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Virtual Topologies for Service Chaining in BGP IP VPNs
draft-rfernando-l3vpn-service-chaining-02

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This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Replaced".
Authors Rex Fernando , Dhananjaya Rao , Luyuan Fang , Maria Napierala , Ning So
Last updated 2013-07-15
Replaced by draft-rfernando-bess-service-chaining
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draft-rfernando-l3vpn-service-chaining-02
INTERNET-DRAFT                                               R. Fernando
Intended Status: Standards track                                  D. Rao
Expires: January 14, 2014                                         L. Fang
                                                                   Cisco
                                                            M. Napierala
                                                                    AT&T
                                                                   N. So
                                                     Tata Communications

                                                       July 15, 2013

         Virtual Topologies for Service Chaining in BGP IP VPNs
               draft-rfernando-l3vpn-service-chaining-02         

Abstract

   This document presents techniques built upon BGP MPLS/VPN control
   plane mechanisms to construct virtual topologies for service chaining.
   These virtual service topologies interconnect network zones and constrain 
   the flow of traffic between these zones via a sequence of service nodes so
   that interesting service functions can be applied to such trafic.

   This document also describes both routing control plane and network 
   orchestration driven approaches to realize these virtual service topologies.

Status of this Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted to IETF in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

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   Internet-Drafts.

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   http://www.ietf.org/1id-abstracts.html

   The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
   http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html

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Copyright and License Notice

   Copyright (c) 2013 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
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   publication of this document. Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
     1.1  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   2.  Intra-Zone Routing and Traffic Forwarding  . . . . . . . . . .  6
   3.  Inter-Zone Routing and Traffic Forwarding  . . . . . . . . . .  7
   4.  Proposed Inter-Zone Model  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
     4.1  Constructing the Virtual Service Topology . . . . . . . . .  8
     4.2  Inter-zone Routing and Service Chaining . . . . . . . . . . 10
     4.3 Per-VM service chains  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   5.  Routing Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
     5.1  Multiple service topologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
     5.2  Multipath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
     5.3  Supporting redundancy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
     5.4  Route Aggregation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   6. Provisioning  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   7.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   8.  IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   9.  Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   10.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     10.1  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     10.2  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

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1.  Introduction

   Network topologies and routing design in enterprise, Data Center, and
   campus networks typically reflect the needs of the organization in
   terms of performance, scale, security and availability. For scale and
   security reasons, these networks may be composed of multiple small
   domains or zones each serving one or more functions of the
   organization.

   A network zone is a logical grouping of physical assets that support
   certain applications or a subset thereof. Hosts can communicate
   freely within a zone, that is, a datagram traveling between two hosts
   in the same zone is not routed through any servers that examine the
   datagram payload, but a datagram traveling between hosts in different
   zones is subject to additional services to meet the needs of scaling,
   performance, and security for specific applications. Example of such
   services can be a security gateway or a load-balancer.

   Traditional networks achieve this by using a combination of physical
   topology constraints and routing. For example, one can force
   datagrams going through a FireWall (FW) by putting the firewall in
   the data path from a source to a destination. In some other cases,
   the datagrams needs to go through a security gateway for security
   service, and a Load Balancer (LB) for load balancing service.

   In modern virtualized Data Centers, appliances, applications, and
   network functions, including IP VPN PE and CE functions are commonly
   virtualized, i.e, they are software instances residing in servers or
   appliances instead of individual physical devices.

   Porting a traditional network with all its functions and
   infrastructure elements to a virtualized data center requires network overlay
   mechanisms that provide the ability to create virtual network
   topologies that mimic physical networks and the ability to constrain
   the flow of routing and traffic over these virtual network
   topologies.

   A Data Center needs a virtual topology in which the servers are in
   the "virtual" data path, rather than in the physical data path. For
   example, a traffic flow in the traditional network has the resource
   as Provider Edge (PE) 1, and destination as Autonomous System Border
   Router (ASBR) 1, the flow must be serviced by FW1 and LB2, its path
   would be PE1 -> FW1 -> LB1 -> ASBR1. In a virtualized DC, the virtual
   topology for this path may be vPE1 -> vFW1 -> vLB1 -> ASBR1, assume
   PE1, FW1 and LB1 are virtual nodes. This sequence represents an
   example of virtual service chain. The nodes in the chain may be
   placed at arbitrary physical locations.

