SPRING Working Group                                           A. Farrel
Internet-Draft                                                  J. Drake
Intended status: Informational                          Juniper Networks
Expires: April 16, 2019                                 October 13, 2018


   Interconnection of Segment Routing Domains - Problem Statement and
                           Solution Landscape
             draft-farrel-spring-sr-domain-interconnect-05

Abstract

   Segment Routing (SR) is a forwarding paradigm for use in MPLS and
   IPv6 networks.  It is intended to be deployed in discrete domains
   that may be data centers, access networks, or other networks that are
   under the control of a single operator and that can easily be
   upgraded to support this new technology.

   Traffic originating in one SR domain often terminates in another SR
   domain, but must transit a backbone network that provides
   interconnection between those domains.

   This document describes a mechanism for providing connectivity
   between SR domains to enable end-to-end or domain-to-domain traffic
   engineering.

   The approach described allows connectivity between SR domains,
   utilizes traffic engineering mechanisms (RSVP-TE or Segment Routing)
   across the backbone network, makes heavy use of pre-existing
   technologies, and requires the specification of very few additional
   mechanisms.

   This document provides some background and a problem statement,
   explains the solution mechanism, gives references to other documents
   that define protocol mechanisms, and provides examples.  It does not
   define any new protocol mechanisms.

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/.





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   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     1.1.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   2.  Problem Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   3.  Solution Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     3.1.  Characteristics of Solution Technologies  . . . . . . . .   7
   4.  Decomposing the Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   5.  Solution Space  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     5.1.  Global Optimization of the Paths  . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     5.2.  Figuring Out the GWs at a Destination Domain for a Given
           Prefix  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     5.3.  Figuring Out the Backbone Egress ASBRs  . . . . . . . . .  12
     5.4.  Making use of RSVP-TE LSPs Across the Backbone  . . . . .  12
     5.5.  Data Plane  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
     5.6.  Centralized and Distributed Controllers . . . . . . . . .  15
   6.  BGP-LS Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
   7.  Worked Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
   8.  Label Stack Depth Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  26
     8.1.  Worked Example  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  27
   9.  Gateway Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  28
     9.1.  Domain Gateway Auto-Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  28
     9.2.  Relationship to BGP Link State and Egress Peer
           Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  29
     9.3.  Advertising a Domain Route Externally . . . . . . . . . .  29
     9.4.  Encapsulations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  30



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   10. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  30
   11. Management Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  31
   12. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  31
   13. Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  31
   14. Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  31
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  35

1.  Introduction

   Data Centers are a growing market sector.  They are being set up by
   new specialist companies, by enterprises for their own use, by legacy
   ISPs, and by the new wave of network operators.  The networks inside
   Data Centers are currently well-planned, but the traffic loads can be
   unpredictable.  There is a need to be able to direct traffic within a
   Data Center to follow a specific path.

   Data Centers are attached to external ("backbone") networks to allow
   access by users and to facilitate communication among Data Centers.
   An individual Data Center may be attached to multiple backbone
   networks, and may have multiple points of attachment to each backbone
   network.  Traffic to or from a Data Center may need to be directed to
   or from any of these points of attachment.

   Segment Routing (SR) is a technology that places forwarding state
   into each packet as a stack of loose hops.  SR is an option for
   building Data Centers, and is also seeing increasing traction in edge
   and access networks as well as in backbone networks.  It is typically
   deployed in discrete domains that are under the control of a single
   operator and that can easily be upgraded to support this new
   technology.

   Traffic originating in one SR domain often terminates in another SR
   domain, but must transit a backbone network that provides
   interconnection between those domains.  This document describes an
   approach that builds on existing technologies to produce mechanisms
   that provide scalable and flexible interconnection of SR domains, and
   that will be easy to operate.

   The approach described allows end-to-end connectivity between SR
   domains across an MPLS backbone network, utilizes traffic engineering
   mechanisms (RSVP-TE or Segment Routing) across the backbone network,
   makes heavy use of pre-existing technologies, and requires the
   specification of very few additional mechanisms.

   This document provides some background and a problem statement,
   explains the solution mechanism, gives references to other documents
   that define protocol mechanisms, and provides examples.  It does not
   define any new protocol mechanisms.



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1.1.  Terminology

   This document uses Segment Routing terminology from [RFC7855] and
   [RFC8402].  Particular abbreviations of note are:

   o  SID: a segment identifier

   o  SRGB: an SR Global Block

   In the context of this document, the terms "optimal" and "optimality"
   refer to making the best possible use of network resources, and
   achieving network paths that best meet the objectives of the network
   operators and customers.

   Further terms are defined in Section 2.

2.  Problem Statement

   Consider the network in Figure 1.  Without loss of generality, this
   figure can be used to represent the architecture and problem space
   for steering traffic within and between SR edge domains.  The figure
   shows a single destination for all traffic that we will consider.

   In describing the problem space and the solution we use five terms
   for network nodes as follows:

   SR domain :  This term is defined in [RFC8402].  In this document, an
      SR domain is a collection of SR-capable nodes under the care of
      one administrator or protocol.  This may mean that each edge
      network is an SR domain attached to the backbone network through
      one or more gateways.  Examples include, access networks, Data
      Center sites, backbone networks that run SR, and blessings of
      unicorns.

   Host :  A node within an edge domain.  It may be an end system or a
      transit node in the edge domain.

   Gateway (GW) :  Provides access to or from an edge domain.  Examples
      are Customer Edge nodes (CEs), Autonomous System Border Routers
      (ASBRs), and Data Center gateways.

   Provider Edge (PE) :  Provides access to or from the backbone
      network.

   Autonomous System Border Router (ASBR) :  Provides access to one
      Autonomous System (AS) in the backbone network from another AS in
      the backbone network.




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   These terms can be seen used in Figure 1 where the various sources
   and the destination are hosts.  In this figure we distinguish between
   the PEs that provide access to the backbone networks and the Gateways
   that provide access to the SR edge domains: these may, in fact, be
   the same equipment and the PEs might be located at the domain edges.


    -------------------------------------------------------------------
   |                                                                   |
   |                              AS1                                  |
   |  ----    ----                                       ----    ----  |
    -|PE1a|--|PE1b|-------------------------------------|PE2a|--|PE2b|-
      ----    ----                                       ----    ----
      :        :   ------------           ------------      :      :
      :        :  | AS2        |         |        AS3 |     :      :
      :        :  |         ------     ------         |     :      :
      :        :  |        |ASBR2a|...|ASBR3a|        |     :      :
      :        :  |         ------     ------         |     :      :
      :        :  |            |         |            |     :      :
      :        :  |         ------     ------         |     :      :
      :        :  |        |ASBR2b|...|ASBR3b|        |     :      :
      :        :  |         ------     ------         |     :      :
      :        :  |            |         |            |     :      :
      :  ......:  |  ----      |         |      ----  |     :      :
      :  :         -|PE2a|-----           -----|PE3a|-      :      :
      :  :           ----                       ----        :      :
      :  :      ......:                           :.......  :      :
      :  :      :                                        :  :      :
      ----    ----                                       ----    ----
    -|GW1a|--|GW1b|-                                   -|GW2a|--|GW2b|-
   |  ----    ----  |                                 |  ----    ----  |
   |                |                                 |                |
   |                |                                 | Source3        |
   |        Source2 |                                 |                |
   |                |                                 |        Source4 |
   | Source1        |                                 |                |
   |                |                                 |   Destination  |
   |                |                                 |                |
   |                |                                 |                |
   | Domain1        |                                 |        Domain2 |
    ----------------                                   ----------------


        Figure 1: Reference Architecture for SR Domain Interconnect

   Traffic to the destination may originate from multiple sources within
   that domain (we show two such sources: Source3 and Source4).
   Furthermore, traffic intended for the destination may arrive from



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   outside the domain through any of the points of attachment to the
   backbone networks (we show GW2a and GW2b).  This traffic may need to
   be steered within the domain to achieve load-balancing across network
   resources, to avoid degraded or out-of-service resources (including
   planned service outages), and to achieve different qualities of
   service.  Of course, traffic in a remote source domain may also need
   to be steered within that domain.  We class this problem as "Intra-
   Domain Traffic Steering".

