Congestion and Pre-Congestion                                 P. Eardley
Notification Working Group                                            BT
Internet-Draft                                                J. Babiarz
Intended status: Informational                                   K. Chan
Expires: December 22, 2007                                        Nortel
                                                               A. Charny
                                                           Cisco Systems
                                                                 R. Geib
                                                               T-Systems
                                                          G. Karagiannis
                                                    University of Twente
                                                                M. Menth
                                                  University of Wurzburg
                                                                 T. Tsou
                                                     Huawei Technologies
                                                           June 20, 2007


                Pre-Congestion Notification Architecture
                   draft-eardley-pcn-architecture-00

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Copyright Notice




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   Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2007).

Abstract

   The purpose of this document is to describe a general architecture
   for flow admission and termination based on aggregated (pre-)
   congestion information in order to protect the quality of service of
   established inelastic flows within a single DiffServ domain.

Status


Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Terminology  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   3.  Assumptions and constraints on scope . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     3.1.  Assumption 1: Trust - Controlled Environment . . . . . . .  7
     3.2.  Assumption 2: Real-Time Applications . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     3.3.  Assumption 3: Many Flows and Additional Load . . . . . . .  7
     3.4.  Assumption 4: Emergency use out of scope . . . . . . . . .  8
   4.  High-level functional architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
   5.  Detailed Functional architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
     5.1.  PCN-interior-node functions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
     5.2.  PCN-ingress-node functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     5.3.  PCN-egress-node functions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     5.4.  Admission control functions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     5.5.  Probing functions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     5.6.  Flow termination functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
   6.  Design goals and challenges  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
   7.  Deployment scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
   8.  Operations and Management  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
     8.1.  Fault OAM  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
     8.2.  Configuration OAM  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
     8.3.  Accounting OAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
     8.4.  Performance OAM  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
     8.5.  Security OAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
   9.  IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
   10. Conclusions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
   11. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
   12. Comments Solicited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
   13. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
     13.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
     13.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
   Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 27





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1.  Introduction

   The purpose of this document is to describe a general architecture
   for flow admission and termination based on aggregated (pre-)
   congestion information in order to protect the quality of service of
   flows within a DiffServ domain, RFC 2475 [13].  This document defines
   an architecture for implementing two mechanisms to protect the
   quality of service of established inelastic flows within a single
   DiffServ domain, where all boundary and interior nodes are PCN-
   enabled and trust each other for correct PCN operation.  Flow
   admission control determines whether a new flow should be admitted
   and protects the QoS of existing PCN-flows in normal circumstances,
   by avoiding congestion occurring.  However, in abnormal
   circumstances, for instance a disaster affecting multiple nodes and
   causing traffic re-routes, then the QoS on existing PCN-flows may
   degrade even though care was exercised when admitting those flows
   before those circumstances.  Therefore we also propose a mechanism
   for flow termination, which removes enough traffic in order to
   protect the QoS of the remaining PCN-flows.  As a fundamental
   building block to enable these two mechanisms, PCN-interior-nodes
   generate, encode and transport pre-congestion (and congestion)
   information towards the PCN-egress-nodes.  Each link of the PCN-
   domain can be associated with a configured-admissible-rate and a
   configured-termination-rate.  If PCN-traffic, that is traffic in the
   DiffServ class(es) subject to the PCN mechanisms, on the link exceeds
   these rates then PCN-packets are admission-marked or termination-
   marked.  Another document will specify the algorithms that determine
   how and when a number of PCN-packets are marked, and how the markings
   are encoded in packet headers.  PCN-egress-nodes make measurements of
   the packet markings and send information as necessary to the nodes
   that make the decision about which PCN-flows to accept/reject or
   terminate, based on this information.  Another document will describe
   decision-making algorithms.  Depending on the deployment scenario,
   the decision-making functionality could reside at the PCN-ingress-
   nodes or PCN-egress-nodes or at some central control node in the PCN-
   domain.  We believe that the key benefits of the PCN mechanisms
   described in this document are that they are simple, scalable, and
   robust because:

   o  Per flow state is only required at the PCN-ingress-nodes - for
      policing purposes (to prevent non-admitted PCN traffic from
      entering the PCN-domain) and so on.  It is not generally required
      that other network entities are aware of individual flows
      (although they may be in particular deployment scenarios).

   o  For each of its links a PCN-node implements either admission-
      marking or termination-marking behaviours or both.  These markers
      operate on the overall PCN-traffic on the link.



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   o  The information of these measurements is signalled to the PCN-
      egress-nodes by the PCN-marks in the packet headers.  No
      additional signalling protocol is required for transporting the
      PCN-marks.

   o  The PCN-egress-nodes make separate measurements, operating on the
      overall PCN-traffic, for each PCN-ingress-node (ie not per flow).

   o  Signalling of PCN-feedback-information, from PCN-egress-node to
      PCN-ingress-node, is required between all pairs of PCN-boundary-
      nodes that have admitted PCN-flows (or prospective PCN-flows)
      between them.  The signalled information is on the basis of the
      corresponding ingress-egress-aggregate.

   o  The configured-admissible-rates can be chosen small enough that
      admitted traffic can still be carried after a rerouting in most
      failure cases.  This is an important feature as QoS violations in
      core networks due to link failures are more likely than QoS
      violations due to increased traffic volume.

   o  The admitted PCN-load is controlled dynamically.  Therefore it
      adapts as the traffic matrix changes, and also if the network
      topology changes (eg after a link failure).  Hence an operator can
      be less conservative when deploying network capacity, and less
      accurate in their prediction of the PCN-traffic matrix.

   o  The termination mechanism complements admission control.  It
      allows the network to recover from sudden unexpected surges of
      PCN-traffic on some links, thus restoring QoS to the remaining
      flows.  Such scenarios are expected to be rare but not impossible.
      They can be caused by large network failures that redirect lots of
      admitted PCN-traffic to other links, or by malfunction of the
      measurement-based admission control in the presence of admitted
      flows that send for a while with an atypically low rate and
      increase their rates in a correlated way.

   o  The configured-termination-rate is expected to be set above the
      configured-admissible-rate.  It may be set below the maximum rate
      that PCN-traffic can be transmitted on a link, in order to trigger
      termination of some PCN-flows before loss of PCN-packets occurs or
      to keep the maximum PCN-load on a link below a level configured by
      the operator.


