Network Working Group R. Papneja
Internet-Draft Huawei Technologies
Intended status: Standards Track S. Vapiwala
Expires: April 28, 2012 J. Karthik
Cisco Systems
S. Poretsky
Allot Communications
S. Rao
Qwest Communications
J. Roux
France Telecom
October 26, 2011
Methodology for benchmarking MPLS protection mechanisms
draft-ietf-bmwg-protection-meth-09.txt
Abstract
This draft describes the methodology for benchmarking MPLS Protection
mechanisms for link and node protection as defined in [MPLS-FRR-EXT].
This document provides test methodologies and testbed setup for
measuring failover times while considering all dependencies that
might impact faster recovery of real-time applications bound to MPLS
based traffic engineered tunnels. The benchmarking terms used in
this document are defined in [TERM-ID].
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
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This Internet-Draft will expire on April 28, 2012.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2. Document Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3. Existing Definitions and Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4. General Reference Topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5. Test Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5.1. Failover Events [TERM-ID] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5.2. Failure Detection [TERM-ID] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5.3. Use of Data Traffic for MPLS Protection benchmarking . . . 9
5.4. LSP and Route Scaling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.5. Selection of IGP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.6. Restoration and Reversion [TERM-ID] . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.7. Offered Load . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
5.8. Tester Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6. Reference Test Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6.1. Link Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6.1.1. Link Protection - 1 hop primary (from PLR) and 1
hop backup TE tunnels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6.1.2. Link Protection - 1 hop primary (from PLR) and 2
hop backup TE tunnels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6.1.3. Link Protection - 2+ hop (from PLR) primary and 1
hop backup TE tunnels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6.1.4. Link Protection - 2+ hop (from PLR) primary and 2
hop backup TE tunnels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
6.2. Node Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
6.2.1. Node Protection - 2 hop primary (from PLR) and 1
hop backup TE tunnels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
6.2.2. Node Protection - 2 hop primary (from PLR) and 2
hop backup TE tunnels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
6.2.3. Node Protection - 3+ hop primary (from PLR) and 1
hop backup TE tunnels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
6.2.4. Node Protection - 3+ hop primary (from PLR) and 2
hop backup TE tunnels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
7. Test Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
7.1. MPLS FRR Forwarding Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
7.1.1. Headend PLR Forwarding Performance . . . . . . . . . . 18
7.1.2. Mid-Point PLR Forwarding Performance . . . . . . . . . 19
7.1.3. Egress PLR Forwarding Performance . . . . . . . . . . 20
7.2. Headend PLR with Link Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
7.3. Mid-Point PLR with Link Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
7.4. Headend PLR with Node Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
7.5. Mid-Point PLR with Node Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
8. Reporting Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
9. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
10. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
11. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
12. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
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12.1. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
12.2. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Appendix A. Fast Reroute Scalability Table . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Appendix B. Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
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1. Introduction
This draft describes the methodology for benchmarking MPLS based
protection mechanisms. The new terminology that this document
introduces is defined in [TERM-ID].
MPLS based protection mechanisms provide fast recovery of real-time
services from a planned or an unplanned link or node failures. MPLS
protection mechanisms are generally deployed in a network
infrastructure where MPLS is used for provisioning of point-to- point
traffic engineered tunnels (tunnel). MPLS based protection
mechanisms promise to improve service disruption period by minimizing
recovery time from most common failures.
Network elements from different manufacturers behave differently to
network failures, which impacts the network's ability and performance
for failure recovery. It therefore becomes imperative for service
providers to have a common benchmark to understand the performance
behaviors of network elements.
There are two factors impacting service availability: frequency of
failures and duration for which the failures persist. Failures can
be classified further into two types: correlated and uncorrelated.
Correlated and uncorrelated failures may be planned or unplanned.
Planned failures are predictable. Network implementations should be
able to handle both planned and unplanned failures and recover
gracefully within a time frame to maintain service assurance. Hence,
failover recovery time is one of the most important benchmark that a
service provider considers in choosing the building blocks for their
network infrastructure.
A correlated failure is the simultaneous occurrence of two or more
failures. A typical example is failure of a logical resource (e.g.
layer-2 links) due to a dependency on a common physical resource
(e.g. common conduit) that fails. Within the context of MPLS
protection mechanisms, failures that arise due to Shared Risk Link
Groups (SRLG) [MPLS-FRR-EXT] can be considered as correlated
failures. Not all correlated failures are predictable in advance,
for example, those caused by natural disasters.