   Traffic across the backbone networks may need to be steered to
   conform to common Traffic Engineering (TE) paradigms.  That is, the
   path across any network (shown in the figure as an AS) or across any
   collection of networks may need to be chosen and may be different
   from the shortest path first (SPF) routing that would occur without
   TE.  Furthermore, the points of inter-connection between networks may
   need to be selected and influence the path chosen for the data.  We
   class this problem as "Inter-Domain Traffic Steering".

   The composite end-to-end path comprises steering in the source
   domain, choice of source domain exit point, steering across the
   backbone networks, choice of network interconnections, choice of
   destination domain entry point, and steering in the destination
   domain.  These issues may be inter-dependent (for example, the best
   traffic steering in the source domain may help select the best exit
   point from that domain, but the connectivity options across the
   backbone network may drive the selection of a different exit point).
   We class this combination of problems as "End-to-End Domain
   Interconnect Traffic Steering".

   It should be noted that the solution to the End-to-End Domain
   Interconnect Traffic Steering problem depends on a number of factors:

   o  What technology is deployed in the domains.

   o  What technology is deployed in the backbone networks.

   o  How much information the domains are willing to share with each
      other.

   o  How much information the backbone network operators and the domain
      operators are willing to share.

   In some cases, the domains and backbone networks are all owned and
   operated by the same company (with the backbone network often being a
   private network).  In other cases, the domains are operated by one
   company, with other companies operating the backbone.





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3.  Solution Technologies

   Segment Routing (SR from the SPRING working group in the IETF
   [RFC7855] and [RFC8402]) introduces traffic steering capabilities
   into an MPLS network [I-D.ietf-spring-segment-routing-mpls] by
   utilizing existing data plane capabilities (label pop and packet
   forwarding - "pop and go") in combination with additions to existing
   IGPs ([I-D.ietf-ospf-segment-routing-extensions] and
   [I-D.ietf-isis-segment-routing-extensions]), BGP (as BGP-LU)
   [RFC8277], or a centralized controller to distribute "per-hop"
   labels.  An MPLS label stack can be imposed on a packet to describe a
   sequence of links/nodes to be transited by the packet; as each hop is
   transited, the label that represents it is popped from the stack and
   the packet is forwarded.  Thus, on a packet-by-packet basis, traffic
   can be steered within the SR domain.

   This document broadens the problem space to consider interconnection
   of any type of edge domain.  These may be Data Center sites, but they
   may equally be access networks, VPN sites, or any other form of
   domain that includes packet sources and destinations.  We
   particularly focus on "SR edge domains" being source or destination
   domains that utilize MPLS SR, but the domains could use other non-
   MPLS technologies (such as IP, VXLAN, and NVGRE) as described in
   Section 9.

   Backbone networks are commonly based on MPLS-capable hardware.  In
   these networks, a number of different options exist to establish TE
   paths.  Among these options are static Label Switched Paths (LSPs),
   perhaps set up by an SDN controller, LSP tunnels established using a
   signaling protocol (such as RSVP-TE), and inter-domain use of SR (as
   described above for intra-domain steering).  Where traffic steering
   (without resource reservation) is needed, SR may be adequate; where
   Traffic Engineering is needed (i.e., traffic steering with resource
   reservation) RSVP-TE or centralized SDN control are preferred.
   However, in a network that is fully managed and controlled through a
   centralized planning tool, resource reservation can be achieved and
   SR can be used for full Traffic Engineering.  These solutions are
   already used in support of a number of edge-to-edge services such as
   L3VPN and L2VPN.

3.1.  Characteristics of Solution Technologies

   Each of the solution technologies mentioned in the previous section
   has certain characteristics, and the combined solution needs to
   recognize and address these characteristics in order to make a
   workable solution.





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   o  When SR is used for traffic steering, the size of the MPLS label
      stack used in SR scales linearly with the length of the strict
      source route.  This can cause issues with MPLS implementations
      that only support label stacks of a limited size.  For example,
      some MPLS implementations cannot push enough labels on the stack
      to represent an entire source route.  Other implementations may be
      unable to do the proper "ECMP hashing" if the label stack is too
      long; they may be unable to read enough of the packet header to
      find an entropy label or to find the IP header of the payload.
      Increasing the packet header size also reduces the size of the
      payload that can be carried in an MPLS packet.  There are
      techniques that can be used to reduce the size of the label stack.
      For example, a source route may be made less specific through the
      use of loose hops requiring fewer labels, or a single label (known
      as a "binding SID") can be used to represent a sequence of nodes;
      this label can be replaced with a set of labels when the packet
      reaches the first node in the sequence.  It is also possible to
      combine SR with conventional RSVP-TE by using a binding SID in the
      label stack to represent an LSP tunnel set up by RSVP-TE.

   o  Most of the work on using SR for traffic steering assumes that
      traffic only needs to be steered within a single administrative
      domain.  If the backbone consists of multiple ASes that are not
      part of a common administrative domain, the use of SR across the
      backbone may prove to be a challenge, and its use in the backbone
      may be limited to cases where private networks connect the
      domains, rather than cases where the domains are connected by
      third-party network operators or by the public Internet.

   o  RSVP-TE has been used to provide edge-to-edge tunnels through
      which flows to/from many endpoints can be routed, and this
      provides a reduction in state while still offering Traffic
      Engineering across the backbone network.  However, this requires
      O(n2) connections and as the number of edge domains increases this
      becomes unsustainable.

   o  A centralized control system is capable of producing more
      efficient use of network resources and of allowing better
      coordination of network usage and of network diagnostics.
      However, such a system may present challenges in large and dynamic
      networks because it relies on all network state being held
      centrally, and it is difficult to make central control as robust
      and self-correcting as distributed control.

   This document introduces an approach that blends the best points of
   each of these solution technologies to achieve a trade-off where
   RSVP-TE tunnels in the backbone network are stitched together using
   SR, and end-to-end SR paths can be created under the control of a



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   central controller with routing devolved to the constituent networks
   where possible.

4.  Decomposing the Problem

   It is important to decompose the problem to take account of different
   regions spanned by the end-to-end path.  These regions may use
   different technologies and may be under different administrative
   control.  The separation of administrative control is particularly
   important because the operator of one region may be unwilling to
   share information about their networks, and may be resistant to
   allowing a third party to exert control over their network resources.

   Using the reference model in Figure 1, we can consider how to get a
   packet from Source1 to the Destination.  The following decisions must
   be made:

   o  In which domain Destination lies.

   o  Which exit point from Domain1 to use.

   o  Which entry point to Domain2 to use.

   o  How to reach the exit point of Domain1 from Source1.

   o  How to reach the entry point to Domain2 from the exit point of
      Domain1.

   o  How to reach Destination from the entry point to Domain2.

   As already mentioned, these decisions may be inter-related.  This
   enables us to break down the problem into three steps:

   1.  Get the packet from Source1 to the exit point of Domain1.

   2.  Get the packet from exit point of Domain1 to entry point of
       Domain2.

   3.  Get the packet from entry point of Domain2 to Destination.

   The solution needs to achieve this in a way that allows:

   o  Adequate discovery of preferred elements in the end-to-end path
      (such as the location of the destination, and the selection of the
      destination domain entry point).

   o  Full control of the end-to-end path if all of the operators are
      willing.



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   o  Re-use of existing techniques and technologies.

   From a technology point of view we must support several functions and
   mixtures of those functions:

   o  If a domain uses MPLS Segment Routing, the labels within the
      domain may be populated by any means including BGP-LU [RFC8277],
      IGP [I-D.ietf-isis-segment-routing-extensions]
      [I-D.ietf-ospf-segment-routing-extensions], and central control.
      Source routes within the domain may be expressed as label stacks
      pushed by a controller or computed by a source router, or
      expressed as a single label and programmed into the domain routers
      by a controller.

   o  If a domain uses other (non-MPLS) forwarding, the domain
      processing is specific to that technology.  See Section 9 for
      details.

   o  If the domains use Segment Routing, the source and destination
      domains may or may not be in the same 'Segment Routing domain'
      [RFC8402], so that the prefix-SIDs may be the same or different in
      the two domains.

   o  The backbone network may be a single private network under the
      control of the owner of the domains and comprising one or more
      ASes, or may be a network operated by one or more third parties.

   o  The backbone network may utilize MPLS Traffic Engineering tunnels
      in conjunction with MPLS Segment Routing and the domain-to-domain
      source route may be provided by stitching TE LSPs.

   o  A single controller may be used to handle the source and
      destination domains as well as the backbone network, or there may
      be a different controller for the backbone network separate from
      that that controls the two domains, or there may be separate
      controllers for each network.  The controllers may cooperate and
      share information to different degrees.