2.  Terminology






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   o  PCN-domain: a PCN-capable DiffServ domain; a contiguous set of
      PCN-enabled DiffServ nodes.

   o  PCN-boundary-node: a node that connects one PCN-domain to a node
      either in another PCN-domain or in a non PCN-domain.

   o  PCN-interior-node: a node in a PCN-domain that is not a PCN-
      boundary-node.

   o  PCN-node: a PCN-boundary-node or a PCN-interior-node

   o  PCN-egress-node: a PCN-boundary-node in its role in handling
      traffic as it leaves a PCN-domain.

   o  PCN-ingress-node: a PCN-boundary-node in its role in handling
      traffic as it enters a PCN-domain.

   o  PCN-traffic: A PCN-domain carries traffic of different DiffServ
      classes RFC 4594 [15].  Those using the PCN mechanisms are called
      PCN-classes and the corresponding packets are PCN-packets.  The
      rate from PCN-traffic is the PCN-rate.  The same network may carry
      traffic using other DiffServ classes.

   o  Ingress-egress-aggregate: The collection of PCN-packets from all
      PCN-flows that travel in one direction between a specific pair of
      PCN-boundary-nodes.

   o  Configured-admissible-rate: reference rate used by the admission-
      marking algorithm, which is configured for each link in the PCN-
      domain.  Roughly speaking, if the aggregate rate of PCN-traffic on
      any link of a path is greater than its configured-admissible-rate,
      then flow admission control blocks additional PCN-flows onto that
      path.

   o  Configured-termination-rate: reference rate used by the
      termination-marking algorithm, which may be configured for each
      link in the PCN-domain.  Normally it is configured to be less than
      the maximum rate at which PCN-traffic can be forwarded on the
      link, so that termination-marking occurs before any significant
      queuing, ECN-marking or loss of PCN-packets.

   o  Admission-marking: the marking of PCN-packets by a PCN-node to
      indicate that the PCN-traffic on a link is above the configured-
      admissible-rate.

   o  Termination-marking: the marking of PCN-packets by a PCN-node to
      indicate that the PCN-traffic on a link is above the configured-
      termination-rate.



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   o  PCN-marking: admission-marking and/or termination-marking.

   o  ECN-marking: the marking of packets according to RFC 3168, The
      addition of Explicit Congestion Notification to IP [16].

   o  PCN-feedback-information: information signalled by PCN-egress-
      nodes to PCN-ingress-nodes, which is needed for the flow admission
      and flow termination mechanisms.

   EDITOR'S NOTE: Alternative terms have been suggested:

   o  Sustainable rate instead of configured-termination-rate

   o  Admission-stop marking instead of admission-marking

   o  Excess-traffic marking instead of termination-marking


3.  Assumptions and constraints on scope

   The PCN WG's charter restricts the initial scope by a set of
   assumptions.  Here we list those assumptions and explain them.

   1.  these components are deployed in a single DiffServ domain, where
       all PCN-nodes are PCN-enabled and trust each other for correct
       PCN-marking and transport

   2.  all flows handled by these mechanisms are inelastic and
       constrained to a known peak rate through policing or shaping

   3.  the number of PCN-flows across any potential aggregation
       bottleneck is sufficiently large for stateless, statistical
       mechanisms to be effective

   4.  PCN-flows may have different precedence, but the applicability of
       the PCN mechanisms for emergency use (911, GETS, WPS, MLPP, etc.)
       is out of scope

   After completion of the initial phase, the PCN WG may re-charter to
   consider applying the PCN mechanisms to additional deployment
   scenarios (operation over concatenated DiffServ domains, PCN-aware
   application mechanisms, etc.).  The WG may also re-charter to develop
   solutions for scenarios where some of these restrictions are not in
   place.  For example, the WG might consider other response mechanisms
   that act on (pre-)congestion information, for example flow-rate
   adaptation by elastic applications (rather than flow admission or
   termination); and the WG might consider operating PCN over
   concatenated PCN-domains that don't trust each other, using re-ECN,



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   I-D.briscoe-tsvwg-re-ecn-border-cheat [8] or similar techniques.  The
   details of these work items are outside the scope of the initial
   phase, but the WG may consider their requirements in order to design
   components that are sufficiently general to support such extensions
   in the future - the working assumption is that the standards
   developed in the initial phase should not need to be modified to
   satisfy the solutions for when these restrictions are removed.

3.1.  Assumption 1: Trust - Controlled Environment

   We assume that the PCN-domain is a controlled environment, i.e. all
   the nodes in a PCN-domain run PCN and trust each other.  There are
   several reasons for proposing this assumption:

   o  The PCN-domain has to be encircled by a ring of PCN-boundary-
      nodes, otherwise PCN-packets could enter the PCN-domain without
      being subject to admission control, which would potentially
      destroy the QoS of existing flows.

   o  Similarly, a PCN-boundary-node has to trust that all the PCN-nodes
      are doing PCN-marking.  A non PCN-node wouldn't be able to alert
      that it is suffering pre-congestion, which potentially would lead
      to too many PCN-flows being admitted (or too few being
      terminated).  Worse, a rogue node could perform attacks such as
      marking all PCN-packets so that no PCN-flows were admitted.

   One way of assuring the above two points is that the entire PCN-
   domain is run by a single operator.  Another possibility is that
   there are several operators but they trust each other to a sufficient
   level.  Please note that this restriction only applies to packets in
   the traffic class that is subject to the PCN mechanisms.

3.2.  Assumption 2: Real-Time Applications

   We assume that PCN-packets come from real time applications
   generating inelastic traffic like voice and video requiring low
   delay, jitter and packet loss, for example the Controlled Load
   Service, RFC 2211 [17], and the Telephony service class, RFC 4594
   [15].  This assumption is to help focus the effort where it looks
   like PCN would be most useful, ie the sorts of applications where per
   flow QoS is a known requirement.  For instance, the impact of this
   assumption would be to guide simulations work.

