Network Working Group                                     T. Eckert, Ed.
Internet-Draft                                                 Futurewei
Intended status: Standards Track                              G. Cauchie
Expires: May 4, 2020                                    Bouygues Telecom
                                                                M. Menth
                                                 University of Tuebingen
                                                        November 1, 2019


    Traffic Engineering for Bit Index Explicit Replication (BIER-TE)
                       draft-ietf-bier-te-arch-05

Abstract

   This memo introduces per-packet stateless strict and loose path
   engineered replication and forwarding for Bit Index Explicit
   Replication packets ([RFC8279]).  This is called BIER-TE.

   BIER-TE leverages the BIER architecture ([RFC8279]) and extends it
   with a new semantic for bits in the bitstring.  BIER-TE can leverage
   BIER forwarding engines with little or no changes.

   In BIER, the BitPositions (BP) of the packets bitstring indicate BIER
   Forwarding Egress Routers (BFER), and hop-by-hop forwarding uses a
   Routing Underlay such as an IGP.

   In BIER-TE, BitPositions indicate adjacencies.  The BIFT of each BFR
   are only populated with BPs that are adjacent to the BFR in the BIER-
   TE topology.  The BIER-TE topology can consist of layer 2 or remote
   (route) adjacencies.  The BFR then replicates and forwards BIER
   packets to those adjacencies.  This results in the aforementioned
   strict and loose path forwarding.

   BIER-TE can co-exist with BIER forwarding in the same domain, for
   example by using separate sub-domains.  In the absence of routed
   adjacencies, BIER-TE does not require a BIER routing underlay, and
   can then be operated without requiring an IGP routing protocol.

   BIER-TE operates without explicit in-network tree-building and
   carries the multicast distribution tree in the packet header.  It can
   therefore be a good fit to support multicast path steering in Segment
   Routing (SR) networks.

Status of This Memo

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




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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     1.1.  Basic Examples  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     1.2.  BIER-TE Topology and adjacencies  . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     1.3.  Comparison with BIER  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     1.4.  Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   2.  Components  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     2.1.  The Multicast Flow Overlay  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     2.2.  The BIER-TE Controller Host . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
       2.2.1.  Assignment of BitPositions to adjacencies of the
               network topology  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
       2.2.2.  Changes in the network topology . . . . . . . . . . .  10
       2.2.3.  Set up per-multicast flow BIER-TE state . . . . . . .  10
       2.2.4.  Link/Node Failures and Recovery . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     2.3.  The BIER-TE Forwarding Layer  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     2.4.  The Routing Underlay  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   3.  BIER-TE Forwarding  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     3.1.  The Bit Index Forwarding Table (BIFT) . . . . . . . . . .  11
     3.2.  Adjacency Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
       3.2.1.  Forward Connected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13



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       3.2.2.  Forward Routed  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
       3.2.3.  ECMP  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
       3.2.4.  Local Decap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
     3.3.  Encapsulation considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
     3.4.  Basic BIER-TE Forwarding Example  . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
     3.5.  Forwarding comparison with BIER . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
     3.6.  Requirements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
   4.  BIER-TE Controller Host BitPosition Assignments . . . . . . .  18
     4.1.  P2P Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
     4.2.  BFER  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
     4.3.  Leaf BFERs  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
     4.4.  LANs  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  19
     4.5.  Hub and Spoke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20
     4.6.  Rings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20
     4.7.  Equal Cost MultiPath (ECMP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
     4.8.  Routed adjacencies  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  24
       4.8.1.  Reducing BitPositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  24
       4.8.2.  Supporting nodes without BIER-TE  . . . . . . . . . .  24
     4.9.  Reuse of BitPositions (without DNR) . . . . . . . . . . .  24
     4.10. Summary of BP optimizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  26
   5.  Avoiding loops and duplicates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  27
     5.1.  Loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  27
     5.2.  Duplicates  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  27
   6.  BIER-TE Forwarding Pseudocode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  27
   7.  Managing SI, subdomains and BFR-ids . . . . . . . . . . . . .  30
     7.1.  Why SI and sub-domains  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  31
     7.2.  Bit assignment comparison BIER and BIER-TE  . . . . . . .  32
     7.3.  Using BFR-id with BIER-TE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  32
     7.4.  Assigning BFR-ids for BIER-TE . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  33
     7.5.  Example bit allocations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  34
       7.5.1.  With BIER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  34
       7.5.2.  With BIER-TE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  35
     7.6.  Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  36
   8.  BIER-TE and Segment Routing (SR)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  36
   9.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  37
   10. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  38
   11. Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  38
   12. Change log [RFC Editor: Please remove]  . . . . . . . . . . .  38
   13. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  42
     13.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  42
     13.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  43
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  43

1.  Introduction

   BIER-TE shares architecture, terminology and packet formats with BIER
   as described in [RFC8279] and [RFC8296].  This document describes




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   BIER-TE in the expectation that the reader is familiar with these two
   documents.

   In BIER-TE, BitPositions (BP) indicate adjacencies.  The BIFT of each
   BFR is only populated with BP that are adjacent to the BFR in the
   BIER-TE Topology.  Other BPs are left without adjacency.  The BFR
   replicate and forwards BIER packets to adjacent BPs that are set in
   the packet.  BPs are normally also reset upon forwarding to avoid
   duplicates and loops.  This is detailed further below.

   Note that related work, [I-D.ietf-roll-ccast] uses bloom filters to
   represent leaves or edges of the intended delivery tree.  Bloom
   filters in general can support larger trees/topologies with fewer
   addressing bits than explicit bitstrings, but they introduce the
   heuristic risk of false positives and cannot reset bits in the
   bitstring during forwarding to avoid loops.  For these reasons, BIER-
   TE uses explicit bitstrings like BIER.  The explicit bitstrings of
   BIER-TE can also be seen as a special type of bloom filter, and this
   is how related work [ICC] describes it.

1.1.  Basic Examples

   BIER-TE forwarding is best introduced with simple examples.




























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   BIER-TE Topology:

      Diagram:

                       p5    p6
                     --- BFR3 ---
                  p3/    p13     \p7
      BFR1 ---- BFR2              BFR5 ----- BFR6
         p1   p2  p4\    p14     /p10 p11   p12
                     --- BFR4 ---
                       p8    p9

      (simplified) BIER-TE Bit Index Forwarding Tables (BIFT):

      BFR1:   p1  -> local_decap
              p2  -> forward_connected to BFR2

      BFR2:   p1  -> forward_connected to BFR1
              p5  -> forward_connected to BFR3
              p8  -> forward_connected to BFR4

      BFR3:   p3  -> forward_connected to BFR2
              p7  -> forward_connected to BFR5
              p13 -> local_decap

      BFR4:   p4  -> forward_connected to BFR2
              p10 -> forward_connected to BFR5
              p14 -> local_decap

      BFR5:   p6  -> forward_connected to BFR3
              p9  -> forward_connected to BFR4
              p12 -> forward_connected to BFR6

      BFR6:   p11 -> forward_connected to BFR5
              p12 -> local_decap


                      Figure 1: BIER-TE basic example

   Consider the simple network in the above BIER-TE overview example
   picture with 6 BFRs. p1...p14 are the BitPositions (BP) used.  All
   BFRs can act as ingress BFR (BFIR), BFR1, BFR3, BFR4 and BFR6 can
   also be egress BFR (BFER).  Forward_connected is the name for
   adjacencies that are representing subnet adjacencies of the network.
   Local_decap is the name of the adjacency to decapsulate BIER-TE
   packets and pass their payload to higher layer processing.





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   Assume a packet from BFR1 should be sent via BFR4 to BFR6.  This
   requires a bitstring (p2,p8,p10,p12).  When this packet is examined
   by BIER-TE on BFR1, the only BitPosition from the bitstring that is
   also set in the BIFT is p2.  This will cause BFR1 to send the only
   copy of the packet to BFR2.  Similarly, BFR2 will forward to BFR4
   because of p8, BFR4 to BFR5 because of p10 and BFR5 to BFR6 because
   of p12. p12 also makes BFR6 receive and decapsulate the packet.

   To send in addition to BFR6 via BFR4 also a copy to BFR3, the
   bitstring needs to be (p2,p5,p8,p10,p12,p13).  When this packet is
   examined by BFR2, p5 causes one copy to be sent to BFR3 and p8 one
   copy to BFR4.  When BFR3 receives the packet, p13 will cause it to
   receive and decapsulate the packet.

   If instead the bitstring was (p2,p6,p8,p10,p12,p13), the packet would
   be copied by BFR5 towards BFR3 because p6 instead of BFR2 to BFR5
   because of p6 in the prior case.  This is showing the ability of the
   shown BIER-TE Topology to make the traffic pass across any possible
   path and be replicated where desired.

   BIER-TE has various options to minimize BP assignments, many of which
   are based on assumptions about the required multicast traffic paths
   and bandwidth consumption in the network.

   The following picture shows a modified example, in which Rtr2 and
   Rtr5 are assumed not to support BIER-TE, so traffic has to be unicast
   encapsulated across them.  Unicast tunneling of BIER-TE packets can
   leverage any feasible mechanism such as MPLS or IP, these
   encapsulations are out of scope of this document.  To emphasize non-
   native forwarding of BIER-TE packets, these adjacencies are called
   "forward_routed", but otherwise there is no difference in their
   processing over the aforementioned "forward_connected" adjacencies.

   In addition, bits are saved in the following example by assuming that
   BFR1 only needs to be BFIR but not BFER or transit BFR.
