   All of these different decompositions of the problem reflect
   different deployment choices and different commercial and operational
   practices, each with different functional trade-offs.  For example,
   with separate controllers that do not share information and that only
   cooperate to a limited extent, it will be possible to achieve end-to-
   end connectivity with optimal routing at each step (domain or
   backbone AS), but the end-to-end path that is achieved might not be
   optimal.





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5.  Solution Space

5.1.  Global Optimization of the Paths

   Global optimization of the path from one domain to another requires
   either that the source controller has a complete view of the end-to-
   end topology or some form of cooperation between controllers (such as
   in Backward Recursive Path Computation (BRPC) in [RFC5441]).

   BGP-LS [RFC7752] can be used to provide the "source" controller with
   a view of the topology of the backbone: that topology may be
   abstracted or partial.  This requires some of the BGP speakers in
   each AS to have BGP-LS sessions to the controller.  Other means of
   obtaining this view of the topology are of course possible.

5.2.  Figuring Out the GWs at a Destination Domain for a Given Prefix

   Suppose GW2a and GW2b both advertise a route to prefix X, each
   setting itself as next hop.  One might think that the GWs for X could
   be inferred from the routes' next hop fields, but typically only the
   "best" route (as selected by BGP) gets distributed across the
   backbone: the other route is discarded.  But the best route according
   to the BGP selection process might not be the route via the GW that
   we want to use for traffic engineering purposes.

   The obvious solution would be to use the ADD-PATH mechanism [RFC7911]
   to ensure that all routes to X get advertised.  However, even if one
   does this, the identity of the GWs would get lost as soon as the
   routes got distributed through an ASBR that sets next hop self.  And
   if there are multiple ASes in the backbone, not only will the next
   hop change several times, but the ADD-PATH mechanism will experience
   scaling issues.  So this "obvious" solution only works within a
   single AS.

   A better solution can be achieved using the Tunnel Encapsulation
   [I-D.ietf-idr-tunnel-encaps] attribute as follows.

   We define a new tunnel type, "SR tunnel", and when the GWs to a given
   domain advertise a route to a prefix X within the domain, they each
   include a Tunnel Encapsulation attribute with multiple remote
   endpoint sub-TLVs each of which identifies a specific GW to the
   domain.

   In other words, each route advertised by any GW identifies all of the
   GWs to the same domain (see Section 9 for a discussion of how GWs
   discover each other).  Therefore, only one of the routes needs to be
   distributed to other ASes, and it doesn't matter how many times the
   next hop changes, the Tunnel Encapsulation attribute (and its remote



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   endpoint sub-TLVs) remains unchanged and disclose the full list of
   GWs to the domain.

   Further, when a packet destined for prefix X is sent on a TE path to
   GW2a we want the packet to arrive at GW2a carrying, at the top of its
   label stack, GW2a's label for prefix X.  To achieve this we place the
   SID/SRGB in a sub-TLV of the Tunnel Encapsulation attribute.  We
   define the prefix-SID sub-TLV to be essentially identical in syntax
   to the prefix-SID attribute (see [I-D.ietf-idr-bgp-prefix-sid]), but
   the semantics are somewhat different.

   We also define an "MPLS Label Stack" sub-TLV for the Tunnel
   Encapsulation attribute, and put this in the "SR tunnel" TLV.  This
   allows the destination GW to specify a label stack that it wants
   packets destined for prefix X to have.  This label stack represents a
   source route through the destination domain.

5.3.  Figuring Out the Backbone Egress ASBRs

   We need to figure out the backbone egress ASBRs that are attached to
   a given GW at the destination domain in order to properly engineer
   the path across the backbone.

   The "cleanest" way to do this is to have the backbone egress ASBRs
   distribute the information to the source controller using the egress
   peer engineering (EPE) extensions of BGP-LS
   [I-D.ietf-idr-bgpls-segment-routing-epe].  The EPE extensions to BGP-
   LS allow a BGP speaker to say, "Here is a list of my EBGP neighbors,
   and here is a (locally significant) adjacency-SID for each one."

   It may also be possible to consider utilizing cooperating PCEs or a
   Hierarchical PCE approach in [RFC6805].  But it should be observed
   that this question is dependent on the questions in Section 5.2.
   That is, it is not possible to even start the selection of egress
   ASBRs until it is known which GWs at the destination domain provide
   access to a given prefix.  Once that question has been answered, any
   number of PCE approaches can be used to select the right egress ASBR
   and, more generally, the ASBR path across the backbone.

5.4.  Making use of RSVP-TE LSPs Across the Backbone

   There are a number of ways to carry traffic across the backbone from
   one domain to another.  RSVP-TE is a popular mechanism for
   establishing tunnels across MPLS networks in similar scenarios (e.g.,
   L3VPN) because it allows for reservation of resources as well as
   traffic steering.





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   A controller can cause an RSVP-TE LSP to be set up by talking to the
   LSP head end using PCEP extensions as described in [RFC8281].  That
   document specifies an "LSP Initiate" message (the PCInitiate message)
   that the controller uses to specify the RSVP-TE LSP endpoints, the
   explicit path, a "symbolic pathname", and other optional attributes
   (specified in the PCEP specification [RFC5440]) such as bandwidth.

   When the head end receives a PCInitiate message, it sets up the RSVP-
   TE LSP, assigns it a "PLSP-id", and reports the PLSP-id back to the
   controller in a PCRpt message [RFC8231].  The PCRpt message also
   contains the symbolic name that the controller assigned to the LSP,
   as well as containing some information identifying the LSP-initiate
   message from the controller, and details of exactly how the LSP was
   set up (RRO, bandwidth, etc.).

   The head end can add a TE-PATH-BINDING TLV to the PCRpt message
   [I-D.sivabalan-pce-binding-label-sid].  This allows the head end to
   assign a "binding SID" to the LSP, and to report to the controller
   that a particular binding SID corresponds to a particular LSP.  The
   binding SID is locally scoped to the head end.

   The controller can make this label be part of the label stack that it
   tells the source (or the GW at the source domain) to impose on the
   data packets being sent to prefix X.  When the head end receives a
   packet with this label at the top of the stack it will send the
   packet onward on the LSP.

5.5.  Data Plane

   Consolidating all of the above, consider what happens when we want to
   move a data packet from Source1 to Destination in Figure 1via the
   following source route:

   Source1---GW1b---PE2a---ASBR2a---ASBR3a---PE3a---GW2a---Destination

   Further, assume that there is an RSVP-TE LSP from PE2a to ASBR2a and
   an RSVP-TE LSP from ASBR3a to PE3a both of which we want to use.

   Let's suppose that the Source pushes a label stack as instructed by
   the controller (for example, using BGP-LU [RFC8277]).  We won't worry
   for now about source routing through the domains themselves: that is,
   in practice there may be additional labels in the stack to cover the
   source route from Source1 to GW1b and from GW2a to the Destination,
   but we will focus only on the labels necessary to leave the source
   domain, traverse the backbone, and enter the egress domain.  So we
   only care what the stack looks like when the packet gets to GW1b.

   When the packet gets to GW1b, the stack should have six labels:



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   Top Label:

      Peer-SID or adjacency-SID identifying the link or links to PE2a.
      These SIDs are distributed from GW1b to the controller via the EPE
      extensions of BGP-LS.  This label will get popped by GW1b, which
      will then send the packet to PE2a.

   Second Label:

      Binding SID advertised by PE2a to the controller for the RSVP-TE
      LSP to ASBR2a.  This binding SID is advertised via the PCEP
      extensions discussed above.  This label will get swapped by PE2a
      for the label that the LSP's next hop has assigned to the LSP.

