +----------------+   |
                 |          |  |   |  |          |
                 +----------+--+   +--+----------+
                 |     ToR1    |   |     ToR2    |      Spine
                 +--+------+---+   +--+-------+--+
             +---+  |      |   |   |  |       |  +---+
             |   +-----------------+  |       |      |
             |   |  |   +-------------+       |      |
             |   |  |   |  |   +-----------------+   |
             |   |  |   |  +--------------+   |  |   |
             |   |  |   |                 |   |  |   |
             +---+  +---+                 +---+  +---+
             |   |  |   |                 |   |  |   |
             +---+  +---+  .............  +---+  +---+
             SV(1) SV(2)                 SV(n-1) SV(n)  Leaf

                       Figure 12: Dual-homing servers

   Sometimes, people may prefer to disaggregate from ToR to servers from
   start on, i.e. the servers have couple tens of routes in FIB from
   start on beside default routes to avoid breakages at rack level.
   Full disaggregation of the fabric could be achieved by configuration
   supported by RIFT.

5.12.  Fabric with A Controller

   There are many different ways to deploy the controller.  One
   possibility is attaching a controller to the RIFT domain from ToF and
   another possibility is attaching a controller from the leaf.

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                                     +------------+
                                     | Controller |
                                     ++----------++
                                      |          |
                                      |          |
                                 +----++        ++----+
                     -------     | ToF |        | ToF |
                        |        +--+--+        +-----+
                        |        |  |           |     |
                        |        |  +-------------+   |
                        |        |     +--------+ |   |
                        |        |     |          |   |
                                 +-----+        +-+---+
                    RIFT domain  |Spine|        |Spine|
                                 +--+--+        +-----+
                        |        |  |           |     |
                        |        |  +-------------+   |
                        |        |     +--------+ |   |
                        |        |     |          |   |
                        |        +-----+        +-+---+
                     -------     |Leaf |        | Leaf|
                                 +-----+        +-----+

                    Figure 13: Fabric with a controller

5.12.1.  Controller Attached to ToFs

   If a controller is attaching to the RIFT domain from ToF, it usually
   uses dual-homing connections.  The loopback prefix of the controller
   should be advertised down by the ToF and spine to leaves.  If the
   controller loses link to ToF, make sure the ToF withdraw the prefix
   of the controller.

5.12.2.  Controller Attached to Leaf

   If the controller is attaching from a leaf to the fabric, no special
   provisions are needed.

5.13.  Internet Connectivity Within Underlay

   If global addressing is running without overlay, an external default
   route needs to be advertised through RIFT fabric to achieve internet
   connectivity.  For the purpose of forwarding of the entire RIFT
   fabric, an internal fabric prefix needs to be advertised in the South
   Prefix TIE by ToF and spine nodes.

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5.13.1.  Internet Default on the Leaf

   In case that the internet gateway is a leaf, the leaf node as the
   internet gateway needs to advertise a default route in its Prefix
   North TIE.

5.13.2.  Internet Default on the ToFs

   In case that the internet gateway is a ToF, the ToF and spine nodes
   need to advertise a default route in the Prefix South TIE.

5.14.  Subnet Mismatch and Address Families

                 +--------+                     +--------+
                 |        |  LIE          LIE   |        |
                 |   A    | +---->       <----+ |   B    |
                 |        +---------------------+        |
                 +--------+                     +--------+
                    X/24                           Y/24

                         Figure 14: subnet mismatch

   LIEs are exchanged over all links running RIFT to perform Link
   (Neighbor) Discovery.  A node must NOT originate LIEs on an address
   family if it does not process received LIEs on that family.  LIEs on
   same link are considered part of the same negotiation independent on
   the address family they arrive on.  An implementation must be ready
   to accept TIEs on all addresses it used as source of LIE frames.

   As shown in the above figure, without further checks adjacency of
   node A and B may form, but the forwarding between node A and node B
   may fail because subnet X mismatches with subnet Y.

   To prevent this a RIFT implementation should check for subnet
   mismatch just like e.g.  IS-IS does.  This can lead to scenarios
   where an adjacency, despite exchange of LIEs in both address families
   may end up having an adjacency in a single AF only.  This is a
   consideration especially in Section 5.9 scenarios.