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   BIER-TE Topology:

      Diagram:

                      p1  p3  p7
                   ....> BFR3 <....       p5
           ........                ........>
      BFR1       (Rtr2)          (Rtr5)      BFR6
           ........                ........>
                   ....> BFR4 <....       p6
                      p2  p4  p8

      (simplified) BIER-TE Bit Index Forwarding Tables (BIFT):

      BFR1:   p1  -> forward_routed to BFR3
              p2  -> forward_routed to BFR4

      BFR3:   p3  -> local_decap
              p5  -> forward_routed to BFR6

      BFR4:   p4  -> local_decap
              p6  -> forward_routed to BFR6

      BFR6:   p5  -> local_decap
              p6  -> local_decap
              p7  -> forward_routed to BFR3
              p8  -> forward_routed to BFR4


                  Figure 2: BIER-TE basic overlay example

   To send a BIER-TE packet from BFR1 via BFR3 to BFR6, the bitstring is
   (p1,p5).  From BFR1 via BFR4 to BFR6 it is (p2,p6).  A packet from
   BFR1 to BFR3,BFR4 and BFR6 can use (p1,p2,p3,p4,p5) or
   (p1,p2,p3,p4,p6), or via BFR6 (p2,p3,p4,p6,p7) or (p1.p3,p4,p5,p8).

1.2.  BIER-TE Topology and adjacencies

   The key new component in BIER-TE to control where replication can or
   should happens and how to minimize the required BP for segments is -
   as shown in these two examples - the BIER-TE topology.

   The BIER-TE Topology effectively consists of the BIFT of all the BFR
   and can also be expressed in a diagram as a graph where the edges are
   the adjacencies between the BFR.  Adjacencies are naturally
   unidirectional.  BP can be reused across multiple adjacencies as long
   as this does not lead to undesired duplicates or loops as explained
   further down in the text.



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   If the BIER-TE topology represents the underlying (layer 2) topology
   of the network, this is called "native" BIER-TE as shown in the first
   example.  This can be freely mixed with "overlay" BIER-TE, in
   "forward_routed" adjacencies are used.

1.3.  Comparison with BIER

   The key differences over BIER are:

   o  BIER-TE replaces in-network autonomous path calculation by
      explicit paths calculated off-path by the BIER-TE controller host.

   o  In BIER-TE every BitPosition of the BitString of a BIER-TE packet
      indicates one or more adjacencies - instead of a BFER as in BIER.

   o  BIER-TE in each BFR has no routing table but only a BIER-TE
      Forwarding Table (BIFT) indexed by SI:BitPosition and populated
      with only those adjacencies to which the BFR should replicate
      packets to.

   BIER-TE headers use the same format as BIER headers.

   BIER-TE forwarding does not require/use the BFIR-ID.  The BFIR-ID can
   still be useful though for coordinated BFIR/BFER functions, such as
   the context for upstream assigned labels for MPLS payloads in MVPN
   over BIER-TE.

   If the BIER-TE domain is also running BIER, then the BFIR-ID in BIER-
   TE packets can be set to the same BFIR-ID as used with BIER packets.

   If the BIER-TE domain is not running full BIER or does not want to
   reduce the need to allocate bits in BIER bitstrings for BFIR-ID
   values, then the allocation of BFIR-ID values in BIER-TE packets can
   be done through other mechanisms outside the scope of this document,
   as long as this is appropriately agreed upon between all BFIR/BFER.

1.4.  Requirements Language

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].

2.  Components

   End to end BIER-TE operations consists of four mayor components: The
   "Multicast Flow Overlay", the "BIER-TE control plane" consisting of
   the "BIER-TE Controller Host" and its signaling channels to the BFR,
   the "Routing Underlay" and the "BIER-TE forwarding layer".  The Bier-



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   TE Controller Host is the new architectural component in BIER-TE
   compared to BIER.

      Picture 2: Components of BIER-TE

                   <------BGP/PIM----->
      |<-IGMP/PIM->  multicast flow   <-PIM/IGMP->|
                        overlay

                  [BIER-TE Controller Host] <=> [BIER-TE Topology]
                   BIER-TE control plane
                      ^      ^     ^
                     /       |      \   BIER-TE control protocol
                    |        |       |  e.g. Netconf/Restconf/Yang
                    v        v       v
    Src -> Rtr1 -> BFIR-----BFR-----BFER -> Rtr2 -> Rcvr

                   |<----------------->|
                 BIER-TE forwarding layer

                   |<- BIER-TE domain->|

                 |<--------------------->|
                     Routing underlay

                      Figure 3: BIER-TE architecture

2.1.  The Multicast Flow Overlay

   The Multicast Flow Overlay operates as in BIER.  See [RFC8279].
   Instead of interacting with the BIER forwarding layer (as in BIER),
   it interacts with the BIER-TE Controller Host.

2.2.  The BIER-TE Controller Host

   The BIER-TE controller host is representing the control plane of
   BIER-TE.  It communicates two sets of information with BFRs:

   During initial provisioning or modifications of the network topology,
   the controller discovers the network topology and creates the BIER-TE
   topology from it: determine which adjacencies are required/desired
   and assign BitPositions to them.  Then it signals the resulting of
   BitPositions and their adjacencies to each BFR to set up their BIER-
   TE BIFTs.

   During day-to-day operations of the network, the controller signals
   to BFIRs what multicast flows are mapped to what BitStrings.




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   Communications between the BIER-TE controller host to BFRs is ideally
   via standardized protocols and data-models such as Netconf/Restconf/
   Yang.  This is currently outside the scope of this document.  Vendor-
   specific CLI on the BFRs is also a possible stopgap option (as in
   many other SDN solutions lacking definition of standardized data
   model).

   For simplicity, the procedures of the BIER-TE controller host are
   described in this document as if it is a single, centralized
   automated entity, such as an SDN controller.  It could equally be an
   operator setting up CLI on the BFRs.  Distribution of the functions
   of the BIER-TE controller host is currently outside the scope of this
   document.

2.2.1.  Assignment of BitPositions to adjacencies of the network
        topology

   The BIER-TE controller host tracks the BFR topology of the BIER-TE
   domain.  It determines what adjacencies require BitPositions so that
   BIER-TE explicit paths can be built through them as desired by
   operator policy.

   The controller then pushes the BitPositions/adjacencies to the BIFT
   of the BFRs, populating only those SI:BitPositions to the BIFT of
   each BFR to which that BFR should be able to send packets to -
   adjacencies connecting to this BFR.

2.2.2.  Changes in the network topology

   If the network topology changes (not failure based) so that
   adjacencies that are assigned to BitPositions are no longer needed,
   the controller can re-use those BitPositions for new adjacencies.
   First, these BitPositions need to be removed from any BFIR flow state
   and BFR BIFT state, then they can be repopulated, first into BIFT and
   then into the BFIR.

2.2.3.  Set up per-multicast flow BIER-TE state

   The BIER-TE controller host interacts with the multicast flow overlay
   to determine what multicast flow needs to be sent by a BFIR to which
   set of BFER.  It calculates the desired distribution tree across the
   BIER-TE domain based on algorithms outside the scope of this document
   (e.g.  CSFP, Steiner Tree, ...).  It then pushes the calculated
   BitString into the BFIR.

   See [I-D.ietf-bier-multicast-http-response] for a solution describing
   this interaction.




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2.2.4.  Link/Node Failures and Recovery

   When link or nodes fail or recover in the topology, BIER-TE can
   quickly respond with the optional FRR procedures described in [I-
   D.eckert-bier-te-frr].  It can also more slowly react by
   recalculating the BitStrings of affected multicast flows.  This
   reaction is slower than the FRR procedure because the controller
   needs to receive link/node up/down indications, recalculate the
   desired BitStrings and push them down into the BFIRs.  With FRR, this
   is all performed locally on a BFR receiving the adjacency up/down
   notification.

2.3.  The BIER-TE Forwarding Layer

   When the BIER-TE Forwarding Layer receives a packet, it simply looks
   up the BitPositions that are set in the BitString of the packet in
   the Bit Index Forwarding Table (BIFT) that was populated by the BIER-
   TE controller host.  For every BP that is set in the BitString, and
   that has one or more adjacencies in the BIFT, a copy is made
   according to the type of adjacencies for that BP in the BIFT.  Before
   sending any copy, the BFR resets all BP in the BitString of the
   packet for which the BFR has one or more adjacencies in the BIFT,
   except when the adjacency indicates "DoNotReset" (DNR, see
   Section 3.2.1).  This is done to inhibit that packets can loop.

2.4.  The Routing Underlay

   BIER-TE is sending BIER packets to directly connected BIER-TE
   neighbors as L2 (unicasted) BIER packets without requiring a routing
   underlay.  BIER-TE forwarding uses the Routing underlay for
   forward_routed adjacencies which copy BIER-TE packets to not-
   directly-connected BFRs (see below for adjacency definitions).

   If the BFR intends to support FRR for BIER-TE, then the BIER-TE
   forwarding plane needs to receive fast adjacency up/down
   notifications: Link up/down or neighbor up/down, e.g. from BFD.
   Providing these notifications is considered to be part of the routing
   underlay in this document.

3.  BIER-TE Forwarding

3.1.  The Bit Index Forwarding Table (BIFT)

   The Bit Index Forwarding Table (BIFT) exists in every BFR.  For every
   subdomain in use, it is a table indexed by SI:BitPosition and is
   populated by the BIER-TE control plane.  Each index can be empty or
   contain a list of one or more adjacencies.




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   BIER-TE can support multiple subdomains like BIER.  Each one with a
   separate BIFT

   In the BIER architecture, indices into the BIFT are explained to be
   both BFR-id and SI:BitString (BitPosition).  This is because there is
   a 1:1 relationship between BFR-id and SI:BitString - every bit in
   every SI is/can be assigned to a BFIR/BFER.  In BIER-TE there are
   more bits used in each BitString than there are BFIR/BFER assigned to
   the bitstring.  This is because of the bits required to express the
   (traffic engineered) path through the topology.  The BIER-TE
   forwarding definitions do therefore not use the term BFR-id at all.
   Instead, BFR-ids are only used as required by routing underlay, flow
   overlay of BIER headers.  Please refer to Section 7 for explanations
   how to deal with SI, subdomains and BFR-id in BIER-TE.