   Third Label:

      Peer-SID or adjacency-SID identifying the link or links to ASBR3a,
      as advertised to the controller by ASBR2a using the BGP-LS EPE
      extensions.  This label gets popped by ASBR2a, which then sends
      the packet to ASBR3a.

   Fourth Label:

      Binding SID advertised by ASBR3a for the RSVP-TE LSP to PE3a.
      This binding SID is advertised via the PCEP extensions discussed
      above.  ASBR3a treats this label just like PE2a treated the second
      label above.

   Fifth label:

      Peer-SID or adjacency-SID identifying link or links to GW2a, as
      advertised to the controller by ASBR3a using the BGP-LS EPE
      extensions.  ASBR3a pops this label and sends the packet to GW2a.

   Sixth Label:

      Prefix-SID or other label identifying the Destination advertised
      in a Tunnel Encapsulation attribute by GW2a.  This can be omitted
      if GW2a is happy to accept IP packets, or prefers a VXLAN tunnel
      for example.  That would be indicated through the Tunnel
      Encapsulation attribute of course.

   Note that the size of the label stack is proportional to the number
   of RSVP-TE LSPs that get stitched together by SR.

   See Section 7 for some detailed examples that show the concrete use
   of labels in a sample topology.




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   In the above example, all labels except the sixth are locally
   significant labels: peer-SIDs, binding SIDs, or adjacency-SIDs.  Only
   the sixth label, a prefix-SID, has a domain-wide unique value.  To
   impose that label, the source needs to know the SRGB of GW2a.  If all
   nodes have the same SRGB, this is not a problem.  Otherwise, there
   are a number of different ways GW3a can advertise its SRGB.  This can
   be done via the segment routing extensions of BGP-LS, or it can be
   done using the prefix-SID attribute or BGP-LU [RFC8277], or it can be
   done using the BGP Tunnel Encapsulation attribute.  The technique to
   be used will depend on the details of the deployment scenario.

   The reason the above example is primarily based on locally
   significant labels is that it creates a "strict source route", and it
   presupposes the EPE extensions of BGP-LS.  In some scenarios, the EPE
   extension to BGP-LS might not be available (or BGP-LS might not be
   available at all).  In other scenarios, it may be desirable to steer
   a packet through a "loose source route".  In such scenarios, the
   label stack imposed by the source will be based upon a sequence of
   domain-wide unique "node-SIDs", each representing one of the hops of
   source route.  Each label has to be computed by adding the
   corresponding node-SID to the SRGB of the node that will act upon the
   label.  One way to learn the node-SIDs and SRGBs is to use the
   segment routing extensions of BGP-LS.  Another way is to use BGP-LU
   as follows:

      Each node that may be part of a source route originates a BGP-LU
      route with one of its own loopback addresses as the prefix.  The
      BGP prefix-SID attribute is attached to this route.  The prefix-
      SID attribute contains a SID that is the domain-wide unique SID
      corresponding to the node's loopback address.  The attribute also
      contains the node's SRGB.

   While this technique is useful when BGP-LS is not available, there
   needs to be some other means for the source controller to discover
   the topology.  In this document, we focus primarily on the scenario
   where BGP-LS, rather than BGP-LU, is used.

5.6.  Centralized and Distributed Controllers

   A controller or set of controllers is needed to collate topology and
   TE information from the constituent networks, to apply policies and
   service requirements to compute paths across those networks, to
   select an end-to-end path, and to program key nodes in the network to
   take the right forwarding actions (pushing label stacks, stitching
   LSPs, forwarding traffic).

   o  It is commonly understood that a fully optimal end-to-end path can
      only be computed with full knowledge of the end-to-end topology



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      and available Traffic Engineering resources.  Thus, one option is
      for all information about the domain networks and backbone network
      to be collected by a central controller that makes all path
      computations and is responsible for issuing the necessary
      programming commands.  Such a model works best when there is no
      commercial or administrative impediment (for example, where the
      domains and the backbone network are owned and operated by the
      same organization).  There may, however, be some scaling concerns
      if the component networks are large.

      In this mode of operation, each network may use BGP-LS to export
      Traffic Engineering and topology information to the central
      controller, and the controller may use PCEP to program the network
      behavior.

   o  A similar centralized control mechanism can be used with a
      scalability improvement that risks a reduction in optimality.  In
      this case, the domain networks can export to the controller just
      the feasibility of connectivity between data source/sink and
      gateway, perhaps enhancing this with some information about the
      Traffic Engineering metrics of the potential paths.

      This approach allows the central controller to understand the end-
      to-end path that it is selecting, but not to control it fully.
      The source route from data source to domain egress gateway is left
      to the source host or a controller in the source domain, while the
      source route from domain ingress gateway to destination is left as
      a decision for the domain ingress gateway or to a controller in
      the destination domain and in both cases the traffic may be left
      to follow the IGP shortest path.

      This mode of operation still leaves overall control with a
      centralized server and that may not be considered suitable when
      there is separate commercial or administrative control of the
      networks.

   o  When there is separate commercial or administrative control of the
      networks, the domain operator will not want the backbone operator
      to have control of the paths within the domains and may be
      reluctant to disclose any information about the topology or
      resource availability within the domains.  Conversely, the
      backbone operator may be very unwilling to allow the domain
      operator (a customer) any control over or knowledge about the
      backbone network.

      This "problem" has already been solved for Traffic Engineering in
      MPLS networks that span multiple administrative domains and leads
      to several potential solutions:



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      *  Per-domain path computation [RFC5152] can be seen as "best
         effort optimization".  In this mode the controller for each
         domain is responsible for finding the best path to the next
         domain, but has no way of knowing which is the best exit point
         from the local domain.  The resulting path may end up
         significantly sub-optimal or even blocked.

      *  Backward recursive path computation (BRPC) [RFC5441] is a
         mechanism that allows controllers to cooperate across a small
         set of domains (such as ASes) to build a tree of possible paths
         and so allow the controller for the ingress domain to select
         the optimal path.  The details of the paths within each domain
         that might reveal confidential information can be hidden using
         Path Keys [RFC5520].  BRPC produces optimal paths, but scales
         poorly with an increase in domains and with an increase in
         connectivity between domains.  It can also lead to slow
         computation times.

      *  Hierarchical PCE (H-PCE) [RFC6805] is a two-level cooperation
         process between PCEs.  The child PCEs remain responsible for
         computing paths across their domains, and they coordinate with
         a parent PCE that stitches these paths together to form the
         end-to-end path.  This approach has many similarities with BRPC
         but can scale better through the maintenance of "domain
         topology" that shows how the domains are interconnected, and
         through the ability to pipe-line computation requests to all of
         the child domains.  It has the drawback that some party has to
         own and operate the parent PCE.

      *  An alternative approach is documented by the TEAS working group
         [RFC7926].  In this model each network advertises to
         controllers for adjacent networks (using BGP-LS) selected
         information about potential connectivity across the network.
         It does not have to show full topology and can make its own
         decisions about which paths it considers optimal for use by its
         different neighbors and customers.  This approach is suitable
         for the End-to-End Domain Interconnect Traffic Steering problem
         where the backbone is under different control from the domains
         because it allows the overlay nature of the use of the backbone
         network to be treated as a peer network relationship by the
         controllers of the domains - the domains can be operated using
         a single controller or a separate controller for each domain.

   It is also possible to operate domain interconnection when some or
   all domains do not have a controller.  Segment Routing is capable of
   routing a packet toward the next hop based on the top label on the
   stack, and that label does not need to indicate an immediately
   adjacent node or link.  In these cases, the packet may be forwarded



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   untouched, or the forwarding router may impose a locally-determined
   additional set of labels that define the path to the next hop.

   PCE can be used to instruct the source host or a transit node about
   what label stacks to add to packets.  That is, a node that needs to
   impose labels (either to start routing the packet from the source
   host, or to advance the packet from a transit router toward the
   destination) can determine the label stack to use based on local
   function or can have that stack supplied by a PCE.  The PCE
   Communication Protocol (PCEP) has been extended to allow the PCE to
   supply a label stack for reaching a specific destination either in
   response to a request or in an unsolicited manner
   [I-D.ietf-pce-segment-routing].