MPLS Fast Re-Route (MPLS-FRR) allows for the possibility that the
Label Switched Paths can be re-optimized in the minutes following
Failover. IP Traffic would be re-routed according to the preferred
path for the post-failure topology. Thus, MPLS-FRR includes an
additional step to the General model:
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(1) Failover Event - Primary Path (Working Path) fails
(2) Failure Detection- Failover Event is detected
(3)
a. Failover - Working Path switched to Backup path
b. Re-Optimization of Working Path (possible change from
Backup Path)
(4) Restoration - Primary Path recovers from a Failover Event
(5) Reversion (optional) - Working Path returns to Primary Path
2. Document Scope
This document provides detailed test cases along with different
topologies and scenarios that should be considered to effectively
benchmark MPLS protection mechanisms and failover times on the Data
Plane. Different Failover Events and scaling considerations are also
provided in this document.
All benchmarking testcases defined in this document apply to both
facility backup and local protection enabled in detour mode. The
test cases cover all possible failure scenarios and the associated
procedures benchmark the performance of the Device Under Test (DUT)
to recover from failures. Data plane traffic is used to benchmark
failover times.
Benchmarking of correlated failures is out of scope of this document.
Protection from Bi-directional Forwarding Detection (BFD) is outside
the scope of this document.
As described above, MPLS-FRR may include a Re-optimization of the
Working Path, with possible packet transfer impairments.
Characterization of Re-optimization is beyond the scope of this memo.
3. Existing Definitions and Requirements
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 BCP 14, RFC 2119
[Br97]. RFC 2119 defines the use of these key words to help make the
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intent of standards track documents as clear as possible. While this
document uses these keywords, this document is not a standards track
document.
The reader is assumed to be familiar with the commonly used MPLS
terminology, some of which is defined in [MPLS-FRR-EXT].
This document uses much of the terminology defined in [TERM-ID].
This document also uses existing terminology defined in other BMWG
work. Examples include, but are not limited to:
Throughput [Ref.[Br91], section 3.17]
Device Under Test (DUT) [Ref.[Ma98], section 3.1.1]
System Under Test (SUT) [Ref.[Ma98], section 3.1.2]
Out-of-order Packet [Ref.[Po06], section 3.3.2]
Duplicate Packet [Ref.[Po06], section 3.3.3]
4. General Reference Topology
Figure 1 illustrates the basic reference testbed and is applicable to
all the test cases defined in this document. The Tester is comprised
of a Traffic Generator (TG) & Test Analyzer (TA). A Tester is
directly connected to the DUT. The Tester sends and receives IP
traffic to the tunnel ingress and performs signaling protocol
emulation to simulate real network scenarios in a lab environment.
The Tester may also support MPLS-TE signaling to act as the ingress
node to the MPLS tunnel.
+---------------------------+
| +------------|---------------+
| | | |
| | | |
+--------+ +--------+ +--------+ +--------+ +--------+
TG--| R1 |-----| R2 |----| R3 | | R4 | | R5 |
| |-----| |----| |----| |---| |
+--------+ +--------+ +--------+ +--------+ +--------+
| | | | |
| | | | |
| +--------+ | | TA
+---------| R6 |---------+ |
| |----------------------+
+--------+
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Fig. 1 Fast Reroute Topology
The tester MUST record the number of lost, duplicate, and reordered
packets. It should further record arrival and departure times so
that Failover Time, Additive Latency, and Reversion Time can be
measured. The tester may be a single device or a test system
emulating all the different roles along a primary or backup path.
The label stack is dependent of the following 3 entities:
(1) Type of protection (Link Vs Node)
(2) # of remaining hops of the primary tunnel from the PLR
(3) # of remaining hops of the backup tunnel from the PLR
Due to this dependency, it is RECOMMENDED that the benchmarking of
failover times be performed on all the topologies provided in section
6.
5. Test Considerations
This section discusses the fundamentals of MPLS Protection testing:
(1) The types of network events that causes failover
(2) Indications for failover
(3) the use of data traffic
(4) Traffic generation
(5) LSP Scaling
(6) Reversion of LSP
(7) IGP Selection
5.1. Failover Events [TERM-ID]
The failover to the backup tunnel is primarily triggered by either
link or node failures observed downstream of the Point of Local
repair (PLR). Some of these failure events are listed below.
Link Failure Events
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- Interface Shutdown on PLR side with POS Alarm
- Interface Shutdown on remote side with POS Alarm
- Interface Shutdown on PLR side with RSVP hello enabled
- Interface Shutdown on remote side with RSVP hello enabled
- Interface Shutdown on PLR side with BFD
- Interface Shutdown on remote side with BFD
- Fiber Pull on the PLR side (Both TX & RX or just the TX)
- Fiber Pull on the remote side (Both TX & RX or just the RX)
- Online insertion and removal (OIR) on PLR side
- OIR on remote side
- Sub-interface failure (e.g. shutting down of a VLAN)
- Parent interface shutdown (an interface bearing multiple
sub-interfaces
Node Failure Events
- A System reload initiated either by a graceful shutdown
or by a power failure.
