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Using Flex-Algo for Segment Routing (SR) based Network Resource Partition (NRP)
draft-zhu-lsr-isis-sr-vtn-flexalgo-08

Document Type Active Internet-Draft (individual)
Authors Yongqing Zhu , Jie Dong , Zhibo Hu
Last updated 2024-10-21
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draft-zhu-lsr-isis-sr-vtn-flexalgo-08
LSR Working Group                                                 Y. Zhu
Internet-Draft                                             China Telecom
Intended status: Standards Track                                 J. Dong
Expires: 24 April 2025                                             Z. Hu
                                                     Huawei Technologies
                                                         21 October 2024

    Using Flex-Algo for Segment Routing (SR) based Network Resource
                            Partition (NRP)
                 draft-zhu-lsr-isis-sr-vtn-flexalgo-08

Abstract

   Enhanced VPNs aim to deliver VPN services with enhanced
   characteristics, such as guaranteed resources, latency, jitter, etc.,
   so as to support customers requirements for connectivity services
   with these enhanced characteristics.  Enhanced VPN requires
   integration between the overlay VPN connectivity and the
   characteristics provided by the underlay network.  A Network Resource
   Partition (NRP) is a subset of the network resources and associated
   policies on each of a connected set of links in the underlay network.
   An NRP could be used as the underlay to support one or a group of
   enhanced VPN services.

   In some network scenarios, each NRP can be associated with a unique
   Flexible Algorithm (Flex-Algo), which can provide constraint-path
   computation based on the customized topological constraints.  This
   document specifies a mechanism to build Segment Routing (SR) based
   NRPs by combining SR Flex-Algo and IGP L2 bundles with minor
   extensions.

Status of This Memo

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

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on 24 April 2025.

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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  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
     1.1.  Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Advertisement of NRP Topology Attributes  . . . . . . . . . .   4
   3.  Advertisement of NRP Resource Attributes  . . . . . . . . . .   4
   4.  Forwarding Plane Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   5.  Scalability Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   6.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   7.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   8.  Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   9.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     9.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     9.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9

1.  Introduction

   Enhanced VPNs aim to deliver VPN services with enhanced
   characteristics, such as guaranteed resources, latency, jitter, etc.,
   so as to support customers requirements for connectivity services
   with these enhanced characteristics.  Enhanced VPN requires
   integration between the overlay VPN connectivity and the
   characteristics provided by the underlay network.  [RFC9543]
   discusses the general framework, components, and interfaces for
   requesting and operating network slices using IETF technologies.
   Network slice is considered as one target use case of enhanced VPNs.

   [RFC9543] also introduces the concept of the 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 an underlay network.  An NRP can be associated with a logical
   network topology to select or specify the set of links and nodes
   involved.  [I-D.ietf-teas-enhanced-vpn] specifies the framework of

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   NRP-based enhanced VPNs and describes the candidate component
   technologies in different network planes and network layers.  An NRP
   could be used as the underlay to meet the requirement of one or a
   group of enhanced VPN services.  To meet the requirement of enhanced
   VPN services, a number of NRPs can be created, each with a subset of
   network resources allocated on network nodes and links in a
   customized topology of the physical network.

   [I-D.ietf-spring-resource-aware-segments] introduces resource
   awareness to Segment Routing (SR) [RFC8402].  The resource-aware SIDs
   have additional semantics to identify the set of network resources
   available for the packet processing action associated with the SIDs.
   As described in [I-D.ietf-spring-sr-for-enhanced-vpn], the resource-
   aware SIDs can be used to build SR-based NRPs with the required
   network topology and network resource attributes to support enhanced
   VPN services.  In an SR-based data plane, Segment Identifiers (SIDs)
   can be used to represent both the topological instructions and a
   subset of network resources on the network nodes and links which are
   allocated to an NRP.  The SR SIDs and the associated topology and
   resource attributes of an NRP need to be distributed using a control
   plane.