6.  BGP-LS Considerations

   This section gives an overview of the use of BGP-LS to export an
   abstraction (or summary) of the connectivity across the backbone
   network by means of two figures that show different views of a sample
   network.

   Figure 2 shows a more complex reference architecture.

   Figure 3 represents the minimum set of nodes and links that need to
   be advertised in BGP-LS with SR in order to perform Domain
   Interconnect with traffic engineering across the backbone network:
   the PEs, ASBRs, and GWs, and the links between them.  In particular,
   EPE [I-D.ietf-idr-bgpls-segment-routing-epe] and TE information with
   associated segment IDs is advertised in BGP-LS with SR.

   Links that are advertised may be physical links, links realized by
   LSP tunnels or SR paths, or abstract links.  It is assumed that
   intra-AS links are either real links, RSVP-TE LSPs with allocated
   bandwidth, or SR TE policies as described in
   [I-D.ietf-idr-segment-routing-te-policy].  Additional nodes internal
   to an AS and their links to PEs, ASBRs, and/or GWs may also be
   advertised (for example, to avoid full mesh problems).

   Note that Figure 3 does not show full interconnectivity.  For
   example, there is no possibility of connectivity between PE1a and
   PE1c (because there is no RSVP-TE LSP established across AS1 between
   these two nodes) and so no link is presented in the topology view.
   [RFC7926] contains further discussion of topological abstractions
   that may be useful in understanding this distinction.







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    -------------------------------------------------------------------
   |                                                                   |
   |                              AS1                                  |
   |  ----    ----                                       ----    ----  |
    -|PE1a|--|PE1b|-------------------------------------|PE1c|--|PE1d|-
      ----    ----                                       ----    ----
      :        :   ------------           ------------     :     : :
      :        :  | AS2        |         |        AS3 |    :     : :
      :        :  |         ------.....------         |    :     : :
      :        :  |        |ASBR2a|   |ASBR3a|        |    :     : :
      :        :  |         ------  ..:------         |    :     : :
      :        :  |            |  ..:    |            |    :     : :
      :        :  |         ------:    ------         |    :     : :
      :        :  |        |ASBR2b|...|ASBR3b|        |    :     : :
      :        :  |         ------     ------         |    :     : :
      :        :  |            |         |            |    :     : :
      :        :  |            |       ------         |    :     : :
      :        :  |            |    ..|ASBR3c|        |    :     : :
      :        :  |            |    :  ------         |    : ....: :
      :  ......:  |  ----      |    :    |      ----  |    : :     :
      :  :         -|PE2a|-----     :     -----|PE3b|-     : :     :
      :  :           ----           :           ----       : :     :
      :  :     .......:             :             :....... : :     :
      :  :     :                   ------                : : :     :
      :  :     :              ----|ASBR4b|----           : : :     :
      :  :     :             |     ------     |          : : :     :
      :  :     :           ----               |          : : :     :
      :  :     : .........|PE4b|          AS4 |          : : :     :
      :  :     : :         ----               |          : : :     :
      :  :     : :           |      ----      |          : : :     :
      :  :     : :            -----|PE4a|-----           : : :     :
      :  :     : :                  ----                 : : :     :
      :  :     : :                ..:  :..               : : :     :
      :  :     : :                :      :               : : :     :
      ----    ----              ----    ----             ----:   ----
    -|GW1a|--|GW1b|-          -|GW2a|--|GW2b|-         -|GW3a|--|GW3b|-
   |  ----    ----  |        |  ----    ----  |       |  ----    ----  |
   |                |        |                |       |                |
   |                |        |                |       |                |
   | Host1a  Host1b |        | Host2a  Host2b |       | Host3a  Host3b |
   |                |        |                |       |                |
   |                |        |                |       |                |
   | Domain1        |        | Domain2        |       |        Domain3 |
    ----------------          ----------------         ----------------


              Figure 2: Network View of Example Configuration




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       .............................................................
       :                                                           :
      ----    ----                                       ----    ----
     |PE1a|  |PE1b|.....................................|PE1c|  |PE1d|
      ----    ----                                       ----    ----
      :        :                                           :     : :
      :        :            ------.....------              :     : :
      :        :     ......|ASBR2a|   |ASBR3a|......       :     : :
      :        :     :      ------  ..:------      :       :     : :
      :        :     :              :              :       :     : :
      :        :     :      ------..:  ------      :       :     : :
      :        :     :  ...|ASBR2b|...|ASBR3b|     :       :     : :
      :        :     :  :   ------     ------      :       :     : :
      :        :     :  :                 :        :       :     : :
      :        :     :  :              ------      :       :     : :
      :        :     :  :           ..|ASBR3c|...  :       :     : :
      :        :     :  :           :  ------   :  :       : ....: :
      :  ......:     ----           :           ----       : :     :
      :  :          |PE2a|          :          |PE3b|      : :     :
      :  :           ----           :           ----       : :     :
      :  :     .......:             :             :....... : :     :
      :  :     :                   ------                : : :     :
      :  :     :                  |ASBR4b|               : : :     :
      :  :     :                   ------                : : :     :
      :  :     :           ----.....:  :                 : : :     :
      :  :     : .........|PE4b|.....  :                 : : :     :
      :  :     : :         ----     :  :                 : : :     :
      :  :     : :                  ----                 : : :     :
      :  :     : :                 |PE4a|                : : :     :
      :  :     : :                  ----                 : : :     :
      :  :     : :                ..:  :..               : : :     :
      :  :     : :                :      :               : : :     :
      ----    ----              ----    ----             ----:   ----
    -|GW1a|--|GW1b|-          -|GW2a|--|GW2b|-         -|GW3a|--|GW3b|-
   |  ----    ----  |        |  ----    ----  |       |  ----    ----  |
   |                |        |                |       |                |
   |                |        |                |       |                |
   | Host1a  Host1b |        | Host2a  Host2b |       | Host3a  Host3b |
   |                |        |                |       |                |
   |                |        |                |       |                |
   | Domain1        |        | Domain2        |       |        Domain3 |
    ----------------          ----------------         ----------------


             Figure 3: Topology View of Example Configuration

   A node (a PCE, router, or host) that is computing a full or partial
   path correlates the topology information disseminated in BGP-LS with



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   the information advertised in BGP (with the Tunnel Encapsulation
   attributes) and uses this to compute that path and obtain the SIDs
   for the elements on that path.  In order to allow a source host to
   compute exit points from its domain, some subset of the above
   information needs to be disseminated within that domain.

   What is advertised external to a given AS is controlled by policy at
   the ASes' PEs, ASBRs, and GWs.  Central control of what each node
   should advertise, based upon analysis of the network as a whole, is
   an important additional function.  This and the amount of policy
   involved may make the use of a Route Reflector an attractive option.

   Local configuration at each node determines which links to other
   nodes are advertised in BGP-LS, and determines which characteristics
   of those links are advertised.  Pairwise coordination between link
   end-points is required to ensure consistency.

   Path Weighted ECMP (PWECMP) is a mechanism to load-balance traffic
   across parallel equal cost links or paths.  In this approach an
   ingress node distributes the flows from it to a given egress node
   across the equal cost paths to the egress node in proportion to the
   lowest bandwidth link on each path.  PWECMP can be used by a GW for a
   given source domain to send all flows to a given destination domain
   using all paths in the backbone network to that destination domain in
   proportion to the minimum bandwidth on each path.  PWECMP may also be
   used by hosts within a source domain to send flows to that domain's
   GWs.

7.  Worked Examples

   Figure 4 shows a view of the links, paths, and labels that can be
   assigned to part of the sample network shown in Figure 2 and
   Figure 3.  The double-dash lines (===) indicate LSP tunnels across
   backbone ASes and dotted lines (...) are physical links.

   A label may be assigned to each outgoing link at each node.  This is
   shown in Figure 4.  For example, at GW1a the label L201 is assigned
   to the link connecting GW1a to PE1a.  At PE1c, the label L302 is
   assigned to the link connecting PE1c to GW3b.  Labels ("binding
   SIDs") may also be assigned to RSVP-TE LSPs.  For example, at PE1a,
   label L202 is assigned to the RSVP-TE LSP leading from PE1a to PE1c.