- A system crash due to a software failure or an assert.
5.2. Failure Detection [TERM-ID]
Link failure detection time depends on the link type and failure
detection protocols running. For SONET/SDH, the alarm type (such as
LOS, AIS, or RDI) can be used. Other link types have layer-two
alarms, but they may not provide a short enough failure detection
time. Ethernet based links do not have layer 2 failure indicators,
and therefore relies on layer 3 signaling for failure detection.
However for directly connected devices, remote fault indication in
the ethernet auto-negotiation scheme could be considered as a type of
layer 2 link failure indicator.
MPLS has different failure detection techniques such as BFD, or use
of RSVP hellos. These methods can be used for the layer 3 failure
indicators required by Ethernet based links, or for some other non-
Ethernet based links to help improve failure detection time.
The test procedures in this document can be used for a local failure
or remote failure scenarios for comprehensive benchmarking and to
evaluate failover performance independent of the failure detection
techniques.
5.3. Use of Data Traffic for MPLS Protection benchmarking
Currently end customers use packet loss as a key metric for Failover
Time [TERM-ID]. Failover Packet Loss [TERM-ID] is an externally
observable event and has direct impact on application performance.
MPLS protection is expected to minimize the packet loss in the event
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of a failure. For this reason it is important to develop a standard
router benchmarking methodology for measuring MPLS protection that
uses packet loss as a metric. At a known rate of forwarding, packet
loss can be measured and the failover time can be determined.
Measurement of control plane signaling to establish backup paths is
not enough to verify failover. Failover is best determined when
packets are actually traversing the backup path.
An additional benefit of using packet loss for calculation of
failover time is that it allows use of a black-box test environment.
Data traffic is offered at line-rate to the device under test (DUT)
an emulated network failure event is forced to occur, and packet loss
is externally measured to calculate the convergence time. This setup
is independent of the DUT architecture.
In addition, this methodology considers the packets in error and
duplicate packets that could have been generated during the failover
process. The methodologies consider lost, out-of-order, and
duplicate packets to be impaired packets that contribute to the
Failover Time.
5.4. LSP and Route Scaling
Failover time performance may vary with the number of established
primary and backup tunnel label switched paths (LSP) and installed
routes. However the procedure outlined here should be used for any
number of LSPs (L) and number of routes protected by PLR(R). The
amount of L and R must be recorded.
5.5. Selection of IGP
The underlying IGP could be ISIS-TE or OSPF-TE for the methodology
proposed here. See [IGP-METH] for IGP options to consider and
report.
5.6. Restoration and Reversion [TERM-ID]
Fast Reroute provides a method to return or restore an original
primary LSP upon recovery from the failure (Restoration) and to
switch traffic from the Backup Path to the restored Primary Path
(Reversion). In MPLS-FRR, Reversion can be implemented as Global
Reversion or Local Reversion. It is important to include Restoration
and Reversion as a step in each test case to measure the amount of
packet loss, out of order packets, or duplicate packets that is
produced.
Note: In addition to restoration and reversion, re-optimization can
take place while the failure is still not recovered but it depends on
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the user configuration, and re-otimization timers.
5.7. Offered Load
It is suggested that there be one or more traffic streams as long as
there is a steady and constant rate of flow for all the streams. In
order to monitor the DUT performance for recovery times, a set of
route prefixes should be advertised before traffic is sent. The
traffic should be configured towards these routes.
At least 16 flows should be used, and more if possible. Prefix-
dependency behaviors are key in IP and tests with route-specific
flows spread across the routing table will reveal this dependency.
Generating traffic to all of the prefixes reachable by the protected
tunnel (probably in a Round-Robin fashion, where the traffic is
destined to all the prefixes but one prefix at a time in a cyclic
manner) is not recommended. The reason why traffic generation is not
recommended in a Round-Robin fashion to all the prefixes, one at a
time is that if there are many prefixes reachable through the LSP the
time interval between 2 packets destined to one prefix may be
significantly high and may be comparable with the failover time being
measured which does not aid in getting an accurate failover
measurement.
5.8. Tester Capabilities
It is RECOMMENDED that the Tester used to execute each test case have
the following capabilities:
1.Ability to establish MPLS-TE tunnels and push/pop labels.
2.Ability to produce Failover Event [TERM-ID].
3.Ability to insert a timestamp in each data packet's IP
payload.
4.An internal time clock to control timestamping, time
measurements, and time calculations.