3.3.  Assumption 3: Many Flows and Additional Load

   We assume that there are many flows on any bottleneck link in the
   PCN-domain.  Measurement-based admission control assumes that the
   past is a reasonable reflection of the future: the network conditions



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   are measured at the time of a new flow request, however the actual
   network performance must be OK during the call some time later.  One
   issue is that if there are only a few variable rate flows, then the
   aggregate traffic level may vary a lot, perhaps enough to cause some
   packets to get dropped.  If there are many flows then the aggregate
   traffic level should be statistically smoothed.  How many flows is
   enough depends on a number of things such as the variation in each
   flow's rate, the total PCN-rate, and the size of the "safety margin"
   between the traffic level at which we start admission-marking and at
   which packets are dropped.

   We do not make explicit assumptions on how may PCN-flows are in each
   ingress-egress-aggregate.  Performance evaluation work may clarify
   whether it is necessary to make any additional assumption on
   aggregation at the ingress-egress-aggregate level.

3.4.  Assumption 4: Emergency use out of scope

   The applicability of the PCN mechanisms for emergency use (911, GETS,
   WPS, MLPP, etc) is out of scope.


4.  High-level functional architecture

   The high-level approach is to split functionality between:

   o  PCN-interior-nodes 'inside' the PCN-domain, which monitor their
      own state of (pre) congestion and mark PCN-packets if appropriate.
      They are not flow-aware, nor aware of ingress-egress-aggregates.

   o  PCN-boundary-nodes at the edge of the PCN-domain, which control
      admission of new PCN-flows and termination of existing PCN-flows,
      based on information from PCN-interior-node.  This information is
      in the form of the PCN-marked data packets and not signalling
      messages.  PCN-ingress-nodes are flow-aware (required for policing
      purposes) In several deployment scenarios PCN-egress-nodes will
      also be flow aware.  For example I-D.briscoe-tsvwg-cl-architecture
      [2]describes a deployment scenario where RSVP messages are
      processed at both the PCN-ingress-node and PCN-egress-node (but
      not at any PCN-interior-nodes), and both store associated per flow
      state.

   The aim of this split is to keep the bulk of the network simple,
   scalable and robust, whilst confining policy, application-level and
   security interactions to the edge of the PCN-domain.  For example the
   lack of flow awareness means that the PCN-interior-nodes don't care
   about the flow information associated with the PCN-packets that they
   carry, nor do the PCN-boundary-nodes care about which PCN-interior-



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   nodes its flows traverse.

   At a high level, flow admission control works as follows.  In order
   to generate information about the current state of the PCN-domain,
   each PCN-node PCN-marks packets if it is "pre-congested".  Exactly
   how a PCN-node decides if it is "pre-congested" (the algorithm) and
   exactly how packets are "admission-marked" (the encoding) will be
   defined in a separate standards-track document, but at a high level
   it is expected to be as follows:

   o  the algorithm: a PCN-node meters the amount of PCN-traffic on each
      one of its outgoing links.  The measurement is made as an
      aggregate of all PCN-packets, and not per flow.  If the amount of
      PCN-traffic is deemed to exceed the configured-admissible-rate,
      then some PCN-packets are admission-marked.  Note that the
      measurement itself may not be of a rate, for example it could be
      based on a (virtual) queue.

   o  the encoding: a PCN-node admission-marks a PCN-packet by setting
      fields in the header to specific values.  It is expected that the
      ECN and/or DSCP fields will be used.

   The PCN-boundary-nodes monitor the PCN-marked packets in order to
   extract information about the current state of the PCN-domain.  Based
   on this monitoring, a decision is made about whether to admit a
   prospective new flow.  Exactly how the admission control decision is
   made will be defined in separately (at the moment the intention is
   that there will be one or more informational-track RFCs), but at a
   high level it is expected to be as follows:

   o  the PCN-egress-node measures (possibly as a moving average) the
      fraction of the PCN-traffic that is PCN-marked.  The fraction is
      measured for a specific ingress-egress-aggregate.  If the fraction
      is below a threshold value then the new flow is admitted.

   Note that the configured-admissible-rate is a parameter that can be
   configured by the operator.  It will be set lower than the traffic
   rate at which the link becomes congested and the node drops packets
   or ECN-marks them.  (Hence, by analogy with ECN we call our mechanism
   Pre-Congestion Notification.)

   Note also that the admission control decision is made for a
   particular ingress-egress-aggregate.  So it is quite possible for a
   new flow to be admitted between one pair of PCN-boundary-nodes,
   whilst at the same time another admission request is blocked between
   a different pair of PCN-boundary-nodes.

   At a high level, flow termination control works as follows.  Each



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   PCN-node termination-marks PCN-packets in a similar fashion to above.
   An obvious approach is for the algorithm to use instead a configured-
   termination-rate (which is higher than the configured-admissible-
   rate) and the encoding to use another packet marking; however there
   is also a proposal to use the same configured-admissible-rate and the
   same encoding.  Several approaches have been proposed to date about
   how to convert this information into a flow termination decision; at
   a high level these are as follows:

   o  One approach measures the rate of unmarked PCN-traffic at the PCN-
      egress-node, which is the amount of that can actually be
      supported; and the PCN-ingress-node measures the rate of PCN-
      traffic that is destined for this specific PCN-egress-node and
      hence can calculate the excess amount that should be terminated.

   o  Another approach instead measures the rate of termination-marked
      PCN-traffic and calculates and selects the flows that should be
      terminated.

   o  Another approach terminates any PCN-flow with a termination-marked
      packet.  It needs a different termination-marking algorithm to the
      first approach, otherwise far too much traffic would be
      terminated.

   o  Another approach uses admission-marking to decide not only whether
      to admit more PCN-flows but also whether any PCN-flows need to be
      terminated.  It assumes that the (implicit) configured-
      termination-rate on all links is at the same offset from the
      configured-admissible-rate.  This approach measures the rate of
      unmarked PCN-traffic at a PCN-egress-node.  The PCN-ingress-node
      uses this measurement to compute the implicit configured-
      termination-rate of the bottleneck link.  It then measures the
      rate of PCN-traffic that is destined for this specific PCN-egress-
      node and hence can calculate the amount that should be terminated.

