A Framework for Network Resource Partition (NRP) based Enhanced Virtual Private Networks
draft-ietf-teas-enhanced-vpn-20
The information below is for an old version of the document that is already published as an RFC.
| Document | Type |
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 9732.
|
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Authors | Jie Dong , Stewart Bryant , Zhenqiang Li , Takuya Miyasaka , Young Lee | ||
| Last updated | 2025-03-27 (Latest revision 2024-06-14) | ||
| Replaces | draft-dong-teas-enhanced-vpn | ||
| RFC stream | Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) | ||
| Intended RFC status | Informational | ||
| Formats | |||
| Reviews |
TSVART IETF Last Call review
(of
-19)
by David Black
Ready w/issues
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||
| Additional resources | Mailing list discussion | ||
| Stream | WG state | Submitted to IESG for Publication | |
| Document shepherd | Lou Berger | ||
| Shepherd write-up | Show Last changed 2024-01-15 | ||
| IESG | IESG state | Became RFC 9732 (Informational) | |
| Action Holders |
(None)
|
||
| Consensus boilerplate | Yes | ||
| Telechat date | (None) | ||
| Responsible AD | Jim Guichard | ||
| Send notices to | lberger@labn.net | ||
| IANA | IANA review state | IANA OK - No Actions Needed | |
| IANA action state | No IANA Actions |
draft-ietf-teas-enhanced-vpn-20
TEAS Working Group J. Dong
Internet-Draft Huawei
Intended status: Informational S. Bryant
Expires: 16 December 2024 University of Surrey
Z. Li
China Mobile
T. Miyasaka
KDDI Corporation
Y. Lee
Samsung
14 June 2024
A Framework for Network Resource Partition (NRP) based Enhanced Virtual
Private Networks
draft-ietf-teas-enhanced-vpn-20
Abstract
This document describes the framework for Network Resource Partition
(NRP) based Enhanced Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to support the
needs of applications with specific traffic performance requirements
(e.g., low latency, bounded jitter). An NRP represents a subset of
network resources and associated policies in the underlay network.
NRP-based Enhanced VPNs leverage the VPN and Traffic Engineering (TE)
technologies and add characteristics that specific services require
beyond those provided by conventional VPNs. Typically, an NRP-based
enhanced VPN will be used to underpin network slicing, but could also
be of use in its own right providing enhanced connectivity services
between customer sites. This document also provides an overview of
relevant technologies in different network layers, and identifies
some areas for potential new work.
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."
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This Internet-Draft will expire on 16 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
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 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3. Overview of the Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.1. Performance Guarantees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.2. Interaction between Enhanced VPN Services . . . . . . . . 9
3.2.1. Requirements on Traffic Isolation . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.2.2. Limited Interaction with Other Services . . . . . . . 10
3.2.3. Realization of Limited Interaction with Enhanced VPN
Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.3. Integration with Network Resources and Service
Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.3.1. Abstraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.4. Dynamic Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.5. Customized Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.6. Applicability to Overlay Technologies . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.7. Inter-Domain and Inter-Layer Network . . . . . . . . . . 14
4. The Architecture of NRP-based Enhanced VPNs . . . . . . . . . 14
4.1. Layered Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.2. Connectivity Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4.3. Application-Specific Data Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4.4. Scalable Service Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
5. Candidate Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
5.1. Underlay Forwarding Resource Partitioning . . . . . . . . 21
5.1.1. Flexible Ethernet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
5.1.2. Dedicated Queues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
5.1.3. Time Sensitive Networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
5.2. Network Layer Encapsulation and Forwarding . . . . . . . 22
5.2.1. Deterministic Networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
5.2.2. MPLS Traffic Engineering (MPLS-TE) . . . . . . . . . 23
5.2.3. Segment Routing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
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5.2.4. New Encapsulation Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.3. Non-Packet Data Plane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.4. Control Plane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.5. Management Plane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
5.6. Applicability of Service Data Models to Enhanced VPNs . . 27
6. Applicability in Network Slice Realization . . . . . . . . . 28
6.1. NRP Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
6.2. NRP Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
6.3. Network Slice Service Provisioning . . . . . . . . . . . 29
6.4. Network Slice Traffic Steering and Forwarding . . . . . . 29
7. Scalability Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
7.1. Maximum Stack Depth of SR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
7.2. RSVP-TE Scalability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
7.3. SDN Scaling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
8. Enhanced Resiliency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
9. Manageability Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
9.1. OAM Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
9.2. Telemetry Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
10. Operational Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
11. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
12. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
13. Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
14. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
15. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
15.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
15.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
1. Introduction
Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) have served the industry well as a
means of providing different groups of users with logically isolated
connectivity over a common network. The common (base) network that
is used to provide the VPNs is often referred to as the underlay, and
the VPN is often called an overlay.
Customers of a network operator may request connectivity services
with advanced characteristics, such as low latency guarantees,
bounded jitter, or isolation from other services or customers so that
changes in other services (e.g., changes in network load, or events
such as congestion or outages) have no effect or only acceptable
effects on the observed throughput or latency of the services
delivered to the customer. These services are referred to as
"enhanced VPNs", as they are similar to VPN services providing the
customer with the required connectivity, but in addition, they also
provide enhanced characteristics.
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This document describes a framework for delivering VPN services with
enhanced characteristics, such as guaranteed resources, latency,
jitter, etc. This list is not exhaustive. It is expected that other
enhanced features may be added to VPN over time, and it is expected
this framework will support these additions with necessary changes or
enhancements in some network layers and network planes (data plane,
control plane, and management plane).
The concept of network slicing has gained traction driven largely by
needs surfacing from 5G [NGMN-NS-Concept] [TS23501] [TS28530].
According to [TS28530], a 5G end-to-end network slice consists of
three major types of network segments: Radio Access Network (RAN),
Transport Network (TN), and Mobile Core Network (CN). The transport
network provides the connectivity between different entities in RAN
and CN segments of a 5G end-to-end network slice, with specific
performance commitments.
[RFC9543] discusses the general framework, components, and interfaces
for requesting and operating network slices using IETF technologies.
These network slices may be referred to as RFC 9543 Network Slices,
but in this document (which is solely about IETF technologies) we
simply use the term "network slice" to refer to this concept. A
network slice service enables connectivity between a set of Service
Demarcation Points (SDPs) with specific Service Level Objectives
(SLOs) and Service Level Expectations (SLEs) over a common underlay
network. A network slice can be realized as a logical network
connecting a number of endpoints and is associated with a set of
shared or dedicated network resources that are used to satisfy the
SLOs and SLEs requirements. A network slice is considered as one
target use case of enhanced VPNs.
[RFC9543] also introduces the concept of Network Resource Partition
(NRP), which is a subset of the buffer/queuing/scheduling resources
and associated policies on each of a connected set of links in the
underlay network. An NRP can be associated with a dedicated or
shared network topology to select or specify the set of links and
nodes involved.
The requirements of enhanced VPN services cannot simply be met by
overlay networks, as enhanced VPN services require tighter
coordination and integration between the overlay and the underlay
networks.
In the overlay network, the VPN has been defined as the network
construct to provide the required connectivity for different services
or customers. Multiple VPN flavors can be considered to create that
construct [RFC4026]. In the underlay network, the NRP is used to
represent a subset of the network resources and associated policies
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in the underlay network. An NRP can be associated with a dedicated
or shared network topology to select or specify the set of links and
nodes involved.
An enhanced VPN service can be realized by integrating a VPN in the
overlay and an NRP in the underlay. This is called an NRP-based
enhanced VPN. In doing so, an enhanced VPN service can provide
enhanced properties, such as guaranteed resources and assured or
predictable performance. An enhanced VPN service may also involve a
set of service functions (see Section 1.4 of [RFC7665] for the
definition of service function). The techniques for delivering an
NRP-based enhanced VPN can be used to instantiate a network slice
service (as described in Section 6), and they can also be of use in
general cases to provide enhanced connectivity services between
customer sites or service endpoints.
This document describes a framework for using existing, modified, and
potential new technologies as components to provide NRP-based
enhanced VPN services. Specifically, this document provides:
* The functional requirements and service characteristics of an
enhanced VPN service.
* The design of the data plane for NRP-based enhanced VPNs.
* The necessary control and management protocols in both the
underlay and the overlay of enhanced VPNs.
* The mechanisms to achieve integration between the overlay network
and the underlay network.
* The necessary Operation, Administration, and Management (OAM)
methods to instrument an enhanced VPN to make sure that the
required Service Level Agreement (SLA) between the customer and
the network operator is met, and to take any corrective action
(such as switching traffic to an alternate path) to avoid SLA
violation.
One possible layered network structure to achieve these objectives is
shown in Section 4.1.
It is not envisaged that enhanced VPN services will replace
conventional VPN services. VPN services will continue to be
delivered using existing mechanisms and can co-exist with enhanced
VPN services. Whether enhanced VPN features are added to an active
VPN service is deployment-specific.
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2. Terminology
In this document, the relationship of the four terms "VPN", "enhanced
VPN", "NRP", and "Network Slice" are as follows:
* A Virtual Private Network (VPN) refers to the overlay network
service that provides connectivity between different customer
sites, and that maintains traffic separation between different
customers. Examples of technologies to provide VPN services are:
IPVPN [RFC2764], L2VPN [RFC4664], L3VPN [RFC4364], and EVPN
[RFC7432].
* An enhanced VPN service is an evolution of the VPN service that
makes additional service-specific commitments. An NRP-based
enhanced VPN is made by integrating a VPN with a set of network
resources allocated in the underlay network (i.e. an NRP).
* A Network Resource Partition (NRP) as defined in [RFC9543] is a
subset of the buffer/queuing/scheduling resources and associated
policies on each of a connected set of links in the underlay
network. An NRP can be associated with a dedicated or shared
network topology to select or specify the set of links and nodes
involved. An NRP is designed to meet the network resources and
performance characteristics required by the enhanced VPN services.