5.Ability to disable or tune specific Layer-2 and Layer-3
protocol functions on any interface(s).
6.Ability to react upon the receipt of path error from the PLR
The Tester MAY be capable to make non-data plane convergence
observations and use those observations for measurements.
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6. Reference Test Setup
In addition to the general reference topology shown in figure 1, this
section provides detailed insight into various proposed test setups
that should be considered for comprehensively benchmarking the
failover time in different roles along the primary tunnel
This section proposes a set of topologies that covers all the
scenarios for local protection. All of these topologies can be
mapped to the reference topology shown in Figure 1. Topologies
provided in this section refer to the testbed required to benchmark
failover time when the DUT is configured as a PLR in either Headend
or midpoint role. Provided with each topology below is the label
stack at the PLR. Penultimate Hop Popping (PHP) MAY be used and must
be reported when used.
Figures 2 thru 9 use the following convention:
a) HE is Headend
b) TE is Tail-End
c) MID is Mid point
d) MP is Merge Point
e) PLR is Point of Local Repair
f) PRI is Primary Path
g) BKP denotes Backup Path and Nodes
6.1. Link Protection
6.1.1. Link Protection - 1 hop primary (from PLR) and 1 hop backup TE
tunnels
+-------+ +--------+ +--------+
| R1 | | R2 | PRI| R3 |
TG-| HE |--| MID |----| TE |-TA
| | | PLR |----| |
+-------+ +--------+ BKP+--------+
Figure 2.
Traffic Num of Labels Num of labels
before failure after failure
IP TRAFFIC (P-P) 0 0
Layer3 VPN (PE-PE) 1 1
Layer3 VPN (PE-P) 2 2
Layer2 VC (PE-PE) 1 1
Layer2 VC (PE-P) 2 2
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Mid-point LSPs 0 0
6.1.2. Link Protection - 1 hop primary (from PLR) and 2 hop backup TE
tunnels
+-------+ +--------+ +--------+
| R1 | | R2 | | R3 |
TG-| HE | | MID |PRI | TE |-TA
| |----| PLR |----| |
+-------+ +--------+ +--------+
|BKP |
| +--------+ |
| | R6 | |
|----| BKP |----|
| MID |
+--------+
Figure 3.
Traffic Num of Labels Num of labels
before failure after failure
IP TRAFFIC (P-P) 0 1
Layer3 VPN (PE-PE) 1 2
Layer3 VPN (PE-P) 2 3
Layer2 VC (PE-PE) 1 2
Layer2 VC (PE-P) 2 3
Mid-point LSPs 0 1
6.1.3. Link Protection - 2+ hop (from PLR) primary and 1 hop backup TE
tunnels
+--------+ +--------+ +--------+ +--------+
| R1 | | R2 |PRI | R3 |PRI | R4 |
TG-| HE |----| MID |----| MID |------| TE |-TA
| | | PLR |----| | | |
+--------+ +--------+ BKP+--------+ +--------+
Figure 4.
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Traffic Num of Labels Num of labels
before failure after failure
IP TRAFFIC (P-P) 1 1
Layer3 VPN (PE-PE) 2 2
Layer3 VPN (PE-P) 3 3
Layer2 VC (PE-PE) 2 2
Layer2 VC (PE-P) 3 3
Mid-point LSPs 1 1
6.1.4. Link Protection - 2+ hop (from PLR) primary and 2 hop backup TE
tunnels
+--------+ +--------+PRI +--------+ PRI +--------+
| R1 | | R2 | | R3 | | R4 |
TG-| HE |----| MID |----| MID |------| TE |-TA
| | | PLR | | | | |
+--------+ +--------+ +--------+ +--------+
BKP| |
| +--------+ |
| | R6 | |
+---| BKP |-
| MID |
+--------+
Figure 5.
Traffic Num of Labels Num of labels
before failure after failure
IP TRAFFIC (P-P) 1 2
Layer3 VPN (PE-PE) 2 3
Layer3 VPN (PE-P) 3 4
Layer2 VC (PE-PE) 2 3
Layer2 VC (PE-P) 3 4
Mid-point LSPs 1 2
6.2. Node Protection
6.2.1. Node Protection - 2 hop primary (from PLR) and 1 hop backup TE
tunnels
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+--------+ +--------+ +--------+ +--------+
| R1 | | R2 |PRI | R3 | PRI | R4 |
TG-| HE |----| MID |----| MID |------| TE |-TA
| | | PLR | | | | |
+--------+ +--------+ +--------+ +--------+
|BKP |
-----------------------------
Figure 6.