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   Furthermore, data centers might need multiple virtual topologies per
   tenant to handle different types of application traffic. A tenant is
   a customer who uses the virtualized data center services. The term
   Multi-tenant means virtualized single end device, for example, a
   server, supports multiple tenants which requires routing isolation
   among the tenants' traffic. Each tenant might dictate a different
   topology of connectedness between their zones and applications and
   might need the ability to apply network policies and services for
   inter-zone traffic in specific order to the organization objectives
   of the tenant. Therefore, the mechanisms devised should be flexible
   to accommodate the custom needs of a tenant and their applications at
   the same time MUST be robust enough to satisfy the scale, performance
   and HA needs that they demand from the virtual network
   infrastructure.

   Towards this end, this document introduces the concept of virtual
   service topologies and extends MPLS/VPN control plane mechanisms to
   constrain routing and traffic flow over virtual service topologies.

   The creation of these topologies and the setting up of the forwarding tables
   to steer traffic over them may be carried out either by extensions to IP-VPN
   procedures and functionality at the PEs, or via an SDN based approach. This
   document specifies the use of both approaches, but uses the IP-VPN based option 
   to illustrate the various steps involved.

1.1  Terminology

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].

   2. Suggested text under terminology in 1.1 (after the key word
   paragraph)

   Terms            description
   -----            ---------------------------

   AS                Autonomous System
   ASBR              Autonomous System Border Router
   BGP               Border Gateway Protocol
   CE                Customer Edge
   DPI               Deep Packet imspection
   ED                End device: where Guest OS, Host OS/Hypervisor,
                     applications, VMs, and virtual router may reside
   Forwarder         L3VPN forwarding function
   FW                FireWall
   GRE               Generic Routing Encapsulation
   Hypervisor        Virtual Machine Manager running on each end device
   I2RS              Interface to Routing System
   LB                Load Balancer
   LTE               Long Term Evolution
   MP-BGP            Multi-Protocol Border Gateway Protocol
   PCEF              Policy Charging and Enforcement Function
   P                 Provider backbone router

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   PBR               Policy Based Routing
   proxy-arp         proxy-Address Resolution Protocol
   QoS               Quality of Service
   RR                Route Reflector
   RT                Route Target
   RTC               RT Constraint
   SDN               Software Defined Network
   ToR               Top-of-Rack switch
   VI                Virtual Interface
   vCE               virtual Customer Router
   vFW               virtual FireWall
   vLB               virtual Load Balancer
   VM                Virtual Machine
   vPC               virtual Private Cloud
   vPE               virtual Provider Edge
   VPN               Virtual Private Network
   vRR               virtual Route Reflector1.2 Scope of the document
   WAN               Wide Area Network

   General terminologies:

   Service-PE: A BGP IP-VPN PE to which a service node in a virtual
   service topology is attached. The PE directs incoming traffic from
   other PEs or from attached hosts to the service node via an MPLS VPN 
   label or IP lookup; and forwards traffic from the service node to the next 
   node in the chain. A Service-PE is a logical entity, in that a given PE may
   be attached to both a service node and an application host VM.

   Service node:  A physical or virtual service appliance/application
   which inspects and/or redirects the flow of inter-zone traffic.
   Examples of service CEs: Firewalls, load-balancers, deep packet
   inspectors. The Service node acts as a CE in the VPN network.

   Service Chain: A sequence of service nodes that interconnect two end-host zones.
   The service chain is unidirectional and creates a one way traffic flow between 
   source zone and destination zone. 

   Virtual Service topology: 
   A virtual service topology consists of a sequence of service-PE's and their 
   attached service nodes created in a specific order. A service topology is 
   constructed via one or more routes that direct the traffic flow among the PEs 
   forming the service chain. 

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   Service-topology-RT: A BGP route attribute that identifies the specific service 
   topology.

   Tenant: A tenant is a higher-level management construct. In the
   control/forwarding plane, it is the various virtual networks that get
   instantiated. A tenant may have more than one virtual network or VPN.

   Zone: A logical grouping of physical assets that supports certain
   applications or a subset thereof. VMs or hosts can communicate freely within a
   zone.