     ------------------------------------------------------------------
     | Index:          |  Adjacencies:                                |
     | SI:BitPosition  |  <empty> or one or more per entry            |
     ==================================================================
     | 0:1             |  forward_connected(interface,neighbor{,DNR}) |
     ------------------------------------------------------------------
     | 0:2             |  forward_connected(interface,neighbor{,DNR}) |
     |                 |  forward_connected(interface,neighbor{,DNR}) |
     ------------------------------------------------------------------
     | 0:3             |  local_decap({VRF})                          |
     ------------------------------------------------------------------
     | 0:4             |  forward_routed({VRF,}l3-neighbor)           |
     ------------------------------------------------------------------
     | 0:5             |  <empty>                                     |
     ------------------------------------------------------------------
     | 0:6             |  ECMP({adjacency1,...adjacencyN}, seed)      |
     ------------------------------------------------------------------
     ...
     | BitStringLength |  ...                                         |
     ------------------------------------------------------------------
                      Bit Index Forwarding Table


                        Figure 4: BIFT adjacencies

   The BIFT is programmed into the data plane of BFRs by the BIER-TE
   controller host and used to forward packets, according to the rules
   specified in the BIER-TE Forwarding Procedures.

   Adjacencies for the same BP when populated in more than one BFR by
   the controller does not have to have the same adjacencies.  This is
   up to the controller.  BPs for p2p links are one case (see below).




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3.2.  Adjacency Types

3.2.1.  Forward Connected

   A "forward_connected" adjacency is towards a directly connected BFR
   neighbor using an interface address of that BFR on the connecting
   interface.  A forward_connected adjacency does not route packets but
   only L2 forwards them to the neighbor.

   Packets sent to an adjacency with "DoNotReset" (DNR) set in the BIFT
   will not have the BitPosition for that adjacency reset when the BFR
   creates a copy for it.  The BitPosition will still be reset for
   copies of the packet made towards other adjacencies.  This can be
   used for example in ring topologies as explained below.

3.2.2.  Forward Routed

   A "forward_routed" adjacency is an adjacency towards a BFR that is
   not a forward_connected adjacency: towards a loopback address of a
   BFR or towards an interface address that is non-directly connected.
   Forward_routed packets are forwarded via the Routing Underlay.

   If the Routing Underlay has multiple paths for a forward_routed
   adjacency, it will perform ECMP independent of BIER-TE for packets
   forwarded across a forward_routed adjacency.  This is independent of
   BIER-TE ECMP described in Section 3.2.3.

   If the Routing Underlay has FRR, it will perform FRR independent of
   BIER-TE for packets forwarded across a forward_routed adjacency.

3.2.3.  ECMP

   The ECMP mechanisms in BIER are tied to the BIER BIFT and are
   therefore not directly useable with BIER-TE.  The following
   procedures describe ECMP for BIER-TE that we consider to be
   lightweight but also well manageable.  It leverages the existing
   entropy parameter in the BIER header to keep packets of the flows on
   the same path and it introduces a "seed" parameter to allow
   engineering traffic to be polarized or randomized across multiple
   hops.

   An "Equal Cost Multipath" (ECMP) adjacency has a list of two or more
   adjacencies included in it.  It copies the BIER-TE to one of those
   adjacencies based on the ECMP hash calculation.  The BIER-TE ECMP
   hash algorithm must select the same adjacency from that list for all
   packets with the same "entropy" value in the BIER-TE header if the
   same number of adjacencies and same seed are given as parameters.
   Further use of the seed parameter is explained below.



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3.2.4.  Local Decap

   A "local_decap" adjacency passes a copy of the payload of the BIER-TE
   packet to the packets NextProto within the BFR (IPv4/IPv6,
   Ethernet,...).  A local_decap adjacency turns the BFR into a BFER for
   matching packets.  Local_decap adjacencies require the BFER to
   support routing or switching for NextProto to determine how to
   further process the packet.

3.3.  Encapsulation considerations

   Specifications for BIER-TE encapsulation are outside the scope of
   this document.  This section gives explanations and guidelines.

   Because a BFR needs to interpret the BitString of a BIER-TE packet
   differently from a BIER packet, it is necessary to distinguish BIER
   from BIER-TE packets.  This is subject to definitions in BIER
   encapsulation specifications.

   MPLS encapsulation [RFC8296] for example assigns one label by which
   BFRs recognizes BIER packets for every (SI,subdomain) combination.
   If it is desirable that every subdomain can forward only BIER or
   BIER-TE packets, then the label allocation could stay the same, and
   only the forwarding model (BIER/BIER-TE) would have to be defined per
   subdomain.  If it is desirable to support both BIER and BIER-TE
   forwarding in the same subdomain, then additional labels would need
   to be assigned for BIER-TE forwarding.

   "forward_routed" requires an encapsulation permitting to unicast
   BIER-TE packets to a specific interface address on a target BFR.
   With MPLS encapsulation, this can simply be done via a label stack
   with that addresses label as the top label - followed by the label
   assigned to (SI,subdomain) - and if necessary (see above) BIER-TE.
   With non-MPLS encapsulation, some form of IP tunneling (IP in IP,
   LISP, GRE) would be required.

   The encapsulation used for "forward_routed" adjacencies can equally
   support existing advanced adjacency information such as "loose source
   routes" via e.g.  MPLS label stacks or appropriate header extensions
   (e.g. for IPv6).

3.4.  Basic BIER-TE Forwarding Example

   [RFC Editor: remove this section.]

   THIS SECTION TO BE REMOVED IN RFC BECAUSE IT WAS SUPERCEEDED BY
   SECTION 1.1 EXAMPLE - UNLESS REVIEWERS CHIME IN AND EXPRESS DESIRE TO
   KEEP THIS ADDITIONAL EXAMPLE SECTION.



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   Step by step example of basic BIER-TE forwarding.  This does not use
   ECMP or forward_routed adjacencies nor does it try to minimize the
   number of required BitPositions for the topology.

               [Bier-Te Controller Host]
                       /   | \
                      v    v  v

           | p13   p1 |
           +- BFIR2 --+          |
           |          | p2   p6  |           LAN2
           |          +-- BFR3 --+           |
           |          |          |  p7  p11  |
      Src -+                     +-- BFER1 --+
           |          | p3   p8  |           |
           |          +-- BFR4 --+           +-- Rcv1
           |          |          |           |
           |          |
           | p14  p4  |
           +- BFIR1 --+          |
           |          +-- BFR5 --+ p10  p12  |
         LAN1         | p5   p9  +-- BFER2 --+
                                 |           +-- Rcv2
                                             |
                                             LAN3

          IP  |..... BIER-TE network......| IP

                   Figure 5: BIER-TE Forwarding Example

   pXX indicate the BitPositions number assigned by the BIER-TE
   controller host to adjacencies in the BIER-TE topology.  For example,
   p9 is the adjacency towards BFR5 on the LAN connecting to BFER2.


















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      BIFT BFIR2:
        p13: local_decap()
         p2: forward_connected(BFR3)

      BIFT BFR3:
         p1: forward_connected(BFIR2)
         p7: forward_connected(BFER1)
         p8: forward_connected(BFR4)

      BIFT BFER1:
        p11: local_decap()
         p6: forward_connected(BFR3)
         p8: forward_connected(BFR4)

             Figure 6: BIER-TE Forwarding Example Adjacencies

   ...and so on.

   For example, we assume that some multicast traffic seen on LAN1 needs
   to be sent via BIER-TE by BFIR2 towards Rcv1 and Rcv2.  The
   controller determines it wants it to pass this traffic across the
   following paths:

                 -> BFER1 ---------------> Rcv1
    BFIR2 -> BFR3
                 -> BFR4 -> BFR5 -> BFER2 -> Rcv2

                Figure 7: BIER-TE Forwarding Example Paths

   These paths equal to the following BitString: p2, p5, p7, p8, p10,
   p11, p12.

   This BitString is assigned by BFIR2 to the example multicast traffic
   received from LAN1.

   Then BFIR2 forwards this multicast traffic with BIER-TE based on that
   BitString.  The BIFT of BFIR2 has only p2 and p13 populated.  Only p2
   is in the BitString and this is an adjacency towards BFR3.  BFIR2
   therefore resets p2 in the BitString and sends a copy towards BFR2.

   BFR3 sees a BitString of p5,p7,p8,p10,p11,p12.  It is only interested
   in p1,p7,p8.  It creates a copy of the packet to BFER1 (due to p7)
   and one to BFR4 (due to p8).  It resets p7, p8 before sending.

   BFER1 sees a BitString of p5,p10,p11,p12.  It is only interested in
   p6,p7,p8,p11 and therefore considers only p11. p11 is a "local_decap"
   adjacency installed by the BIER-TE controller host because BFER1
   should pass packets to IP multicast.  The local_decap adjacency



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   instructs BFER1 to create a copy, decapsulate it from the BIER header
   and pass it on to the NextProtocol, in this example IP multicast.  IP
   multicast will then forward the packet out to LAN2 because it did
   receive PIM or IGMP joins on LAN2 for the traffic.

   Further processing of the packet in BFR4, BFR5 and BFER2 accordingly.

3.5.  Forwarding comparison with BIER

   Forwarding of BIER-TE is designed to allow common forwarding hardware
   with BIER.  In fact, one of the main goals of this document is to
   encourage the building of forwarding hardware that can not only
   support BIER, but also BIER-TE - to allow experimentation with BIER-
   TE and support building of BIER-TE control plane code.

   The pseudocode in Section 6 shows how existing BIER/BIFT forwarding
   can be amended to support basic BIER-TE forwarding, by using BIER
   BIFT's F-BM.  Only the masking of bits due to avoid duplicates must
   be skipped when forwarding is for BIER-TE.

   Whether to use BIER or BIER-TE forwarding can simply be a configured
   choice per subdomain and accordingly be set up by a BIER-TE
   controller host.  The BIER packet encapsulation [RFC8296] too can be
   reused without changes except that the currently defined BIER-TE ECMP
   adjacency does not leverage the entropy field so that field would be
   unused when BIER-TE forwarding is used.

