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Use Cases for Parent SR Policy
draft-jiang-spring-parent-sr-policy-use-cases-00

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This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Active".
Authors Jiang Wenying , Weiqiang Cheng , Changwang Lin , Yuanxiang Qiu
Last updated 2022-07-09
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draft-jiang-spring-parent-sr-policy-use-cases-00
SPRING Working Group                                           W. Jiang
Internet Draft                                                 W. Cheng
Intended status: Standards Track                           China Mobile
Expires: January 10, 2023                                        C. Lin
                                                                 Y. Qiu
                                                   New H3C Technologies
                                                           July 9, 2022

                      Use Cases for Parent SR Policy
              draft-jiang-spring-parent-sr-policy-use-cases-00

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   Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without
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Abstract

   Segment Routing is a source routing paradigm that explicitly
   indicates the forwarding path for packets at the ingress node. An SR
   Policy is associated with one or more candidate paths, and each
   candidate path is dynamic, explicit or composite. This document
   illustrates some use cases for parent SR policy in MPLS and IPv6
   environment.

Table of Contents

   1. Introduction ................................................ 2
   2. Terminology ................................................. 3
   3. Parent SR Policy ............................................ 3
   4. Steering into an parent SR Policy ........................... 4
   5. On-demand parent SR Policy .................................. 5
   6. Parent SR Policy Use Cases .................................. 5
      6.1. Parent SR Policy in L3VPN over TE Scenarios ............. 6
      6.2. Parent SR Policy in Cloud Backbone Acceleration Scenarios 6
      6.3. Parent SR Policy in the L2VPN Network Scenarios ......... 8
      6.4. Parent SR Policy in the Application-aware Scenarios ..... 8
      6.5. Application of ODN parent SR Policy in Trusted Network
      Scenarios ................................................... 9
      6.6. Best-effort Forwarding Scenarios when SR Policy Becomes
      Unavailable ................................................ 11
   7. Implementation Status ...................................... 11
   8. IANA Considerations ........................................ 11
   9. Security Considerations .................................... 12
   10. References ................................................ 12
      10.1. Normative References ................................. 12
      10.2. Informative References ............................... 12
   11. Acknowledgments ........................................... 12
   Authors' Addresses ............................................ 13

  1. Introduction

   Segment routing (SR) [RFC8402] is a source routing paradigm that
   explicitly indicates the forwarding path for packets at the ingress
   node. The ingress node steers packets into a specific path according
   to the Segment Routing Policy (SR Policy) as defined in [I-D.ietf-
   spring-segment-routing-policy].  In order to distribute SR policies
   to the headend, [I-D.ietf-idr-segment-routing-te-policy] specifies a
   mechanism by using BGP.

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   An SR Policy is associated with one or more candidate paths. A
   composite candidate path acts as a container for grouping SR
   Policies.  As described in section 2.2 in [I-D.ietf-spring-segment-
   routing-policy], the composite candidate path construct enables
   combination of SR Policies, each with explicit candidate paths
   and/or dynamic candidate paths with potentially different
   optimization objectives and constraints, for load-balanced steering
   of packet flows over its constituent SR Policies. For service-class
   based steering, and in the best-effort forwarding scenario when SR
   policy becomes unavailable, packets are also forwarded over the
   constituent SR policies of composite candidate path.

   For convenience, the composite candidate path formed by the
   combination of SR policies is called parent SR policy. In [I-D.ietf-
   spring-segment-routing-policy], there is no use case about SR policy
   composite candidate path. This document illustrates some use cases
   for parent SR policy in MPLS and IPv6 environment to provide best
   practice cases for operators.

  2. Terminology

   The definitions of the basic terms are identical to those found in
   Alternate Marking [RFC8402].

   The important new terms that need to be explained are listed below:

   Parent SR policy: According to [I-D.ietf-
   spring-segment-routing-policy],a parent SR policy represents a 
   composite candidate path that acts as a container for grouping 
   SR policies.

   ODN: On-demand Next-Hop.

   ODN SR policy: Preconfigure an ODN template specified color. When
   the device receives a BGP route, if the color extended attribute
   value of the BGP route is the same as the color value of an ODN
   template, the device can automatically create an SR policy.