   In some network scenarios, the required number of NRPs could be
   small, then it can be assumed that each NRP is associated with an
   independent logical topology, and has a set of dedicated or shared
   network resources.  For such scenarios, this document describes a
   simple mechanism to build Segment Routing (SR) based NRPs, by
   combining SR Flex-Algo and IGP L2 bundles with minor extensions.
   More specifically, each NRP is associated with a unique Flex-Algo,
   and the subset of network resources allocated to the NRP are
   instantiated using either virtual sub-interfaces or layer-2 member
   links of L3 interfaces.

   This document updates [RFC8668] by defining a new flag in the Parent
   L3 Neighbor Descriptor in the L2 Bundle Member Attributes TLV.
   [RFC8668] states that all bit fields not defined in that document
   "MUST be set to zero on transmission and ignored on receipt".
   Section 3 of this document defines a new flag and specifies when it
   should be set and how it should be processed.

1.1.  Requirements Language

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP
   14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
   capitals, as shown here.

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2.  Advertisement of NRP Topology Attributes

   [RFC9350] specifies the mechanism to provide distributed constraint-
   path computation, and the use of SR-MPLS prefix-SIDs and SRv6
   locators in data plane for steering traffic along the constrained
   paths.

   The Flex-Algo Definition (FAD) is the combination of calculation-
   type, metric-type and the topological constraints used for path
   computation.  According to the network nodes' participation of a
   Flex-Algo, and the rules of including or excluding Admin Groups (i.e.
   colors) and Shared Risk Link Groups (SRLGs), the topology of an NRP
   can be described using the associated Flex-Algo.  If each NRP is
   associated with a unique Flex-Algo, the Flex-Algo identifier could be
   used as the identifier of the NRP in the control plane.

   With the mechanisms defined in[RFC8667] [RFC9350], SR-MPLS prefix-SID
   advertisement can be associated with a constrained topology, which
   can be defined by a Flex-Algo.  This allows the nodes to use the
   prefix-SIDs to steer traffic along distributed computed constraint
   paths according to the associated Flex-Algo in a particular topology.

   [RFC9352] specifies the IS-IS extensions to support SRv6 data plane,
   in which the SRv6 locators advertisement is associated with a
   constrained topology, which can be defined by a Flex-Algo.  This
   allows the nodes to use the SRv6 locators to steer traffic along
   constraint paths computed using the Flex-Algo in the associated
   topology.  In addition, SRv6 End SIDs and End.X SIDs which are
   associated with a Flex-Algo can be used to enforce traffic over the
   Loop-Free Alternatives (LFA) computed backup paths.

3.  Advertisement of NRP Resource Attributes

   Each NRP can be allocated with a set of dedicated or shared network
   resources on a connected set of links in the underlay network.

   In order for a network controller or the ingress nodes to perform
   constraint based path computation for each NRP, the resource
   attributes of each NRP need to be advertised in the control plane,
   and distributed to the network controller.  This way, the network
   controller or the ingress node can compute an SR-TE path in the NRP
   by taking both the Flex-Algo constraints and the resource attributes
   of the NRP into consideration.

   IS-IS L2 Bundle [RFC8668] was defined to advertise the link
   attributes of the layer-2 bundle member links.  In this section, it
   is extended to advertise different subset of link resources and
   attributes associated with different NRPs on a layer-3 link.

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   The layer-3 link must have the capability of partitioning the link
   resources into different subsets and allocate them to different NRPs
   it participates in.  Each partition of the link resources can be
   instantiated as a virtual sub-interface, which can be seen as a
   virtual layer-2 member link of the layer-3 link.  When the layer-3
   link is a layer-2 link bundle, the subset of link resources allocated
   to a specific NRP may be provided by one or multiple physical layer-2
   member links in the link bundle.

   Normally the member links of a L2 link bundle are used in load-
   balancing mode, some extension is needed to indicate that each member
   link is used exclusively for traffic of a specific NRP.  A new flag
   "E" (Exclusive) is defined in the flag field of the Parent L3
   Neighbor Descriptor in the L2 Bundle Member Attributes TLV (25).