2.  Intra-Zone Routing and Traffic Forwarding

   This section provides a brief overview of how BGP/MPLS IP VPNs
   [RFC4364] control plane can be used in DC networks to used to divide
   a DC network into a number of zones. The subsequent sections in the
   document build on this base model to create inter-zone service
   topologies by interconnecting these zones and forcing inter-zone
   traffic to travel through a sequence of servers where the sequence of
   servers depends on <source zone, destination zone, application>.

   The notion of BGP IP VPN when applied to the virtual Data Center
   works in the following manner.

   The VM that runs the applications in the server is treated as a CE
   attached to the VPN. A CE/VM belongs to a zone. The PE is the first
   hop router from the CE/VM and the PE-CE link is single hop from an L3
   perspective. Any of the available physical, logical or tunneling
   technologies can be used to create this "direct" link between the
   CE/VM and its attached PE(s).

   If a PE attaches to one or more CEs of a certain zone, the PE must
   have exactly one VRF for that zone, and the PE-CE links to those CEs
   must all be associated with that VRF. Intra-zone connectivity between
   CE/VMs that attach to different PEs is achieved by designating an RT
   per zone (zone-RT) that is both an import RT and an export RT of all

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   PE VRFs that terminate the CE/VMs that belong to the zone. A VM may
   have multiple virtual interfaces that attach to different zones.

   It is further assumed that the CE/VM's are associated with network
   policies that become activated on an attached PE when a CE/VM becomes
   alive. These policies dictate how networking should be set up for the
   CE/VM including the properties of the CE-PE link, the IP address of
   the CE/VM, the zone(s) that it belongs to, QoS policies etc. There
   are many ways to accomplish this step, a description of which is
   outside the scope of this document.

   When the CE/VM is activated, the attached PE starts exporting its IP
   address with the corresponding zone-RT. This allows unrestricted any-
   to-any communication between the newly active VM and the rest of the
   VMs in the zone.

   The classification of VMs into a zone is driven by the communication
   and security policy and is independent of the addressing for the VMs.
   The VMs in a zone may be in the same or different IP subnets with
   user-defined mask-lengths. The PE advertises /32 routes to advertise
   reachability to a locally attached VM. If two VMs are in the same IP
   subnet, the PE may employ proxy-ARP to assist the VM to resolve ARP for
   other VMs in the IP subnet, and may use IP forwarding to carry traffic
   between the VMs. When a VM is attached to a remote PE, IP-VPN forwarding is 
   used to tunnel packets to the remote PE.

3.  Inter-Zone Routing and Traffic Forwarding

   A simple form of inter-zone traffic forwarding can be achieved using
   extranets or hub-and-spoke L3VPN configurations. However, the ability
   to enforce constrained traffic flow through a set of services is non-
   existent in extranets and is limited in hub-and-spoke setups. 

   Note that the inter-zone services cannot always be assumed to reside
   and inlined on a PE. There is a need to virtualize the services
   themselves so that they can be implemented on commodity hardware and
   scaled out 'elastically' when traffic demands increase. This creates
   a situation where services for traffic between zones may not be
   applied only at the source-zone PE or the destination-zone PE.
   Mechanisms are required that make it easy to direct inter-zone
   traffic through the appropriate set of service nodes that might be
   remote and virtualized.

3.1  Traffic Forwarding operational flow

   Traffic from an endpoint in a source zone lands on an ingress zone-PE in a VRF 
   associated with the zone. The zone-PE will forward the traffic and direct it 
   towards the first service-node.If the service-node is attached to the zone-PE, 
   it will forward the packet out one of its access interfaces. If the service-node 
   is attached to a different service-PE, it will encapsulate the packets 
   appropriately and send them towards the service-PE. The PEs may be physically 
   connected via an intermediate network of devices.

   The service-PE will receive these encapsulated packets from the source zone-PE 
   and forward them to its attached service-node. The traffic that comes back 
   to the service-PE from the service-node must now be forwarded to the next 
   service-node in the chain. As above, the next service-node may be locally 
   attached or at a remote service-PE.

   At the last service-PE in the chain, the traffic that comes back from a service 
   node must now be forwarded directly to the destination in the target zone. The 
   destination may be attached or reachable via another PE.  