5.15.  Anycast Considerations

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                                 + traffic
                                 |
                                 v
                          +------+------+
                          |     ToF     |
                          +---+-----+---+
                          |   |     |   |
             +------------+   |     |   +------------+
             |                |     |                |
         +---+---+    +-------+     +-------+    +---+---+
         |       |    |       |     |       |    |       |
         |Spine11|    |Spine12|     |Spine21|    |Spine22| LEVEL 1
         +-+---+-+    ++----+-+     +-+---+-+    ++----+-+
           |   |       |    |         |   |       |    |
           |   +---------+  |         |   +---------+  |
           |   +-------+ |  |         |   +-------+ |  |
           |   |         |  |         |   |         |  |
         +-+---+-+    +--+--+-+     +-+---+-+    +--+--+-+
         |       |    |       |     |       |    |       |
         |Leaf111|    |Leaf112|     |Leaf121|    |Leaf122| LEVEL 0
         +-+-----+    ++------+     +-----+-+    +-----+-+
           +           +                  +      ^     +
         PrefixA      PrefixB         PrefixA    | PrefixC
                                                 |
                                                 + traffic

                             Figure 15: Anycast

   If the traffic comes from ToF to Leaf111 or Leaf121 which has anycast
   prefix PrefixA, RIFT can deal with this case well.  But if the
   traffic comes from Leaf122, it arrives Spine21 or Spine22 at level 1.
   But Spine21 or Spine22 doesn't know another PrefixA attaching
   Leaf111.  So it will always get to Leaf121 and never get to Leaf111.
   If the intension is that the traffic should be offloaded to Leaf111,
   then use policy guided prefixes defined in RIFT [RIFT].

5.16.  IoT Applicability

   The design of RIFT inherits from RPL [RFC6550] the anisotropic design
   of a default route upwards (northwards); it also inherits the
   capability to inject external host routes at the Leaf level using
   Wireless ND (WiND) [RFC8505][RFC8928] between a RIFT-agnostic host
   and a RIFT router.  Both the RPL and the RIFT protocols are meant for
   large scale, and WiND enables device mobility at the edge the same
   way in both cases.

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   The main difference between RIFT and RPL is that with RPL, there’s a
   single Root, whereas RIFT has many ToF nodes.  This adds huge
   capabilities for leaf-2-leaf ECMP paths, but additional complexity
   with the need to disaggregate.  Also RIFT uses Link State flooding
   northwards, and is not designed for low-power operation.

   Still nothing prevents that the IP devices connected at the Leaf are
   IoT devices, which typically expose their address using WiND – which
   is an upgrade from 6LoWPAN ND [RFC6775].

   A network that serves high speed/ high power IoT devices should
   typically provide deterministic capabilities for applications such as
   high speed control loops or movement detection.  The Fat Tree is
   highly reliable, and in normal condition provides an equivalent
   multipath operation; but the ECMP doesn’t provide hard guarantees for
   either delivery or latency.  As long as the fabric is non-blocking
   the result is the same; but there can be load unbalances resulting in
   incast and possibly congestion loss that will prevent the delivery
   within bounded latency.

   This could be alleviated with Packet Replication, Elimination and
   Reordering (PREOF) [RFC8655] leaf-2-leaf but PREOF is hard to provide
   at the scale of all flows, and the replication may increase the
   probability of the overload that it attempts to solve.

   Note that the load balancing is not RIFT’s problem, but it is key to
   serve IoT adequately.

5.17.  Key Management

   As outlined in Section 9 "Security Considerations" of RIFT [RIFT],
   either a private shared key or a public/private key pair is used to
   authenticate the adjacency.  Both the key distribution and key
   synchronization methods are out of scope for this document.  Both
   nodes in the adjacency must share the same keys, key type, and
   algorithm for a given key ID.  Mismatched keys will not inter-operate
   as their security envelopes will be unverifiable.

   Key roll-over while the adjacency is active may be supported.  The
   specific mechanism is well documented in [RFC6518].  As outlined in
   Section 9.9 "Host Implementations" of RIFT [RIFT], hosts as well as
   VMs act as RIFT devices are possible.  KMP such as KV for key roll-
   over in the fabric using a symmetric key that can be changed easily
   when compromised.  Wherein symmetric key of a host is more likely to
   be compromised than of a in-fabric networking node.

