SPRING Workgroup                                         S. Boutros, Ed.
Internet-Draft                                         S. Sivabalan, Ed.
Intended status: Standards Track                                 H. Shah
Expires: April 28, 2022                                Ciena Corporation
                                                               J. Uttaro
                                                                     ATT
                                                                D. Voyer
                                                             Bell Canada
                                                                  B. Wen
                                                                 Comcast
                                                                L. Jalil
                                                                 Verizon
                                                        October 25, 2021


 A Simplified Scalable ELAN Service Model with Segment Routing Underlay
             draft-boutros-spring-elan-services-over-sr-00

Abstract

   This document proposes a new approach for realizing Ethernet LAN
   (ELAN) services with an objective of leveraging Segment Routing
   Control plane to achieve high scalability, faster network
   convergence, and reduced operational complexity.  Furthermore, it
   naturally brings the benefits of All-Active multihoming as well as
   MAC learning in data-plane.

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 April 28, 2022.








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Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2021 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 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
   2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   3.  Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   4.  Control Plane Behavior  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     4.1.  Service discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     4.2.  All-Active Service Redundancy . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     4.3.  Mass service withdrawal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     4.4.  E-Tree Support  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   5.  Data Plane Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     5.1.  Unicast Traffic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     5.2.  BUM Traffic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     5.3.  Data Plane MAC learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
       5.3.1.  Single Home CE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
       5.3.2.  Multi-Home CE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     5.4.  ARP suppression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     5.5.  Distributed Anycast Gateway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     5.6.  Multi-pathing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     5.7.  E-Tree Support  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   6.  Benefits of ELAN over SR  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   7.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   8.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   9.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   10. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     10.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     10.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12








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1.  Introduction

   Virtual Private LAN Service(VPLS) is based on Pseudo-Wire (PW)
   construct which identifies both the service type and the service
   termination node in both control and data planes.  RFCs 4761 and 4762
   specify mechanisms to signal PW for VPLS services using BGP and LDP
   respectively.  An ingress Provider Edge (PE) node needs to maintain a
   PW per VPLS instance for each egress PE node.  So, if we assume 10K
   ELAN instances over a network of 100 PE nodes, each PE node needs to
   setup and maintain approximately 1M PWs which can easily become a
   scalability bottleneck in large scale deployment.

   As described in RFC7432, Ethernet Virtual Private Network (EVPN)
   technology builds ELAN services similar to BGP-based IP-VPN services
   with additional features such as MAC address learning in control
   lane, All-Active multihoming, etc.  It eliminates the need for PWs,
   and hence the scale problem associated with PWs.  However, an egress
   PE node cannot unambiguously identify ingress PE node in data-plane.
   As such, EVPN requires control plane mechanisms for MAC advertisement
   and learning which increases control plane complexity and overhead.

   The goal of the proposed approach is to greatly simplify control
   plane functions and minimize the amount of control plane messages PE
   nodes have to process.  In this version of the document, we assume
   Segment Routing (SR) underlay network.  A future version of this
   document will generalize the underlay network to both classical MPLS
   and SR technologies.

   The proposed approach does not require PW, and hence the control
   plane complexity and message overhead associated with signaling and
   maintaining PWs are eliminated.

   An ELAN instance is uniquely identified by Segment ID (SID)
   regardless of the number of service termination points.  Such a SID
   will be referred to as "Service SID" in the rest of the document.
   The number of states maintained at a PE node is equal to the number
   of ELAN instances in the corresponding broadcast domain.  Referring
   to the above example, each PE node now needs to maintain states for
   10K ELAN service instances as opposed to 1 M PWs in the case of
   classical VPLS model in data and control planes.  A node can
   advertise service SID(s) of the ELAN instance(s) that it hosts via
   BGP for auto-discovery purpose.  A Service SID can be:

   o  MPLS label for SR-MPLS.

   o  uSID (micro SID) for SRv6 representing network function associated
      with an ELAN service instance.




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   MAC address is learned in data-plane.  Source node of a MAC address
   is identified by its node SID (assigned for regular SR operation)
   during MAC learning phase.  In the data packets, the node SID of the
   source is inserted directly below the service SID so that a
   destination node can uniquely identify the source of the packets in
   an SR domain.