                0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
               +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
               |P|E|           |
               +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

   E flag: When the E flag is set, it indicates each member link under
   the Parent L3 link is used exclusively for one NRP, and load
   balancing among the member links is not allowed.  When the E flag is
   clear, it indicates load balancing and sharing among the member links
   are allowed.

   The E flag can be used by a network controller to compute paths which
   only use the set of dedicated member link resources of an NRP.  In
   addition, it can also be used by network nodes which perform Flex-
   Algo based constrained path computation, taking the exclusive member
   link resource into consideration.  This way, packets with Flex-Algo
   specific SR SIDs can be steered to only use the member link resources
   associated with the Flex-Algo for forwarding.  Note that a legacy
   implementations of [RFC8668] will set the E flag to zero (clear)
   meaning that load balancing among the component links is the default
   behavior.  Further, when a legacy implementation receives an E flag
   that is set, it will ignore the flag and so will assume that load
   balancing among component links is allowed even when the sender has
   requested it to not be used.  The Flex-Algo associated with the NRP
   can be defined that only nodes which support the E flag and the
   mechanisms defined in this document are included in the constraint-
   based path computation and packet forwarding of the NRP.

   For each virtual or physical layer-2 member link under the layer-3
   interface, the Admin Groups (AG) or Extended Admin Group (EAG)
   attribute MUST be advertised using the mechanisms as defined in
   [RFC8668].  Other TE attributes as defined in [RFC5305] such as the
   Maximum Link Bandwidth attribute MAY be advertised for the

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   constraint-based path computation.  The SR-MPLS Adj-SIDs or SRv6
   End.X SIDs associated with each of the virtual or physical layer-2
   member links SHOULD be advertised according to [RFC8668] and
   [I-D.dong-lsr-l2bundle-srv6].

   In order to correlate the virtual or physical layer-2 member links
   with the associated Flex-Algo ID of the NRP, each NRP SHOULD be
   assigned with a unique Admin Group (AG) or Extended Admin Group
   (EAG), and the virtual or physical layer-2 member links associated
   with this NRP SHOULD be configured with the AG or EAG of the NRP.
   The AG or EAG of the parent layer-3 link SHOULD be set to the union
   of all the AGs or EAGs of its virtual or physical layer-2 member
   links.  In the definition of the Flex-Algo which is associated with
   the NRP, the Include-Any Admin Group with only the AG or EAG assigned
   to the NRP SHOULD be used as the link constraints, the Include-All
   Admin Goup or the Exclude Admin Group rules MUST NOT be used for a
   Flex-Algo associated with an NRP.  This is to ensure that the layer-3
   link is included in the Flex-Algo constraint path computation for
   each NRP it participates in.

4.  Forwarding Plane Operations

   For the SR-MPLS data plane, a prefix SID is associated with the paths
   calculated using the Flex-Algo corresponding to the NRP.  An outgoing
   layer-3 interface is determined for each path.  In addition, the
   prefix-SID also steers the traffic to use the virtual or physical
   layer-2 member link which is associated with the NRP on the outgoing
   layer-3 interface for packet forwarding.  A forwarding entry MUST be
   installed in the forwarding plane using the MPLS label that
   corresponds to the Prefix-SID associated with the Flex-algorithm
   corresponding to the NRP.  The Adj-SIDs associated with the virtual
   or physical member links of an NRP MAY be used together with the
   prefix-SIDs of the same NRP to build SR-MPLS TE paths under the
   topological and resource constraints of the NRP.

   For the SRv6 data plane, an SRv6 Locator is a prefix which is
   associated with the paths calculated using the Flex-Algo
   corresponding to the NRP.  An outgoing Layer-3 interface is
   determined for each path.  In addition, the SRv6 Locator prefix also
   steers the traffic to use the virtual or physical layer-2 member link
   which is associated with the NRP on the outgoing layer-3 interface
   for packet forwarding.  A forwarding entry for the SRv6 Locator
   prefix MUST be installed in the forwarding plane for the Flex-
   algorithm corresponding to the NRP.  The End.XU SIDs associated with
   the virtual or physical member links of an NRP MAY be used together
   with other types of SRv6 SIDs of the same NRP to build SRv6 paths
   under the topological and resource constraints of the NRP.

