Network Working Group T. Dreibholz
Internet-Draft Simula Research Laboratory
Intended status: Informational L. Coene
Expires: July 9, 2014 Nokia Siemens Networks
P. Conrad
University of Delaware
January 5, 2014
Reliable Server Pooling Applicability for IP Flow Information Exchange
draft-coene-rserpool-applic-ipfix-17.txt
Abstract
This document describes the applicability of the Reliable Server
Pooling architecture to the IP Flow Information Exchange using the
Aggregate Server Access Protocol (ASAP) functionality of RSerPool
only. Data exchange in IPFIX between the router and the data
collector can be provided by a limited retransmission protocol.
Status of This Memo
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1. Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. IPFIX using RSerPool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1. Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Transport protocols suitable for IPFIX . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. Security considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5. Reference Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
6. Testbed Platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
8. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
9. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
10. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
10.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
10.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1. Introduction
Reliable Server Pooling provides protocols for providing highly
available services. The services are located in a pool of redundant
servers and if a server fails, another server will take over. The
only requirement put on these servers belonging to the pool is that
if state is maintained by the server, this state must be transferred
to the other server taking over.
The goal is to provide server-based redundancy. Transport and
network level redundancy are handle by the transport and network
layer protcols.
The application may choose to distribute its traffic over the servers
of the pool conforming to a certain policy.
The application wishing to make use of RSerPool protocols may use
different transport layers (such as UDP, TCP and SCTP). However,
some transport layers may have restrictions build in in the way they
might be operating in the RSerPool architecture and its protocols.
1.1. Scope
The scope of this document is to explain the way that a minimal
version of Reliable Server Pooling protocols have to be used in order
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to provide a highly available service towards IP Flow Information
Exchange (IPFIX) protocols.
1.2. Terminology
The terms are commonly identified in related work and can be found in
the Aggregate Server Access Protocol and Endpoint Handlespace
Redundancy Protocol Common Parameters document [RFC5354]
2. IPFIX using RSerPool
2.1. Architecture
IP flow information is exchanged between observation points and
collector points. The observation points may try to find out via the
Aggregate Server Access Protocol (ASAP, see [RFC5352]) which
collector point(s) are active. Both the observation and the
collector point may have limitations for exchanging the information
(observation point may have limited buffer space and collectors
points may be overburdened with receiving lots of flow information
from different observation points).
The observation point will query the ENRP server for resolution of a
particular collector pool name and the ENRP server will return a list
of one or more collector points to the observation point.
The observation point will use its own transport protocols (TCP, UDP,
SCTP, SCTP with PR-SCTP extension) for exchanging the IPFIX data
between the observation point and the collector point. If a
collector point would fail, then the observation point will send its
data towards a different collector point, belonging to the same
collector pool.
Collector points will announce themselves to the ENRP server and will
be monitored for their availability. The observation point will only
query the ENRP server for server pool name resolution.
3. Transport protocols suitable for IPFIX
The exchange of IP flow information data between an observation point
and a collection point consists of massive amounts of data.
One collection point can service many observation points, therefore
transport protocols must do congestion control (example: modifying
the receive buffer space, thus reducing the incoming flow of data),
so that the collection point is not overburdened by its observation
points. Some data must arrive at the collector while other data
might arrive (if it gets lost: no problem). The choice of reliable
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or partial reliable delivery has to be made by the observation point
These requirements demand a protocol which provides variable
transport reliability of its data: it should be able to chose the
reliability by the IPFIX protocols on a a per-message base.
SCTP [RFC4960] with PR-SCTP extension [RFC3758] is the only know
protocol which allows the choice of full, partial or unreliable
delivery of the message to its peer node. TCP will only allow fully
reliable delivery, while UDP only provides unreliable delivery and NO
congestion control.
4. Security considerations
The protocols used in the Reliable Server Pooling architecture only
try to increase the availability of the servers in the network.
RSerPool protocols do not contain any protocol mechanisms which are
directly related to user message authentication, integrity and
confidentiality functions. For such features, it depends on the
IPSEC protocols or on Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocols for
its own security and on the architecture and/or security features of
its user protocols.
The RSerPool architecture allows the use of different transport
protocols for its application and control data exchange. These
transport protocols may have mechanisms for reducing the risk of
blind denial-of-service attacks and/or masquerade attacks. If such
measures are required by the applications, then it is advised to
check the SCTP applicability statement RFC2057 [RFC3257] for guidance
on this issue.
5. Reference Implementation
The RSerPool reference implementation RSPLIB can be found at
[RSerPool-Website]. It supports the functionalities defined by
[RFC5351], [RFC5352], [RFC5353], [RFC5354] and [RFC5356] as well as
the options [I-D.dreibholz-rserpool-asap-hropt],
[I-D.dreibholz-rserpool-enrp-takeover] and
[I-D.dreibholz-rserpool-delay]. An introduction to this
implementation is provided in [Dre2006].