* A network slice service could be delivered by provisioning one or
more NRP-based enhanced VPNs in the network. Other mechanisms for
realizing network slices may exist but are not in the scope of
this document.
The term "tenant" is used in this document to refer to a customer of
the enhanced VPN services.
The following terms, defined in other documents, are also used in
this document.
SLA: Service Level Agreement. See [RFC9543].
SLO: Service Level Objective. See [RFC9543].
SLE: Service Level Expectation. See [RFC9543].
ACTN: Abstraction and Control of Traffic Engineered Networks
[RFC8453].
DetNet: Deterministic Networking. See [RFC8655].
FlexE: Flexible Ethernet [FLEXE].
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TSN: Time Sensitive Networking [TSN].
VN: Virtual Network. See [RFC8453].
3. Overview of the Requirements
This section provides an overview of the requirements of an enhanced
VPN service.
3.1. Performance Guarantees
Performance guarantees are committed by network operators to their
customers in relation to the services delivered to the customers.
They are usually expressed in SLAs as a set of SLOs.
There are several kinds of performance guarantees, including
guaranteed maximum packet loss, guaranteed maximum delay, and
guaranteed delay variation. Note that these guarantees apply to
conformance traffic; out-of-profile traffic will be handled according
to a separate agreement with the customer (see, for example,
Section 3.6 of [RFC7297]).
Guaranteed maximum packet loss is usually addressed by setting packet
priorities, queue sizes, and discard policies. However, this becomes
more difficult when the requirement is combined with latency
requirements. The limiting case is zero congestion loss, and that is
the goal of Deterministic Networking (DetNet) [RFC8655] and Time-
Sensitive Networking (TSN) [TSN]. In modern optical networks, loss
due to transmission errors already approaches zero, but there is the
possibility of failure of the interface or the fiber itself. This
type of fault can be addressed by some form of signal duplication and
transmission over diverse paths.
Guaranteed maximum latency is required by a number of applications,
particularly real-time control applications and some types of
augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR) applications. DetNet
techniques may be considered [RFC8655], however additional methods of
enhancing the underlay to better support the delay guarantees may be
needed, and these methods will need to be integrated with the overall
service provisioning mechanisms.
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Guaranteed maximum delay variation is a performance guarantee that
may also be needed. [RFC8578] calls up a number of cases that need
this guarantee, for example in electrical utilities. Time transfer
is an example service that needs a performance guarantee, although it
is in the nature of time that the service might be delivered by the
underlay as a shared service and not provided through different
enhanced VPNs. Alternatively, a dedicated enhanced VPN might be used
to provide time transfer as a shared service.
This suggests that a spectrum of service guarantees needs to be
considered when designing and deploying an enhanced VPN. For
illustration purposes and without claiming to be exhaustive, four
types of services are considered:
* Best effort
* Assured bandwidth
* Guaranteed latency
* Enhanced delivery
It is noted that some services may have mixed requirements from this
list, e.g., both assured bandwidth and guaranteed latency can be
required.
The best effort service is the basic connectivity service that can be
provided by current VPNs.
An assured bandwidth service is a connectivity service in which the
bandwidth over some period of time is assured. This could be
achieved either simply based on a best effort service with over-
capacity provisioning, or it can be based on MPLS traffic engineered
label switching paths (TE-LSPs) with bandwidth reservations.
Depending on the technique used, however, the bandwidth is not
necessarily assured at any instant. Providing assured bandwidth to
VPNs, for example by using per-VPN TE-LSPs, is not widely deployed at
least partially due to scalability concerns. The more common
approach of aggregating multiple VPNs onto common TE-LSPs results in
shared bandwidth and so may reduce the assurance of bandwidth to any
one service. Enhanced VPNs aim to provide a more scalable approach
for such services.
A guaranteed latency service has an upper bound to edge-to-edge
latency. Assuring the upper bound is sometimes more important than
minimizing latency. There are several new technologies that provide
some assistance with this performance guarantee. Firstly, the IEEE
TSN project [TSN] introduces the concept of scheduling of delay- and
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loss-sensitive packets. FlexE [FLEXE] is also useful to help provide
a guaranteed upper bound to latency. DetNet is also of relevance in
assuring an upper bound of end-to-end packet latency in the network
layer. The use of these technologies to deliver enhanced VPN
services needs to be considered when a guaranteed latency service is
required.
An enhanced delivery service is a connectivity service in which the
underlay network (at Layer 3) needs to ensure to eliminate or
minimize packet loss in the event of equipment or media failures.
This may be achieved by delivering a copy of the packet through
multiple paths. Such a mechanism may need to be used for enhanced
VPN services.
3.2. Interaction between Enhanced VPN Services
There is a fine distinction between how a customer requests limits on
interaction between an enhanced VPN service and other services
(whether they are other enhanced VPN services or any other network
service), and how that is delivered by the service provider. This
section examines the requirements and realization of limited
interaction between an enhanced VPN service and other services.
3.2.1. Requirements on Traffic Isolation
Traffic isolation is a generic term that can be used to describe the
requirements for separating the services of different customers or
different service types in the network. In the context of network
slicing, traffic isolation is defined as an SLE of the network slice
service (Section 8.1 of [RFC9543]), which is one element of the SLA.
A customer may care about disruption caused by other services,
contamination by other traffic, or delivery of their traffic to the
wrong destinations.
A customer may want to specify (and thus pay for) the traffic
isolation provided by the service provider. Some customers (banking,
for example) may have strict requirements on how their flows are
handled when delivered over a shared network. Some professional
services are used to relying on specific certifications and audits to
ensure the compliancy of a network with traffic isolation
requirements, and specifically to prevent data leaks.
With traffic isolation, a customer expects that the service traffic
cannot be received by other customers in the same network. In
[RFC4176], traffic isolation is mentioned as one of the requirements
of VPN customers. Traffic isolation is also described in Section 3.8
of [RFC7297].
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There can be different expectations of traffic isolation. For
example, a customer may further request the protection of their
traffic by requesting specific encryption schemes at the enhanced VPN
network access and also when transported between Provider Edge (PE)
Nodes.
An enhanced VPN service customer may request traffic isolation
together with other operator defined service characteristics. The
exact details about the expected behavior need to be specified in the
service request, so that meaningful service assurance and fulfillment
feedback can be exposed to the customers. It is out of the scope of
this document to elaborate the service modeling considerations.
3.2.2. Limited Interaction with Other Services
[RFC2211] describes the Controlled Load Service. In that document,
the end-to-end behavior provided to an application by a series of
network elements providing controlled-load service is described as
closely approximating to the behavior visible to applications
receiving best-effort service when those network elements are not
carrying substantial traffic from other services.
Thus, a consumer of a Controlled Load Service may assume that:
* A very high percentage of transmitted packets will be successfully
delivered by the network to the receiving end-nodes.
* The transit delay experienced by a very high percentage of the
delivered packets will not greatly exceed the minimum transmit
delay experienced by any successfully delivered packet.
An enhanced VPN customer may request a Controlled Load Service in one
of two ways:
1. It may configure a set of SLOs (for example, for delay and loss)
such that the delivered enhanced VPN meets the behavioral
objectives of the customer.
2. As described in [RFC2211], a customer may request the Controlled
Load Service without reference to or specification of specific
target values for control parameters such as delay or loss.
Instead, acceptance of a request for Controlled Load Service is
defined to imply a commitment by the network element to provide
the requestor with service closely equivalent to that provided to
uncontrolled (best-effort) traffic under lightly loaded
conditions. This way of requesting the service is an SLE.
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Limited interaction between enhanced VPN services does not cover
service degradation due to non-interaction-related causes, such as
link errors.
3.2.3. Realization of Limited Interaction with Enhanced VPN Services
A service provider may translate the requirements related to limited
interaction into distinct engineering rules in its network. Honoring
the service requirement may involve tweaking a set of QoS, TE,
security, and planning tools, while traffic isolation will involve
adequately configuring routing and authorization capabilities.
Concretely, there are many existing techniques which can be used to
provide traffic isolation, such as IP and MPLS VPNs or other multi-
tenant virtual network techniques. Controlled Load Services may be
realized as described in [RFC2211]. Other tools may include various
forms of resource management and reservation techniques, such as
network capacity planning, allocating dedicated network resources,
traffic policing or shaping, prioritizing in using shared network
resources etc., so that a subset of bandwidth, buffers, and queueing
resources can be available in the underlay network to support the
enhanced VPN services.
To provide the required traffic isolation, or to reduce the
interaction with other enhanced VPN services, network resources may
need to be reserved in the data plane of the underlay network and
dedicated to traffic from a specific enhanced VPN service or a
specific group of enhanced VPN services. This may introduce
scalability concerns both in the implementation (as each enhanced VPN
may need to be tracked in the network) and in how many resources need
to be reserved and how the services are mapped to the resources
(Section 4.4). Thus, some trade-off needs to be considered to
provide the traffic isolation and limited interaction between an
enhanced VPN services and other services.
A dedicated physical network can be used to meet stricter SLO and SLE
requests, at the cost of allocating resources on a long-term and end-
to-end basis. On the other hand, where adequate traffic isolation
and limited interaction can be achieved at the packet layer, this
permits the resources to be shared amongst a group of services and
only dedicated to a service on a temporary basis. By combining
conventional VPNs with TE/QoS/security techniques, an enhanced VPN
offers a variety of means to honor customer's requirements.
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3.3. Integration with Network Resources and Service Functions
The way to achieve the characteristics demand of an enhanced VPN
service (such as guaranteed or predictable performance) is by
integrating the overlay VPN with a particular set of resources in the
underlay network which are allocated to meet the service
requirements. This needs to be done in a flexible and scalable way
so that it can be widely deployed in operators' networks to support a
good number of enhanced VPN services.