3.6.  Requirements

   Basic BIER-TE forwarding MUST support to configure Subdomains to use
   basic BIER-TE forwarding rules (instead of BIER).  With basic BIER-TE
   forwarding, every bit MUST support to have zero or one adjacency.  It
   MUST support the adjacency types forward_connected without DNR flag,
   forward_routed and local_decap.  All other BIER-TE forwarding
   features are optional.  These basic BIER-TE requirements make BIER-TE
   forwarding exactly the same as BIER forwarding with the exception of
   skipping the aforementioned F-BM masking on egress.

   BIER-TE forwarding SHOULD support the DNR flag, as this is highly
   useful to save bits in rings (see Section 4.6).

   BIER-TE forwarding MAY support more than one adjacency on a bit and
   ECMP adjacencies.  The importance of ECMP adjacencies is unclear when
   traffic engineering is used because it may be more desirable to
   explicitly steer traffic across non-ECMP paths to make per-path
   traffic calculation easier for controllers.  Having more than one
   adjacency for a bit allows further savings of bits in hub&spoke
   scenarios, but unlike rings it is less "natural" to flood traffic



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   across multiple links unconditional.  Both ECMP and multiple
   adjacencies are forwarding plane features that should be possible to
   support later when needed as they do not impact the basic BIER-TE
   replication loop.  This is true because there is no inter-copy
   dependency through resetting of F-BM as in BIER.

4.  BIER-TE Controller Host BitPosition Assignments

   This section describes how the BIER-TE controller host can use the
   different BIER-TE adjacency types to define the BitPositions of a
   BIER-TE domain.

   Because the size of the BitString is limiting the size of the BIER-TE
   domain, many of the options described exist to support larger
   topologies with fewer BitPositions (4.1, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7,
   4.8).

4.1.  P2P Links

   Each P2p link in the BIER-TE domain is assigned one unique
   BitPosition with a forward_connected adjacency pointing to the
   neighbor on the p2p link.

4.2.  BFER

   Every non-Leaf BFER is given a unique BitPosition with a local_decap
   adjacency.

4.3.  Leaf BFERs

           BFR1(P) BFR2(P)             BFR1(P)  BFR2(P)
             |  \ /  |                    |       |
             |   X   |                    |       |
             |  / \  |                    |       |
        BFER1(PE)  BFER2(PE)        BFER1(PE)----BFER2(PE)

            Leaf BFER /               Non-Leaf BFER /
             PE-router                  PE-router

                 Figure 8: Leaf vs. non-Leaf BFER Example

   Leaf BFERs are BFERs where incoming BIER-TE packets never need to be
   forwarded to another BFR but are only sent to the BFER to exit the
   BIER-TE domain.  For example, in networks where PEs are spokes
   connected to P routers, those PEs are Leaf BFERs unless there is a
   U-turn between two PEs.  Consider how redundant disjoint traffic can
   reach BFER1/BFER2 in above picture: When BFER1/BFER2 are Non-Leaf
   BFER as shown on the right hand side, one traffic copy would be



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   forwarded to BFER1 from BFR1, but the other one could only reach
   BFER1 via BFER2, which makes BFER2 a non-Leaf BFER.  Likewise BFER1
   is a non-Leaf BFER when forwarding traffic to BFER2.

   Note that the BFERs in the left hand picture are only guaranteed to
   be leaf-BFER by fitting routing configuration that prohibits transit
   traffic to pass through the BFERs, which is commonly applied in these
   topologies.

   All leaf-BFER in a BIER-TE domain can share a single BitPosition.
   This is possible because the BitPosition for the adjacency to reach
   the BFER can be used to distinguish whether or not packets should
   reach the BFER.

   This optimization will not work if an upstream interface of the BFER
   is using a BitPosition optimized as described in the following two
   sections (LAN, Hub and Spoke).

4.4.  LANs

   In a LAN, the adjacency to each neighboring BFR on the LAN is given a
   unique BitPosition.  The adjacency of this BitPosition is a
   forward_connected adjacency towards the BFR and this BitPosition is
   populated into the BIFT of all the other BFRs on that LAN.

            BFR1
             |p1
      LAN1-+-+---+-----+
          p3|  p4|   p2|
          BFR3 BFR4  BFR7

                           Figure 9: LAN Example

   If Bandwidth on the LAN is not an issue and most BIER-TE traffic
   should be copied to all neighbors on a LAN, then BitPositions can be
   saved by assigning just a single BitPosition to the LAN and
   populating the BitPosition of the BIFTs of each BFRs on the LAN with
   a list of forward_connected adjacencies to all other neighbors on the
   LAN.

   This optimization does not work in the case of BFRs redundantly
   connected to more than one LANs with this optimization because these
   BFRs would receive duplicates and forward those duplicates into the
   opposite LANs.  Adjacencies of such BFRs into their LANs still need a
   separate BitPosition.






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4.5.  Hub and Spoke

   In a setup with a hub and multiple spokes connected via separate p2p
   links to the hub, all p2p links can share the same BitPosition.  The
   BitPosition on the hub's BIFT is set up with a list of
   forward_connected adjacencies, one for each Spoke.

   This option is similar to the BitPosition optimization in LANs:
   Redundantly connected spokes need their own BitPositions.

   This type of optimized BP could be used for example when all traffic
   is "broadcast" traffic (very dense receiver set) such as live-TV or
   situation-awareness (SA).  This BP optimization can then be used to
   explicitly steer different traffic flows across different ECMP paths
   in Data-Center or broadband-aggregation networks with minimal use of
   BPs.

4.6.  Rings

   In L3 rings, instead of assigning a single BitPosition for every p2p
   link in the ring, it is possible to save BitPositions by setting the
   "Do Not Reset" (DNR) flag on forward_connected adjacencies.

   For the rings shown in the following picture, a single BitPosition
   will suffice to forward traffic entering the ring at BFRa or BFRb all
   the way up to BFR1:

   On BFRa, BFRb, BFR30,... BFR3, the BitPosition is populated with a
   forward_connected adjacency pointing to the clockwise neighbor on the
   ring and with DNR set.  On BFR2, the adjacency also points to the
   clockwise neighbor BFR1, but without DNR set.

   Handling DNR this way ensures that copies forwarded from any BFR in
   the ring to a BFR outside the ring will not have the ring BitPosition
   set, therefore minimizing the chance to create loops.

                  v        v
                  |        |
           L1     |   L2   |   L3
       /-------- BFRa ---- BFRb --------------------\
       |                                            |
       \- BFR1 - BFR2 - BFR3 - ... - BFR29 - BFR30 -/
           |      |    L4               |      |
        p33|                         p15|
           BFRd                       BFRc

                          Figure 10: Ring Example




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   Note that this example only permits for packets to enter the ring at
   BFRa and BFRb, and that packets will always travel clockwise.  If
   packets should be allowed to enter the ring at any ring BFR, then one
   would have to use two ring BitPositions.  One for clockwise, one for
   counterclockwise.

   Both would be set up to stop rotating on the same link, e.g.  L1.
   When the ingress ring BFR creates the clockwise copy, it will reset
   the counterclockwise BitPosition because the DNR bit only applies to
   the bit for which the replication is done.  Likewise for the
   clockwise BitPosition for the counterclockwise copy.  In result, the
   ring ingress BFR will send a copy in both directions, serving BFRs on
   either side of the ring up to L1.

4.7.  Equal Cost MultiPath (ECMP)

   The ECMP adjacency allows to use just one BP per link bundle between
   two BFRs instead of one BP for each p2p member link of that link
   bundle.  In the following picture, one BP is used across L1,L2,L3.

                --L1-----
           BFR1 --L2----- BFR2
                --L3-----

     BIFT entry in BFR1:
     ------------------------------------------------------------------
     | Index |  Adjacencies                                           |
     ==================================================================
     | 0:6   |  ECMP({forward_connected(L1, BFR2),                    |
     |       |        forward_connected(L2, BFR2),                    |
     |       |        forward_connected(L3, BFR2)}, seed)             |
     ------------------------------------------------------------------

     BIFT entry in BFR2:
     ------------------------------------------------------------------
     | Index |  Adjacencies                                           |
     ==================================================================
     | 0:6   |  ECMP({forward_connected(L1, BFR1),                    |
     |       |        forward_connected(L2, BFR1),                    |
     |       |        forward_connected(L3, BFR1)}, seed)             |
     ------------------------------------------------------------------

                          Figure 11: ECMP Example

   This document does not standardize any ECMP algorithm because it is
   sufficient for implementations to document their freely chosen ECMP
   algorithm.  This allows the BIER-TE controller host to calculate ECMP




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   paths and seeds.  The following picture shows an example ECMP
   algorithm:


      forward(packet, ECMP(adj(0), adj(1),... adj(N-1), seed)):
         i = (packet(bier-header-entropy) XOR seed) % N
         forward packet to adj(i)


                     Figure 12: ECMP algorithm Example

   In the following example, all traffic from BFR1 towards BFR10 is
   intended to be ECMP load split equally across the topology.  This
   example is not meant as a likely setup, but to illustrate that ECMP
   can be used to share BPs not only across link bundles, and it
   explains the use of the seed parameter.