   At the destination domain, label L305 is a "node-SID"; it represents
   Host3b, rather than representing a particular link.

   When a node processes a packet, the label at the top of the label
   stack indicates the link (or RSVP-TE LSP) on which that node is to
   transmit the packet.  The node pops that label off the label stack



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   before transmitting the packet on the link.  However, if the top
   label is a node-SID, the node processing the packet is expected to
   transmit the packet on whatever link it regards as the shortest path
   to the node represented by the label.















































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      ---- L202                                                ----
     |    |===================================================|    |
     |PE1a|                                                   |PE1c|
     |    |===================================================|    |
      ---- L203                                                ----
       :                                                    L304: :L302
       :                                                        : :
       :    ---- L205                                     ----  : :
       :   |PE1b|========================================|PE1d| : :
       :    ----                                          ----  : :
       :     :                                          L303:   : :
       :     :                ----                          :   : :
       :     :    ---- L207  |ASBR|L209   ----              :   : :
       :     :   |    |======| 2a |......|    |             :   : :
       :     :   |    |       ----       |    |L210   ----  :   : :
       :     :   |PE2a|                  |ASBR|======|PE3b| :   : :
       :     :   |    |L208   ---- L211  | 3a |       ----  :   : :
       :     :   |    |======|ASBR|......|    |   L301:     :   : :
       :     :    ----       | 2b |       ----     ...:     :   : :
       :     :      :         ----                 :        :   : :
       : ....:      :                              : .......:   : :
       : :          :                              : :          : :
       : :          :                              : : .........: :
       : :          :                              : : :          :
       : :      ....:                              : : :      ....:
   L201: :L204  :L206                              : : :      :
      ----    ----                                 -----    ----
    -|GW1a|--|GW1b|-                             -|GW3a |--|GW3b|-
   |  ----    ----  |                           |  -----    ----  |
   |    :      :    |                           | L303:      :L304|
   |    :      :    |                           |     :      :    |
   |L103:      :L102|                           |     :      :    |
   |   N1      N2   |                           |    N3      N4   |
   |    :..  ..:    |                           |     :  ....:    |
   |      :  :      |                           |     :  :        |
   |  L101:  :      |                           |     :  :        |
   |     Host1a     |                           |   Host3b (L305) |
   |                |                           |                 |
   | Domain1        |                           |         Domain3 |
    ----------------                             -----------------


           Figure 4: Tunnels and Labels in Example Configuration

   Note that label spaces can overlap so that, for example, the figure
   shows two instances of L303 and L304.  This is acceptable because of
   the separation between the SR domains, and because SIDs applied to
   outgoing interfaces are locally scoped.



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   Let's consider several different possible ways to direct a packet
   from Host1a in Domain1 to Host3b in Domain3.

   a.  Full source route imposed at source

          In this case it is assumed that the entity responsible for
          determining an end-to-end path has access to the topologies of
          both the source and destination domains as well as of the
          backbone network.  This might happen if all of the networks
          are owned by the same operator in which case the information
          can be shared into a single database for use by an offline
          tool, or the information can be distributed using routing
          protocols such that the source host can see enough to select
          the path.  Alternatively, the end-to-end path could be
          produced through cooperation between computation entities each
          responsible for different domains along the path.

          If the path is computed externally it is pushed to the source
          host.  Otherwise, it is computed by the source host itself.

          Suppose it is desired for a packet from Host1a to travel to
          Host3b via the following source route:

             Host1a->N1->GW1a->PE1a->(RSVP-TE
             LSP)->PE1c->GW3b->N4->Host3b

          Host1a imposes the following label stack (with the first label
          representing the top of stack), and then sends the packet to
          N1:

             L103, L201, L202, L302, L304, L305

          N1 sees L103 at the top of the stack, so it pops the stack and
          forwards the packet to GW1a.  GW1a sees L201 at the top of the
          stack, so it pops the stack and forwards the packet to PE1a.
          PE1a sees L202 at the top of the stack, so it pops the stack
          and forwards the packet over the RSVP-TE LSP to PE1c.  As the
          packet travels over this LSP, its top label is an RSVP-TE
          signaled label representing the LSP.  That is, PE1a imposes an
          additional label stack entry for the tunnel LSP.

          At the end of the LSP tunnel, the MPLS tunnel label is popped,
          and PE1c sees L302 at the top of the stack.  PE1c pops the
          stack and forwards the packet to GW3b.  GW3b sees L304 at the
          top of the stack, so it pops the stack and forwards the packet
          to N4.  Finally, N4 sees L305 at the top of the stack, so it
          pops the stack and forwards the packet to Host3b.




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   b.  It is possible that the source domain does not have visibility
       into the destination domain.

          This occurs if the destination domain does not export its
          topology, but does export basic reachability information so
          that the source host or the path computation entity will know:

          +  The GWs through which the destination can be reached.

          +  The SID to use for the destination prefix.

          Suppose we want a packet to follow the source route:

             Host1a->N1->GW1a->PE1a->(RSVP-TE
             LSP)->PE1c->GW3b->...->Host3b

          The ellipsis indicates a part of the path that is not
          explicitly specified.  Thus, the label stack imposed at the
          source host is:

             L103, L201, L202, L302, L305

          Processing is as per case a., but when the packet reaches the
          GW of the destination domain (GW3b) it can either simply
          forward the packet along the shortest path to Host3b, or it
          can insert additional labels to direct the path to the
          destination.

   c.  Domain1 only has reachability information for the backbone and
       destination networks

          The source domain (or the path computation entity) may be
          further restricted in its view of the network.  It is possible
          that it knows the location of the destination in the
          destination domain, and knows the GWs to the destination
          domain that provide reachability to the destination, but that
          it has no view of the backbone network.  This leads to the
          packet being forwarded in a manner similar to 'per-domain path
          computation' described in Section 5.6.

          At the source host a simple label stack is imposed navigating
          the domain and indicating the destination GW and the
          destination host.

             L103, L302, L305

          As the packet leaves the source domain, the source GW (GW1a)
          determines the PE to use to enter the backbone using nothing



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          more than the BGP preferred route to the destination GW (it
          could be PE1a or PE1b).

          When the packet reaches the first PE it has a label stack just
          identifying the destination GW and the host (L302, L305).  The
          PE uses information it has about the backbone network topology
          and available LSPs to select an LSP tunnel, impose the tunnel
          label, and forward the packet.

          When the packet reaches the end of the LSP tunnel, it is
          processed as described in case b.

   d.  Stitched LSPs across the backbone

          A variant of all these cases arises when the packet is sent
          using a path that spans multiple ASes.  For example, one that
          crosses AS2 and AS3 as shown in Figure 2.

          In this case, basing the example on case a., the source host
          imposes the label stack:

             L102, L206, L207, L209, L210, L301, L303, L305

          It then sends the packet to N2.

          When the packet reaches PE2a, as previously described, the top
          label (L207) indicates an LSP tunnel that leads to ASBR2a.  At
          the end of that LSP tunnel the next label (L209) routes the
          packet from ASBR2a to ASBR3a, where the next label (L210)
          identifies the next LSP tunnel to use.  Thus, SR has been used
          to stitch together LSPs to make a longer path segment.  As the
          packet emerges from the final LSP tunnel, forwarding continues
          as previously described.

8.  Label Stack Depth Considerations

   As described in Section 3.1, one of the issues with a Segment Routing
   approach is that the label stack can get large, for example when the
   source route becomes long.  A mechanism to mitigate this problem is
   needed if the solution is to be fully applicable in all environments.

   [I-D.ietf-idr-segment-routing-te-policy] introduces the concept of
   hierarchical source routes as a way to compress source route headers.
   It functions by having the egress node for a set of source routes
   advertise those source routes along with an explicit request that
   each node that is an ingress node for one or more of those source
   routes should advertise a binding SID for the set of source routes
   for which it is the ingress.  It should be noted that the set of



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   source routes can either be advertised by the egress node as
   described here, or advertised by a controller on behalf of the egress
   node.