   ODN parent SR policy: A parent SR policy dynamically created through
   ODN.

  3. Parent SR Policy

   An SR Policy is associated with one or more candidate paths.  
   According to [I-D.ietf-spring-segment-routing-policy],a parent
   SR Policy is the composite candidate path that acts as a container
   for grouping SR policies. The parent SR Policy is valid when it has
   at least one valid constituent SR policy.

   As defined in [I-D.ietf-spring-segment-routing-policy], the
   endpoints of the constituent SR Policies and the parent SR Policy

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   MUST be identical, and the colors of each of the constituent SR
   Policies and the parent SR Policy MUST be different. Parent SR
   policy and its constituent SR Policies follow the same criteria:

      The endpoints of the constituent SR Policies and its parent SR
      Policy MUST be identical

      The colors of each of the constituent SR Policies and its parent
      SR Policy MUST be different

      The constituent SR Policies MUST NOT contain parent SR policy

   As a special SR policy, parent SR policy also has color attribute,
   which is identified by <color, endpoint> on the headend.

   A parent SR policy can be generated by static configuration or a
   centralized controller distribution, also can be generated based on
   the on-demand SR policy optimization template dynamically.

  4. Steering into an parent SR Policy

   A headend can steer a packet flow into a valid parent SR Policy in
   various ways:

   o Per-flow Steering: Specify the mapping relationship between color
     and flow characteristics (such as DSCP) for parent SR policy, and
     create a parent policy that binds a destination IP address. Upon
     receiving a packet with the specified destination address, the
     device searches for the SR policy containing the color value
     mapped to the flow characteristics of the packet in the parent SR
     policy. The device will use the matching SR policy to forward the
     packet.

     The device obtains a parent SR policy for traffic steering as
     follows:

     *  Matches the destination IP/IPv6 address in a packet with a
        parent SR policy.

     *  Searches for a parent SR policy with color and endpoint address
        matching the color extended community attribute and next hop
        in a BGP route, and recurses the BGP route to the parent SR
        policy.

     The Ingress node can match flow characteristics in its ingress
     interfaces (upon any field such as Ethernet
     destination/source/VLAN/TOS or IP destination/source/DSCP or
     transport ports or application attribute etc.) and color them with

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     an internal per-packet forwarding-class variable. According to the
     forwarding-class variable the ingress node selects the matching SR
     policy in the parent SR policy.

   o Policy-based Steering: incoming packets match a routing policy
     that directs them on a parent SR policy. Parse the flow
     characteristics (such as DSCP/802.1p value) from the packet
     header, find its corresponding color, and then match it to an SR
     policy in the parent SR policy, forward the incoming packets
     through the matched SR policy.

   If a parent SR policy has at least one valid constituent SR Policy
   of specified color, flow load-balance steer over its valid
   constituent SR policies with the same color. When all constituent SR
   policies of specified color are invalid, packets are forwarded based
   on a default SR policy preconfigured.

  5. On-demand parent SR Policy

   SR policies are generally generated by manual static configuration
   or distributed by centralized controller. Manual configuration may
   be troublesome, especially when many SR policies need to be
   configured. The controller mode may also not be suitable for
   operators who need to make full use of distributed intelligence.

   In scenarios that distinguish service forwarding paths based on DSCP
   value and 802.1p priority, parent SR policies can be automatically
   created through ODN to establish the dynamic mapping between service
   types and parent SR policies, which can greatly reduce the workload
   of configuration.

   Create the ODN template of parent SR policy in the headend. When the
   device receives a BGP route, if the color extended community
   attribute carried by the BGP route is the same as the color value of
   the ODN template, the next hop address of the BGP route is used as
   the destination endpoint address of the parent SR policy, and the
   color value of the ODN template is used as the color attribute of
   the parent SR policy to generate an parent SR policy.

   After the parent SR policy is created by ODN, its constituent SR
   policy is usually generated by ODN. ODN SR policy dynamically
   generates candidate paths through affinity attributes, flex-algo
   algorithm or PCE calculation.