Taking mobile networks and in particular 5G into consideration, the
integration of the network with service functions is likely a
requirement. The IETF's work on service function chaining (SFC)
[RFC7665] provides a foundation for this. Service functions in the
underlay network can be considered as part of the enhanced VPN
services, which means the service functions may need to be an
integral part of the corresponding NRP. The details of the
integration between service functions and enhanced VPNs are out of
the scope of this document.
3.3.1. Abstraction
Integration of the overlay VPN and the underlay network resources and
service functions does not always need to be a direct mapping. As
described in [RFC7926], abstraction is the process of applying policy
to a set of information about a traffic engineered (TE) network to
produce selective information that represents the potential ability
to connect across the network. The process of abstraction presents
the connectivity graph in a way that is independent of the underlying
network technologies, capabilities, and topology so that the graph
can be used to plan and deliver network services in a uniform way.
With the approach of abstraction, an enhanced VPN may be built on top
of an abstracted topology that represents the connectivity
capabilities of the underlay TE based network as described in the
framework for Abstraction and Control of TE Networks (ACTN) [RFC8453]
as discussed further in Section 5.5.
3.4. Dynamic Changes
Enhanced VPNs need to be created, modified, and removed from the
network according to service demands (including scheduled requests).
An enhanced VPN that requires limited interaction with other services
(Section 3.2.2) must not be disrupted by the instantiation or
modification of another enhanced VPN service. As discussed in
Section 3.1 of [RFC4176], the assessment of traffic isolation is part
of the management of a VPN service. Determining whether modification
of an enhanced VPN can be disruptive to that enhanced VPN and whether
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the traffic in flight will be disrupted can be a difficult problem.
Dynamic changes both to the enhanced VPN and to the underlay network
need to be managed to avoid disruption to services that are sensitive
to changes in network performance.
In addition to non-disruptively managing the network during changes
such as the inclusion of a new enhanced VPN service endpoint or a
change to a link, enhanced VPN traffic might need to be moved because
of changes to traffic patterns and volumes. This means that during
the lifetime of an enhanced VPN service, closed-loop optimization is
needed so that the delivered service always matches the ordered
service SLA.
The data plane aspects of this problem are discussed further in
Section 5.1, Section 5.2, and Section 5.3.
The control plane aspects of this problem are discussed further in
Section 5.4.
The management plane aspects of this problem are discussed further in
Section 5.5.
3.5. Customized Control
In many cases enhanced VPN services are delivered to customers
without information about the underlying NRPs. However, depending on
the agreement between the operator and the customer, in some cases
the customer may also be provided with some information about the
underlying NRPs. Such information can be filtered or aggregated
according to the operator's policy. This allows the customer of an
enhanced VPN service to have some visibility and even control over
how the underlying topology and resources of the NRP are used. For
example, the customers may be able to specify the path or path
constraints within the NRP for specific traffic flows of their
enhanced VPN service. Depending on the requirements, an enhanced VPN
customer may have their own network controller, which may be provided
with an interface to the control or management system run by the
network operator. Note that such a control is within the scope of
the customer's enhanced VPN service; any additional changes beyond
this would require some intervention by the network operator.
A description of the control plane aspects of this problem are
discussed further in Section 5.4. A description of the management
plane aspects of this feature can be found in Section 5.5.
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3.6. Applicability to Overlay Technologies
The concept of an enhanced VPN can be applied to any existing and
future multi-tenancy overlay technologies including but not limited
to:
* Layer-2 point-to-point services, such as pseudowires [RFC3985]
* Layer-2 VPNs [RFC4664]
* Ethernet VPNs [RFC7209], [RFC7432]
* Layer-3 VPNs [RFC4364], [RFC2764]
Where such VPN service types need enhanced isolation and delivery
characteristics, the technologies described in Section 5 can be used
to tweak the underlay to provide the required enhanced performance.
3.7. Inter-Domain and Inter-Layer Network
In some scenarios, an enhanced VPN service may span multiple network
domains. A domain is considered to be any collection of network
elements under the responsibility of the same administrative entity,
for example, an Autonomous System (AS). In some domains, the network
operator may manage a multi-layered network, for example, a packet
network over an optical network. When enhanced VPN services are
provisioned in such network scenarios, the technologies used in
different network planes (data plane, control plane, and management
plane) need to provide mechanisms to support multi-domain and multi-
layer coordination and integration, so as to provide the required
service characteristics for different enhanced VPN services, and
improve network efficiency and operational simplicity. The
mechanisms for multi-domain VPNs [RFC4364] may be reused, and some
enhancement may be needed to meet the additional requirements of
enhanced VPN services.
4. The Architecture of NRP-based Enhanced VPNs
Multiple NRP-based enhanced VPN services can be provided by a common
network infrastructure. Each NRP-based enhanced VPN service is
provisioned with an overlay VPN and mapped to a corresponding NRP,
which has a specific set of network resources and service functions
allocated in the underlay to satisfy the needs of the customer. One
NRP may support one or more NRP-based enhanced VPN services. The
integration between the overlay connectivity and the underlay
resources ensures the required isolation between different enhanced
VPN services, and achieves the guaranteed performance for different
customers.
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The NRP-based enhanced VPN architecture needs to be designed with
consideration given to:
* An enhanced data plane.
* A control plane to create enhanced VPNs and NRPs, making use of
the data plane isolation and performance guarantee techniques.
* A management plane for enhanced VPN service life-cycle management.
* The OAM mechanisms for enhanced VPNs and the underlying NRPs.
* Telemetry mechanisms for enhanced VPNs and the underlying NRPs.
These topics are expanded below.
* The enhanced data plane provides:
- The required packet latency and jitter characteristics.
- The required packet loss characteristics.
- The required resource isolation capability, e.g., bandwidth
guarantee.
- The mechanism to associate a packet with the set of resources
allocated to an NRP which the enhanced VPN service packet is
mapped to.
* The control plane:
- Collects information about the underlying network topology and
network resources, and exports this to network nodes and/or a
centralized controller as required.
- Creates NRPs with the network resource and topology properties
needed by the enhanced VPN services.
- Distributes the attributes of NRPs to network nodes which
participate in the NRPs and/or a centralized controller.
- Computes and sets up network paths in each NRP.
- Maps enhanced VPN services to an appropriate NRP.
- Determines the risk of SLA violation and takes appropriate
avoiding/correction actions.
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- Considers the right balance of per-packet and per-node state
according to the needs of the enhanced VPN services to scale to
the required size.
* The management plane includes management interfaces, the
Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (OAM) and Telemetry
mechanisms. More specifically, it provides:
- An interface between the enhanced VPN service provider (e.g.,
operator's network management system) and the enhanced VPN
customer (e.g., an organization or a service with enhanced VPN
requirement) such that the operation requests and the related
parameters can be exchanged without the awareness of other
enhanced VPN customers.
- An interface between the enhanced VPN service provider and the
enhanced VPN customers to expose the network capability
information toward the customer.
- The service life-cycle management and operation of enhanced VPN
services (e.g., creation, modification, assurance/monitoring,
and decommissioning).
- The OAM tools to verify whether the underlay network resources
(i.e. NRPs) are correctly allocated and operating properly.
- The OAM tools to verify the connectivity and monitor the
performance of the enhanced VPN service.
- Telemetry of information in the underlay network for overall
performance evaluation and the planning of the enhanced VPN
services.
- Telemetry of information of enhanced VPN services for
monitoring and analytics of the characteristics and SLA
fulfillment of the enhanced VPN services.
4.1. Layered Architecture
The layered architecture of NRP-based enhanced VPNs is shown in
Figure 1.
Underpinning everything is the physical network infrastructure layer
which provides the underlying resources used to provision the
separate NRPs. This layer is responsible for the partitioning of
link and/or node resources for different NRPs. Each subset of link
or node resource can be considered as a virtual link or virtual node
used to build the NRPs.
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/\
||
+-------------------+ Centralized
| Network Controller| Control & Management
+-------------------+
||
\/
o---------------------------o Enhanced VPN #1
/-------------o
o____________/______________o Enhanced VPN #2
_________________o
_____/
o___/ \_________________o Enhanced VPN #3
\_______________________o
...... ...
o-----------\ /-------------o
o____________X______________o Enhanced VPN #n
__________________________
/ o----o-----o /
/ / / / NRP-1
/ o-----o-----o----o----o /
/_________________________/
__________________________
/ o----o /
/ / / \ / NRP-2
/ o-----o----o---o------o /
/_________________________/
...... ...
___________________________
/ o----o /
/ / / / NRP-m
/ o-----o----o----o-----o /
/__________________________/
++++ ++++ ++++
+--+===+--+===+--+
+--+===+--+===+--+
++++ +++\\ ++++
|| || \\ || Physical
|| || \\ || Network
++++ ++++ ++++ \\+++ ++++ Infrastructure
+--+===+--+===+--+===+--+===+--+
+--+===+--+===+--+===+--+===+--+
++++ ++++ ++++ ++++ ++++
o Virtual Node ++++
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+--+ Physical Node with resource partition
-- Virtual Link +--+
++++
== Physical Link with resource partition
Figure 1: The Layered Architecture of Enhanced VPNs
Various components and techniques discussed in Section 5 can be used
to enable resource partitioning of the physical network
infrastructure, such as FlexE, TSN, dedicated queues, etc. These
partitions may be physical or virtual so long as the SLA required by
the higher layers is met.