6. Testbed Platform
A large-scale and realistic Internet testbed platform with support
for the multi-homing feature of the underlying SCTP protocol is
NorNet. A description of NorNet is provided in [PAMS2013-NorNet],
some further information can be found on the project website
[NorNet-Website].
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7. Security Considerations
Security considerations for RSerPool systems are described by
[RFC5355].
8. IANA Considerations
This document introduces no additional considerations for IANA.
9. Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Maureen Stillman and many others for their
invaluable comments.
10. References
10.1. Normative References
[RFC3257] Coene, L., "Stream Control Transmission Protocol
Applicability Statement", RFC 3257, April 2002.
[RFC3758] Stewart, R., Ramalho, M., Xie, Q., Tuexen, M., and P.
Conrad, "Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP)
Partial Reliability Extension", RFC 3758, May 2004.
[RFC4960] Stewart, R., "Stream Control Transmission Protocol", RFC
4960, September 2007.
[RFC5351] Lei, P., Ong, L., Tuexen, M., and T. Dreibholz, "An
Overview of Reliable Server Pooling Protocols", RFC 5351,
September 2008.
[RFC5352] Stewart, R., Xie, Q., Stillman, M., and M. Tuexen,
"Aggregate Server Access Protocol (ASAP)", RFC 5352,
September 2008.
[RFC5353] Xie, Q., Stewart, R., Stillman, M., Tuexen, M., and A.
Silverton, "Endpoint Handlespace Redundancy Protocol
(ENRP)", RFC 5353, September 2008.
[RFC5354] Stewart, R., Xie, Q., Stillman, M., and M. Tuexen,
"Aggregate Server Access Protocol (ASAP) and Endpoint
Handlespace Redundancy Protocol (ENRP) Parameters", RFC
5354, September 2008.
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[RFC5355] Stillman, M., Gopal, R., Guttman, E., Sengodan, S., and M.
Holdrege, "Threats Introduced by Reliable Server Pooling
(RSerPool) and Requirements for Security in Response to
Threats", RFC 5355, September 2008.
[RFC5356] Dreibholz, T. and M. Tuexen, "Reliable Server Pooling
Policies", RFC 5356, September 2008.
[I-D.dreibholz-rserpool-asap-hropt]
Dreibholz, T., "Handle Resolution Option for ASAP", draft-
dreibholz-rserpool-asap-hropt-13 (work in progress), July
2013.
[I-D.dreibholz-rserpool-delay]
Dreibholz, T. and X. Zhou, "Definition of a Delay
Measurement Infrastructure and Delay-Sensitive Least-Used
Policy for Reliable Server Pooling", draft-dreibholz-
rserpool-delay-12 (work in progress), July 2013.
[I-D.dreibholz-rserpool-enrp-takeover]
Dreibholz, T. and X. Zhou, "Takeover Suggestion Flag for
the ENRP Handle Update Message", draft-dreibholz-rserpool-
enrp-takeover-10 (work in progress), July 2013.
10.2. Informative References
[Dre2006] Dreibholz, T., "Reliable Server Pooling - Evaluation,
Optimization and Extension of a Novel IETF Architecture",
March 2007, <http://duepublico.uni-duisburg-essen.de/
servlets/DerivateServlet/Derivate-16326/
Dre2006_final.pdf>.
[PAMS2013-NorNet]
Dreibholz, T. and E. Gran, "Design and Implementation of
the NorNet Core Research Testbed for Multi-Homed Systems",
Proceedings of the 3nd International Workshop on Protocols
and Applications with Multi-Homing Support (PAMS), Pages
1094-1100, ISBN 978-0-7695-4952-1, DOI 10.1109/
WAINA.2013.71, March 2013, <http://simula.no/publications/
threfereedinproceedingsreference.2012-12-20.7643198512/
simula_pdf_file>.
[RSerPool-Website]
Dreibholz, T., "Thomas Dreibholz's RSerPool Page", Online:
http://www.iem.uni-due.de/~dreibh/rserpool/, 2013,
<http://www.iem.uni-due.de/~dreibh/rserpool/>.
[NorNet-Website]
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Xiang, J., "NorNet -- A Real-World, Large-Scale Multi-
Homing Testbed", Online: http://www.nntb.no/, 2013,
<http://www.nntb.no/>.
Authors' Addresses
Thomas Dreibholz
Simula Research Laboratory, Network Systems Group
Martin Linges vei 17
1364 Fornebu, Akershus
Norway
Phone: +47-6782-8200
Fax: +47-6782-8201
Email: dreibh@simula.no
URI: http://www.iem.uni-due.de/~dreibh/
Lode Coene
Nokia Siemens Networks
Atealaan 32
Herentals 2200
Belgium
Phone: +32-14-252081
Email: lode.coene@nsn.com
Phillip Conrad
University of Delaware
103 Smith Hall
Newark DE 19716
USA
Phone: +1-302-831-8622
Email: conrad@acm.org
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