   Since flow termination is designed for "abnormal" circumstances, it
   is quite likely that some PCN-nodes are congested and hence packets
   are being dropped, significantly queued and/or ECN-marked.  The flow
   termination mechanism must bear this in mind.  (Hence the WG is
   called 'Congestion and Pre-Congestion Notification'.)

   Note also that the termination control decision is made for a
   particular ingress-egress-aggregate.  So it is quite possible for
   PCN-flows to be terminated between one pair of PCN-boundary-nodes,
   whilst at the same time none are terminated between a different pair
   of PCN-boundary-nodes.

   Although designed to work together, flow admission and flow



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   termination are independent mechanisms, and the use of one does not
   require or prevent the use of the other (discussed further later).

   Information transport: the transport of (pre-) congestion information
   from a PCN-node to a PCN-egress-node is through PCN-markings in data
   packet headers, no signalling protocol messaging is needed.  However,
   signalling is needed to transport PCN-feedback-information between
   the PCN-boundary-nodes, for example to convey the fraction of PCN-
   marked traffic from a PCN-egress-node to the relevant PCN-ingress-
   node.  Exactly what information needs to be transported will be
   described in the future PCN WG document(s) about the boundary
   mechanisms.  The signalling could be done by an extension of RSVP or
   NSIS, for instance; protocol work will be done by the relevant WG,
   but for example I-D.lefaucheur-rsvp-ecn [9]describes the extensions
   needed for RSVP.

   The following are some high-level points about how PCN works:

   o  There needs to be a way for a PCN-node to distinguish PCN-traffic
      from non PCN-traffic.  This is based on the DSCP field and/or ECN
      field.  The PCN mechanisms may be applied to more than one traffic
      class (which are distinguished by DSCP).

   o  There may be traffic that is more important than PCN, perhaps a
      particular application or an operator's control messages.  A PCN-
      node may dedicate capacity to such traffic or priority schedule it
      over PCN.  In the latter case its traffic needs to contribute to
      the PCN meters.

   o  There will be traffic less important than PCN.  For instance best
      effort or assured forwarding traffic (assuming PCN is being
      applied to the Expedited forwarding class).  It will be scheduled
      at lower priority than PCN, and use a separate queue or queues.
      However, a PCN-node may dedicate some capacity to lower priority
      traffic so that it isn't starved.

   o  There may be other traffic with the same priority as PCN-traffic.
      For instance, Expedited Forwarding sessions that are originated
      either without capacity admission or with traffic engineering, and
      EF sessions that are originated using PCN admission control.  In
      I-D.ietf-tsvwg-admitted-realtime-dscp [5] the two traffic classes
      are called EF and EF-ADMIT.  A PCN-node could either use separate
      queues, or separate policers and a common queue; the draft
      provides some guidance when each is better, but for instance the
      latter is preferred when the two traffic classes are carrying the
      same type of application with the same jitter requirements.





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5.  Detailed Functional architecture

   This section is intended to provide a systematic summary of the new
   functional architecture in the PCN-domain, which maps to the
   additional functionality required by the PCN-nodes, in addition to
   their normal router functions.  The section discusses the
   functionality needed for both flow admission control and flow
   termination.  It is split into:

   1.  functions needed at PCN-interior-nodes

   2.  functions needed at PCN-ingress-nodes

   3.  functions needed at PCN-egress-nodes

   4.  other functions needed for flow admission control

   5.  other functions needed for probing (which may be needed
       sometimes)

   6.  other functions needed for flow termination control

5.1.  PCN-interior-node functions

   Each link of the PCN-domain is upgraded with the following
   functionality:

   o  Packet classify - decide whether an incoming packet is a PCN-
      packet or not.  Performed by examining the DSCP field and/or ECN
      field.  Another PCN WG document will specify encoding.

   o  PCN-meter - measure the 'amount of PCN-traffic'.  The measurement
      is made as an aggregate of all PCN-packets, and not per flow.

   o  PCN-mark - if the 'amount of PCN-traffic' exceeds some
      configurable level, then PCN-packet(s) are PCN-marked.

   Another PCN WG document will specify what the 'amount of PCN-traffic'
   means, and how it's decided that it "exceeds some level".  The same
   general approach of metering and PCN-marking is performed for both
   flow admission control and flow termination, however the algorithms
   and encoding may be different.

   These functions are needed for each link of the PCN-region.  They are
   therefore needed on all links of PCN-interior-nodes, and on the links
   of PCN-boundary-nodes that are internal to the PCN-domain.  There may
   be more than one PCN-meter and marker installed at a given link, eg
   one for admission and one for termination.



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5.2.  PCN-ingress-node functions

   Each ingress link of the PCN-domain is upgraded with the following
   functionality:

   o  Packet classify - decide whether an incoming packet is part of a
      previously admitted microflow, by using a filter spec (eg DSCP,
      source and destination addresses and port numbers)

   o  Police - police, by dropping or re-marking with a non-PCN DSCP,
      and packets received with a DSCP demanding PCN transport that do
      not belong to an admitted flow.  Similarly, police packets that
      are part of a previously admitted microflow, to check that the
      microflow keeps to the rate agreed.

   o  PCN-colour - set the DSCP field or DSCP and ECN fields to the
      appropriate value(s) for a PCN-packet.  The draft about PCN-
      encoding will discuss further.

   o  PCN-meter - make "measurements of PCN-traffic".  The
      measurement(s) is made as an aggregate (ie not per flow) of all
      PCN-traffic towards a particular PCN-egress-node.

   The first two are policing functions, needed to make sure that PCN-
   packets let into the PCN-domain belong to a flow that's been admitted
   (and probably also to ensure that the flow doesn't go at a faster
   rate than allowed by its service level agreement).  The filter spec
   will for example come from the flow request message (outside scope of
   PCN WG, see I-D.briscoe-tsvwg-cl-architecture [2] for an example
   using RSVP).  PCN-colouring allows the rest of the PCN-domain to
   recognise PCN-packets.

5.3.  PCN-egress-node functions

   Each egress link of the PCN-domain is upgraded with the following
   functionality:

   o  Packet classify - determine which PCN-ingress-node a PCN-packet
      has come from.

   o  PCN-meter - make "measurements of PCN-traffic".  The
      measurement(s) is made as an aggregate (ie not per flow) of all
      PCN-packets from a particular PCN-ingress-node.

   o  PCN-colour - for PCN-packets, set the DSCP field or DSCP and ECN
      fields to the appropriate value(s) for use outside the PCN-domain.