  6. Parent SR Policy Use Cases

   The use cases described in this section do not constitute an
   exhaustive list of all the possible scenarios: this section only

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   includes some of the most common envisioned deployment models for
   parent SR policy.

6.1. Parent SR Policy in L3VPN over TE Scenarios

   In Figure 1, CE1 and CE2 belong to the same L3VPN and access the
   public network through PE1 and PE2 respectively. There are many
   kinds of traffic between CE1 and CE2. When the ordinary traffic is
   too large, the forwarding of important traffic will be affected.

   In order to ensure the forwarding quality of important services, the
   steering based on Forwarding class can be configured using parent SR
   policy. After the steering based on forwarding class is configured,
   the traffic of different service levels will be carried by the
   specified SR policy tunnel, which can effectively ensure the
   forwarding quality of important services with high service levels.

                               +----+
                            +--| P3 |--+
                            |  +----+  |
                            |          |
      +-----+   +-----+   +----+    +----+    +-----+   +-----+
      | CE1 |---| PE1 |---| P1 |----| P2 |----| PE2 |---| CE2 |
      +-----+   +-----+   +----+    +----+    +-----+   +-----+
                   |                             |
                   |<===========================>|
                           Parent SR Policy

                            Figure 1

   It is assumed that in this network, the parent policy contains three
   constituent policies: Policy-A, Policy-B and Policy-C. Services with
   different forwarding class will carry different DSCP values in the
   packet. Identify the customer's service through DSCP on PE1. The
   voice traffic of VIP customers is forwarded according to the path of
   low-delay Policy-A, other traffic of VIP customers is forwarded
   according to the path of Policy-B, and all businesses of non VIP
   customers are carried by Policy-C.

6.2. Parent SR Policy in Cloud Backbone Acceleration Scenarios

   As shown in Figure 2, multiple cloud data centers are interconnected
   through cloud backbone networks. In the public cloud, there are
   different SLA requirements for different service types, such as
   voice service and cloud disk. Deploy a static parent SR policy on

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   the core of the cloud backbone network to prevent network
   congestion. There are multiple SR policies in the parent SR policy.

   In order to ensure the service quality of different types of
   services, the service types are distinguished by flow
   classification, then different services are mapped to different DSCP
   value, and finally the traffic of different DSCP is imported into
   different SR policies.

                   ...................................
                   .          Backbone               .
                   .          +--------+             .
                   .          | Public |             .
                   . +--------| Cloud  |-----------+ .
                   . |        +--------+           | .
   +--------+      . |                             | .      +--------+
   | Public |---+  . |                             | .  +---| Public |
   | Cloud  |   |-+----+    +----+     +----+    +----+-|   | Cloud  |
   +--------+     | PE |----| P  |-----| P  |----| PE |     +--------+
                |-+----+    +----+     +----+    +----+-|
   +--------+   |  .           |          |          .  |   +--------+
   |Private |---+  .           |  +----+  |          .  +---|Private |
   | Cloud  |      .           +--| P  |--+          .      | Cloud  |
   +--------+      .              +----+             .      +--------+
                   .        |<------------->|        .
                   .         Parent SR Policy        .
                   ...................................
                          Figure 2

   Through the parent SR policy, different forwarding paths can be
   introduced based on the DSCP value in the IP/IPv6 packet header.

   First, create a parent SR policy and assign color identification to
   the parent SR policy.

   Then, configure multiple SR policies into one parent SR policy in
   the headend, specify the mapping relationship between each SR policy
   and DSCP value in the parent SR policy, and then bind the service
   type to the specified parent SR policy.

   In this way, when the headend receives traffic, it first matches to
   the parent SR policy according to the next hop and color of the
   route, and then finds the mapped SR policy in the corresponding
   parent policy according to the DSCP value carried in the IP/IPv6
   packet header.

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   DSCP based steering is suitable for differentiating services at the
   source and specifying different DSCP value scenarios.