   As can be determined by the above example, a given packet flow needs to be 
   forwarded differently at any PE depending on whether the traffic is destined 
   towards an attached node on the PE or is arriving from an attached node and 
   destined to a node at a remote PE. The next-hop for the flows changes depending 
   on the relative position within the logical service chain.

   The following figure illustrates a virtual service topology, where hosts in 
   Zone 1 are interconnected with hosts in Zone 2 via two service nodes Serv-A and 
   Serv-B, attached to two service-PEs S-PE A and S-PE B respectively.

   """"""""""""""""""""""                         """"""""""""""""""""""
   "          +-------+ " +--------+   +--------+ " +-------+          "
   " +-----+  | vPE-1 | " |ServPE-A|   |ServPE-B| " | vPE-2 |  +-----+ "
   " |VM/CE|--|       |---|        |---|        |---|       |--|VM/CE| "
   " +-----+  |(VRF-1)| " |(VRF-A) |   |(VRF-B) | " |(VRF-2)|  +-----+ "
   "          +-------+ " +--------+   +--------+ " +-------+          "
   "                    "      |            |     "                    "
   "     Zone 1         " +--------+   +--------+ "       Zone 2       "
   """""""""""""""""""""" | Serv-A |   | Serv-B | """"""""""""""""""""""
                          +--------+   +--------+
                 Figure 1. Virtual Service Topology illustration

   The different forwarding paths can conceptually be achieved at any PE as follows:

   Each service node is associated with two VRF tables at the service PE that it is 
   attached to - an in-VRF for traffic towards the service node, and an out-VRF for 
   traffic from the service node.

   Traffic in the in-VRF arrives from the previous node in the service chain, and 
   traffic in the out-VRF is destined towards the next node in the service chain, 
   or towards the destination zone.

   The in-VRF has one or more routes with a next-hop of a local access interface 
   where the service node is attached. The out-VRF has routes with a next-hop of 
   the next service node, which may be situated locally on the service-PE or at 
   a remote PE.

   The installation of the appropriate forwarding entries to implement the 
   forwarding flow described above may be achieved either via IP-VPN mechanisms 
   or via an SDN approach, as described further.

4.  Proposed Inter-Zone Model

   The proposed model has the following steps to it.

4.1  Constructing the Virtual Service Topology

   The virtual service topology described in the previous section is constructed 
   via one or more routes that direct the traffic flow among the PEs 
   forming the service chain. There should be a route per service node. The service 
   topologies, and hence the service routes, are constructed on a per-VPN basis. This
   service topology is independent of the routes for the actual destination for a 
   flow, ie the addresses of the VMs present in the various zones. There can be
   multiple service topologies for a given VPN. 

4.1.1  Reachability to the service nodes

   Each service node is identified by an IP address that is scoped within the VPN.
   The service node is also associated with an in-VRF and out-VRF at the attached 
   service node.

   Reachability to the various service nodes in the service chain occurs via regular 
   BGP IP-VPN route advertisements.

   A service-PE will export a route for each service node attached to it. Each
   route will contain the Route-Target configured for the VPN, and a forwarding 
   label that is associated with the logical in-VRF for a service node on the 
   service-PE. This label enables the service-PE to directly forward incoming 
   traffic from the other PEs to the service node. 

   The routes to reach the various service nodes are imported into and installed in 
   each out-VRF at a service-PE, as well as in the zone-VRF on the ingress zone-PE.

4.1.2  Provisioning the service chain

   At each PE supporting a given VPN, the sequence of service nodes in a service 
   chain can be specified in a VPN service route policy.

   To create the service chain and give it a unique identity, each PE may be
   provisioned with the following tuple for every service chain that it belongs to:
   
   {Service-topology-RT, Service-node-Sequence} where Service-node-Sequence is 
   simply an ordered list of the service node IP addresses that are in the chain.
   
   Every service chain has a single unique service-topology-RT that's provisioned 
   in all participating PEs.

   A PE will also be provisioned with the tables and/or configuration that support
   the various zone, service in- and out- VRFs.