   Another PCN WG document, about boundary mechanisms, will describe



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   what the "measurements of PCN-traffic" are.  This depends on whether
   the measurement is targeted at admission control or flow termination.
   It also depends on what encoding and PCN-marking algorithms are
   specified by the PCN WG.

5.4.  Admission control functions

   Specific admission control functions can be performed at a PCN-
   boundary-node (PCN-ingress-node or PCN-egress-node) or at a
   centralised node, but not at normal PCN-interior-nodes.  The
   functions are:

   o  Make decision about admission - compare the "the required
      measurements of PCN-traffic" (output of the PCN-egress-node's PCN-
      meter function) with some reference level, and hence decide
      whether to admit the potential new PCN-flow.  As well as the PCN
      measurements, the decision takes account of policy and application
      layer requirements.

   o  Communicate decision about admission - signal the decision to the
      node making the admission control request (which may be outside
      the PCN-region), and to the policer (PCN-ingress-node function)

   There are various possibilities for how the functionality can be
   distributed:

   o  The decision is made at the PCN-egress-node and signalled to the
      PCN-ingress-node

   o  The decision is made at the PCN-ingress-node, which requires that
      the PCN-egress-node signals to the PCN-ingress-node about the
      measurement of "the required measurements of PCN-traffic"

   o  The decision is made at a centralised node, which requires that
      the PCN-egress-node signals to the centralised node about "the
      required measurements of PCN-traffic" (and that the centralised
      node learns about policy and application layer requirements), and
      that the centralised node signals to the PCN-ingress-node about
      the decision about admission control.  It would be possible for
      the centralised node to be one of the PCN-boundary-nodes, when
      clearly the signalling would sometimes be replaced by a message
      internal to the node.

5.5.  Probing functions

   Probing functions are optional.  Admission control, as described in
   the previous section, is a measurement-based decision.  Therefore it
   is possible that there may be insufficient traffic for a PCN-egress-



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   node to accurately make the "required measurements of PCN-traffic".
   Then it requests that the PCN-ingress-node generates probe traffic.
   Probe packets may be simple data addressed to the PCN-egress-node and
   require no protocol standardisation, although there will be best
   practice for their number, size and rate.  The functions are:

   o  Make decision that probing is needed - the PCN-egress-node decides
      that probe traffic is needed

   o  Communicate request that probing is needed - the PCN-egress-node
      signals to the PCN-ingress-node that probe traffic is needed

   o  Generator of probe traffic - the PCN-ingress-node generates the
      probe traffic

5.6.  Flow termination functions

   Specific termination control functions can be performed at a PCN-
   boundary-node (PCN-ingress-node or PCN-egress-node) or at a
   centralised node, but not at normal PCN-interior-nodes.  The
   functions are:

   o  Make decision about flow termination - use the "measurements of
      PCN-traffic" to decide which PCN-flow or PCN-flows to terminate

   o  Communicate decision about flow termination - signal the decision
      to the node that is able to terminate the flow (which may be
      outside the PCN-region), and to the policer (PCN-ingress-node
      function)

   o  (possibly) PCN-meter - make required measurements of PCN-traffic.
      The measurement(s) is made as an aggregate (ie not per flow) of
      all PCN-packets being sent towards a particular PCN-egress-node.

   There are various possibilities for how the functionality can be
   distributed, similar to those discussed above in the Admission
   control section.


6.  Design goals and challenges

   Prior work on PCN and similar mechanisms has thrown up a number of
   considerations about PCN's design goals (things PCN should be good
   at) and some issues that have been hard to solve in a fully
   satisfactory manner.  Taken as a whole it represents a list of trade-
   offs (it's unlikely that they can all be 100% achieved) and perhaps
   as evaluation criteria to help an operator (or the IETF) decide
   between options.



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   I-D.chan-pcn-problem-statement [10] considers the following as key
   design goals, ie why PCN is interesting:

   o  The PCN-enabled packet forwarding network should be simple,
      scalable and robust

   o  Compatibility with other traffic (i.e. a proposed solution should
      work well when non-PCN traffic is also present in the network)

   o  Support of different types of real-time traffic (eg should work
      well with CBR and VBR voice and video sources)

   o  Reaction time of the mechanisms should be commensurate with the
      desired application-level requirements (e.g. a termination
      mechanism needs to terminate flows before significant QoS issues
      are experienced by all real-time traffic, and before a user hangs
      up)

   o  Compatibility with different precedence levels of real-time
      applications (e.g. preferential treatment of higher precedence
      calls over lower precedence calls, ITU-MLPP [20].

   The following are open issues.  They are taken from I-D.briscoe-
   tsvwg-cl-architecture [2] which also describes some possible
   solutions (potential solutions are out of scope for this document).
   Note that some may be considered unimportant in general or in
   specific deployment scenarios.

   o  ECMP (Equal Cost Multi-Path) Routing: The level of pre-congestion
      is measured on a specific ingress-egress-aggregate.  However, if
      the PCN-domain runs ECMP, then traffic on this ingress-egress-
      aggregate may follow several different paths.  The problem is that
      if just one of the paths is pre-congested such that packets are
      being PCN-marked, then the pre-congestion level as measured by the
      PCN-egress-node will be diluted by unmarked packets from other
      non-congested paths.  This could lead to a new flow being admitted
      (because the measured level is below the threshold) but its
      packets will travel through the pre-congested router (so really it
      shouldn't be admitted).

   o  Bi-Directional Sessions: Many applications have bi-directional
      sessions - hence there are two flows that should be admitted (or
      terminated) as a pair - for instance a bi-directional voice call
      only makes sense if flows in both directions are admitted.
      However, PCN's mechanisms concern admission and termination of a
      single flow, and coordinating about the decision for both flows is
      a matter for the signalling protocol and out of scope of PCN.  One
      possible example would use SIP pre-conditions; there are others.