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5.  Scalability Considerations

   The mechanism described in this document assumes that each NRP is
   associated with a unique Flex-Algo, so that the Flex-Algo IDs can be
   reused to identify the NRPs in the control plane.  While this brings
   the benefit of simplicity, it also has some limitations.  For
   example, it means that even if multiple NRPs share the same
   constrained topology, they would still need to be identified using
   different Flex-Algos in the control plane, then independent path
   computation needs to be executed for each NRP.  Thus the number of
   NRPs supported in a network may be dependent on the number of
   topologies supported, which is related to both the number of
   topologies supported in the protocol and the control plane overhead
   which the network nodes could accomodate.  The mechanism described in
   this document is considered useful for network scenarios in which the
   required number of NRPs is small, as minor control protocol extension
   is required.  For network scenarios where the number of required NRPs
   is large, more scalable solution would be needed, which may require
   further protocol extensions and enhancements.  A detailed analysis
   about the NRP scalability and the possible optimizations for
   supporting a large number of NRPs is described in
   [I-D.ietf-teas-nrp-scalability].

6.  Security Considerations

   This document introduces no additional security vulnerabilities to
   IS-IS.

   The mechanism proposed in this document is subject to the same
   vulnerabilities as any other protocol that relies on IS-IS.

7.  IANA Considerations

   This document does not request any IANA actions.

8.  Acknowledgments

   The authors would like to thank Zhenbin Li, Peter Psenak, Adrian
   Farrel and Gyan Mishra for the review and discussion of this
   document.

9.  References

9.1.  Normative References

   [I-D.dong-lsr-l2bundle-srv6]
              Dong, J. and Z. Hu, "Advertising SRv6 SIDs for Layer 2
              Bundle Member Links in IGP", Work in Progress, Internet-

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              Draft, draft-dong-lsr-l2bundle-srv6-02, 21 October 2024,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/api/v1/doc/document/draft-
              dong-lsr-l2bundle-srv6/>.

   [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-08, 12 October 2024,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-spring-
              sr-for-enhanced-vpn-08>.

   [I-D.ietf-teas-enhanced-vpn]
              Dong, J., Bryant, S., Li, Z., Miyasaka, T., and Y. Lee, "A
              Framework for Network Resource Partition (NRP) based
              Enhanced Virtual Private Networks", Work in Progress,
              Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-teas-enhanced-vpn-20, 14 June
              2024, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-
              teas-enhanced-vpn-20>.

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

   [RFC5305]  Li, T. and H. Smit, "IS-IS Extensions for Traffic
              Engineering", RFC 5305, DOI 10.17487/RFC5305, October
              2008, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5305>.

   [RFC8174]  Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.

   [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>.

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   [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>.

   [RFC8668]  Ginsberg, L., Ed., Bashandy, A., Filsfils, C., Nanduri,
              M., and E. Aries, "Advertising Layer 2 Bundle Member Link
              Attributes in IS-IS", RFC 8668, DOI 10.17487/RFC8668,
              December 2019, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8668>.

   [RFC9350]  Psenak, P., Ed., Hegde, S., Filsfils, C., Talaulikar, K.,
              and A. Gulko, "IGP Flexible Algorithm", RFC 9350,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9350, February 2023,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9350>.

   [RFC9352]  Psenak, P., Ed., Filsfils, C., Bashandy, A., Decraene, B.,
              and Z. Hu, "IS-IS Extensions to Support Segment Routing
              over the IPv6 Data Plane", RFC 9352, DOI 10.17487/RFC9352,
              February 2023, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9352>.

   [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>.

9.2.  Informative References

   [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-05, 5 July 2024,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-teas-
              nrp-scalability-05>.

Authors' Addresses

   Yongqing Zhu
   China Telecom
   Email: zhuyq8@chinatelecom.cn

   Jie Dong
   Huawei Technologies
   Email: jie.dong@huawei.com

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   Zhibo Hu
   Huawei Technologies
   Email: huzhibo@huawei.com

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