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5.18.  TTL/HopLimit of 1 vs. 255 on LIEs/TIEs

   The use of a packet's Time to Live (TTL) (IPv4) or Hop Limit (IPv6)
   to verify whether the packet was originated by an adjacent node on a
   connected link has been used in RIFT.RIFT explicitly requires the use
   of a TTL/HL value of 1 *or* 255 when sending/receiving LIEs and TIEs
   so that implementers have a choice between the two.

   TTL=1 or HL=1 protects against the information disseminating more
   than 1 hop in the fabric and should be the default unless configured
   otherwise.  TTL=255 or HL=255 can lead RIFT TIE packet propagation to
   more than one hop (multicast address is already local subnetwork
   range) in case of implementation problems but does protect against a
   remote attack as well, and the receiving remote router will ignore
   such TIE packet unless the remote router is exactly 254 hops away and
   accepts only TTL=1 or HL=1.  [RFC5082] defines a Generalized TTL
   Security Mechanism (GTSM).  The GTSM is applicable to LIEs/TIEs
   implementations that use a TTL or HL of 255.  It provides a defense
   from infrastructure attacks based on forged protocol packets from
   outside the fabric.

6.  Security Considerations

   This document presents applicability of RIFT.  As such, it does not
   introduce any security considerations.  However, there are a number
   of security concerns at RIFT [RIFT].

7.  IANA Considerations

   This document has no IANA actions.

8.  Acknowledgments

   The authors would like to thank Jaroslaw Kowalczyk, Alvaro Retana,
   Jim Guichard and Jeffrey Zhang for providing invaluable concepts and
   content for this document.

9.  Contributors

   The following people (listed in alphabetical order) contributed
   significantly to the content of this document and should be
   considered co-authors:

   Jordan Head

   Juniper Networks

   Email: jhead@juniper.net

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   Tom Verhaeg

   Juniper Networks

   Email: tverhaeg@juniper.net

10.  Normative References

   [ISO10589-Second-Edition]
              International Organization for Standardization,
              "Intermediate system to Intermediate system intra-domain
              routing information exchange protocol for use in
              conjunction with the protocol for providing the
              connectionless-mode Network Service (ISO 8473)", November
              2002.

   [TR-384]   Broadband Forum Technical Report, "TR-384 Cloud Central
              Office Reference Architectural Framework", January 2018.

   [RFC2328]  Moy, J., "OSPF Version 2", STD 54, RFC 2328,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2328, April 1998,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2328>.

   [RFC4861]  Narten, T., Nordmark, E., Simpson, W., and H. Soliman,
              "Neighbor Discovery for IP version 6 (IPv6)", RFC 4861,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC4861, September 2007,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4861>.

   [RFC5082]  Gill, V., Heasley, J., Meyer, D., Savola, P., Ed., and C.
              Pignataro, "The Generalized TTL Security Mechanism
              (GTSM)", RFC 5082, DOI 10.17487/RFC5082, October 2007,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5082>.

   [RFC5340]  Coltun, R., Ferguson, D., Moy, J., and A. Lindem, "OSPF
              for IPv6", RFC 5340, DOI 10.17487/RFC5340, July 2008,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5340>.

   [RFC5357]  Hedayat, K., Krzanowski, R., Morton, A., Yum, K., and J.
              Babiarz, "A Two-Way Active Measurement Protocol (TWAMP)",
              RFC 5357, DOI 10.17487/RFC5357, October 2008,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5357>.

   [RFC6518]  Lebovitz, G. and M. Bhatia, "Keying and Authentication for
              Routing Protocols (KARP) Design Guidelines", RFC 6518,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6518, February 2012,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6518>.

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   [RFC6550]  Winter, T., Ed., Thubert, P., Ed., Brandt, A., Hui, J.,
              Kelsey, R., Levis, P., Pister, K., Struik, R., Vasseur,
              JP., and R. Alexander, "RPL: IPv6 Routing Protocol for
              Low-Power and Lossy Networks", RFC 6550,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6550, March 2012,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6550>.

   [RFC6775]  Shelby, Z., Ed., Chakrabarti, S., Nordmark, E., and C.
              Bormann, "Neighbor Discovery Optimization for IPv6 over
              Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPANs)",
              RFC 6775, DOI 10.17487/RFC6775, November 2012,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6775>.