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   o  Global Coordination: PCN makes its admission decision based on
      PCN-markings on a particular pair of ingress-egress-aggregate.
      Decisions about flows through a different ingress-egress-aggregate
      are made independently.  However, one can imagine network
      topologies and traffic matrices where from a global perspective it
      would be better to make a coordinated decision across all the
      ingress-egress-aggregates for the whole PCN-domain.  For example,
      to block (or even terminate) flows on one ingress-egress-aggregate
      so that more important flows through a different ingress-egress-
      aggregate could be admitted.  Mechanisms to solve these problems
      may well be out of scope.

   o  Aggregate Traffic Characteristics: Even when the number of flows
      is stable, the traffic level through the PCN-domain will vary
      because the sources vary their traffic rates.  PCN works best when
      there's not too much variability in the total traffic level at a
      node's interface (ie in the aggregate traffic from all sources).
      Too much variation means that a node may (at one moment) not be
      doing any PCN-marking and then (at another moment) drop packets
      because it's overloaded.  This makes it hard to tune the admission
      control scheme to stop admitting new flows at the right time.

   o  Flash crowds and Speed of Reaction: PCN is a measurement-based
      mechanism and so has a limited speed of reaction.  For example,
      potentially if a big burst of admission requests occurs in a very
      short space of time (eg prompted by a televote), they could all
      get admitted before enough PCN-marks are seen to block new flows.
      In other words, any additional load offered within the reaction
      time of the mechanism mustn't move the PCN-domain directly from no
      congestion to overload.

   o  Compatibility of PCN-encoding with ECN-encoding, as described in
      RFC 4774 [12].


7.  Deployment scenarios

   Operators of networks will want to use the PCN mechanisms in various
   arrangements, for instance depending on how they are performing
   admission control outside the PCN-domain (users after all are
   concerned about QoS end-to-end), their particular goals and
   assumptions, and so on.  Several deployment models are possible:

   o  IntServ over DiffServ RFC 2998 [18].  The DiffServ region is PCN-
      enabled, RSVP signalling is used end-to-end and the PCN-domain is
      a single RSVP hop, ie only the gateways process RSVP messages.
      Outside the PCN-domain RSVP messages are processed on each hop.
      This is described in I-D.briscoe-tsvwg-cl-architecture [2]



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   o  Similar to previous bullet but NSIS signalling is used instead of
      RSVP.

   o  There are several PCN-domains on the end-to-end path, each
      operating PCN mechanisms independently.  NOTE: A possibility after
      re-chartering is to consider operating PCN over concatenated
      DiffServ domains that don't trust each other (ie weakens
      Assumption 1 about trust)

   o  RSVP signalling is originated and/or terminated by proxies, with
      application-layer signalling between the end user and the proxy.
      For instance SIP signalling with a home hub.

   o  The PCN-domain extends to the end users.  NOTE: This could be
      considered after re-chartering; it breaks Assumption 3
      (aggregation); it doesn't necessarily break Assumption 1 (trust),
      because in some environments, eg corporate, the end user may have
      a controlled configuration and so be trusted.  This is described
      in I-D.babiarz-pcn-sip-cap [6].

   o  Pseudowire: PCN may be used as a congestion avoidance mechanism
      for end-user deployed pseudowires (collaborate with the PWE3 WG in
      investigation of this possibility).

   o  MPLS: RFC 3270 [19], defines how to support the DiffServ
      architecture in MPLS networks.  I-D.ietf-tsvwg-ecn-mpls [7]
      describes how to add PCN for admission control of microflows into
      a set of MPLS-TE aggregates (Multi-protocol label switching
      traffic engineering).  PCN-marking is done in MPLS's EXP field.

   o  Similarly, it may be possible to extend PCN into Ethernet
      networks, where PCN-marking is done in the Ethernet header.

   o  The actual decision about admission and termination may be made at
      the ingress gateway, egress gateway or at some other 'centralised'
      node, according to the operator's preferences.


8.  Operations and Management

   EDITOR'S NOTE: The PCN WG Charter says that the architecture document
   should include security, manageability and operational
   considerations.  Help is requested to achieve this.  Also, should the
   section specifically list a set of OAM parameters that need to be
   collected?

   This Section considers operations and management issues, under the
   FCAPS headings: OAM of Faults, Configuration, Accounting, Performance



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   and Security.

8.1.  Fault OAM

   If a PCN-interior-node fails, then the regular IP routing protocol
   will re-route round it.  If the new route can carry all the admitted
   traffic, flows will gracefully continue.  If instead this causes
   early warning of pre-congestion on the new route, then admission
   control based on pre-congestion notification will ensure new flows
   will not be admitted until enough existing flows have departed.
   Finally re-routing may result in heavy congestion, when the flow
   termination mechanism will kick in.

   If a PCN-boundary-node fails then we would like the regular QoS
   signalling protocol to take care of things.  As an example
   I-D.briscoe-tsvwg-cl-architecture [2] considers what happens if RSVP
   is the QoS signalling protocol.  However, such mechanisms are out of
   scope of PCN.

8.2.  Configuration OAM

   Perhaps the most important consideration here is that the level of
   detail of the standardisation affects what can be configured.  We
   would like different implementations and configurations (eg choice of
   parameters) that are compliant with the PCN standard to work together
   successfully.

   Obvious configuration parameters are the configured-admissible-rate
   and configured-termination-rate.  A higher configured-admissible-rate
   enables more PCN-traffic to be admitted on a link, hence improving
   capacity utilisation.  A configured-termination-rate set further
   above the configured-admissible-rate allows greater increases in
   traffic (whether due to natural fluctuations or some unexpected
   event) before any flows are terminated, ie to minimise the chances of
   unnecessarily triggering the termination mechanism.  A greater gap
   between the maximum rate at which PCN-traffic can be forwarded on a
   link, and the configured-admissible-rate and configured-termination-
   rate increases the 'safety margin' - which can cover unexpected
   surges in traffic due to a re-routing event for instance.  For
   instance an operator may want to design their network so that it can
   cope with a failure of any single PCN-node without terminating any
   flows.  Setting the rates will therefore depend on things like: the
   operator's requirements, the link's capacity, the typical number of
   flows and perhaps their traffic characteristics, and so on.