Based on the set of network resource partitions provided by the
physical network infrastructure, multiple NRPs can be created, each
with a set of dedicated or shared network resources allocated from
the physical underlay network, and each can be associated with a
customized logical network topology, so as to meet the requirements
of different enhanced VPN services or different groups of enhanced
VPN services. According to the associated logical network topology,
each NRP needs to be instantiated on a set of network nodes and links
which are involved in the logical topology. And on each node or
link, each NRP is associated with a set of local resources which are
allocated for the processing of traffic in the NRP. The NRP provides
the integration between the logical network topology and the required
underlying network resources.
According to the service requirements of connectivity, performance
and isolation, etc., enhanced VPN services can be mapped to the
appropriate NRPs in the network. Different enhanced VPN services can
be mapped to different NRPs, while it is also possible that multiple
enhanced VPN services are mapped to the same NRP. Thus, the NRP is
an essential scaling technique, as it has the potential of
eliminating per-service per-path state from the network. In
addition, when a group of enhanced VPN services are mapped to a
single NRP, only the network state of the single NRP needs to be
maintained in the network (see Section 4.4 for more information).
The network controller is responsible for creating an NRP,
instructing the involved network nodes to allocate network resources
to the NRP, and provisioning the enhanced VPN services on the NRP. A
distributed control plane may be used for distributing the NRP
resource and topology attributes among nodes in the NRP. Extensions
to distributed control protocols (if any) are out of the scope of
this document.
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The process used to create NRPs and to allocate network resources for
use by the NRPs needs to take a holistic view of the needs of all of
the service provider's customers and to partition the resources
accordingly. However, within an NRP these resources can, if
required, be managed via a dynamic control plane. This provides the
required scalability and isolation with some flexibility.
4.2. Connectivity Types
At the VPN service level, the required connectivity for an MP2MP VPN
service is usually full or partial mesh. To support such VPN
services, the corresponding NRP also needs to provide MP2MP
connectivity among the end points.
Other service requirements may be expressed at different
granularities, some of which can be applicable to the whole service,
while some others may only be applicable to some pairs of end points.
For example, when a particular level of performance guarantee is
required, the point-to-point path through the underlying NRP of the
enhanced VPN service may need to be specifically engineered to meet
the required performance guarantee.
4.3. Application-Specific Data Types
Although a lot of the traffic that will be carried over enhanced VPN
will likely be IP-based, the design must be capable of carrying other
traffic types, in particular Ethernet traffic. This is easily
accomplished through the various pseudowire (PW) techniques
[RFC3985].
Where the underlay is MPLS, Ethernet traffic can be carried over an
enhanced VPN encapsulated according to the method specified in
[RFC4448]. Where the underlay is IP, Layer Two Tunneling Protocol -
Version 3 (L2TPv3) [RFC3931] can be used with Ethernet traffic
carried according to [RFC4719]. Encapsulations have been defined for
most of the common layer-2 types for both PW over MPLS and for
L2TPv3.
4.4. Scalable Service Mapping
VPNs are instantiated as overlays on top of an operator's network and
offered as services to the operator's customers. An important
feature of overlays is that they can deliver services without placing
per-service state in the core of the underlay network.
An enhanced VPN may need to install some additional state within the
network to achieve the features that they require. Solutions need to
take the scale of such state into consideration, and deployment
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architectures should constrain the number of enhanced VPN services so
that the additional state introduced to the network is acceptable and
under control. It is expected that the number of enhanced VPN
services will be small at the beginning, and even in the future the
number of enhanced VPN services will be fewer than conventional VPNs
because existing VPN techniques are good enough to meet the needs of
most existing VPN-type services.
In general, it is not required that the state in the network be
maintained in a 1:1 relationship with the enhanced VPN services. It
will usually be possible to aggregate a set or group of enhanced VPN
services so that they share the same NRP and the same set of network
resources (much in the same way that current VPNs are aggregated over
transport tunnels) so that collections of enhanced VPN services that
require the same behavior from the network in terms of resource
reservation, latency bounds, resiliency, etc. can be grouped
together. This is an important feature to assist with the scaling
characteristics of NRP-based enhanced VPN deployments.
[I-D.ietf-teas-nrp-scalability] provides more details of scalability
considerations for the NRPs used to instantiate NRPs, and Section 7
includes a greater discussion of scalability considerations.
5. Candidate Technologies
A VPN is a virtual network created by applying a demultiplexing
technique to the underlying network (the underlay) to distinguish the
traffic of one VPN from that of another. The connections of a VPN
are supported by a set of underlay paths. A path that travels by
other than the shortest path through the underlay normally requires
state to specify that path. The state of the paths could be applied
to the underlay through the use of the RSVP-TE signaling protocol, or
directly through the use of an SDN controller. Based on Segment
Routing, state could be maintained at the ingress node of the path,
and carried in the data packet. Other techniques may emerge as this
problem is studied. This state gets harder to manage as the number
of paths increases. Furthermore, as we increase the coupling between
the underlay and the overlay to support the enhanced VPN service,
this state is likely to increase further. Through the use of NRP, a
subset of underlay network resource can be either dedicated for a
particular enhanced VPN service or shared among a group of enhanced
VPN services. A group of underlay paths can be established using the
common set of network resources of the NRP.
This section describes the candidate technologies, and examines them
in the context of the different network planes that may be used
together to build NRPs. Section 5.1 discusses the layer-2 packet-
based or frame-based forwarding plane mechanisms for resource
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partitioning. Section 5.2 discusses the corresponding encapsulation
and forwarding mechanisms in the network layer. Non-packet data
plane mechanisms are briefly discussed in Section 5.3. The control
plane and management plane mechanisms are discussed in Section 5.4
and Section 5.5 respectively.
5.1. Underlay Forwarding Resource Partitioning
Several candidate layer-2 packet-based or frame-based forwarding
plane mechanisms which can provide the required traffic isolation and
performance guarantees are described in the following sections.
5.1.1. Flexible Ethernet
FlexE [FLEXE] provides the ability to multiplex channels over an
Ethernet link to create point-to-point fixed-bandwidth connections in
a way that provides separation between enhanced VPN services. FlexE
also supports bonding links to create larger links out of multiple
low-capacity links.
However, FlexE is only a link-level technology. When packets are
received by the downstream node, they need to be processed in a way
that preserves that traffic isolation in the downstream node. This
in turn requires a queuing and forwarding implementation that
preserves the end-to-end separation of enhanced VPNs.
If different FlexE channels are used for different services, then no
sharing is possible between the FlexE channels. This means that it
may be difficult to dynamically redistribute unused bandwidth to
lower priority services in another FlexE channel. If one FlexE
channel is used by one customer, the customer can use some methods to
manage the relative priority of their own traffic in the FlexE
channel.
5.1.2. Dedicated Queues
DiffServ-based queuing systems are described in [RFC2475] and
[RFC4594]. This approach is not sufficient to provide separation of
enhanced VPN services because DiffServ does not provide enough
markers to differentiate between traffic of a large number of
enhanced VPN services. Additionally, DiffServ does not offer the
range of service classes that each enhanced VPN service needs to
provide to its tenants. This problem is particularly acute with an
MPLS underlay, because MPLS only provides eight traffic classes.
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In addition, DiffServ, as currently implemented, mainly provides per-
hop priority-based scheduling, and it is difficult to use it to
achieve quantitative resource reservation for different enhanced VPN
services.
To address these problems and to reduce the potential interactions
between enhanced VPN services, it would be necessary to steer traffic
to dedicated input and output queues per enhanced VPN service or per
group of enhanced VPN services: some routers have a large number of
queues and sophisticated queuing systems which could support this,
while some routers may struggle to provide the granularity and level
of separation required by the applications of an enhanced VPN.
5.1.3. Time Sensitive Networking
Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) [TSN] is an IEEE project to provide a
method of carrying time-sensitive information over Ethernet. It
introduces the concept of packet scheduling where a packet stream may
be given a time slot guaranteeing that it experiences no queuing
delay or increase in latency beyond the very small scheduling delay.
The mechanisms defined in TSN can be used to meet the requirements of
time-sensitive traffic flows of enhanced VPN service.
Ethernet can be emulated over a layer-3 network using an IP or MPLS
pseudowire. However, a TSN Ethernet payload would be opaque to the
underlay and thus not treated specifically as time-sensitive data.
The preferred method of carrying TSN over a layer-3 network is
through the use of deterministic networking as explained in
Section 5.2.1.
5.2. Network Layer Encapsulation and Forwarding
This section considers the problem of enhanced VPN service
differentiation and the representation of underlying network
resources in the network layer. More specifically, it describes the
possible data plane mechanisms to determine the network resources and
the logical network topology or paths associated with an NRP.
5.2.1. Deterministic Networking
Deterministic Networking (DetNet) [RFC8655] is a technique being
developed in the IETF to enhance the ability of layer-3 networks to
deliver packets more reliably and with greater control over the
delay. The design cannot use re-transmission techniques such as TCP
since that can exceed the delay tolerated by the applications.
DetNet preemptively sends copies of the packet over various paths to
minimize the chance of all copies of a packet being lost. It also
seeks to set an upper bound on latency, but the goal is not to
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minimize latency. DetNet can be realized over IP data plane
[RFC8939] or MPLS data plane [RFC8964], and may be used to provide
deterministic paths for enhanced VPN services.
5.2.2. MPLS Traffic Engineering (MPLS-TE)
MPLS-TE [RFC2702][RFC3209] introduces the concept of reserving end-
to-end bandwidth for a TE-LSP, which can be used to provide a set of
point-to-point resource reserved paths across the underlay network to
support VPN services. VPN traffic can be carried over dedicated TE-
LSPs to provide guaranteed bandwidth for each specific connection in
a VPN, and VPNs with similar behavior requirements may be multiplexed
onto the same TE-LSPs. Some network operators have concerns about
the scalability and management overhead of MPLS-TE system, especially
with regard to those systems that use an active control plane, and
this has lead them to consider other solutions for traffic
engineering in their networks.