   Such an ingress node advertises its set of source routes and a
   binding SID as an adjacency in BGP-LS as described in Section 6.
   These source routes represent the weighted ECMP paths between the
   ingress node and the egress node.  Note also that the binding SID may
   be supplied by the node that advertises the source routes (the egress
   or the controller), or may be chosen by the ingress.

   A remote node that wishes to reach the egress node constructs a
   source route consisting of the segment IDs necessary to reach one of
   the ingress nodes for the path it wishes to use along with the
   binding SID that the ingress node advertised to identify the set of
   paths.  When the selected ingress node receives a packet with a
   binding SID it has advertised, it replaces the binding SID with the
   labels for one of its source routes to the egress node (it will
   choose one of the source routes in the set according to its own
   weighting algorithms and policy).

8.1.  Worked Example

   Consider the topology in Figure 4.  Suppose that it is desired to
   construct full segment routed paths from ingress to egress, but that
   the resulting label stack (segment route) is too large.  In this case
   the gateways to Domain3 (GW3a and GW3b) can advertise all of the
   source routes from the gateways to Domain1 (GW1a and GW1b).  The
   gateways to Domain1 then assign binding SIDs to those source routes
   and advertise those SIDs into BGP-LS.

   Thus, GW3b advertises the two source routes (L201, L202, L302 and
   L201, L203, L302), and GW1a advertises into BGP-LS its adjacency to
   GW3b along with a binding SID.  Should Host1a wish to send a packet
   via GW1a and GW3b, it can include L103 and this binding SID in the
   source route.  GW1a is free to choose which source route to use
   between itself and GW3b using its weighted ECMP algorithm.

   Similarly, GW3a can advertise the following set of source routes:

   o  L201, L202, L304

   o  L201, L203, L304

   o  L204, L205, L303

   o  L206, L207, L209, L210, L301




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   o  L206, L208, L211, L210, L301

   GW1a advertises a binding SID for the first three, and GW1b
   advertises a binding SID for the other two.

9.  Gateway Considerations

   As described in Section 5.2, [I-D.ietf-bess-datacenter-gateway]
   defines a new tunnel type, "SR tunnel", and when the GWs to a given
   domain advertise a route to a prefix X within the domain, they will
   each include a Tunnel Encapsulation attribute with multiple tunnel
   instances each of type "SR tunnel", one for each GW and each
   containing a Remote Endpoint sub-TLV with that GW's address.

   In other words, each route advertised by any GW identifies all of the
   GWs to the same domain.

   Therefore, even if only one of the routes is distributed to other
   ASes, it will not matter how many times the next hop changes, as the
   Tunnel Encapsulation attribute (and its remote endpoint sub-TLVs)
   will remain unchanged.

9.1.  Domain Gateway Auto-Discovery

   To allow a given domain's GWs to auto-discover each other and to
   coordinate their operations, the following procedures are implemented
   as described in [I-D.ietf-bess-datacenter-gateway]:

   o  Each GW is configured with an identifier of the domain that is
      common across all GWs to the domain and unique across all domains
      that are connected.

   o  A route target [RFC4360] is attached to each GW's auto-discovery
      route and has its value set to the domain identifier.

   o  Each GW constructs an import filtering rule to import any route
      that carries a route target with the same domain identifier that
      the GW itself uses.  This means that only these GWs will import
      those routes and that all GWs to the same domain will import each
      other's routes and will learn (auto-discover) the current set of
      active GWs for the domain.

   o  The auto-discovery route each GW advertises consists of the
      following:

      *  An IPv4 or IPv6 NLRI containing one of the GW's loopback
         addresses (that is, with AFI/SAFI that is one of 1/1, 2/1, 1/4,
         2/4).



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      *  A Tunnel Encapsulation attribute containing the GW's
         encapsulation information, which at a minimum consists of an SR
         tunnel TLV with a Remote Endpoint sub-TLV
         [I-D.ietf-idr-tunnel-encaps].

   To avoid the side effect of applying the Tunnel Encapsulation
   attribute to any packet that is addressed to the GW, the GW should
   use a different loopback address in the advertisement from that used
   to reach the GW itself.

   Each GW will include a Tunnel Encapsulation attribute for each GW
   that is active for the domain (including itself), and will include
   these in every route advertised by each GW to peers outside the
   domain.  As the current set of active GWs changes (due to the
   addition of a new GW or the failure/removal of an existing GW) each
   externally advertised route will be re-advertised with the set of SR
   tunnel instances reflecting the current set of active GWs.

9.2.  Relationship to BGP Link State and Egress Peer Engineering

   When a remote GW receives a route to a prefix X it can use the SR
   tunnel instances within the contained Tunnel Encapsulation attribute
   to identify the GWs through which X can be reached.  It uses this
   information to compute SR TE paths across the backbone network
   looking at the information advertised to it in SR BGP Link State
   (BGP-LS) [I-D.ietf-idr-bgp-ls-segment-routing-ext] and correlated
   using the domain identity.  SR Egress Peer Engineering (EPE)
   [I-D.ietf-idr-bgpls-segment-routing-epe] can be used to supplement
   the information advertised in BGP-LS.

9.3.  Advertising a Domain Route Externally

   When a packet destined for prefix X is sent on an SR TE path to a GW
   for the domain containing X, it needs to carry the receiving GW's
   label for X such that this label rises to the top of the stack before
   the GW completes its processing of the packet.  To achieve this we
   place a prefix-SID sub-TLV for X in each SR tunnel instance in the
   Tunnel Encapsulation attribute in the externally advertised route for
   X.

   Alternatively, if the GWs for a given domain are configured to allow
   remote GWs to perform SR TE through that domain for prefix X, then
   each GW computes an SR TE path through that domain to X from each of
   the current active GWs and places each in an MPLS label stack sub-TLV
   [I-D.ietf-idr-tunnel-encaps] in the SR tunnel instance for that GW.






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9.4.  Encapsulations

   If the GWs for a given domain are configured to allow remote GWs to
   send them packets in that domain's native encapsulation, then each GW
   will also include multiple instances of a tunnel TLV for that native
   encapsulation in the externally advertised routes: one for each GW,
   and each containing a remote endpoint sub-TLV with that GW's address.
   A remote GW may then encapsulate a packet according to the rules
   defined via the sub-TLVs included in each of the tunnel TLV
   instances.

10.  Security Considerations

   There are several security domains and associated threats in this
   architecture.  SR is itself a data transmission encapsulation that
   provides no additional security, so security in this architecture
   relies on higher layer mechanisms (for example, end-to-end encryption
   of pay-load data), security of protocols used to establish
   connectivity and distribute network information, and access control
   so that control plane and data plane packets are not admitted to the
   network from outside.

   This architecture utilizes a number of control plane protocols within
   domains, within the backbone, and north-south between controllers and
   domains.  Only minor modifications are made to BGP as described in
   [I-D.ietf-bess-datacenter-gateway], otherwise this architecture uses
   existing protocols and extensions so no new security risks are
   introduced.

   Special care should, however, be taken when routing protocols export
   or import information from or to domains that might have a security
   model based on secure boundaries and internal mutual trust.  This is
   notable when:

   o  BGP-LS is used to export topology information from within a domain
      to a controller that is sited outside the domain.

   o  A southbound protocol such as BGP-LU or Netconf is used to install
      state in the network from a controller that may be sited outside
      the domain.

   In these cases protocol security mechanisms should be used to protect
   the information in transit entering or leaving the domain, and to
   authenticate the out-of-domain nodes (the controller) to ensure that
   confidential/private information is not lost and that data or
   configuration is not falsified.





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11.  Management Considerations

   Configuration elements for the approaches described in this document
   are minor but crucial.

   Each GW to a domain is configured with the same identifier of the
   domain, and that identifier is unique across all domains that are
   connected.  This requires some coordination both within a domain, and
   between cooperating domains.  There are no requirements for how this
   configuration and coordination is achieved, but it is assumed that
   management systems are involved.