   Another configuration decision is whether to operate both the
   admission control and termination mechanisms.  Although we suggest
   that an operator uses both, this isn't required and some operators



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   may want to implement only one.  For example, an operator could use
   just admission control, solving heavy congestion (caused by re-
   routing) by 'just waiting' - as sessions end, existing microflows
   naturally depart from the system over time, and the admission control
   mechanism will prevent admission of new microflows that use the
   affected links.  So the PCN-domain will naturally return to normal
   operation, but with reduced capacity.  The drawback of this approach
   would be that until PCN-flows naturally depart to relieve the
   congestion, all PCN-flows as well as lower priority services will be
   adversely affected.  On the other hand, an operator could just rely
   for admission control on statically provisioned capacity per ingress
   (regardless of the egress of a flow), as is typical in the DiffServ
   architecture RFC 2475 [13].  Such traffic conditioning agreements can
   lead to focused overload: many flows happen to focus on a particular
   link and then all flows through the congested link fail
   catastrophically.  The flow termination mechanism would be used to
   counteract such a problem.

   A different possibility is to configure only the configured-
   admissible-rate and only do admission-marking.  This is suggested in
   I-D.charny-pcn-single-marking [4] which gives some of the pros and
   cons of this approach.

   Another PCN WG document will specify PCN-marking, in particular how
   many PCN-packets get PCN-marked according to what measure of PCN-
   traffic.  For instance an algorithm relating current PCN-rate to
   probability of admission-marking a packet.  Depending on how tightly
   it is decided to specify this, there are potentially quite a few
   configuration choices, for instance:

   o  does the probability go from 0% at one PCN-rate (the configured-
      admissible-rate) to 100% at a slightly higher rate, or 'ramp up'
      gradually (as in RED)?  Does the standard allow both?

   o  how is the current PCN-rate measured?  Rate cannot be measured
      instantaneously, so how is this smoothed? a sliding window or
      exponentially weighted moving average?

   o  is the configured-admissible-rate a fixed parameter?  An idea
      raised in Songhurst [21] is that the configured-admissible-rate on
      each router should be flexible depending on the current amount of
      non-PCN-traffic; the aim is that resource allocation reflects the
      traffic mix - for instance more PCN-traffic could be admitted if
      the fraction of PCN-traffic was higher.  Is this allowed?

   Another question is whether there are any configuration parameters
   that have to be set 'globally' over the whole PCN-domain (as required
   by some proposals).  This may increase operational complexity and the



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   chances of interoperability problems between kit from different
   vendors.

8.3.  Accounting OAM

   Accounting OAM considerations are out of scope of the PCN WG.

8.4.  Performance OAM

   Performance characteristics that an operator might want to understand
   could include:

   o  how quickly do the PCN mechanisms react to a major problem?  For
      example a 'flash crowd' where there could be a big burst of
      admission requests in a very short space of time.  Therefore the
      reaction time of the admission control mechanism needs to be
      understood (how long is it before enough admission-marks are seen
      to block new flows?).  This is the 'vulnerability period', and may
      impact at the application level, for instance QoS requests are not
      handled any faster than the vulnerability period.

   o  can the operator identify 'hot spots' in the network (links which
      most often do PCN-marking)?  This would help them plan to install
      extra capacity where it is most needed.

   o  what is the rate at which flows are admitted and terminated (for
      each pair of PCN-boundary-nodes)?  Such information would be
      useful for fault management, networking planning and service level
      monitoring.

8.5.  Security OAM

   Security considerations essentially come from Assumption 1, that all
   nodes in the PCN-domain trust each other.  PCN splits functionality
   between PCN-interior-nodes and PCN-boundary-nodes, and the security
   considerations are somewhat different for them, mainly because PCN-
   boundary-nodes are flow-aware and PCN-interior-nodes are not.

   o  because the PCN-boundary-nodes are flow-aware, they are trusted to
      use that awareness correctly.  The degree of trust required
      depends on the kinds of decisions it has to make and the kinds of
      information it needs to make them.  For example when the PCN-
      boundary-node needs to know the contents of the sessions for
      making the admission and termination decisions (perhaps based on
      the MLPP precedence), or when the contents are highly classified,
      then the security requirements for the PCN-boundary-nodes involved
      will also need to be high.




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   o  The PCN-ingress-nodes police packets to ensure a flow sticks
      within its agreed limit, and to ensure that only flows which have
      been admitted contribute PCN-traffic into the PCN-domain.  The
      policer must drop (or perhaps re-mark) any PCN-packets received
      that are outside this remit.  This is similar to the existing
      IntServ behaviour.  Between them the PCN-boundary-nodes must
      encircle the PCN-domain, otherwise PCN-packets could enter the
      PCN-domain without being subject to admission control, which would
      potentially destroy the QoS of existing flows.

   o  PCN-interior-nodes aren't flow-aware.  For example, PCN-packets
      from normal and higher MLPP precedence sessions aren't
      distinguishable by PCN-interior-nodes.  This prevents an attacker
      specifically targeting, in the data plane, higher precedence
      packets (perhaps for DoS or for eavesdropping).

   o  PCN-marking by the PCN-interior-nodes along the packet forwarding
      path needs to be trusted, because the PCN-boundary-nodes rely on
      this information.  For instance a non PCN-node wouldn't be able to
      alert that it's suffering pre-congestion, which potentially would
      lead to too many PCN-flows being admitted (or too few being
      terminated).  Worse, a rogue node could perform attacks such as
      PCN-marking all packets so that no flows were admitted.

   o  the PCN-boundary-nodes should be able to deal with DoS attacks and
      state exhaustion attacks based on fast changes in per flow
      signalling.

   o  The signalling between the PCN-boundary-nodes (and possibly a
      centralised decision making node) must be protect from attacks.
      Possible measures include digest authentication, and protection
      against replay and man-in-the-middle attacks.


9.  IANA Considerations

   This memo includes no request to IANA.