Traffic Num of Labels Num of labels
before failure after failure
IP TRAFFIC (P-P) 1 0
Layer3 VPN (PE-PE) 2 1
Layer3 VPN (PE-P) 3 2
Layer2 VC (PE-PE) 2 1
Layer2 VC (PE-P) 3 2
Mid-point LSPs 1 0
6.2.2. Node Protection - 2 hop primary (from PLR) and 2 hop backup TE
tunnels
+--------+ +--------+ +--------+ +--------+
| R1 | | R2 | | R3 | | R4 |
TG-| HE | | MID |PRI | MID |PRI | TE |-TA
| |----| PLR |----| |----| |
+--------+ +--------+ +--------+ +--------+
| |
BKP| +--------+ |
| | R6 | |
---------| BKP |---------
| MID |
+--------+
Figure 7.
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Traffic Num of Labels Num of labels
before failure after failure
IP TRAFFIC (P-P) 1 1
Layer3 VPN (PE-PE) 2 2
Layer3 VPN (PE-P) 3 3
Layer2 VC (PE-PE) 2 2
Layer2 VC (PE-P) 3 3
Mid-point LSPs 1 1
6.2.3. Node Protection - 3+ hop primary (from PLR) and 1 hop backup TE
tunnels
+--------+ +--------+PRI+--------+PRI+--------+PRI+--------+
| R1 | | R2 | | R3 | | R4 | | R5 |
TG-| HE |--| MID |---| MID |---| MP |---| TE |-TA
| | | PLR | | | | | | |
+--------+ +--------+ +--------+ +--------+ +--------+
BKP| |
--------------------------
Figure 8.
Traffic Num of Labels Num of labels
before failure after failure
IP TRAFFIC (P-P) 1 1
Layer3 VPN (PE-PE) 2 2
Layer3 VPN (PE-P) 3 3
Layer2 VC (PE-PE) 2 2
Layer2 VC (PE-P) 3 3
Mid-point LSPs 1 1
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6.2.4. Node Protection - 3+ hop primary (from PLR) and 2 hop backup TE
tunnels
+--------+ +--------+ +--------+ +--------+ +--------+
| R1 | | R2 | | R3 | | R4 | | R5 |
TG-| HE | | MID |PRI| MID |PRI| MP |PRI| TE |-TA
| |-- | PLR |---| |---| |---| |
+--------+ +--------+ +--------+ +--------+ +--------+
BKP| |
| +--------+ |
| | R6 | |
---------| BKP |-------
| MID |
+--------+
Figure 9.
Traffic Num of Labels Num of labels
before failure after failure
IP TRAFFIC (P-P) 1 2
Layer3 VPN (PE-PE) 2 3
Layer3 VPN (PE-P) 3 4
Layer2 VC (PE-PE) 2 3
Layer2 VC (PE-P) 3 4
Mid-point LSPs 1 2
7. Test Methodology
The procedure described in this section can be applied to all the 8
base test cases and the associated topologies. The backup as well as
the primary tunnels are configured to be alike in terms of bandwidth
usage. In order to benchmark failover with all possible label stack
depth applicable as seen with current deployments, it is RECOMMENDED
to perform all of the test cases provided in this section. The
forwarding performance test cases in section 7.1 MUST be performed
prior to performing the failover test cases.
The considerations of Section 4 of [RFC2544] are applicable when
evaluating the results obtained using these methodologies as well.
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7.1. MPLS FRR Forwarding Performance
Benchmarking Failover Time [TERM-ID] for MPLS protection first
requires baseline measurement of the forwarding performance of the
test topology including the DUT. Forwarding performance is
benchmarked by the Throughput as defined in [MPLS-FWD] and measured
in units pps. This section provides two test cases to benchmark
forwarding performance. These are with the DUT configured as a
Headend PLR, Mid-Point PLR, and Egress PLR.
7.1.1. Headend PLR Forwarding Performance
Objective:
To benchmark the maximum rate (pps) on the PLR (as headend) over
primary LSP and backup LSP.
Test Setup:
A. Select any one topology out of the 8 from section 6.
B. Select overlay technologies (e.g. IGP, VPN, or VC) with DUT
as Headend PLR.
C. The DUT will also have 2 interfaces connected to the traffic
Generator/analyzer. (If the node downstream of the PLR is not
a simulated node, then the Ingress of the tunnel should have
one link connected to the traffic generator and the node
downstream to the PLR or the egress of the tunnel should have
a link connected to the traffic analyzer).
Procedure:
1. Establish the primary LSP on R2 required by the topology
selected.
2. Establish the backup LSP on R2 required by the selected
topology.
3. Verify primary and backup LSPs are up and that primary is
protected.
4. Verify Fast Reroute protection is enabled and ready.
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5. Setup traffic streams as described in section 5.7.