   [RFC7130]  Bhatia, M., Ed., Chen, M., Ed., Boutros, S., Ed.,
              Binderberger, M., Ed., and J. Haas, Ed., "Bidirectional
              Forwarding Detection (BFD) on Link Aggregation Group (LAG)
              Interfaces", RFC 7130, DOI 10.17487/RFC7130, February
              2014, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7130>.

   [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>.

   [RFC8950]  Litkowski, S., Agrawal, S., Ananthamurthy, K., and K.
              Patel, "Advertising IPv4 Network Layer Reachability
              Information (NLRI) with an IPv6 Next Hop", RFC 8950,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8950, November 2020,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8950>.

   [RIFT]     Przygienda, T., Head, J., Sharma, A., Thubert, P.,
              Rijsman, B., and D. Afanasiev, "RIFT: Routing in Fat
              Trees", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-rift-
              rift-24, 23 May 2024,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-rift-
              rift-24>.

11.  Informative References

   [IEEEstd1588]
              IEEE standard for Information Technology, "IEEE Standard
              for a Precision Clock Synchronization Protocol for
              Networked Measurement and Control Systems",
              <https://standards.ieee.org/standard/1588-2019.html>.

   [CLOS]     Yuan, X., "On Nonblocking Folded-Clos Networks in Computer
              Communication Environments", IEEE International Parallel &
              Distributed Processing Symposium, 2011.

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   [FATTREE]  Leiserson, C. E., "Fat-Trees: Universal Networks for
              Hardware-Efficient Supercomputing", 1985.

   [PNNI]     ATM Forum Technical Committee, "Private Network-Network
              Interface Specification, Version 1.1 (PNNI 1.1), af-pnni-
              0055.002", 2003.

   [RFC3626]  Clausen, T., Ed. and P. Jacquet, Ed., "Optimized Link
              State Routing Protocol (OLSR)", RFC 3626,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC3626, October 2003,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3626>.

   [RFC4271]  Rekhter, Y., Ed., Li, T., Ed., and S. Hares, Ed., "A
              Border Gateway Protocol 4 (BGP-4)", RFC 4271,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC4271, January 2006,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4271>.

   [RFC5905]  Mills, D., Martin, J., Ed., Burbank, J., and W. Kasch,
              "Network Time Protocol Version 4: Protocol and Algorithms
              Specification", RFC 5905, DOI 10.17487/RFC5905, June 2010,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5905>.

   [RFC8200]  Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6
              (IPv6) Specification", STD 86, RFC 8200,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8200, July 2017,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8200>.

   [RFC8505]  Thubert, P., Ed., Nordmark, E., Chakrabarti, S., and C.
              Perkins, "Registration Extensions for IPv6 over Low-Power
              Wireless Personal Area Network (6LoWPAN) Neighbor
              Discovery", RFC 8505, DOI 10.17487/RFC8505, November 2018,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8505>.

   [RFC8928]  Thubert, P., Ed., Sarikaya, B., Sethi, M., and R. Struik,
              "Address-Protected Neighbor Discovery for Low-Power and
              Lossy Networks", RFC 8928, DOI 10.17487/RFC8928, November
              2020, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8928>.

Authors' Addresses

   Yuehua Wei (editor)
   ZTE Corporation
   No.50, Software Avenue
   Nanjing
   210012
   China
   Email: wei.yuehua@zte.com.cn

Wei, et al.             Expires 19 December 2024               [Page 36]
Internet-Draft        RIFT Applicability Statement             June 2024

   Zheng Zhang
   ZTE Corporation
   No.50, Software Avenue
   Nanjing
   210012
   China
   Email: zhang.zheng@zte.com.cn

   Dmitry Afanasiev
   Yandex
   Email: fl0w@yandex-team.ru

   Pascal Thubert
   Cisco Systems, Inc
   Building D
   45 Allee des Ormes - BP1200
   06254 MOUGINS - Sophia Antipolis
   France
   Phone: +33 497 23 26 34
   Email: pthubert@cisco.com

   Tony Przygienda
   Juniper Networks
   1194 N. Mathilda Ave
   Sunnyvale, CA,  94089
   United States of America
   Email: prz@juniper.net

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