   ELAN service instances are advertised such that a service message
   packs as many ELAN instances hosted by the advertising PE node as
   possible at the time of advertisement.  A possible approach is to use
   a bit-map in which each bit position represents an ELAN instance, as
   well as the starting value of Service SID.  Using these parameters,
   an ingress PE receiving advertisements node can learn ELAN
   instance(s) hosted by an egress PE node.

   All-Active multihoming redundancy is supported at the underlay level
   by making use of SR anycast SID.  No overlay mechanism is required
   for this purpose.

   Each node is also associated with another SID unique within the
   broadcast domain that is used to identify incoming Broadcast Unknown-
   unicast, and Multicast (BUM) traffic.  We call such SID BUM SID.  If
   node A wants to send BUM traffic to node B, it needs to use BUM SID
   assigned to node B as a destination SID.  BUM SIDs can also be
   advertised via BGP for auto-discovery purpose.  In order to send BUM
   traffic within a broadcast domain, P2MP SR policies can be used.
   Such policies may or may not be shared by ELAN instances.

   The proposed solution can also be applicable to the EVPN control
   plane without compromising its benefits such as All-Active
   multihoming on access, multipathing in the core, auto-provisioning
   and auto-discovery, etc.  With this approach, the need for
   advertising EVPN route types 1 through 4 as well Split-Horizon (SH)
   label is eliminated.

   In the following sections, we will describe the functionalities of
   the proposed approach in detail.

2.  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 [RFC2119] .








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3.  Abbreviations

   BUM: Broadcast, unicast and multicast.

   CE: Customer Edge node e.g., host or router or switch.

   ELAN: Ethernet LAN.

   EVPN: Ethernet VPN.

   MAC: Media Access Control.

   MAC-VRF: A Virtual Routing and Forwarding table for Media Access
   Control (MAC) addresses on a PE.

   MH: Multi-Home.

   OAM: Operations, Administration and Maintenance.

   PE: Provide Edge Node.

   SID: Segment Identifier.

   SR: Segment Routing.

   VPLS: Virtual Private LAN Service.

4.  Control Plane Behavior

4.1.  Service discovery

   A node can discover ELAN service instances as well as the associated
   service SIDs hosted on other nodes via configuration or auto-
   discovery.  With the latter, the service SIDs can be advertised using
   BGP.  As mentioned earlier such update message will pack information
   about as many ELAN instances hosted by the advertising PE node to
   reduce the amount of update messages exchanged by PE nodes.

   Similar to the service SID, an ingress PE node can discover BUM SID
   associated with an egress PE node via configuration or auto-
   discovery.

   The necessary BGP extensions will be specified in a separate
   document.







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4.2.  All-Active Service Redundancy

   An anycast SID per Ethernet Segment (ES) can be associated with the
   PE nodes attached to a Multi-Home (MH) CE.  The anycast SIDs will be
   advertised in BGP by the PE nodes.  Based on ES anycast SIDs, ingress
   PEs receiving updates can discover the redundancy membership and
   perform DF election.  Aliasing/Multipathing can be achieved using the
   same mechanisms excercised by SR underlay for forwarding traffic to
   destinations belonging to anycast group.

4.3.  Mass service withdrawal

   Node failure can be detected due via IGP convergence.  For faster
   detection of node failure, mechanism like BFD can be deployed.  The
   proposed approach does not require additional MAC withdrawal
   mechanism.

   On PE-CE link failure, the corresponding PE node withdraws the route
   to the corresponding ES in BGP in order to stop receiving traffic to
   that ES.  With MH case with anycast SID, upon detecting a failure on
   PE-CE link, a PE node may forward incoming traffic to the impacted
   ES(s) to other PE node(s) that is/are part of the anycast group until
   it withdraws routes to the impacted ES(s) for faster convergence.
   For example, in Figure 1, assuming PE5 and PE6 are part of an anycast
   group, upon link failure between PE5 and CE5, PE5 can forward the
   received packets from the core to PE6 until it withdraws the anycast
   SID associated with the ES(s).

4.4.  E-Tree Support

   To be covered in the next revision of this document.

5.  Data Plane Behavior


















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                                           ____ CE3
                                          /               ____CE1
                               --------  PE3 ---------  /
                              /                       PE1
                             /                         | \
                            PE5                        |  \
                           /|                          |   \
                          / | Service Provider Network |    \
                      CE5   |                          |     CE2
                         \  |                          |   /
                          \ |                         PE2_/
                            PE6                       /
                            /  --------  PE4  --------
                    CE6___ /     CE4_____/

            Figure 1: Reference network diagram used for examples below


5.1.  Unicast Traffic

   The proposed method requires unicast data packet be formed as shown
   in Figure 2.