6. Send MPLS traffic over the primary LSP at the Throughput
supported by the DUT.
7. Record the Throughput over the primary LSP.
8. Trigger a link failure as described in section 5.1.
9. Verify that the offered load gets mapped to the backup tunnel
and measure the Additive Backup Delay.
10. 30 seconds after Failover, stop the offered load and measure
the Throughput, Packet Loss, Out-of-Order Packets, and
Duplicate Packets over the Backup LSP.
11. Adjust the offered load and repeat steps 6 through 10 until
the Throughput values for the primary and backup LSPs are
equal.
12. Record the Throughput. This is the offered load that will be
used for the Headend PLR failover test cases.
7.1.2. Mid-Point PLR Forwarding Performance
Objective:
To benchmark the maximum rate (pps) on the PLR (as mid-point) over
primary LSP and backup LSP.
Test Setup:
A. Select any one topology out of the 9 from section 6.
B. Select overlay technologies (e.g. IGP, VPN, or VC) with DUT
as Mid-Point PLR.
C. The DUT will also have 2 interfaces connected to the traffic
generator.
Procedure:
1. Establish the primary LSP on R1 required by the topology
selected.
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2. Establish the backup LSP on R2 required by the selected
topology.
3. Verify primary and backup LSPs are up and that primary is
protected.
4. Verify Fast Reroute protection is enabled and ready.
5. Setup traffic streams as described in section 5.7.
6. Send MPLS traffic over the primary LSP at the Throughput
supported by the DUT.
7. Record the Throughput over the primary LSP.
8. Trigger a link failure as described in section 5.1.
9. Verify that the offered load gets mapped to the backup tunnel
and measure the Additive Backup Delay.
10. 30 seconds after Failover, stop the offered load and measure
the Throughput, Packet Loss, Out-of-Order Packets, and
Duplicate Packets over the Backup LSP.
11. Adjust the offered load and repeat steps 6 through 10 until
the Throughput values for the primary and backup LSPs are
equal.
12. Record the Throughput. This is the offered load that will be
used for the Mid-Point PLR failover test cases.
7.1.3. Egress PLR Forwarding Performance
Objective:
To benchmark the maximum rate (pps) on the PLR (as egress) over
primary LSP and backup LSP.
Test Setup:
A. Select any one topology out of the 8 from section 6.
B. Select overlay technologies (e.g. IGP, VPN, or VC) with DUT
as Egress PLR.
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C. The DUT will also have 2 interfaces connected to the traffic
generator.
Procedure:
1. Establish the primary LSP on R1 required by the topology
selected.
2. Establish the backup LSP on R2 required by the selected
topology.
3. Verify primary and backup LSPs are up and that primary is
protected.
4. Verify Fast Reroute protection is enabled and ready.
5. Setup traffic streams as described in section 5.7.
6. Send MPLS traffic over the primary LSP at the Throughput
supported by the DUT.
7. Record the Throughput over the primary LSP.
8. Trigger a link failure as described in section 5.1.
9. Verify that the offered load gets mapped to the backup tunnel
and measure the Additive Backup Delay.
10. 30 seconds after Failover, stop the offered load and measure
the Throughput, Packet Loss, Out-of-Order Packets, and
Duplicate Packets over the Backup LSP.
11. Adjust the offered load and repeat steps 6 through 10 until
the Throughput values for the primary and backup LSPs are
equal.
12. Record the Throughput. This is the offered load that will be
used for the Egress PLR failover test cases.
7.2. Headend PLR with Link Failure
Objective:
To benchmark the MPLS failover time due to link failure events
described in section 5.1 experienced by the DUT which is the
Headend PLR.
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Test Setup:
A. Select any one topology out of the 8 from section 6.
B. Select overlay technology for FRR test (e.g. IGP, VPN, or
VC).
C. The DUT will also have 2 interfaces connected to the traffic
Generator/analyzer. (If the node downstream of the PLR is not
a simulated node, then the Ingress of the tunnel should have
one link connected to the traffic generator and the node
downstream to the PLR or the egress of the tunnel should have
a link connected to the traffic analyzer).
Test Configuration:
1. Configure the number of primaries on R2 and the backups on R2
as required by the topology selected.
2. Configure the test setup to support Reversion.
3. Advertise prefixes (as per FRR Scalability Table described in
Appendix A) by the tail end.
Procedure:
Test Case "7.1.1. Headend PLR Forwarding Performance" MUST be
completed first to obtain the Throughput to use as the offered
load.
1. Establish the primary LSP on R2 required by the topology
selected.
2. Establish the backup LSP on R2 required by the selected
topology.