                    BFR1         (BFIR)
                  /L11  \L12
                 /       \
             BFR2         BFR3
            /L21 \L22    /L31 \L32
           /      \     /      \
          BFR4  BFR5   BFR6  BFR7
           \      /     \      /
            \    /       \    /
             BFR8         BFR9
                 \       /
                  \     /
                   BFR10         (BFER)

     BIFT entry in BFR1:
     ------------------------------------------------------------------
     | 0:6   |  ECMP({forward_connected(L11, BFR2),                   |
     |       |        forward_connected(L12, BFR3)}, seed1)           |
     ------------------------------------------------------------------

     BIFT entry in BFR2:
     ------------------------------------------------------------------
     | 0:7   |  ECMP({forward_connected(L21, BFR4),                   |
     |       |        forward_connected(L22, BFR5)}, seed1)           |
     ------------------------------------------------------------------

     BIFT entry in BFR3:
     ------------------------------------------------------------------
     | 0:7   |  ECMP({forward_connected(L31, BFR6),                   |
     |       |        forward_connected(L32, BFR7)}, seed1)           |
     ------------------------------------------------------------------



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     BIFT entry in BFR4, BFR5:
     ------------------------------------------------------------------
     | 0:8   |  forward_connected(Lxx, BFR8)  |xx differs on BFR4/BFR5|
     ------------------------------------------------------------------

     BIFT entry in BFR6, BFR7:
     ------------------------------------------------------------------
     | 0:8   |  forward_connected(Lxx, BFR9)  |xx differs on BFR6/BFR7|
     ------------------------------------------------------------------

     BIFT entry in BFR8, BFR9:
     ------------------------------------------------------------------
     | 0:9   |  forward_connected(Lxx, BFR10) |xx differs on BFR8/BFR9|
     ------------------------------------------------------------------


                      Figure 13: Polarization Example

   Note that for the following discussion of ECMP, only the BIFT ECMP
   adjacencies on BFR1, BFR2, BFR3 are relevant.  The re-use of BP
   across BFR in this example is further explained in Section 4.9 below.

   With the setup of ECMP in above topology, traffic would not be
   equally load-split.  Instead, links L22 and L31 would see no traffic
   at all: BFR2 will only see traffic from BFR1 for which the ECMP hash
   in BFR1 selected the first adjacency in the list of 2 adjacencies
   given as parameters to the ECMP.  It is link L11-to-BFR2.  BFR2
   performs again ECMP with two adjacencies on that subset of traffic
   using the same seed1, and will therefore again select the first of
   its two adjacencies: L21-to-BFR4.  And therefore L22 and BFR5 sees no
   traffic.  Likewise for L31 and BFR6.

   This issue in BFR2/BFR3 is called polarization.  It results from the
   re-use of the same hash function across multiple consecutive hops in
   topologies like these.  To resolve this issue, the ECMP adjacency on
   BFR1 can be set up with a different seed2 than the ECMP adjacencies
   on BFR2/BFR3.  BFR2/BFR3 can use the same hash because packets will
   not sequentially pass across both of them.  Therefore, they can also
   use the same BP 0:7.

   Note that ECMP solutions outside of BIER often hide the seed by auto-
   selecting it from local entropy such as unique local or next-hop
   identifiers.  The solutions choosen for BIER-TE to allow the
   controller to explicitly set the seed maximizes the ability of the
   controller to choose the seed, independent of such seed source that
   the controller may not be able to control well, and even calculate
   optimized seeds for multi-hop cases.




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4.8.  Routed adjacencies

4.8.1.  Reducing BitPositions

   Routed adjacencies can reduce the number of BitPositions required
   when the traffic engineering requirement is not hop-by-hop explicit
   path selection, but loose-hop selection.  Routed adjacencies can also
   allow to operate BIER-TE across intermediate hop routers that do not
   support BIER-TE.

                      ...............
            ...BFR1--...           ...--L1-- BFR2...
                     ... .Routers. ...--L2--/
            ...BFR4--...           ...------ BFR3...
                      ...............         |
                                             LO
                       Network Area 1

                   Figure 14: Routed Adjacencies Example

   Assume the requirement in the above picture is to explicitly steer
   traffic flows that have arrived at BFR1 or BFR4 via a shortest path
   in the routing underlay "Network Area 1" to one of the following
   three next segments: (1) BFR2 via link L1, (2) BFR2 via link L2, (3)
   via BFR3.

   To enable this, both BFR1 and BFR4 are set up with a forward_routed
   adjacency BitPosition towards an address of BFR2 on link L1, another
   forward_routed BitPosition towards an address of BFR2 on link L2 and
   a third forward_routed Bitposition towards a node address LO of BFR3.

4.8.2.  Supporting nodes without BIER-TE

   Routed adjacencies also enable incremental deployment of BIER-TE.
   Only the nodes through which BIER-TE traffic needs to be steered -
   with or without replication - need to support BIER-TE.  Where they
   are not directly connected to each other, forward_routed adjacencies
   are used to pass over non BIER-TE enabled nodes.

4.9.  Reuse of BitPositions (without DNR)

   BitPositions can be re-used across multiple BFR to minimize the
   number of BP needed.  This happens when adjacencies on multiple BFR
   use the DNR flag as described above, but it can also be done for non-
   DNR adjacencies.  This section only discussses this non-DNR case.

   Because BP are reset after passing a BFR with an adjacency for that
   BP, reuse of BP across multiple BFR does not introduce any problems



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   with duplicates or loops that do not also exist when every adjacency
   has a unique BP: Instead of setting one BP in a BitString that is
   reused in N-adjacencies, one would get the same or worse results if
   each of these adjacencies had a unique BP and all of them where set
   in the BitString.  Instead, based on the case, BPs can be reused
   without limitation, or they introduce fewer path engineering choices,
   or they do not work.

   BP cannot be reused across two BFR that would need to be passed
   sequentially for some path: The first BFR will reset the BP, so those
   paths cannot be built.  BP can be set across BFR that would (A) only
   occur across different paths or (B) across different branches of the
   same tree.

   An example of (A) was given in Figure 13, where BP 0:7, BP 0:8 and BP
   0:9 are each reused across multiple BFR because a single packet/path
   would never be able to reach more than one BFR sharing the same BP.

   Assume the example was changed: BFR1 has no ECMP adjacency for BP
   0:6, but instead BP 0:5 with forward_connected to BFR2 and BP 0:6
   with forward_connected to BFR3.  Packets with both BP 0:5 and BP 0:6
   would now be able to reach both BFR2 and BFR3 and the still existing
   re-use of BP 0:7 between BFR2 and BFR3 is a case of (B) where reuse
   of BP is perfect because it does not limit the set of useful path
   choices:

   If instead of reusing BP 0:7, BFR3 used a separate BP 0:10 for its
   ECMP adjacency, no useful additional path engineering would be
   enabled.  If duplicates at BFR10 where undesirable, this would be
   done by not setting BP 0:5 and BP 0:6 for the same packet.  If the
   duplicates where desirable (e.g.: resilient transmission), the
   additional BP 0:10 would also not render additional value.

   Reuse may also save BPs in larger topologies.  Consider the topology
   shown in Figure 17, but only the following explanations: A BFIR/
   sender (e.g.: video headend) is attached to area 1, and area 2...6
   contain receivers/BFER.  Assume each area had a distribution ring,
   each with two BPs to indicate the direction (as explained in before).
   These two BPs could be reused across the 5 areas.  Packets would be
   replicated through other BPs to the desired subset of areas, and once
   a packet copy reaches the ring of the area, the two ring BPs come
   into play.  This reuse is a case of (B), but it limits the topology
   choices: Packets can only flow around the same direction in the rings
   of all areas.  This may or may not be acceptable based on the desired
   traffic engineering: If resilient transmission is the traffic
   engineering goal, then it is likely a good optimization, if the
   bandwidth of each ring was to be optimized separately, it would not
   be a good limitation.



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4.10.  Summary of BP optimizations

   This section reviewed a range of techniques by which a controller can
   create a BIER-TE topology in a way that minimizes the number of
   necessary BPs.

   Without any optimization, a controller would attempt to map the
   network subnet topology 1:1 into the BIER-TE topology and every
   subnet adjacent neighbor requires a forward_connected BP and every
   BFER requires a local_decap BP.

   The optimizations described are then as follows:

   o  P2p links require only one BP (Section 4.1).

   o  All leaf-BFER can share a single local_decap BP (Section 4.3).

   o  A LAN with N BFR needs at most N BP (one for each BFR).  It only
      needs one BP for all those BFR tha are not redundanty connected to
      multiple LANs (Section 4.4).

   o  A hub with p2p connections to multiple non-leaf-BFER spokes can
      share one BP to all spokes if traffic can be flooded to all
      spokes, e.g.: because of no bandwidth concerns or dense receiver
      sets (Section 4.5).

   o  Rings of BFR can be built with just two BP (one for each
      direction) except for BFR with multiple ring connections - similar
      to LANs (Section 4.6).

   o  ECMP adjacencies to N neighbors can replace N BP with 1 BP.
      Multihop ECMP can avoid polarization through different seeds of
      the ECMP algorithm (Section 4.7).

   o  Routed adjacencies allow to "tunnel" across non-BIER-TE capable
      routers and across BIER-TE capable routers where no traffic-
      steering or replications are required (Section 4.8).

   o  BP can generally be reused across nodes that do not need to be
      consecutive in paths, but depending on scenario, this may limit
      the feasible traffic engineering options (Section 4.9).

   Note that the described list of optimizations is not exhaustive.
   Especially when the set of required path engineering choices is
   limited and the set of possible subsets of BFER that should be able
   to receive traffic is limited, further optimizations of BP are
   possible.  The hub & spoke optimization is a simple example of such
   traffic pattern dependent optimizations.



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5.  Avoiding loops and duplicates

5.1.  Loops

   Whenever BIER-TE creates a copy of a packet, the BitString of that
   copy will have all BitPositions cleared that are associated with
   adjacencies on the BFR.  This inhibits looping of packets.  The only
   exception are adjacencies with DNR set.

   With DNR set, looping can happen.  Consider in the ring picture that
   link L4 from BFR3 is plugged into the L1 interface of BFRa.  This
   creates a loop where the rings clockwise BitPosition is never reset
   for copies of the packets traveling clockwise around the ring.

   To inhibit looping in the face of such physical misconfiguration,
   only forward_connected adjacencies are permitted to have DNR set, and
   the link layer port unique unicast destination address of the
   adjacency (e.g.  MAC address) protects against closing the loop.
   Link layers without port unique link layer addresses should not be
   used with the DNR flag set.