5.2.3. Segment Routing
Segment Routing (SR) [RFC8402] is a method that prepends instructions
to packets at the head-end of a path. These instructions are used to
specify the nodes and links to be traversed, and allow the packets to
be routed on paths other than the shortest path. By encoding the
state in the packet, per-path state is transitioned out of the
network. SR can be instantiated using MPLS data plane (SR-MPLS)
[RFC8660] or IPv6 data plane (SRv6) [RFC8986].
An SR traffic engineered path operates with a granularity of a link.
Hints about priority are provided using the Traffic Class (TC) field
in the packet header. However, to achieve the performance and
isolation characteristics that are sought by enhanced VPN customers,
it will be necessary to steer packets through specific virtual links
and/or queues on the same link and direct them to use specific
resources. With SR, it is possible to introduce such fine-grained
packet steering by specifying the queues and the associated resources
through an SR instruction list. One approach to do this is described
in [I-D.ietf-spring-resource-aware-segments].
Note that the concept of a queue is a useful abstraction for
different types of underlay mechanism that may be used to provide
enhanced isolation and performance support. How the queue satisfies
the requirement is implementation specific and is transparent to the
layer-3 data plane and control plane mechanisms used.
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With Segment Routing, the SR instruction list could be used to build
a P2P SR path. In addition, a group of SR Segment Identifiers (SIDs)
could also be used to represent an MP2MP network. Thus, the SR based
mechanism could be used to provide both resource reserved paths and
NRPs for enhanced VPN services.
5.2.4. New Encapsulation Extensions
In contrast to reusing existing data plane for enhanced VPN, another
possible approach is to introduce new encapsulations or extensions to
existing data plane to allow dedicated identifiers for the underlay
network resources of an enhanced VPN, and the logical network
topology or paths associated with an enhanced VPN. This may require
more protocol work, while the potential benefit is it can reduce the
impact to existing network operation and improve the scalability of
enhanced VPN. More details about the encapsulation extensions and
the scalability concerns are described in
[I-D.ietf-teas-nrp-scalability].
5.3. Non-Packet Data Plane
Non-packet underlay data plane technologies, such as optical based
data planes often have TE properties and behaviors, and meet many of
the key requirements in particular for bandwidth guarantees, traffic
isolation (with physical isolation often being an integral part of
the technology), highly predictable latency and jitter
characteristics, measurable loss characteristics, and ease of
identification of flows. The cost is that the resources are
allocated on a long-term and end-to-end basis. Such an arrangement
means that the full cost of the resources has to be borne by the
client to which the resources are allocated. When an NRP built with
this data plane is used to support multiple enhanced VPN services,
the cost could be distributed among such a group of services.
5.4. Control Plane
The control plane of NRP-based enhanced VPNs is likely be based on a
hybrid control mechanism that takes advantage of a logically
centralized controller for on-demand provisioning and global
optimization, whilst still relying on a distributed control plane to
provide scalability, high reliability, fast reaction, automatic
failure recovery, etc. Extension to and optimization of the
centralized and distributed control plane is needed to support the
enhanced properties of an NRP-based enhanced VPN.
As described in Section 4, the enhanced VPN control plane needs to
provide the following functions:
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* Collect information about the underlying network topology and
network resources, and exports this to network nodes and/or a
centralized controller as required.
* Create NRPs with the network resource and topology properties
needed by NRP-based enhanced VPN services.
* Distribute the attributes of NRPs to network nodes which
participate in the NRPs and/or the centralized controller.
* Map enhanced VPN services to an appropriate NRP.
* Compute and set up service paths in each NRP to meet enhanced VPN
service requirements.
The collection of underlying network topology and resource
information can be done using the existing IGP and Border Gateway
Protocol - Link State (BGP-LS) [RFC9552] based mechanisms. The
creation of NRPs and the distribution of NRP attributes may need
further control protocol extensions. The computation of service
paths based on the attributes and constraints of the NRP can be
performed either by the headend node of the path or a centralized
Path Computation Element (PCE) [RFC4655].
Two candidate control plane mechanisms for path setup in the NRP are:
RSVP-TE and Segment Routing (SR).
* RSVP-TE [RFC3209] provides the signaling mechanism for
establishing a TE-LSP in an MPLS network with end-to-end resource
reservation. This can be seen as an approach of providing
resource-reserved paths which could be used to bind the VPN to
specific set of network resources allocated within the underlay,
but there remain scalability concerns as mentioned in
Section 5.2.2.
* The SR control plane [RFC8665] [RFC8667] [RFC9085] does not have
the capability of signaling resource reservations along the path.
On the other hand, the SR approach provides a potential way of
binding the underlay network resource and the NRPs without
requiring per-path state to be maintained in the network. A
centralized controller can perform resource planning and
reservation for NRPs, and it needs to instruct the network nodes
to ensure that resources are correctly allocated for the NRP. The
controller could provision the SR paths based on the mechanism in
[RFC9256] to the headend nodes of the paths.
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According to the service requirements for connectivity, performance
and isolation, one enhanced VPN service may be mapped to a dedicated
NRP, or a group of enhanced VPN services may be mapped to the same
NRP. The mapping of enhanced VPN services to NRP can be achieved
using existing control mechanisms with possible extensions, and it
can be based on either the characteristics of the data packet or the
attributes of the VPN service routes.
5.5. Management Plane
The management plane provides the interface between the enhanced VPN
service provider and the customers for life-cycle management of the
enhanced VPN service (i.e., creation, modification, assurance/
monitoring, and decommissioning). It relies on a set of service data
models for the description of the information and operations needed
on the interface.
As an example, in the context of 5G end-to-end network slicing
[TS28530], the management of the transport network segment of the 5G
end-to-end network slice can be realized with the management plane of
enhanced VPN. The 3GPP management system may provide the
connectivity and performance-related parameters as requirements to
the management plane of the transport network. It may also require
the transport network to expose the capabilities and status of the
network slice. Thus, an interface between the enhanced VPN
management plane and the 5G network slice management system, and
relevant service data models are needed for the coordination of 5G
end-to-end network slice management.
The management plane interface and data models for enhanced VPN
services can be based on the service models described in Section 5.6.
It is important that the management life-cycle supports in-place
modification of enhanced VPN services. That is, it should be
possible to add and remove end points, as well as to change the
requested characteristics of the service that is delivered. The
management system needs to be able to assess the revised enhanced VPN
requests and determine whether they can be provided by the existing
NRPs or whether changes must be made, and it will additionally need
to determine whether those changes to the NRP are possible. If not,
then the customer's modification request may be rejected.
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When the modification of an enhanced VPN service is possible, the
management system must make every effort to make the changes in a
non-disruptive way. That is, the modification of the enhanced VPN
service or the underlying NRP must not perturb traffic on the
enhanced VPN service in a way that causes the service level to drop
below the agreed levels. Furthermore, changes to one enhanced VPN
service should not cause disruption to other enhanced VPN services.
The network operator for the underlay network (i.e., the provider of
the enhanced VPN service) may delegate some operational aspects of
the overlay VPN and the underlying NRP to the customer. In this way,
the enhanced VPN is presented to the customer as a virtual network,
and the customer can choose how to use that network. Some mechanisms
in the operator's network are needed, so that a customer cannot
exceed the capabilities of the virtual links and nodes, but can
decide how to load traffic onto the network, for example, by
assigning different metrics to the virtual links so that the customer
can control how traffic is routed through the virtual network. This
approach requires a management system for the virtual network, but
does not necessarily require any coordination between the management
systems of the virtual network and the physical network, except that
the virtual network management system might notice when the NRP is
close to capacity or considerably under-used and automatically
request changes in the service provided by the underlay network.
5.6. Applicability of Service Data Models to Enhanced VPNs
This section describes the applicability of the existing and in-
progress service data models to enhanced VPNs. [RFC8309] describes
the scope and purpose of service models and shows where a service
model might fit into an SDN-based network management architecture.
New service models may also be introduced for some of the required
management functions.
Service data models are used to represent, monitor, and manage the
virtual networks and services enabled by enhanced VPNs. The VPN
customer service models (e.g., the Layer 3 VPN Service Model (L3SM)
[RFC8299], the Layer 2 VPN Service Model (L2SM) [RFC8466]), or the
ACTN Virtual Network (VN) model [I-D.ietf-teas-actn-vn-yang]) are
service models which can provide the customer's view of the enhanced
VPN service. The Layer-3 VPN Network Model (L3NM) [RFC9182], the
Layer-2 VPN network model (L2NM) [RFC9291] provide the operator's
view of the managed infrastructure as a set of virtual networks and
the associated resources. The Service Attachment Points (SAPs) model
[RFC9408] provides an abstract view of the service attachment points
(SAPs) to various network services in the provider network, where
enhanced VPN could be one of the service types. [RFC9375] provides
the data model for performance monitoring of network and VPN
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services. Augmentation to these service models may be needed to
provide the enhanced VPN services. The NRP model
[I-D.ietf-teas-nrp-yang] further provides the management of the NRP
topology and resources both in the controller and in the network
devices to instantiate the NRPs needed for the enhanced VPN services.
6. Applicability in Network Slice Realization
This section describes the applicability of NRP-based enhanced VPN
for network slice realization.
In order to provide network slice services to customers, a
technology-agnostic network slice service model
[I-D.ietf-teas-ietf-network-slice-nbi-yang] is needed for the
customers to communicate the requirements of network slices (SDPs,
connectivity, SLOs, and SLEs). These requirements may be realized
using technology specified in this document to instruct the network
to deliver an enhanced VPN service so as to meet the requirements of
the network slice customers. According to the location of SDPs used
for the network slice service (see Section 5.2 of [RFC9543]), an SDP
can be mapped to a CE, a PE, a port on a CE, or a customer-facing
port on a PE, any of which can be correlated to the end point of
enhanced VPN service. The detailed approach for SDP mapping is
described in [I-D.ietf-teas-ietf-network-slice-nbi-yang].