3. Verify primary and backup LSPs are up and that primary is
protected.
4. Verify Fast Reroute protection is enabled and ready.
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5. Setup traffic streams for the offered load as described in
section 5.7.
6. Provide the offered load from the tester at the Throughput
[Br91] level obtained from test case 7.1.1.
7. Verify traffic is switched over Primary LSP without packet
loss.
8. Trigger a link failure as described in section 5.1.
9. Verify that the offered load gets mapped to the backup tunnel
and measure the Additive Backup Delay.
10. 30 seconds after Failover [TERM-ID], stop the offered load
and measure the total Failover Packet Loss [TERM-ID].
11. Calculate the Failover Time [TERM-ID] benchmark using the
selected Failover Time Calculation Method (TBLM, PLBM, or
TBM) [TERM-ID].
12. Restart the offered load and restore the primary LSP to
verify Reversion [TERM-ID] occurs and measure the Reversion
Packet Loss [TERM-ID].
13. Calculate the Reversion Time [TERM-ID] benchmark using the
selected Failover Time Calculation Method (TBLM, PLBM, or
TBM) [TERM-ID].
14. Verify Headend signals new LSP and protection should be in
place again.
IT is RECOMMENDED that this procedure be repeated for each of the
link failure triggers defined in section 5.1.
7.3. Mid-Point PLR with Link Failure
Objective:
To benchmark the MPLS failover time due to link failure events
described in section 5.1 experienced by the DUT which is the Mid-
Point PLR.
Test Setup:
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A. Select any one topology out of the 8 from section 6.
B. Select overlay technology for FRR test as Mid-Point LSPs.
C. The DUT will also have 2 interfaces connected to the traffic
generator.
Test Configuration:
1. Configure the number of primaries on R1 and the backups on R2
as required by the topology selected.
2. Configure the test setup to support Reversion.
3. Advertise prefixes (as per FRR Scalability Table described in
Appendix A) by the tail end.
Procedure:
Test Case "7.1.2. Mid-Point PLR Forwarding Performance" MUST be
completed first to obtain the Throughput to use as the offered
load.
1. Establish the primary LSP on R1 required by the topology
selected.
2. Establish the backup LSP on R2 required by the selected
topology.
3. Perform steps 3 through 14 from section 7.2 Headend PLR with
Link Failure.
IT is RECOMMENDED that this procedure be repeated for each of the
link failure triggers defined in section 5.1.
7.4. Headend PLR with Node Failure
Objective:
To benchmark the MPLS failover time due to Node failure events
described in section 5.1 experienced by the DUT which is the
Headend PLR.
Test Setup:
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A. Select any one topology from section 6.
B. Select overlay technology for FRR test (e.g. IGP, VPN, or
VC).
C. The DUT will also have 2 interfaces connected to the traffic
generator/analyzer.
Test Configuration:
1. Configure the number of primaries on R2 and the backups on R2
as required by the topology selected.
2. Configure the test setup to support Reversion.
3. Advertise prefixes (as per FRR Scalability Table described in
Appendix A) by the tail end.
Procedure:
Test Case "7.1.1. Headend PLR Forwarding Performance" MUST be
completed first to obtain the Throughput to use as the offered
load.
1. Establish the primary LSP on R2 required by the topology
selected.
2. Establish the backup LSP on R2 required by the selected
topology.
3. Verify primary and backup LSPs are up and that primary is
protected.
4. Verify Fast Reroute protection.
5. Setup traffic streams for the offered load as described in
section 5.7.
6. Provide the offered load from the tester at the Throughput
[Br91] level obtained from test case 7.1.1.
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7. Verify traffic is switched over Primary LSP without packet
loss.
8. Trigger a node failure as described in section 5.1.
9. Perform steps 9 through 14 in 7.2 Headend PLR with Link
Failure.
IT is RECOMMENDED that this procedure be repeated for each of the
node failure triggers defined in section 5.1.
7.5. Mid-Point PLR with Node Failure
Objective:
To benchmark the MPLS failover time due to Node failure events
described in section 5.1 experienced by the DUT which is the Mid-
Point PLR.
Test Setup:
A. Select any one topology from section 6.1 to 6.2.
B. Select overlay technology for FRR test as Mid-Point LSPs.
C. The DUT will also have 2 interfaces connected to the traffic
generator.
Test Configuration:
1. Configure the number of primaries on R1 and the backups on R2
as required by the topology selected.
2. Configure the test setup to support Reversion.
3. Advertise prefixes (as per FRR Scalability Table described in
Appendix A) by the tail end.
Procedure:
Test Case "7.1.1. Mid-Point PLR Forwarding Performance" MUST be
completed first to obtain the Throughput to use as the offered
load.