6.3. Parent SR Policy in the L2VPN Network Scenarios

   Similar to the DSCP-based steering scenario, in the layer 2 access
   network and L2VPN network, the service types are distinguished by
   the 802.1p priority in the packet header, and the 802.1p priority is
   mapped to color in the parent SR policy. Different services can be
   forwarded into different paths.

                              +----+
                          +---| P1 |---+
                          |   +----+   |
      +-----+   +-----+   |            |   +-----+   +-----+
      | CE1 |---| PE1 |---|            |---| PE2 |---| CE2 |
      +-----+   +-----+   |            |   +-----+   +-----+
                          |   +----+   |
                          +---| P2 |---+
                   |          +----+          |
                   |<========================>|
                         Parent SR Policy
                          Figure 3

   As shown in Figure 3, CE1 and CE2 belong to the same VPLS and are
   connected to the MPLS backbone network through PE1 and PE2
   respectively. Establish two MPLS-SR policy tunnels Policy-A and
   Policy-B between PE1 and PE2 to carry this VPLS service. Policy-A
   and Policy-B are the constituent policies of parent SR policy. Two
   SR policy tunnels correspond to two different priorities. The VPLS
   access end classifies the traffic flow, trusts the priority of
   802.1p, and introduces the services of VPLS leased line users and
   non-leased line users into different SR policy according to
   different priorities.

6.4. Parent SR Policy in the Application-aware Scenarios

   By carrying the application attribute (including APP ID and APP
   parameters) through data packets, i.e., the delivery of application-
   aware information and ensuring the security and reliability of
   application-aware information, the network senses the application
   groups' requirements and provides high-quality differentiated
   services according to the demand of the applications.  And when the
   network transmits the data packets, it matches the SR policy
   according to the application attribute in the data packets and
   selects the corresponding path of constituent SR policy to transmit
   the data packets (e.g., low latency path) to meet the SLA

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   requirements and service chain in order to improve the service
   quality.

   As shown in Figure 4 below, the parent policy contains three
   constituent SR policies: Policy-A, Policy-B and Policy-C. The data
   packets of APP1 are forwarded by Policy-A, the data packets of APP2
   are forwarded by Policy-B, and the data packets of APP3 are
   forwarded by Policy-C.

     +------+                 +-----------+                   +------+
     | APP1 |           /=====| Policy-A  |=====\             | APP1 |
     +------+          /      +-----------+      \            +------+
       +------+   +-------+    +-----------+   +--------+   +------+
       | APP2 |---|   PE  |====| Policy-B  |===|   PE   |---| APP2 |
       +------+   +-------+    +-----------+   +--------+   +------+
     +------+          \      +-----------+      /            +------+
     | APP3 |           \=====| Policy-C  |=====/             | APP3 |
     +------+                 +-----------+                   +------+
                    |<---------------------------->|
                                 Parent SR Policy
                          Figure 4

6.5. Application of ODN parent SR Policy in Trusted Network Scenarios

   Section 3 of [I-D.lin-opsec-trustroute-problem-statement] introduces
   the use case of trusted network. By dynamically creating SR policy
   through ODN, automatic steering traffic according to security level
   can be realized.

   From the perspective of security and trustworthiness, the security
   levels for users with different security requirements and the
   trustworthiness levels of the network transmission devices can be
   determined according to their performance and reliability. Different
   forwarding paths are provided for packets with different security
   levels.

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                            ----------
                           /          \
                          | APP Server |
                           \          /
                            ----------
                                |
                                |
                           +----------+
                           |          |
          +----------------| Device-E |---------------+         =====
          |                |          |               |           ^ P
          |                +----------+               |           | a
          |          Trustworthiness level =7         |           | r
          |                     |                     |           | e
          |                     |                     |           | n
          |                     |                     |           | t
     +----------+          +----------+          +----------+     |
     |          |          |          |          |          |     | S
     | Device-B |          | Device-C |          | Device-D |     | R
     |          |          |          |          |          |     |
     +----------+          +----------+          +----------+     | P
   Trustworthiness level =1     |        Trustworthiness level =3 | o
          |             Trustworthiness level =3      |           | l
          |                     |                     |           | i
          |                +----------+               |           | c
          +----------------|          |---------------+           V y
                           | Device-A |                         =====
           +---------------|          |---------------+
           |               +----------+               |
           |          Trustworthiness level =7        |
           |                    |                     |
           |                    |                     |
     +----------+          +----------+          +----------+
     |  User-1  |          |  User-2  |          |  User-3  |
     +----------+          +----------+          +----------+
   security level =1      security level =2      security level =3
                          Figure 5

   As shown in Figure 5, the trustworthiness level is configured on
   each network transmission device.