4.1.3  Zone prefix next-hop resolution

   Routes representing hosts or VMs from a zone are called zone
   prefixes. A zone prefix will have its regular zone RTs attached when
   it is originated. This will be used by PEs in the same zone to import
   these prefixes to enable direct communication between VM's of the
   same zone.

   In addition to the intra-zone RT's, zone prefixes are also tagged at
   the point of origination with the set of service-topology-RTs to
   which they belong.

   Since they are tagged with the zone-RT, zone prefixes get
   imported into the appropriate service-VRF's of particular service-
   PE's that form the service chain associated to that topology RT. Note
   that the zone RT was added to the relevant service-VRF's import
   RT list during the virtual topology construction phase.
   These routes may be installed in the in-VRF, out-VRF tables at the service-PEs 
   as well as in the ingress zone-VRF.

   Note that this proposal introduces a change in the behavior of the
   service-PE's but does not require protocol changes to BGP.
   A modification is proposed to a standard PE behavior to allow the automatic and 
   constrained flow of traffic via the service chain.

   The PE, based on the presence of the configured Service-topology-RT in the
   received zone routes, will perform the following actions:

   1. It will ignore the next-hop and VPN label that were advertised in the NLRI.
   2. Instead, it will select the appropriate Service next-hop from the Service-node 
      sequence associated with the Service-topology-RT.
   3. It will further resolve this Service next-hop IP address locally in the 
      associated VRF, instead of in the global table. It will use the next-hop and 
      label associated with this IP address to encapsulate traffic towards the next 
      service node.
   4. If the importing service-PE is the last service-PE, it uses
   the next hop that came with the zone prefix for route resolution. It
   also uses the VPN label that came with the prefix.

   This way the zone prefixes in the intermediate service-PE hops
   recurse over the service chain forcing the traffic destined
   to them flow through the virtual service topology.

   Traffic for the zone prefix goes through the service hops created by the
   the service topology. At each service hop, the service-PE
   directs the traffic to the service node. Once the service node is
   done processing the traffic, it then sends it back to the service-PE
   which forwards the traffic to the next service-PE and so on.

   A significant benefit of this next-hop indirection is to avoid
   redundant advertisement of zone prefixes from the end-zone or service-PEs. 
   Also, when the virtual service topology is changed (due to addition or
   removal of service-PEs), there should be no change to the zone
   prefix's import/export RT configuration.

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   There should be one service topology RT per virtual service
   topology. There can be multiple virtual service topologies and hence
   service topology RTs for a given VPN.

   Virtual service topologies are constructed unidirectionally. Between
   the same pair of zones, traffic in opposite directions will be
   supported by two service topologies and hence two service topology
   routes. These two service topologies might or might not be
   symmetrical, i.e. they might or might not traverse the same service-
   PE's/service-nodes in opposite directions.

   As noted above, a service node route can be advertised with a
   label that directs incoming traffic to the attached service node. Alternatively, 
   an aggregate label may be used for the service route and an IP route lookup done 
   at the service-PE to send traffic to the service node.

   Note that a new service node could be inserted seamlessly into the chain by just
   configuring the service policy appropriately.

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4.2 Per-VM service chains

   While the service-topology-RT allows an efficient inheritance of
   the service chain for all VMs in a zone, there may be a need to
   create a distinct service chain for an individual VM. This may be
   done by provisioning a separate service-topology RT and service node sequence.
   The VM route carries the service-topology RT, and the
   destination service-zone is provisioned with this RT as its Service-
   Import RT.

5.  Routing Considerations

5.1  Multiple service topologies

   A service-PE can support multiple distinct service topologies for a VPN.

5.2  Multipath

   One could use all tools available in BGP to constrain the propagation
   and resolution state created by the service topology. 

   Additional service nodes can be introduced to scale out a particular service. 
   Each such service would be represented by a virtual IP address, and multiple 
   service nodes associated with it. Multiple service-PEs may advertise a route 
   to this address based on the presence of an attached service node instance, 
   thereby creating multiple equal cost paths. This technique could be used to 
   elastically scale out the service nodes with traffic demand.

5.3  Supporting redundancy

   For stateful services an active-standby mechanism could be used at
   the service level. In this case, the inter-zone traffic should prefer
   the active service node over the standby service node.