6.1. NRP Planning
An NRP is used to support the SLOs and SLEs required by the network
slice services. According to the network operators' network resource
planning policy, or based on the requirements of one or a group of
customers or services, an NRP may need to be created to meet the
requirements of network slice services. One of the basic
requirements for the NRP is to provide a set of dedicated network
resources to avoid unexpected interference from other services in the
same network. Other possible requirements may include the required
topology and connectivity, bandwidth, latency, reliability, etc.
A centralized network controller can be responsible for calculating a
subset of the underlay network topology (which is called a logical
topology) to support the NRP requirement. On the network nodes and
links within the logical topology, the set of network resources to be
allocated to the NRP can also be determined by the controller.
Normally such calculation needs to take the underlay network
connectivity information and the available network resource
information of the underlay network into consideration. The network
controller may also take the status of the existing NRPs into
consideration in the planning and calculation of a new NRP.
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6.2. NRP Creation
According to the result of the NRP planning, the network nodes and
links involved in the logical topology of the NRP are instructed to
allocate the required set of network resources for the NRP. One or
multiple mechanisms as specified in section 5.1 can be used to
partition the forwarding plane network resources and allocate
different subsets of resources to different NRPs. In addition, the
data plane identifiers which are used to identify the set of network
resources allocated to the NRP are also provisioned on the network
nodes. Depending on the data plane technologies used, the set of
network resources of an NRP can be identified using e.g. either
resource-aware SR segments as specified in
[I-D.ietf-spring-resource-aware-segments]
[I-D.ietf-spring-sr-for-enhanced-vpn], or a dedicated Resource ID as
specified in [I-D.ietf-6man-enhanced-vpn-vtn-id] can be introduced.
The network nodes involved in an NRP may distribute the logical
topology information, the NRP-specific network resource information
and the Resource Identifier of the NRP using the control plane. Such
information could be used by the controller and the network nodes to
compute the TE or shortest paths within the NRP, and install the NRP
specific forwarding entries to network nodes.
6.3. Network Slice Service Provisioning
According to the connectivity requirements of an network slice
service, an overlay VPN can be created using the existing or future
multi-tenancy overlay technologies as described in Section 3.6.
Then according to the SLO and SLE requirements of a network slice
service, the network slice service is mapped to an appropriate NRP as
the virtual underlay. The integration of the overlay VPN and the
underlay NRP together provide a network slice service.
6.4. Network Slice Traffic Steering and Forwarding
At the edge of the operator's network, traffic of network slices can
be classified based on the rules defined by the operator's policy, so
that the traffic which matches the rules for specific network slice
services can be mapped to the corresponding NRP. This way, packets
belonging to specific network slice service will be processed and
forwarded by network nodes based either the traffic-engineered paths
or the shortest paths in the associated network topology, using the
set of network resources of the corresponding NRP.
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7. Scalability Considerations
NRP-based enhanced VPNs provide performance guaranteed services in
packet networks, but with the potential cost of introducing
additional state into the network. There are at least three ways
that this additional state might be brought into the network:
* Introduce the complete state into the packet, as is done in SR.
This allows the controller to specify the detailed series of
forwarding and processing instructions for the packet as it
transits the network. The cost of this is an increase in the
packet header size. The cost is also that systems will have to
provide NRP specific segments in case they are called upon by a
service. This is a type of latent state, and increases as the
segments and resources that need to be exclusively available to
enhanced VPN service are specified more precisely.
* Introduce the state to the network. This is normally done by
creating a path using signaling such as RSVP-TE. This could be
extended to include any element that needs to be specified along
the path, for example explicitly specifying queuing policy. It is
also possible to use other methods to introduce path state, such
as via an SDN controller, or possibly by modifying a routing
protocol. With this approach there is state per path: per-path
characteristic that needs to be maintained over the life of the
path. This is more network state than is needed using SR, but the
packets are usually shorter.
* Provide a hybrid approach. One example is based on using binding
SIDs [RFC8402] to represent path fragments, and bind them together
with SR. Dynamic creation of a VPN service path using SR requires
less state maintenance in the network core at the expense of
larger packet headers. The packet size can be lower if a form of
loose source routing is used (using a few nodal SIDs), and it will
be lower if no specific functions or resources on the routers are
specified. For SRv6, the packet size may also be reduced by
utilizing the compression techniques as specified in
[I-D.ietf-spring-srv6-srh-compression].
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Reducing the state in the network is important to enhanced VPNs, as
it requires the overlay to be more closely integrated with the
underlay than with conventional VPNs. This tighter coupling would
normally mean that more state needs to be created and maintained in
the network, as the state about fine granularity processing would
need to be loaded and maintained in the routers. Aggregation is a
well-established approach to reduce the amount of state and improve
scaling, and NRP is considered as the network construct to aggregate
the states of enhanced VPN services. In addition, an SR approach
allows much of the state to be spread amongst the network ingress
nodes, and transiently carried in the packets as SIDs.
The following subsections describe some of the scalability concerns
that need to be considered. Further discussion of the scalability
considerations of the underlaying network constructs of NRP-based
enhanced VPNs can be found in [I-D.ietf-teas-nrp-scalability].
7.1. Maximum Stack Depth of SR
One of the challenges with SR is the stack depth that nodes are able
to impose on packets [RFC8491]. This leads to a difficult balance
between adding state to the network and minimizing stack depth, or
minimizing state and increasing the stack depth.
7.2. RSVP-TE Scalability
The established method of creating a resource-reserved path through
an MPLS network is to use the RSVP-TE protocol. However, there have
been concerns that this requires significant continuous state
maintenance in the network. Work to improve the scalability of RSVP-
TE LSPs in the control plane can be found in [RFC8370].
There is also concern at the scalability of the forwarder footprint
of RSVP-TE as the number of paths through a label switching router
(LSR) grows. [RFC8577] addresses this by employing SR within a
tunnel established by RSVP-TE.
7.3. SDN Scaling
The centralized approach of SDN requires control plane state to be
stored in the network, but can reduce the overhead of control
channels to be maintained. Each individual network node may need to
maintain a control channel with an SDN controller, which is
considered more scalable comparing to the need of maintaining control
channels with a set of neighbor nodes.
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However, SDN may transfer some of the scalability concerns from the
network to a centralized controller. In particular, there may be a
heavy processing burden at the controller, and a heavy load in the
network surrounding the controller. A centralized controller may
also present a single point of failure within the network.
8. Enhanced Resiliency
Each enhanced VPN service has a life cycle, and may need modification
during deployment as the needs of its tenant change. This is
discussed in Section 5.5. Additionally, as the network evolves,
there may need to perform garbage collection to consolidate resources
into usable quanta.
Systems in which the path is imposed, such as SR or some form of
explicit routing, tend to do well in these applications, because it
is possible to perform an atomic transition from one path to another.
That is, a single action by the head-end that changes the path
without the need for coordinated action by the routers along the
path. However, implementations and the monitoring protocols need to
make sure that the new path is operational and meets the required SLA
before traffic is transitioned to it. It is possible for deadlocks
to arise as a result of the network becoming fragmented over time,
such that it is impossible to create a new path or to modify an
existing path without impacting the SLA of other paths. The global
concurrent optimization mechanisms as described in [RFC5557] and
discussed in [RFC7399] may be helpful, while complete resolution of
this situation is as much a commercial issue as it is a technical
issue.
There are, however, two manifestations of the latency problem that
are for further study in any of these approaches:
* The problem of packets overtaking one another if a path latency
reduces during a transition.
* The problem of transient variation in latency in either direction
as a path migrates.
There is also the matter of what happens during failure in the
underlay infrastructure. Fast reroute is one approach, but that
still produces a transient loss with a normal goal of rectifying this
within 50ms [RFC5654]. An alternative is some form of N+1 delivery
such as has been used for many years to support protection from
service disruption. This may be taken to a different level using the
techniques of DetNet with multiple in-network replication and the
culling of later packets [RFC8655].
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In addition to the approach used to protect high priority packets,
consideration should be given to the impact of best effort traffic on
the high priority packets during a transition. Specifically, if a
conventional re-convergence process is used there will inevitably be
micro-loops and whilst some form of explicit routing will protect the
high priority traffic, lower priority traffic on best effort shortest
paths will micro-loop without the use of a loop prevention
technology. To provide the highest quality of service to high
priority traffic, either this traffic must be shielded from the
micro-loops, or micro-loops must be prevented completely.
9. Manageability Considerations
This section describes the considerations about the OAM and Telemetry
mechanisms used to support the verification, monitoring and
optimization of the characteristics and SLA fulfillment of NRP-based
enhanced VPN services. It should be read along with Section 5.5 that
gives consideration of the management plane techniques that can be
used to build NRPs.
9.1. OAM Considerations
The design of OAM for enhanced VPN services needs to consider the
following requirements:
* Instrumentation of the NRP (the virtual underlay) so that the
network operator can be sure that the resources committed to a
customer are operating correctly and delivering the required
performance. It is important that the OAM packets follow the same
path and the set of resources as the service packets mapped to the
NRP.
* Instrumentation of the overlay by the customer. This is likely to
be transparent to the network operator and to use existing
methods. Particular consideration needs to be given to the need
to verify the various committed performance characteristics.
* Instrumentation of the overlay by the service provider to
proactively demonstrate that the committed performance is being
delivered. This needs to be done in a non-intrusive manner,
particularly when the tenant is deploying a performance-sensitive
application.
A study of OAM in SR networks is documented in [RFC8403].