5.2.  Duplicates

   Duplicates happen when the topology of the BitString is not a tree
   but redundantly connecting BFRs with each other.  The controller must
   therefore ensure to only create BitStrings that are trees in the
   topology.

   When links are incorrectly physically re-connected before the
   controller updates BitStrings in BFIRs, duplicates can happen.  Like
   loops, these can be inhibited by link layer addressing in
   forward_connected adjacencies.

   If interface or loopback addresses used in forward_routed adjacencies
   are moved from one BFR to another, duplicates can equally happen.
   Such re-addressing operations must be coordinated with the
   controller.

6.  BIER-TE Forwarding Pseudocode

   The following simplified pseudocode for BIER-TE forwarding is using
   BIER forwarding pseudocode of [RFC8279], section 6.5 with the one
   modification necessary to support basic BIER-TE forwarding.  Like the
   BIER pseudo forwarding code, for simplicity it does hide the details
   of the adjacency processing inside PacketSend() which can be
   forward_connected, forward_routed or local_decap.





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      void ForwardBitMaskPacket_withTE (Packet)
      {
          SI=GetPacketSI(Packet);
          Offset=SI*BitStringLength;
          for (Index = GetFirstBitPosition(Packet->BitString); Index ;
               Index = GetNextBitPosition(Packet->BitString, Index)) {
              F-BM = BIFT[Index+Offset]->F-BM;
              if (!F-BM) continue;
              BFR-NBR = BIFT[Index+Offset]->BFR-NBR;
              PacketCopy = Copy(Packet);
              PacketCopy->BitString &= F-BM;                  [2]
              PacketSend(PacketCopy, BFR-NBR);
              // The following must not be done for BIER-TE:
              // Packet->BitString &= ~F-BM;                  [1]
          }
      }

            Figure 15: Simplified BIER-TE Forwarding Pseudocode

   The difference is that in BIER-TE, step [1] must not be performed,
   but is replaced with [2] (when the forwarding plane algorithm is
   implemented verbatim as shown above).

   In BIER, the F-BM of a BP has all BP set that are meant to be
   forwarded via the same neighbor.  It is used to reset those BP in the
   packet after the first copy to this neighbor has been made to inhibit
   multiple copies to the same neighbor.

   In BIER-TE, the F-BM of a particular BP with an adjacency is the list
   of all BPs with an adjacency on this BFR except the particular BP
   itself if it has an adjacency with the DNR bit set.  The F-BM is used
   to reset the F-BM BPs before creating copies.

   In BIER, the order of BPs impacts the result of forwarding because of
   [1].  In BIER-TE, forwarding is not impacted by the order of BPs.  It
   is therefore possible to further optimize forwarding than in BIER.
   For example, BIER-TE forwarding can be parallelized such that a
   parallel instance (such as an egres linecard) can process any subset
   of BPs without any considerations for the other BPs - and without any
   prior, cross-BP shared processing.

   The above simplified pseudocode is elaborated further as follows:

   o  This pseudocode eliminates per-bit F-BM, therefore reducing state
      by BitStringLength^2*SI and eliminating the need for per-packet-
      copy masking operation except for adjacencies with DNR flag set:





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      *  AdjacentBits[SI] are bits with a non-empty list of adjacencies.
         This can be computed whenever the BIER-TE controller host
         updates the adjacencies.

      *  Only the AdjacentBits need to be examined in the loop for
         packet copies.

      *  The packets BitString is masked with those AdjacentBits on
         ingress to avoid packets looping.

   o  The code loops over the adjacencies because there may be more than
      one adjacency for a bit.

   o  When an adjacency has the DNR bit, the bit is set in the packet
      copy (to save bits in rings for example).

   o  The ECMP adjacency is shown.  Its parameters are a
      ListOfAdjacencies from which one is picked.

   o  The forward_local, forward_routed, local_decap adjacencies are
      shown with their parameters.






























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     void ForwardBitMaskPacket_withTE (Packet)
     {
         SI=GetPacketSI(Packet);
         Offset=SI*BitStringLength;
         AdjacentBitstring = Packet->BitString &= ~AdjacentBits[SI];
         Packet->BitString &= AdjacentBits[SI];
         for (Index = GetFirstBitPosition(AdjacentBits); Index ;
              Index = GetNextBitPosition(AdjacentBits, Index)) {
             foreach adjacency BIFT[Index+Offset] {
                 if(adjacency == ECMP(ListOfAdjacencies, seed) ) {
                     I = ECMP_hash(sizeof(ListOfAdjacencies),
                                   Packet->Entropy, seed);
                     adjacency = ListOfAdjacencies[I];
                 }
                 PacketCopy = Copy(Packet);
                 switch(adjacency) {
                     case forward_connected(interface,neighbor,DNR):
                         if(DNR)
                             PacketCopy->BitString |= 2<<(Index-1);
                         SendToL2Unicast(PacketCopy,interface,neighbor);

                     case forward_routed({VRF},neighbor):
                         SendToL3(PacketCopy,{VRF,}l3-neighbor);

                     case local_decap({VRF},neighbor):
                         DecapBierHeader(PacketCopy);
                         PassTo(PacketCopy,{VRF,}Packet->NextProto);
                 }
             }
         }
     }

                 Figure 16: BIER-TE Forwarding Pseudocode

7.  Managing SI, subdomains and BFR-ids

   When the number of bits required to represent the necessary hops in
   the topology and BFER exceeds the supported bitstring length,
   multiple SI and/or subdomains must be used.  This section discusses
   how.

   BIER-TE forwarding does not require the concept of BFR-id, but
   routing underlay, flow overlay and BIER headers may.  This section
   also discusses how BFR-ids can be assigned to BFIR/BFER for BIER-TE.







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7.1.  Why SI and sub-domains

   For BIER and BIER-TE forwarding, the most important result of using
   multiple SI and/or subdomains is the same: Packets that need to be
   sent to BFER in different SI or subdomains require different BIER
   packets: each one with a bitstring for a different (SI,subdomain)
   combination.  Each such bitstring uses one bitstring length sized SI
   block in the BIFT of the subdomain.  We call this a BIFT:SI (block).

   For BIER and BIER-TE forwarding itself there is also no difference
   whether different SI and/or sub-domains are chosen, but SI and
   subdomain have different purposes in the BIER architecture shared by
   BIER-TE.  This impacts how operators are managing them and how
   especially flow overlays will likely use them.

   By default, every possible BFIR/BFER in a BIER network would likely
   be given a BFR-id in subdomain 0 (unless there are > 64k BFIR/BFER).

   If there are different flow services (or service instances) requiring
   replication to different subsets of BFER, then it will likely not be
   possible to achieve the best replication efficiency for all of these
   service instances via subdomain 0.  Ideal replication efficiency for
   N BFER exists in a subdomain if they are split over not more than
   ceiling(N/bitstring-length) SI.

   If service instances justify additional BIER:SI state in the network,
   additional subdomains will be used: BFIR/BFER are assigned BFIR-id in
   those subdomains and each service instance is configured to use the
   most appropriate subdomain.  This results in improved replication
   efficiency for different services.

   Even if creation of subdomains and assignment of BFR-id to BFIR/BFER
   in those subdomains is automated, it is not expected that individual
   service instances can deal with BFER in different subdomains.  A
   service instance may only support configuration of a single subdomain
   it should rely on.

   To be able to easily reuse (and modify as little as possible)
   existing BIER procedures including flow-overlay and routing underlay,
   when BIER-TE forwarding is added, we therefore reuse SI and subdomain
   logically in the same way as they are used in BIER: All necessary
   BFIR/BFER for a service use a single BIER-TE BIFT and are split
   across as many SI as necessary (see below).  Different services may
   use different subdomains that primarily exist to provide more
   efficient replication (and for BIER-TE desirable traffic engineering)
   for different subsets of BFIR/BFER.





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7.2.  Bit assignment comparison BIER and BIER-TE

   In BIER, bitstrings only need to carry bits for BFER, which leads to
   the model that BFR-ids map 1:1 to each bit in a bitstring.

   In BIER-TE, bitstrings need to carry bits to indicate not only the
   receiving BFER but also the intermediate hops/links across which the
   packet must be sent.  The maximum number of BFER that can be
   supported in a single bitstring or BIFT:SI depends on the number of
   bits necessary to represent the desired topology between them.

   "Desired" topology because it depends on the physical topology, and
   on the desire of the operator to allow for explicit traffic
   engineering across every single hop (which requires more bits), or
   reducing the number of required bits by exploiting optimizations such
   as unicast (forward_route), ECMP or flood (DNR) over "uninteresting"
   sub-parts of the topology - e.g. parts where different trees do not
   need to take different paths due to traffic-engineering reasons.

   The total number of bits to describe the topology vs. the BFER in a
   BIFT:SI can range widely based on the size of the topology and the
   amount of alternative paths in it.  The higher the percentage, the
   higher the likelihood, that those topology bits are not just BIER-TE
   overhead without additional benefit, but instead that they will allow
   to express desirable traffic-engineering path alternatives.

7.3.  Using BFR-id with BIER-TE

   Because there is no 1:1 mapping between bits in the bitstring and
   BFER, BIER-TE cannot simply rely on the BIER 1:1 mapping between bits
   in a bitstring and BFR-id.

   In BIER, automatic schemes could assign all possible BFR-ids
   sequentially to BFERs.  This will not work in BIER-TE.  In BIER-TE,
   the operator or BIER-TE controller host has to determine a BFR-id for
   each BFER in each required subdomain.  The BFR-id may or may not have
   a relationship with a bit in the bitstring.  Suggestions are detailed
   below.  Once determined, the BFR-id can then be configured on the
   BFER and used by flow overlay, routing underlay and the BIER header
   almost the same as the BFR-id in BIER.

   The one exception are application/flow-overlays that automatically
   calculate the bitstring(s) of BIER packets by converting BFR-id to
   bits.  In BIER-TE, this operation can be done in two ways:

   "Independent branches": For a given application or (set of) trees,
   the branches from a BFIR to every BFER are independent of the




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   branches to any other BFER.  For example, shortest part trees have
   independent branches.