                            +-------------------------------+
                            | SID(s) to reach destination   |
                            +-------------------------------+
                            |          Service SID          |
                            +-------------------------------+
                            |        Source node SID        |
                            +-------------------------------+
                            |        Layer-2 Payload        |
                            +-------------------------------+

              Figure 2: Data packet format for unicast traffic


   o  SID(s) to reach destination: depends on the intent of the underlay
      transport:

      *  IGP shortest path: node SID of the destination.  The
         destination can belong to an anycast group.

      *  IGP path with intent: Flex-Algo SID if the destination can be
         reached using the Flex-Algo SID for a specific intent (e.g.,
         low latency).  The destination can belong to an anycast group.

      *  SR policy (to support fine intent): a SID-list for the SR
         policy that can be used to reach the destination.



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   o  Service SID: The SID that uniquely identifies an ELAN instance in
      a broadcast domain.

   o  Source node SID: The SID that uniquely identifies the source node.
      This can be a node SID which may be part of an anycast group.
      Note that such a SID is allocated as part of SR underlay
      operation, and the proposed approach does not impose any
      additional requirement.

5.2.  BUM Traffic

   In order to identify incoming BUM traffic a unique SID (which will be
   referred to as "BUM SID" in the rest of the document) per PE node is
   allocated.  A BUM packet is formatted as shown in Figure 3:

                            +-------------------------------+
                            |            BUM SID            |
                            +-------------------------------+
                            |          Service SID          |
                            +-------------------------------+
                            |         Source node SID       |
                            +-------------------------------+
                            |        Layer-2 Payload        |
                            +-------------------------------+

              Figure 3: Data packet format for BUM traffic


   In order to send BUM traffic, a P2MP SR policy may be established
   from a given node to rest of the nodes associated with an ELAN
   instance.  If a dedicated P2MP SR policy is used per ELAN instance, a
   single SID may be used as both replication SID for the P2MP SR policy
   as well as to identify ELAN instance.  With this approach, the number
   of SIDs imposed on data packet will be only two.  It is possible to
   use a given P2MP SR policy for multiple ELAN instances in which case
   service SID needs to be inserted in the packet for egress PE to
   identify the ELAN instance for the BUM traffic.

5.3.  Data Plane MAC learning

   With the proposed approach, MAC address can be learned in data- plane
   using the packets formatted as shown in Figure 4.

   Source MAC address on the received Layer 2 packet is learned against
   the source node SID placed directly under the service SID in the
   data-plane.





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5.3.1.  Single Home CE

   In Figure 1, node 3 learns a MAC address from CE3 and floods it to
   all nodes configured with the same service SID.  Nodes 1, 2, 4, 5 and
   6 learn the MAC address as reachable via the source node SID of Node
   3.

                            +-----------------------------+
                            | Tree SID/Broadcast Node SID |
                            +-----------------------------+
                            |  Service SID                |
                            +-----------------------------+
                            |  Node SID of node 3         |
                            +-----------------------------+
                            |  Layer-2 Packet             |
                            +-----------------------------+

              Figure 4: Packet format used for flooding


5.3.2.  Multi-Home CE

   Referring to Figure 1, let's assume that node 5 learns a MAC address
   from MH CE5, and floods it to all nodes in data-plane as per SID
   stack shown in Figure 5, including node 6.  The receiving nodes learn
   the MAC address as reachable via the anycast SID belonging to node 5
   and node 6.  Node 6 applies SH and hence does not send the packet
   back to CE5, but treats the MAC address as reachable via CE5, as well
   floods the address to CE6.

   The following diagram shows SID label stack for a Broadcast and
   Multicast MAC frame sent by Multi-Home PE.  Note the presence of
   source SID after the service SID.  This combination/order is
   necessary for the receiver to learn source MAC address (from L2
   packet) associated with ingress PE (i.e. source node SID).
