   Device-E colors the advertised BGP routes through the color extended
   community attribute, and different services correspond to different
   colors.

   When Device-A receives a BGP route with color C1 and endpoint E,
   device a will automatically generate a parent SR policy (C1, E)
   according to the ODN template of color C1.

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   The composition SR policy of parent SR policy is also generated
   according to ODN template. DSCP1 is mapped to color C2. After
   creating a parent SR policy (C1, E), Device-A generates an ODN SR
   policy (C2, E) according to the mapping relationship between DSCP
   and color (DSCP1->C2).

   Services with different security levels use different DSCPs. When
   the user generates a service packet, it carries the corresponding
   DSCP value (DSCP1) on the IPv6 packet header, and sends it to the
   Device-A. After receiving the service packet, the service packet is
   steered according to SR policy (C2, E).

6.6. Best-effort Forwarding Scenarios when SR Policy Becomes
   Unavailable

   When all the constituent SR policies in the parent SR policy are not
   valid, or all the selected paths of the SR policy are unavailable,
   the service traffic will not be forwarded according to the specified
   path. At this time, the best-effort forwarding path can be
   configured for the parent SR policy, and the endpoints through which
   traffic forwarding must pass can be designed in the best-effort
   forwarding path.

   During network deployment, the best-effort forwarding path can be a
   default SR policy or an SR BE forwarding path. Specify a best-effort
   forwarding path in the parent SR policy. When all specified
   candidate paths are invalid, or the mapping relationship
   corresponding to their service type is not matched in the parent SR
   policy, select the default best-effort path forwarding.

  7. Implementation Status

   In November 2021, by configuring the parent SR Policy defined in
   this document, China Mobile has successfully verified the composite
   candidate path that acts as a container for grouping SR Policies on
   the device and controller.

      Hardware implementation in H3C CR16010H-FA and CR19000-8 running
      Comware

      China mobile IP Network Controller

  8. IANA Considerations

   This document has no IANA actions.

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  9. Security Considerations

   This document presents use cases to be considered by the deployment
   of SR Policy. It does not introduce any security considerations.

10. References

10.1. Normative References

   [I-D.ietf-spring-segment-routing-policy] Filsfils, C., Talaulikar,
             K., Voyer, D., Bogdanov, A., and P. Mattes, "Segment
             Routing Policy Architecture", draft-ietf-spring-segment-
             routing-policy-22 (work in progress), March 2022.

   [I-D.ietf-idr-segment-routing-te-policy] Previdi, S., Filsfils, C.,
             Talaulikar, K., Mattes, P., Rosen, E., Jain, D., and S.
             Lin, "Advertising Segment Routing Policies in BGP", draft-
             ietf-idr-segment-routing-te-policy-18 (work in progress),
             June 2022.

   [I-D.lin-opsec-trustroute-problem-statement] Lin, T., Li, H., Shi,
             X., Yin, X., Chen, W., "Problem Statement and Use Cases of
             Trustworthiness-based Routing", draft-lin-opsec-
             trustroute-problem-statement-02 (work in progress), June
             2022.

   [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>.

10.2. Informative References

   TBD

  11. Acknowledgments

   The authors would like to thank the following for their valuable
   contributions of this document:

   TBD

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Authors' Addresses

   Wenying Jiang
   China Mobile

   Email: jiangwenying@chinamobile.com

   Weiqiang Cheng
   China Mobile

   Email: chengweiqiang@chinamobile.com

   Changwang Lin
   New H3C Technologies

   Email: linchangwang.04414@h3c.com

   Yuanxiang Qiu
   New H3C Technologies

   Email: qiuyuanxiang@h3c.com

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