   "Interdependent branches": When a BFER is added or deleted from a
   particular distribution tree, branches to other BFER still in the
   tree may need to change.  Steiner tree are examples of dependent
   branch trees.

   If "independent branches" are sufficient, the BIER-TE controller host
   can provide to such applications for every BFR-id a SI:bitstring with
   the BIER-TE bits for the branch towards that BFER.  The application
   can then independently calculate the SI:bitstring for all desired
   BFER by OR'ing their bitstrings.

   If "interdependent branches" are required, the application could call
   a BIER-TE controller host API with the list of required BFER-id and
   get the required bitstring back.  Whenever the set of BFER-id
   changes, this is repeated.

   Note that in either case (unlike in BIER), the bits in BIER-TE may
   need to change upon link/node failure/recovery, network expansion and
   network load by other traffic (as part of traffic engineering goals).
   Interactions between such BFIR applications and the BIER-TE
   controller host do therefore need to support dynamic updates to the
   bitstrings.

7.4.  Assigning BFR-ids for BIER-TE

   For a non-leaf BFER, there is usually a single bit k for that BFER
   with a local_decap() adjacency on the BFER.  The BFR-id for such a
   BFER is therefore most easily the one it would have in BIER: SI *
   bitstring-length + k.

   As explained earlier in the document, leaf BFERs do not need such a
   separate bit because the fact alone that the BIER-TE packet is
   forwarded to the leaf BFER indicates that the BFER should decapsulate
   it.  Such a BFER will have one or more bits for the links leading
   only to it.  The BFR-id could therefore most easily be the BFR-id
   derived from the lowest bit for those links.

   These two rules are only recommendations for the operator or BIER-TE
   controller assigning the BFR-ids.  Any allocation scheme can be used,
   the BFR-ids just need to be unique across BFRs in each subdomain.

   It is not currently determined if a single subdomain could or should
   be allowed to forward both BIER and BIER-TE packets.  If this should
   be supported, there are two options:




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   A.  BIER and BIER-TE have different BFR-id in the same subdomain.
   This allows higher replication efficiency for BIER because their BFR-
   id can be assigned sequentially, while the bitstrings for BIER-TE
   will have also the additional bits for the topology.  There is no
   relationship between a BFR BIER BFR-id and BIER-TE BFR-id.

   B.  BIER and BIER-TE share the same BFR-id.  The BFR-id are assigned
   as explained above for BIER-TE and simply reused for BIER.  The
   replication efficiency for BIER will be as low as that for BIER-TE in
   this approach.  Depending on topology, only the same 20%..80% of bits
   as possible for BIER-TE can be used for BIER.

7.5.  Example bit allocations

7.5.1.  With BIER

   Consider a network setup with a bitstring length of 256 for a network
   topology as shown in the picture below.  The network has 6 areas,
   each with ca. 170 BFR, connecting via a core with some larger (core)
   BFR.  To address all BFER with BIER, 4 SI are required.  To send a
   BIER packet to all BFER in the network, 4 copies need to be sent by
   the BFIR.  On the BFIR it does not make a difference how the BFR-id
   are allocated to BFER in the network, but for efficiency further down
   in the network it does make a difference.

                area1           area2        area3
               BFR1a BFR1b  BFR2a BFR2b   BFR3a BFR3b
                 |  \         /    \        /  |
                 ................................
                 .                Core          .
                 ................................
                 |    /       \    /        \  |
               BFR4a BFR4b  BFR5a BFR5b   BFR6a BFR6b
                area4          area5        area6

                 Figure 17: Scaling BIER-TE bits by reuse

   With random allocation of BFR-id to BFER, each receiving area would
   (most likely) have to receive all 4 copies of the BIER packet because
   there would be BFR-id for each of the 4 SI in each of the areas.
   Only further towards each BFER would this duplication subside - when
   each of the 4 trees runs out of branches.

   If BFR-id are allocated intelligently, then all the BFER in an area
   would be given BFR-id with as few as possible different SI.  Each
   area would only have to forward one or two packets instead of 4.





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   Given how networks can grow over time, replication efficiency in an
   area will also easily go down over time when BFR-id are network wide
   allocated sequentially over time.  An area that initially only has
   BFR-id in one SI might end up with many SI over a longer period of
   growth.  Allocating SIs to areas with initially sufficiently many
   spare bits for growths can help to alleviate this issue.  Or renumber
   BFR-id after network expansion.  In this example one may consider to
   use 6 SI and assign one to each area.

   This example shows that intelligent BFR-id allocation within at least
   subdomain 0 can even be helpful or even necessary in BIER.

7.5.2.  With BIER-TE

   In BIER-TE one needs to determine a subset of the physical topology
   and attached BFER so that the "desired" representation of this
   topology and the BFER fit into a single bitstring.  This process
   needs to be repeated until the whole topology is covered.

   Once bits/SIs are assigned to topology and BFER, BFR-id is just a
   derived set of identifiers from the operator/BIER-TE controller as
   explained above.

   Every time that different sub-topologies have overlap, bits need to
   be repeated across the bitstrings, increasing the overall amount of
   bits required across all bitstring/SIs.  In the worst case, random
   subsets of BFER are assigned to different SI.  This is much worse
   than in BIER because it not only reduces replication efficiency with
   the same number of overall bits, but even further - because more bits
   are required due to duplication of bits for topology across multiple
   SI.  Intelligent BFER to SI assignment and selecting specific
   "desired" subtopologies can minimize this problem.

   To set up BIER-TE efficiently for above topology, the following bit
   allocation methods can be used.  This method can easily be expanded
   to other, similarly structured larger topologies.

   Each area is allocated one or more SI depending on the number of
   future expected BFER and number of bits required for the topology in
   the area.  In this example, 6 SI, one per area.

   In addition, we use 4 bits in each SI: bia, bib, bea, beb: bit
   ingress a, bit ingress b, bit egress a, bit egress b.  These bits
   will be used to pass BIER packets from any BFIR via any combination
   of ingress area a/b BFR and egress area a/b BFR into a specific
   target area.  These bits are then set up with the right
   forward_routed adjacencies on the BFIR and area edge BFR:




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   On all BFIR in an area j, bia in each BIFT:SI is populated with the
   same forward_routed(BFRja), and bib with forward_routed(BFRjb).  On
   all area edge BFR, bea in BIFT:SI=k is populated with
   forward_routed(BFRka) and beb in BIFT:SI=k with
   forward_routed(BFRkb).

   For BIER-TE forwarding of a packet to some subset of BFER across all
   areas, a BFIR would create at most 6 copies, with SI=1...SI=6, In
   each packet, the bits indicate bits for topology and BFER in that
   topology plus the four bits to indicate whether to pass this packet
   via the ingress area a or b border BFR and the egress area a or b
   border BFR, therefore allowing path engineering for those two
   "unicast" legs: 1) BFIR to ingress are edge and 2) core to egress
   area edge.  Replication only happens inside the egress areas.  For
   BFER in the same area as in the BFIR, these four bits are not used.

7.6.  Summary

   BIER-TE can like BIER support multiple SI within a sub-domain to
   allow re-using the concept of BFR-id and therefore minimize BIER-TE
   specific functions in underlay routing, flow overlay methods and BIER
   headers.

   The number of BFIR/BFER possible in a subdomain is smaller than in
   BIER because BIER-TE uses additional bits for topology.

   Subdomains can in BIER-TE be used like in BIER to create more
   efficient replication to known subsets of BFER.

   Assigning bits for BFER intelligently into the right SI is more
   important in BIER-TE than in BIER because of replication efficiency
   and overall amount of bits required.

8.  BIER-TE and Segment Routing (SR)

   Segment Routing (SR ([RFC8402])) aims to enable lightweight path
   engineering via loose source routing.  Compared to its more heavy-
   weight predecessor RSVP-TE ([RFC3209]), SR does for example not
   require per-path signaling to each of these hops.

   BIER-TE supports the same design philosophy for multicast.  Like in
   SR, it relies on source-routing - via the definition of a BitString.
   Like SR, it only requires to consider the "hops" on which either
   replication has to happen, or across which the traffic should be
   steered (even without replication).  Any other hops can be skipped
   via the use of routed adjacencies.





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   BIER-TE BitPosition (BP) can be understood as the BIER-TE equivalent
   of "forwarding segments" in SR, but they have a different scope than
   SR forwarding segments.  Whereas forwarding segments in SR are global
   or local, BPs in BIER-TE have a scope that is the group of BFR(s)
   that have adjacencies for this BP in their BIFT.  This can be called
   "adjacency" scoped forwarding segments.

   Adjacency scope could be global, but then every BFR would need an
   adjacency for this BP, for example a forward_routed adjacency with
   encapsulation to the global SR SID of the destination.  Such a BP
   would always result in ingress replication though.  The first BFR
   encountering this BP would directly replicate to it.  Only by using
   non-global adjacency scope for BPs can traffic be steered and
   replicated on non-ingress BFR.

   SR can naturally be combined with BIER-TE and help to optimize it.
   For example, instead of defining BitPositions for non-replicating
   hops, it is equally possible to use segment routing encapsulations
   (eg: MPLS label stacks) for the encapsulation of "forward_routed"
   adjacencies.

   Note that BIER itself can also be seen to be similar to SR.  BIER BPs
   act as global destination Node-SIDs and the BIER bitstring is simply
   a highly optimized mechanism to indicate multiple such SIDS and let
   the network take care of effectively replicating the packet hop-by-
   hop to each destination Node-SID.  What BIER does not allow is to
   indicate intermediate hops, or terms of SR the ability to indicate a
   sequence of SID to reach the destination.  This is what BIER-TE and
   its adjacency scoped BP enables.