10.  Conclusions

   {ToDo:}


11.  Acknowledgements

   This document is the result of discussions in the PCN WG and
   forerunner activity in the TSVWG.  A number of previous draft were



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   presented to TSVWG: I-D.chan-pcn-problem-statement [10], I-D.briscoe-
   tsvwg-cl-architecture [2], I-D.briscoe-tsvwg-cl-phb [3], I-D.charny-
   pcn-single-marking [4], I-D.babiarz-pcn-sip-cap [6], I-D.lefaucheur-
   rsvp-ecn [9].  The authors of them were: B, Briscoe, P. Eardley, D.
   Songhurst, F. Le Faucheur, A. Charny, J. Babiarz, K. Chan, S. Dudley,
   G. Karagiannis, A. Bader, L. Westberg, J. Zhang, V. Liatsos, X-G.
   Liu.


12.  Comments Solicited

   Comments and questions are encouraged and very welcome.  They can be
   addressed to the IETF PCN working group mailing list <pcn@ietf.org>.


13.  References

13.1.  Normative References

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

13.2.  Informative References

   [2]   Briscoe, B., "An edge-to-edge Deployment Model for Pre-
         Congestion Notification: Admission  Control over a DiffServ
         Region", draft-briscoe-tsvwg-cl-architecture-04 (work in
         progress), October 2006.

   [3]   Briscoe, B., "Pre-Congestion Notification marking",
         draft-briscoe-tsvwg-cl-phb-03 (work in progress), October 2006.

   [4]   Charny, A., "Pre-Congestion Notification Using Single Marking
         for Admission and  Pre-emption",
         draft-charny-pcn-single-marking-01 (work in progress),
         March 2007.

   [5]   Baker, F., "DSCPs for Capacity-Admitted Traffic",
         draft-ietf-tsvwg-admitted-realtime-dscp-01 (work in progress),
         March 2007.

   [6]   Babiarz, J., "SIP Controlled Admission and Preemption",
         draft-babiarz-pcn-sip-cap-00 (work in progress), October 2006.

   [7]   Davie, B., "Explicit Congestion Marking in MPLS",
         draft-ietf-tsvwg-ecn-mpls-01 (work in progress), June 2007.

   [8]   Briscoe, B., "Emulating Border Flow Policing using Re-ECN on



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         Bulk Data", draft-briscoe-tsvwg-re-ecn-border-cheat-01 (work in
         progress), June 2006.

   [9]   Faucheur, F., "RSVP Extensions for Admission Control over
         Diffserv using Pre-congestion  Notification (PCN)",
         draft-lefaucheur-rsvp-ecn-01 (work in progress), June 2006.

   [10]  Chan, K., "Pre-Congestion Notification Problem Statement",
         draft-chan-pcn-problem-statement-01 (work in progress),
         October 2006.

   [11]  Chan, K., "Pre-Congestion Notification Encoding Comparison",
         draft-chan-pcn-encoding-comparison-00 (work in progress),
         June 2007.

   [12]  Floyd, S., "Specifying Alternate Semantics for the Explicit
         Congestion Notification (ECN) Field", BCP 124, RFC 4774,
         November 2006.

   [13]  Blake, S., Black, D., Carlson, M., Davies, E., Wang, Z., and W.
         Weiss, "An Architecture for Differentiated Services", RFC 2475,
         December 1998.

   [14]  Davie, B., Charny, A., Bennet, J., Benson, K., Le Boudec, J.,
         Courtney, W., Davari, S., Firoiu, V., and D. Stiliadis, "An
         Expedited Forwarding PHB (Per-Hop Behavior)", RFC 3246,
         March 2002.

   [15]  Babiarz, J., Chan, K., and F. Baker, "Configuration Guidelines
         for DiffServ Service Classes", RFC 4594, August 2006.

   [16]  Ramakrishnan, K., Floyd, S., and D. Black, "The Addition of
         Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) to IP", RFC 3168,
         September 2001.

   [17]  Wroclawski, J., "Specification of the Controlled-Load Network
         Element Service", RFC 2211, September 1997.

   [18]  Bernet, Y., Ford, P., Yavatkar, R., Baker, F., Zhang, L.,
         Speer, M., Braden, R., Davie, B., Wroclawski, J., and E.
         Felstaine, "A Framework for Integrated Services Operation over
         Diffserv Networks", RFC 2998, November 2000.

   [19]  Le Faucheur, F., Wu, L., Davie, B., Davari, S., Vaananen, P.,
         Krishnan, R., Cheval, P., and J. Heinanen, "Multi-Protocol
         Label Switching (MPLS) Support of Differentiated Services",
         RFC 3270, May 2002.




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   [20]  "Multilevel Precedence and Pre-emption Service (MLPP)", ITU-T
         Recommendation I.255.3, 1990.

   [21]  "Guaranteed QoS Synthesis for Admission Control with Shared
         Capacity", BT Technical Report TR-CXR9-2006-001, Feburary 2006,
         <                 http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/B.Briscoe/
         projects/ipe2eqos/gqs/papers/GQS_shared_tr.pdf>.


Authors' Addresses

   Philip Eardley
   BT
   B54/77, Sirius House Adastral Park Martlesham Heath
   Ipswich, Suffolk  IP5 3RE
   United Kingdom

   Email: philip.eardley@bt.com


   Jozef Z. Babiarz
   Nortel
   3500 Carling Avenue
   Ottawa, Ont.  K2H 8E9
   Canada

   Email: babiarz@nortel.com


   Kwok Ho Chan
   Nortel
   600 Technology Park Drive
   Billerica, MA  01821
   USA

   Email: khchan@nortel.com


   Anna Charny
   Cisco Systems
   14164 Massachusetts Ave
   Boxborough, MA  01719
   USA

   Email: acharny@cisco.com






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Internet-Draft                  Document                       June 2007


   Ruediger Geib
   T-Systems
   Deutsche-Telekom-Allee 7
   Darmstadt, -  64297
   Germany

   Email: Ruediger.Geib@t-systems.com


   Georgios Karagiannis
   University of Twente
   P.O. Box 217
   7500 AE Enschede,
   The Netherlands

   Email: g.karagiannis@ewi.utwente.nl


   Michael Menth
   University of Wurzburg
   Institute of Computer Science
   Room B206
   Am Hubland, Wuerzburg  D-97074
   Germany

   Email: menth@informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de


   Tina Tsou
   Huawei Technologies
   F3-5-089S, R&D Center,
   Longgang District
   Shenzhen, -  518129
   China

   Email: tena@huawei.com















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