   At a routing level, this is achieved by setting up two paths for the
   same service node route - one path goes through the active
   service node and the other through the standby service node. The
   active service path can then be made to win over the standby service
   path by appropriately setting the BGP path attributes of the service
   topology route such that the active path succeeds in path selection.
   This forces all inter-zone traffic through the active service node.

5.4  Route Aggregation

   Instead of the actual zone prefixes being imported and used at
   various points along the chain, the zone prefixes may be aggregated
   at the destination service-PE and the aggregate zone prefix used in
   the service chain between zones. In such a case, it is the aggregate
   zone prefix that carries the service-topology-RT and gets imported in
   the service-PE's that comprise the service chain.

6. Orchestration driven approach

   In an orchestration driven approach, there is no need for the zone or service
   PEs to determine the appropriate next-hops based on the specified service node
   sequence. All the necessary policy computations are carried out, and the 
   forwarding tables for the various VRFs at the PEs determined, by the central 
   orchestrator.
  
   The orchestrator then uses a suitable means of communication with the various
   PEs, typically virtual PEs on the end-servers to populate the forwarding tables.

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   The controller/Orchestration system used to communicate between
   PE/vPE MUST support standard, programmatic interface. The
   programmatic interface are current under definition in IETF Interface
   to Routing Systems (I2RS)) initiative. [I-D.ward-irs-framework], [I-
   D.rfernando-irs-fw-req]. Standard data modeling languages will be
   defined/identified in I2RS. YANG - A Data Modeling Language for the
   Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF) [RFC6020] is one of the
   candidates currently under investigation. 

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7.  Security Considerations

   To be added.

8.  IANA Considerations

   This proposal does not have any IANA implications.

9.  Acknowledgements

   The authors would like to thank the following individuals for their
   review and feedback on the proposal: Eric Rosen, Jim Guichard, Paul
   Quinn, Peter, Bosch, David Ward, Ashok Ganesan. The option of configuring
   an ordered sequence of service nodes via policy is derived from a suggestion 
   from Eric Rosen.

10.  References

10.1  Normative References

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

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

   [RFC4684]  Marques, P., Bonica, R., Fang, L., Martini, L., Raszuk,
              R., Patel, K., and J. Guichard, "Constrained Route
              Distribution for Border Gateway Protocol/MultiProtocol
              Label Switching (BGP/MPLS) Internet Protocol (IP) Virtual
              Private Networks (VPNs)", RFC 4684, November 2006.

   [RFC6020]  Bjorklund, M., Ed., "YANG - A Data Modeling Language for
              the Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF)", RFC 6020,
              October 2010.

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   [RFC6120]  Saint-Andre, P., "Extensible Messaging and Presence
              Protocol (XMPP): Core", RFC 6120, March 2011.

10.2  Informative References

   [RFC4627]  Crockford, D., "The application/json Media Type for
              JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)", RFC 4627, July 2006.

   [I-D.fang-l3vpn-virtual-pe] Fang, L., Ward, D., Fernando, R.,
              Napierala, M., Bitar, N., Rao, D., Rijsman, B., So, N.,
              "BGP IP VPN Virtual PE", draft-fang-l3vpn-virtual-pe-01,
              Feb. 2013.

   [I-D.fang-l3vpn-virtual-ce] Fang, L., Evans, J., Ward, D., Fernando,
              R., Mullooly, J., So, N., Bitar., N., Napierala, M., "BGP
              IP VPN Virtual PE", draft-fang-l3vpn-virtual-ce-01, Feb.
              2013.

   [I-D.ward-irs-framework] Atlas, A., Nadeau, T., Ward. D., "Interface
              to the Routing System Framework", draft-ward-irs-
              framework-00, July 2012.

   [I-D.rfernando-irs-fw-req] Fernando, R., Medved, J., Ward, D., Atlas,
              A., Rijsman, B., "IRS Framework Requirements", draft-
              rfernando-irs-framework-requirement-00, Oct. 2012.

Authors' Addresses

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

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

   Luyuan Fang
   Cisco
   170 W Tasman Dr
   San Jose, CA

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   US
   Email: lufang@cisco.com

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

   Ning So
   Tata Communications
   Plano, TX 75082, USA
   Email: ning.so@tatacommunications.com