   Both BIER and BIER-TE allow BFIR to "opportunistically" copy packets
   to a set of desired BFER on a packet-by-packet basis.  In BIER, this
   is done by OR'ing the BP for the desired BFER.  In BIER-TE this can
   be done by OR'ing for each desired BFER a bitstring using the
   "independent branches" approach described in Section 7.3 and
   therefore also indicating the engineered path towards each desired
   BFER.  This is the approach that
   [I-D.ietf-bier-multicast-http-response] relies on.

9.  Security Considerations

   The security considerations are the same as for BIER with the
   following differences:

   BFR-ids and BFR-prefixes are not used in BIER-TE, nor are procedures
   for their distribution, so these are not attack vectors against BIER-
   TE.




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10.  IANA Considerations

   This document requests no action by IANA.

11.  Acknowledgements

   The authors would like to thank Greg Shepherd, Ijsbrand Wijnands,
   Neale Ranns, Dirk Trossen, Sandy Zheng and Jeffrey Zhang for their
   extensive review and suggestions.

12.  Change log [RFC Editor: Please remove]

   draft-ietf-bier-te-arch:

      05: Review Jeffrey Zhang.

      Part 2:

      4.3 added note about leaf-BFER being also a propery of routing
      setup.

      4.7 Added missing details from example to avoid confusion with
      routed adjacencies, also compressed explanatory text and better
      justification why seed is explicitly configured by controller.

      4.9 added section discussing generic reuse of BP methods.

      4.10 added section summarizing BP optimizations of section 4.

      6.  Rewrote/compressed explanation of comparison BIER/BIER-TE
      forwarding difference.  Explained benefit of BIER-TE per-BP
      forwarding being independent of forwarding for other BPs.

      Part 1:

      Explicitly ue forwarded_connected adjcency in ECMP adjcency
      examples to avoid confusion.

      4.3 Add picture as example for leav vs. non-leaf BFR in topology.
      Improved description.

      4.5 Exampe for traffic that can be broadcast -> for single BP in
      hub&spoke.

      4.8.1 Simplified example picture for routed adjacency, explanatory
      text.

      Review from Dirk Trossen:



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      Fixed up explanation of ICC paper vs. bloom filter.

      04: spell check run.

      Addded remaining fixes for Sandys (Zhang Zheng) review:

      4.7 Enhance ECMP explanations:

      example ECMP algorithm, highlight that doc does not standardize
      ECMP algorithm.

      Review from Dirk Trossen:

      1.  Added mentioning of prior work for traffic engineered paths
      with bloom filters.

      2.  Changed title from layers to components and added "BIER-TE
      control plane" to "BIER-TE controller host" to make it clearer,
      what it does.

      2.2.3.  Added reference to I-D.ietf-bier-multicast-http-response
      as an example solution.

      2.3. clarified sentence about resetting BPs before sending copies
      (also forgot to mention DNR here).

      3.4.  Added text saying this section will be removed unless IESG
      review finds enough redeeming value in this example given how -03
      introduced section 1.1 with basic examples.

      7.2.  Removed explicit numbers 20%/80% for number of topology bits
      in BIER-TE, replaced with more vague (high/low) description,
      because we do not have good reference material Added text saying
      this section will be removed unless IESG review finds enough
      redeeming value in this example given how -03 introduced section
      1.1 with basic examples.

      many typos fixed.  Thanks a lot.

      03: Last call textual changes by authors to improve readability:

      removed Wolfgang Braun as co-authors (as requested).

      Improved abstract to be more explanatory.  Removed mentioning of
      FRR (not concluded on so far).

      Added new text into Introduction section because the text was too
      difficult to jump into (too many forward pointers).  This



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      primarily consists of examples and the early introduction of the
      BIER-TE Topology concept enabled by these examples.

      Amended comparison to SR.

      Changed syntax from [VRF] to {VRF} to indicate its optional and to
      make idnits happy.

      Split references into normative / informative, added references.

      02: Refresh after IETF104 discussion: changed intended status back
      to standard.  Reasoning:

      Tighter review of standards document == ensures arch will be
      better prepared for possible adoption by other WGs (e.g.  DetNet)
      or std. bodies.

      Requirement against the degree of existing implementations is self
      defined by the WG.  BIER WG seems to think it is not necessary to
      apply multiple interoperating implementations against an
      architecture level document at this time to make it qualify to go
      to standards track.  Also, the levels of support introduced in -01
      rev. should allow all BIER forwarding engines to also be able to
      support the base level BIER-TE forwarding.

      01: Added note comparing BIER and SR to also hopefully clarify
      BIER-TE vs. BIER comparison re.  SR.

      - added requirements section mandating only most basic BIER-TE
      forwarding features as MUST.

      - reworked comparison with BIER forwarding section to only
      summarize and point to pseudocode section.

      - reworked pseudocode section to have one pseudocode that mirrors
      the BIER forwarding pseudocode to make comparison easier and a
      second pseudocode that shows the complete set of BIER-TE
      forwarding options and simplification/optimization possible vs.
      BIER forwarding.  Removed MyBitsOfInterest (was pure
      optimization).

      - Added captions to pictures.

      - Part of review feedback from Sandy (Zhang Zheng) integrated.

      00: Changed target state to experimental (WG conclusion), updated
      references, mod auth association.




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      - Source now on http://www.github.com/toerless/bier-te-arch

      - Please open issues on the github for change/improvement requests
      to the document - in addition to posting them on the list
      (bier@ietf.).  Thanks!.

   draft-eckert-bier-te-arch:

      06: Added overview of forwarding differences between BIER, BIER-
      TE.

      05: Author affiliation change only.

      04: Added comparison to Live-Live and BFIR to FRR section
      (Eckert).

      04: Removed FRR content into the new FRR draft [I-D.eckert-bier-
      te-frr] (Braun).

      - Linked FRR information to new draft in Overview/Introduction

      - Removed BTAFT/FRR from "Changes in the network topology"

      - Linked new draft in "Link/Node Failures and Recovery"

      - Removed FRR from "The BIER-TE Forwarding Layer"

      - Moved FRR section to new draft

      - Moved FRR parts of Pseudocode into new draft

      - Left only non FRR parts

      - removed FrrUpDown(..) and //FRR operations in
      ForwardBierTePacket(..)

      - New draft contains FrrUpDown(..) and ForwardBierTePacket(Packet)
      from bier-arch-03

      - Moved "BIER-TE and existing FRR to new draft

      - Moved "BIER-TE and Segment Routing" section one level up

      - Thus, removed "Further considerations" that only contained this
      section

      - Added Changes for version 04




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      03: Updated the FRR section.  Added examples for FRR key concepts.
      Added BIER-in-BIER tunneling as option for tunnels in backup
      paths.  BIFT structure is expanded and contains an additional
      match field to support full node protection with BIER-TE FRR.

      03: Updated FRR section.  Explanation how BIER-in-BIER
      encapsulation provides P2MP protection for node failures even
      though the routing underlay does not provide P2MP.

      02: Changed the definition of BIFT to be more inline with BIER.
      In revs. up to -01, the idea was that a BIFT has only entries for
      a single bitstring, and every SI and subdomain would be a separate
      BIFT.  In BIER, each BIFT covers all SI.  This is now also how we
      define it in BIER-TE.

      02: Added Section 7 to explain the use of SI, subdomains and BFR-
      id in BIER-TE and to give an example how to efficiently assign
      bits for a large topology requiring multiple SI.

      02: Added further detailed for rings - how to support input from
      all ring nodes.

      01: Fixed BFIR -> BFER for section 4.3.

      01: Added explanation of SI, difference to BIER ECMP,
      consideration for Segment Routing, unicast FRR, considerations for
      encapsulation, explanations of BIER-TE controller host and CLI.

      00: Initial version.

13.  References

13.1.  Normative References

   [RFC8279]  Wijnands, IJ., Ed., Rosen, E., Ed., Dolganow, A.,
              Przygienda, T., and S. Aldrin, "Multicast Using Bit Index
              Explicit Replication (BIER)", RFC 8279,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8279, November 2017,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8279>.

   [RFC8296]  Wijnands, IJ., Ed., Rosen, E., Ed., Dolganow, A.,
              Tantsura, J., Aldrin, S., and I. Meilik, "Encapsulation
              for Bit Index Explicit Replication (BIER) in MPLS and Non-
              MPLS Networks", RFC 8296, DOI 10.17487/RFC8296, January
              2018, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8296>.






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13.2.  Informative References

   [I-D.ietf-bier-multicast-http-response]
              Trossen, D., Rahman, A., Wang, C., and T. Eckert,
              "Applicability of BIER Multicast Overlay for Adaptive
              Streaming Services", draft-ietf-bier-multicast-http-
              response-01 (work in progress), June 2019.

   [I-D.ietf-roll-ccast]
              Bergmann, O., Bormann, C., Gerdes, S., and H. Chen,
              "Constrained-Cast: Source-Routed Multicast for RPL",
              draft-ietf-roll-ccast-01 (work in progress), October 2017.

   [ICC]      Reed, M., Al-Naday, M., Thomos, N., Trossen, D.,
              Petropoulos, G., and S. Spirou, "Stateless multicast
              switching in software defined networks",  IEEE
              International Conference on Communications (ICC), Kuala
              Lumpur, Malaysia, 2016, May 2016,
              <https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7511036>.

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

   [RFC3209]  Awduche, D., Berger, L., Gan, D., Li, T., Srinivasan, V.,
              and G. Swallow, "RSVP-TE: Extensions to RSVP for LSP
              Tunnels", RFC 3209, DOI 10.17487/RFC3209, December 2001,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3209>.

   [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>.

Authors' Addresses

   Toerless Eckert (editor)
   Futurewei Technologies Inc.
   2330 Central Expy
   Santa Clara  95050
   USA

   Email: tte+ietf@cs.fau.de







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   Gregory Cauchie
   Bouygues Telecom

   Email: GCAUCHIE@bouyguestelecom.fr


   Michael Menth
   University of Tuebingen

   Email: menth@uni-tuebingen.de









































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