   Policy determines what topology information is shared by a BGP-LS
   speaker (see Section 6).  This applies both to the advertisement of
   interdomain links and their characteristics, and to the advertisement
   of summarized domain topology or connectivity.  This policy is a
   local (i.e., domain-scoped) configuration dependent on the objectives
   and business imperatives of the domain operator.

   Domain boundaries are usually configured to limit the control and
   interaction from other domains (for example, to not allow end-to-end
   TE paths to be set up across domain boundaries.  As noted in
   Section 9.3, the GWs for a given domain can be configured to allow
   remote GWs to perform SR TE through that domain for a given prefix, a
   set of prefixes, or all reachable prefixes.

   Similarly, (as described in Section 9.4 the GWs for a given domain
   can be configured to allow remote GWs to send them packets in that
   domain's native encapsulation.

12.  IANA Considerations

   This document makes no requests for IANA action.

13.  Acknowledgements

   Thanks to Jeffery Zhang for his careful review.

14.  Informative References

   [I-D.ietf-bess-datacenter-gateway]
              Drake, J., Farrel, A., Rosen, E., Patel, K., and L. Jalil,
              "Gateway Auto-Discovery and Route Advertisement for
              Segment Routing Enabled Domain Interconnection", draft-
              ietf-bess-datacenter-gateway-01 (work in progress), May
              2018.





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   [I-D.ietf-idr-bgp-ls-segment-routing-ext]
              Previdi, S., Talaulikar, K., Filsfils, C., Gredler, H.,
              and M. Chen, "BGP Link-State extensions for Segment
              Routing", draft-ietf-idr-bgp-ls-segment-routing-ext-09
              (work in progress), October 2018.

   [I-D.ietf-idr-bgp-prefix-sid]
              Previdi, S., Filsfils, C., Lindem, A., Sreekantiah, A.,
              and H. Gredler, "Segment Routing Prefix SID extensions for
              BGP", draft-ietf-idr-bgp-prefix-sid-27 (work in progress),
              June 2018.

   [I-D.ietf-idr-bgpls-segment-routing-epe]
              Previdi, S., Filsfils, C., Patel, K., Ray, S., and J.
              Dong, "BGP-LS extensions for Segment Routing BGP Egress
              Peer Engineering", draft-ietf-idr-bgpls-segment-routing-
              epe-15 (work in progress), March 2018.

   [I-D.ietf-idr-segment-routing-te-policy]
              Previdi, S., Filsfils, C., Jain, D., Mattes, P., Rosen,
              E., and S. Lin, "Advertising Segment Routing Policies in
              BGP", draft-ietf-idr-segment-routing-te-policy-04 (work in
              progress), July 2018.

   [I-D.ietf-idr-tunnel-encaps]
              Rosen, E., Patel, K., and G. Velde, "The BGP Tunnel
              Encapsulation Attribute", draft-ietf-idr-tunnel-encaps-10
              (work in progress), August 2018.

   [I-D.ietf-isis-segment-routing-extensions]
              Previdi, S., Ginsberg, L., Filsfils, C., Bashandy, A.,
              Gredler, H., Litkowski, S., Decraene, B., and J. Tantsura,
              "IS-IS Extensions for Segment Routing", draft-ietf-isis-
              segment-routing-extensions-19 (work in progress), July
              2018.

   [I-D.ietf-ospf-segment-routing-extensions]
              Psenak, P., Previdi, S., Filsfils, C., Gredler, H.,
              Shakir, R., Henderickx, W., and J. Tantsura, "OSPF
              Extensions for Segment Routing", draft-ietf-ospf-segment-
              routing-extensions-25 (work in progress), April 2018.

   [I-D.ietf-pce-segment-routing]
              Sivabalan, S., Filsfils, C., Tantsura, J., Henderickx, W.,
              and J. Hardwick, "PCEP Extensions for Segment Routing",
              draft-ietf-pce-segment-routing-13 (work in progress),
              October 2018.




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   [I-D.ietf-spring-segment-routing-mpls]
              Bashandy, A., Filsfils, C., Previdi, S., Decraene, B.,
              Litkowski, S., and R. Shakir, "Segment Routing with MPLS
              data plane", draft-ietf-spring-segment-routing-mpls-14
              (work in progress), June 2018.

   [I-D.sivabalan-pce-binding-label-sid]
              Sivabalan, S., Tantsura, J., Filsfils, C., Previdi, S.,
              Hardwick, J., and D. Dhody, "Carrying Binding Label/
              Segment-ID in PCE-based Networks.", draft-sivabalan-pce-
              binding-label-sid-04 (work in progress), March 2018.

   [RFC4360]  Sangli, S., Tappan, D., and Y. Rekhter, "BGP Extended
              Communities Attribute", RFC 4360, DOI 10.17487/RFC4360,
              February 2006, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4360>.

   [RFC5152]  Vasseur, JP., Ed., Ayyangar, A., Ed., and R. Zhang, "A
              Per-Domain Path Computation Method for Establishing Inter-
              Domain Traffic Engineering (TE) Label Switched Paths
              (LSPs)", RFC 5152, DOI 10.17487/RFC5152, February 2008,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5152>.

   [RFC5440]  Vasseur, JP., Ed. and JL. Le Roux, Ed., "Path Computation
              Element (PCE) Communication Protocol (PCEP)", RFC 5440,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5440, March 2009,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5440>.

   [RFC5441]  Vasseur, JP., Ed., Zhang, R., Bitar, N., and JL. Le Roux,
              "A Backward-Recursive PCE-Based Computation (BRPC)
              Procedure to Compute Shortest Constrained Inter-Domain
              Traffic Engineering Label Switched Paths", RFC 5441,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5441, April 2009,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5441>.

   [RFC5520]  Bradford, R., Ed., Vasseur, JP., and A. Farrel,
              "Preserving Topology Confidentiality in Inter-Domain Path
              Computation Using a Path-Key-Based Mechanism", RFC 5520,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5520, April 2009,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5520>.

   [RFC6805]  King, D., Ed. and A. Farrel, Ed., "The Application of the
              Path Computation Element Architecture to the Determination
              of a Sequence of Domains in MPLS and GMPLS", RFC 6805,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6805, November 2012,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6805>.






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   [RFC7752]  Gredler, H., Ed., Medved, J., Previdi, S., Farrel, A., and
              S. Ray, "North-Bound Distribution of Link-State and
              Traffic Engineering (TE) Information Using BGP", RFC 7752,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7752, March 2016,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7752>.

   [RFC7855]  Previdi, S., Ed., Filsfils, C., Ed., Decraene, B.,
              Litkowski, S., Horneffer, M., and R. Shakir, "Source
              Packet Routing in Networking (SPRING) Problem Statement
              and Requirements", RFC 7855, DOI 10.17487/RFC7855, May
              2016, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7855>.

   [RFC7911]  Walton, D., Retana, A., Chen, E., and J. Scudder,
              "Advertisement of Multiple Paths in BGP", RFC 7911,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7911, July 2016,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7911>.

   [RFC7926]  Farrel, A., Ed., Drake, J., Bitar, N., Swallow, G.,
              Ceccarelli, D., and X. Zhang, "Problem Statement and
              Architecture for Information Exchange between
              Interconnected Traffic-Engineered Networks", BCP 206,
              RFC 7926, DOI 10.17487/RFC7926, July 2016,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7926>.

   [RFC8231]  Crabbe, E., Minei, I., Medved, J., and R. Varga, "Path
              Computation Element Communication Protocol (PCEP)
              Extensions for Stateful PCE", RFC 8231,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8231, September 2017,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8231>.

   [RFC8277]  Rosen, E., "Using BGP to Bind MPLS Labels to Address
              Prefixes", RFC 8277, DOI 10.17487/RFC8277, October 2017,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8277>.

   [RFC8281]  Crabbe, E., Minei, I., Sivabalan, S., and R. Varga, "Path
              Computation Element Communication Protocol (PCEP)
              Extensions for PCE-Initiated LSP Setup in a Stateful PCE
              Model", RFC 8281, DOI 10.17487/RFC8281, December 2017,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8281>.

   [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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Authors' Addresses

   Adrian Farrel
   Juniper Networks

   Email: adrian@olddog.co.uk


   John Drake
   Juniper Networks

   Email: jdrake@juniper.net







































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