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9.2. Telemetry Considerations
Network visibility is essential for network operation. Network
telemetry has been considered as an ideal means to gain sufficient
network visibility with better flexibility, scalability, accuracy,
coverage, and performance than conventional OAM technologies.
As defined in [RFC9232], the objective of Network Telemetry is to
acquire network data remotely for network monitoring and operation.
It is a general term for a large set of network visibility techniques
and protocols. Network telemetry addresses the current network
operation issues and enables smooth evolution toward intent-driven
autonomous networks. Telemetry can be applied on the forwarding
plane, the control plane, and the management plane in a network.
Telemetry for enhanced VPN service needs to consider the following
requirements:
* Collecting data of NRPs for overall performance evaluation and the
planning of the enhanced VPN services.
* Collecting data of each enhanced VPN service for monitoring and
analytics of the service characteristics and SLA fulfillment.
How the telemetry mechanisms could be used or extended for enhanced
VPN services is out of the scope of this document.
10. Operational Considerations
It is expected that NRP-based enhanced VPN services will be
introduced in networks which already have conventional VPN services
deployed. Depending on service requirements, the tenants or the
operator may choose to use a VPN or an enhanced VPN to fulfill a
service requirement. The information and parameters to assist such a
decision needs to be supplied on the management interface between the
tenant and the operator. The management interface and data models as
described in Section 5.6 can be used for the life-cycle management of
enhanced VPN services, such as service creation, modification,
performance monitoring and decommissioning.
11. Security Considerations
All types of virtual network require special consideration to be
given to the isolation of traffic belonging to different tenants.
That is, traffic belonging to one VPN must not be delivered to end
points outside that VPN. In this regard the enhanced VPN neither
introduces, nor experiences greater security risks than other VPNs.
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However, in an enhanced VPN service the additional service
requirements need to be considered. For example, if a service
requires a specific upper bound to latency then it can be damaged by
simply delaying the packets through the activities of another tenant,
i.e., by introducing bursts of traffic for other services. In some
respects this makes the enhanced VPN more susceptible to attacks
since the SLA may be broken. But another view is that the operator
must, in any case, preform monitoring of the enhanced VPN to ensure
that the SLA is met, and this means that the operator may be more
likely to spot the early onset of a security attack and be able to
take preemptive protective action.
The measures to address these dynamic security risks must be
specified as part of the specific solution to the isolation
requirements of an enhanced VPN service.
While an enhanced VPN service may be sold as offering encryption and
other security features as part of the service, customers would be
well advised to take responsibility for their own security
requirements themselves possibly by encrypting traffic before handing
it off to the service provider.
The privacy of enhanced VPN service customers must be preserved. It
should not be possible for one customer to discover the existence of
another customer, nor should the sites that are members of an
enhanced VPN be externally visible.
An enhanced VPN service (even one with traffic isolation requirements
or with limited interaction with other enhanced VPNs) does not
provide any additional guarantees of privacy for customer traffic
compared to regular VPNs: the traffic within the network may be
intercepted and errors may lead to mis-delivery. Users who wish to
ensure the privacy of their traffic must take their own precautions
including end-to-end encryption.
12. IANA Considerations
There are no requested IANA actions.
13. Contributors
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Daniel King
Email: daniel@olddog.co.uk
Adrian Farrel
Email: adrian@olddog.co.uk
Jeff Tantsura
Email: jefftant.ietf@gmail.com
Zhenbin Li
Email: lizhenbin@huawei.com
Qin Wu
Email: bill.wu@huawei.com
Bo Wu
Email: lana.wubo@huawei.com
Daniele Ceccarelli
Email: daniele.ietf@gmail.com
Mohamed Boucadair
Email: mohamed.boucadair@orange.com
Sergio Belotti
Email: sergio.belotti@nokia.com
Haomian Zheng
Email: zhenghaomian@huawei.com
14. Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Charlie Perkins, James N Guichard,
John E Drake, Shunsuke Homma, Luis M. Contreras, and Joel Halpern
for their review and valuable comments.
This work was supported in part by the European Commission funded
H2020-ICT-2016-2 METRO-HAUL project (G.A. 761727).
15. References
15.1. Normative References
[RFC9543] Farrel, A., Ed., Drake, J., Ed., Rokui, R., Homma, S.,
Makhijani, K., Contreras, L., and J. Tantsura, "A
Framework for Network Slices in Networks Built from IETF
Technologies", RFC 9543, DOI 10.17487/RFC9543, March 2024,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9543>.
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15.2. Informative References
[FLEXE] "Flex Ethernet Implementation Agreement", March 2016,
<https://www.oiforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/OIF-
FLEXE-01.0.pdf>.
[I-D.ietf-6man-enhanced-vpn-vtn-id]
Dong, J., Li, Z., Xie, C., Ma, C., and G. S. Mishra,
"Carrying Network Resource Partition (NRP) Information in
IPv6 Extension Header", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft,
draft-ietf-6man-enhanced-vpn-vtn-id-06, 20 February 2024,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-6man-
enhanced-vpn-vtn-id-06>.
[I-D.ietf-spring-resource-aware-segments]
Dong, J., Miyasaka, T., Zhu, Y., Qin, F., and Z. Li,
"Introducing Resource Awareness to SR Segments", Work in
Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-spring-resource-
aware-segments-09, 6 May 2024,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-spring-
resource-aware-segments-09>.
[I-D.ietf-spring-sr-for-enhanced-vpn]
Dong, J., Miyasaka, T., Zhu, Y., Qin, F., and Z. Li,
"Segment Routing based Network Resource Partition (NRP)
for Enhanced VPN", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft,
draft-ietf-spring-sr-for-enhanced-vpn-07, 3 March 2024,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-spring-
sr-for-enhanced-vpn-07>.
[I-D.ietf-spring-srv6-srh-compression]
Cheng, W., Filsfils, C., Li, Z., Decraene, B., and F.
Clad, "Compressed SRv6 Segment List Encoding", Work in
Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-spring-srv6-srh-
compression-17, 16 May 2024,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-spring-
srv6-srh-compression-17>.
[I-D.ietf-teas-actn-vn-yang]
Lee, Y., Dhody, D., Ceccarelli, D., Bryskin, I., and B. Y.
Yoon, "A YANG Data Model for Virtual Network (VN)
Operations", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-
teas-actn-vn-yang-28, 8 June 2024,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-teas-
actn-vn-yang-28>.
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[I-D.ietf-teas-ietf-network-slice-nbi-yang]
Wu, B., Dhody, D., Rokui, R., Saad, T., and J. Mullooly,
"A YANG Data Model for the RFC 9543 Network Slice
Service", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-
teas-ietf-network-slice-nbi-yang-13, 9 May 2024,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-teas-
ietf-network-slice-nbi-yang-13>.
[I-D.ietf-teas-nrp-scalability]
Dong, J., Li, Z., Gong, L., Yang, G., and G. S. Mishra,
"Scalability Considerations for Network Resource
Partition", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-
teas-nrp-scalability-04, 4 March 2024,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-teas-
nrp-scalability-04>.
[I-D.ietf-teas-nrp-yang]
Wu, B., Dhody, D., Beeram, V. P., Saad, T., and S. Peng,
"YANG Data Models for Network Resource Partitions (NRPs)",
Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-teas-nrp-
yang-01, 16 March 2024,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-teas-
nrp-yang-01>.
[NGMN-NS-Concept]
hao ,, "NGMN NS Concept", <https://www.ngmn.org/fileadmin/
user_upload/161010_NGMN_Network_Slicing_framework_v1.0.8.p
df>.
[RFC2211] Wroclawski, J., "Specification of the Controlled-Load
Network Element Service", RFC 2211, DOI 10.17487/RFC2211,
September 1997, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2211>.
[RFC2475] Blake, S., Black, D., Carlson, M., Davies, E., Wang, Z.,
and W. Weiss, "An Architecture for Differentiated
Services", RFC 2475, DOI 10.17487/RFC2475, December 1998,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2475>.
[RFC2702] Awduche, D., Malcolm, J., Agogbua, J., O'Dell, M., and J.
McManus, "Requirements for Traffic Engineering Over MPLS",
RFC 2702, DOI 10.17487/RFC2702, September 1999,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2702>.
[RFC2764] Gleeson, B., Lin, A., Heinanen, J., Armitage, G., and A.
Malis, "A Framework for IP Based Virtual Private
Networks", RFC 2764, DOI 10.17487/RFC2764, February 2000,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2764>.
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[RFC3209] Awduche, D., Berger, L., Gan, D., Li, T., Srinivasan, V.,
and G. Swallow, "RSVP-TE: Extensions to RSVP for LSP
Tunnels", RFC 3209, DOI 10.17487/RFC3209, December 2001,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3209>.
[RFC3931] Lau, J., Ed., Townsley, M., Ed., and I. Goyret, Ed.,
"Layer Two Tunneling Protocol - Version 3 (L2TPv3)",
RFC 3931, DOI 10.17487/RFC3931, March 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3931>.
[RFC3985] Bryant, S., Ed. and P. Pate, Ed., "Pseudo Wire Emulation
Edge-to-Edge (PWE3) Architecture", RFC 3985,
DOI 10.17487/RFC3985, March 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3985>.
[RFC4026] Andersson, L. and T. Madsen, "Provider Provisioned Virtual
Private Network (VPN) Terminology", RFC 4026,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4026, March 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4026>.
[RFC4176] El Mghazli, Y., Ed., Nadeau, T., Boucadair, M., Chan, K.,
and A. Gonguet, "Framework for Layer 3 Virtual Private
Networks (L3VPN) Operations and Management", RFC 4176,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4176, October 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4176>.
[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>.