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                            +-----------------------------+
                            | Tree SID/Broadcast Node SID |
                            +-----------------------------+
                            |  Service SID                |
                            +-----------------------------+
                            |  Anycast node SID for CE5   |
                            +-----------------------------+
                            |  Layer-2 Packet             |
                            +-----------------------------+

              Figure 5: Data packet format for traffic sent by a MH PE


5.4.  ARP suppression

   Gleaning ARP packet requests and replies will be used to learn IP/MAC
   binding for ARP suppression.  ARP replies are unicast, however
   flooding ARP replies can allow all nodes to learn the MAC/IP bindings
   for the destinations too.

5.5.  Distributed Anycast Gateway

   Distributed Anycast Gateway (GW) (aka inter-subnet IRB function) can
   be realized as follows:

   o  All PEs connected to the tenant subnets share the same GW IP/MAC
      per subnet.

   o  A PE MUST never learn its own GW IP/MAC via the tunnels connecting
      itself to other PE(s).

   o  ARP requests/replies from the tenant subnet are flooded via the
      ingress PE(s) attached to the subnet to all egress PE(s) attached
      to the subnet so that egress PE(s) can learn the source MAC/IP
      address via the ingress PE(s).

   o  ARP replies from tenants will be delivered to the local PE hosts
      the GW virtual MAC address.  The local PE MUST flood the ARP
      replies over the tunnel to other PEs.  Other PEs, including the PE
      which originated the ARP request, will learn the IP/MAC
      association of the tenant from the received ARP reply.

5.6.  Multi-pathing

   Packets destined to a MH CE is distributed to the PE nodes attached
   to the CE for load-balancing purpose.  This is achieved implicitly
   due to the use of anycast SIDs for both ES as well as PE attached to




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   the ES.  In our example, traffic destined to CE5 is distributed via
   PE5 and PE6.

5.7.  E-Tree Support

   To be covered in the next revision of this document.

6.  Benefits of ELAN over SR

   The proposed approach eliminates the need for establishing and
   maintaining PWs as with legacy VPLS technology.  This yields
   significant reduction in control plane overhead.  Also, due to MAC
   learning in data-plane (conversational MAC learning), the proposed
   approach provides the benefits as such fast convergence, fast MAC
   movement, etc.  Finally, using anycast SID, the proposed approach
   provides All-Active multihoming as well as multipathing and ARP
   suppression.

7.  Security Considerations

   The mechanisms in this document use Segment Routing control plane as
   defined in Security considerations described in Segment Routing
   control plane are equally applicable.

8.  IANA Considerations

   TBD.

9.  Acknowledgements

10.  References

10.1.  Normative References

   [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>.

   [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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   [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>.

   [RFC8754]  Filsfils, C., Ed., Dukes, D., Ed., Previdi, S., Leddy, J.,
              Matsushima, S., and D. Voyer, "IPv6 Segment Routing Header
              (SRH)", RFC 8754, DOI 10.17487/RFC8754, March 2020,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8754>.

10.2.  Informative 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-14 (work in progress),
              October 2021.

   [I-D.voyer-pim-sr-p2mp-policy]
              Voyer, D., Filsfils, C., Parekh, R., Bidgoli, H., and Z.
              Zhang, "Segment Routing Point-to-Multipoint Policy",
              draft-voyer-pim-sr-p2mp-policy-02 (work in progress), July
              2020.

   [RFC4761]  Kompella, K., Ed. and Y. Rekhter, Ed., "Virtual Private
              LAN Service (VPLS) Using BGP for Auto-Discovery and
              Signaling", RFC 4761, DOI 10.17487/RFC4761, January 2007,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4761>.

   [RFC4762]  Lasserre, M., Ed. and V. Kompella, Ed., "Virtual Private
              LAN Service (VPLS) Using Label Distribution Protocol (LDP)
              Signaling", RFC 4762, DOI 10.17487/RFC4762, January 2007,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4762>.

Authors' Addresses

   Sami Boutros (editor)
   Ciena Corporation
   USA

   Email: sboutros@ciena.com









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   Siva Sivabalan (editor)
   Ciena Corporation
   Canada

   Email: ssivabal@ciena.com


   Himanshu Shah
   Ciena Corporation
   USA

   Email: hshah@ciena.com


   James Uttaro
   ATT
   USA

   Email: ju1738@att.com


   Daniel Voyer
   Bell Canada
   Canada

   Email: daniel.voyer@bell.ca


   Bin Wen
   Comcast
   USA

   Email: bin_wen@cable.comcast.com


   Luay Jalil
   Verizon
   USA

   Email: luay.jalil@verizon.com











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