[RFC4448] Martini, L., Ed., Rosen, E., El-Aawar, N., and G. Heron,
"Encapsulation Methods for Transport of Ethernet over MPLS
Networks", RFC 4448, DOI 10.17487/RFC4448, April 2006,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4448>.
[RFC4594] Babiarz, J., Chan, K., and F. Baker, "Configuration
Guidelines for DiffServ Service Classes", RFC 4594,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4594, August 2006,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4594>.
[RFC4655] Farrel, A., Vasseur, J.-P., and J. Ash, "A Path
Computation Element (PCE)-Based Architecture", RFC 4655,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4655, August 2006,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4655>.
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[RFC4664] Andersson, L., Ed. and E. Rosen, Ed., "Framework for Layer
2 Virtual Private Networks (L2VPNs)", RFC 4664,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4664, September 2006,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4664>.
[RFC4719] Aggarwal, R., Ed., Townsley, M., Ed., and M. Dos Santos,
Ed., "Transport of Ethernet Frames over Layer 2 Tunneling
Protocol Version 3 (L2TPv3)", RFC 4719,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4719, November 2006,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4719>.
[RFC5557] Lee, Y., Le Roux, JL., King, D., and E. Oki, "Path
Computation Element Communication Protocol (PCEP)
Requirements and Protocol Extensions in Support of Global
Concurrent Optimization", RFC 5557, DOI 10.17487/RFC5557,
July 2009, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5557>.
[RFC5654] Niven-Jenkins, B., Ed., Brungard, D., Ed., Betts, M., Ed.,
Sprecher, N., and S. Ueno, "Requirements of an MPLS
Transport Profile", RFC 5654, DOI 10.17487/RFC5654,
September 2009, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5654>.
[RFC7209] Sajassi, A., Aggarwal, R., Uttaro, J., Bitar, N.,
Henderickx, W., and A. Isaac, "Requirements for Ethernet
VPN (EVPN)", RFC 7209, DOI 10.17487/RFC7209, May 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7209>.
[RFC7297] Boucadair, M., Jacquenet, C., and N. Wang, "IP
Connectivity Provisioning Profile (CPP)", RFC 7297,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7297, July 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7297>.
[RFC7399] Farrel, A. and D. King, "Unanswered Questions in the Path
Computation Element Architecture", RFC 7399,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7399, October 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7399>.
[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>.
[RFC7665] Halpern, J., Ed. and C. Pignataro, Ed., "Service Function
Chaining (SFC) Architecture", RFC 7665,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7665, October 2015,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7665>.
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[RFC7926] Farrel, A., Ed., Drake, J., Bitar, N., Swallow, G.,
Ceccarelli, D., and X. Zhang, "Problem Statement and
Architecture for Information Exchange between
Interconnected Traffic-Engineered Networks", BCP 206,
RFC 7926, DOI 10.17487/RFC7926, July 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7926>.
[RFC8299] Wu, Q., Ed., Litkowski, S., Tomotaki, L., and K. Ogaki,
"YANG Data Model for L3VPN Service Delivery", RFC 8299,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8299, January 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8299>.
[RFC8309] Wu, Q., Liu, W., and A. Farrel, "Service Models
Explained", RFC 8309, DOI 10.17487/RFC8309, January 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8309>.
[RFC8370] Beeram, V., Ed., Minei, I., Shakir, R., Pacella, D., and
T. Saad, "Techniques to Improve the Scalability of RSVP-TE
Deployments", RFC 8370, DOI 10.17487/RFC8370, May 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8370>.
[RFC8402] Filsfils, C., Ed., Previdi, S., Ed., Ginsberg, L.,
Decraene, B., Litkowski, S., and R. Shakir, "Segment
Routing Architecture", RFC 8402, DOI 10.17487/RFC8402,
July 2018, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8402>.
[RFC8403] Geib, R., Ed., Filsfils, C., Pignataro, C., Ed., and N.
Kumar, "A Scalable and Topology-Aware MPLS Data-Plane
Monitoring System", RFC 8403, DOI 10.17487/RFC8403, July
2018, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8403>.
[RFC8453] Ceccarelli, D., Ed. and Y. Lee, Ed., "Framework for
Abstraction and Control of TE Networks (ACTN)", RFC 8453,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8453, August 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8453>.
[RFC8466] Wen, B., Fioccola, G., Ed., Xie, C., and L. Jalil, "A YANG
Data Model for Layer 2 Virtual Private Network (L2VPN)
Service Delivery", RFC 8466, DOI 10.17487/RFC8466, October
2018, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8466>.
[RFC8491] Tantsura, J., Chunduri, U., Aldrin, S., and L. Ginsberg,
"Signaling Maximum SID Depth (MSD) Using IS-IS", RFC 8491,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8491, November 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8491>.
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[RFC8577] Sitaraman, H., Beeram, V., Parikh, T., and T. Saad,
"Signaling RSVP-TE Tunnels on a Shared MPLS Forwarding
Plane", RFC 8577, DOI 10.17487/RFC8577, April 2019,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8577>.
[RFC8578] Grossman, E., Ed., "Deterministic Networking Use Cases",
RFC 8578, DOI 10.17487/RFC8578, May 2019,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8578>.
[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>.
[RFC8660] Bashandy, A., Ed., Filsfils, C., Ed., Previdi, S.,
Decraene, B., Litkowski, S., and R. Shakir, "Segment
Routing with the MPLS Data Plane", RFC 8660,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8660, December 2019,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8660>.
[RFC8665] Psenak, P., Ed., Previdi, S., Ed., Filsfils, C., Gredler,
H., Shakir, R., Henderickx, W., and J. Tantsura, "OSPF
Extensions for Segment Routing", RFC 8665,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8665, December 2019,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8665>.
[RFC8667] Previdi, S., Ed., Ginsberg, L., Ed., Filsfils, C.,
Bashandy, A., Gredler, H., and B. Decraene, "IS-IS
Extensions for Segment Routing", RFC 8667,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8667, December 2019,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8667>.
[RFC8939] Varga, B., Ed., Farkas, J., Berger, L., Fedyk, D., and S.
Bryant, "Deterministic Networking (DetNet) Data Plane:
IP", RFC 8939, DOI 10.17487/RFC8939, November 2020,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8939>.
[RFC8964] Varga, B., Ed., Farkas, J., Berger, L., Malis, A., Bryant,
S., and J. Korhonen, "Deterministic Networking (DetNet)
Data Plane: MPLS", RFC 8964, DOI 10.17487/RFC8964, January
2021, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8964>.
[RFC8986] Filsfils, C., Ed., Camarillo, P., Ed., Leddy, J., Voyer,
D., Matsushima, S., and Z. Li, "Segment Routing over IPv6
(SRv6) Network Programming", RFC 8986,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8986, February 2021,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8986>.
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[RFC9085] Previdi, S., Talaulikar, K., Ed., Filsfils, C., Gredler,
H., and M. Chen, "Border Gateway Protocol - Link State
(BGP-LS) Extensions for Segment Routing", RFC 9085,
DOI 10.17487/RFC9085, August 2021,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9085>.
[RFC9182] Barguil, S., Gonzalez de Dios, O., Ed., Boucadair, M.,
Ed., Munoz, L., and A. Aguado, "A YANG Network Data Model
for Layer 3 VPNs", RFC 9182, DOI 10.17487/RFC9182,
February 2022, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9182>.
[RFC9232] Song, H., Qin, F., Martinez-Julia, P., Ciavaglia, L., and
A. Wang, "Network Telemetry Framework", RFC 9232,
DOI 10.17487/RFC9232, May 2022,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9232>.
[RFC9256] Filsfils, C., Talaulikar, K., Ed., Voyer, D., Bogdanov,
A., and P. Mattes, "Segment Routing Policy Architecture",
RFC 9256, DOI 10.17487/RFC9256, July 2022,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9256>.
[RFC9291] Boucadair, M., Ed., Gonzalez de Dios, O., Ed., Barguil,
S., and L. Munoz, "A YANG Network Data Model for Layer 2
VPNs", RFC 9291, DOI 10.17487/RFC9291, September 2022,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9291>.
[RFC9375] Wu, B., Ed., Wu, Q., Ed., Boucadair, M., Ed., Gonzalez de
Dios, O., and B. Wen, "A YANG Data Model for Network and
VPN Service Performance Monitoring", RFC 9375,
DOI 10.17487/RFC9375, April 2023,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9375>.
[RFC9408] Boucadair, M., Ed., Gonzalez de Dios, O., Barguil, S., Wu,
Q., and V. Lopez, "A YANG Network Data Model for Service
Attachment Points (SAPs)", RFC 9408, DOI 10.17487/RFC9408,
June 2023, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9408>.
[RFC9552] Talaulikar, K., Ed., "Distribution of Link-State and
Traffic Engineering Information Using BGP", RFC 9552,
DOI 10.17487/RFC9552, December 2023,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9552>.
[TS23501] "3GPP TS23.501",
<https://portal.3gpp.org/desktopmodules/Specifications/
SpecificationDetails.aspx?specificationId=3144>.
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[TS28530] "3GPP TS28.530",
<https://portal.3gpp.org/desktopmodules/Specifications/
SpecificationDetails.aspx?specificationId=3273>.
[TSN] ""Time-Sensitive Networking", IEEE 802.1 Time-Sensitive
Networking (TSN) Task Group",
<https://1.ieee802.org/tsn/>.
Authors' Addresses
Jie Dong
Huawei
Email: jie.dong@huawei.com
Stewart Bryant
University of Surrey
Email: stewart.bryant@gmail.com
Zhenqiang Li
China Mobile
Email: lizhenqiang@chinamobile.com
Takuya Miyasaka
KDDI Corporation
Email: ta-miyasaka@kddi.com
Young Lee
Samsung
Email: younglee.tx@gmail.com
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