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1. Establish the primary LSP on R1 required by the topology
selected.
2. Establish the backup LSP on R2 required by the selected
topology.
3. Verify primary and backup LSPs are up and that primary is
protected.
4. Verify Fast Reroute protection.
5. Setup traffic streams for the offered load as described in
section 5.7.
6. Provide the offered load from the tester at the Throughput
[Br91] level obtained from test case 7.1.1.
7. Verify traffic is switched over Primary LSP without packet
loss.
8. Trigger a node failure as described in section 5.1.
9. Perform steps 9 through 14 in 7.2 Headend PLR with Link
Failure.
IT is RECOMMENDED that this procedure be repeated for each of the
node failure triggers defined in section 5.1.
8. Reporting Format
For each test, it is recommended that the results be reported in the
following format.
Parameter Units
IGP used for the test ISIS-TE/ OSPF-TE
Interface types Gige,POS,ATM,VLAN etc.
Packet Sizes offered to the DUT Bytes (at layer 3)
Offered Load packets per second
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IGP routes advertised Number of IGP routes
Penultimate Hop Popping Used/Not Used
RSVP hello timers Milliseconds
Number of Protected tunnels Number of tunnels
Number of VPN routes installed Number of VPN routes
on the Headend
Number of VC tunnels Number of VC tunnels
Number of mid-point tunnels Number of tunnels
Number of Prefixes protected by Number of LSPs
Primary
Topology being used Section number, and
figure reference
Failover Event Event type
Re-optimization Yes/No
Benchmarks (to be recorded for each test case):
Failover-
Failover Time seconds
Failover Packet Loss packets
Additive Backup Delay seconds
Out-of-Order Packets packets
Duplicate Packets packets
Failover Time Calculation Method Method Used
Reversion-
Reversion Time seconds
Reversion Packet Loss packets
Additive Backup Delay seconds
Out-of-Order Packets packets
Duplicate Packets packets
Failover Time Calculation Method Method Used
Failover Time suggested above is calculated using one of the
following three methods
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1. Packet-Loss Based method (PLBM): (Number of packets dropped/
packets per second * 1000) milliseconds. This method could also
be referred as Loss-Derived method.
2. Time-Based Loss Method (TBLM): This method relies on the ability
of the Traffic generators to provide statistics which reveal the
duration of failure in milliseconds based on when the packet loss
occurred (interval between non-zero packet loss and zero loss).
3. Timestamp Based Method (TBM): This method of failover calculation
is based on the timestamp that gets transmitted as payload in the
packets originated by the generator. The Traffic Analyzer
records the timestamp of the last packet received before the
failover event and the first packet after the failover and
derives the time based on the difference between these 2
timestamps. Note: The payload could also contain sequence
numbers for out-of-order packet calculation and duplicate
packets.
The timestamp based method method would be able to detect Reversion
impairments beyond loss, thus it is RECOMMENDED method as a Failover
Time method.
9. Security Considerations
Benchmarking activities as described in this memo are limited to
technology characterization using controlled stimuli in a laboratory
environment, with dedicated address space and the constraints
specified in the sections above.
The benchmarking network topology will be an independent test setup
and MUST NOT be connected to devices that may forward the test
traffic into a production network, or misroute traffic to the test
management network.
Further, benchmarking is performed on a "black-box" basis, relying
solely on measurements observable external to the DUT/SUT.
Special capabilities SHOULD NOT exist in the DUT/SUT specifically for
benchmarking purposes. Any implications for network security arising
from the DUT/SUT SHOULD be identical in the lab and in production
networks.
10. IANA Considerations
This draft does not require any new allocations by IANA.
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11. Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Jean Philip Vasseur for his invaluable input
to the document, Curtis Villamizar for his contribution in suggesting
text on definition and need for benchmarking Correlated failures and
Bhavani Parise for his textual input and review. Additionally we
would like to thank Al Morton, Arun Gandhi, Amrit Hanspal, Karu
Ratnam, Raveesh Janardan, Andrey Kiselev, and Mohan Nanduri for their
formal reviews of this document.
12. References
12.1. Informative References
[IGP-METH]
Poretsky, S., Imhoff, B., and K. Michielsen, "Terminology
for Benchmarking Link-State IGP Data Plane Route
Convergence", draft-ietf-bmwg-igp-dataplane-conv-term-23
(work in progress), February 2011.
[Br91] Bradner, S., "Benchmarking terminology for network
interconnection devices", RFC 1242, July 1991.
[Ma98] Mandeville, R., "Benchmarking Terminology for LAN
Switching Devices", RFC 2285, February 1998.
[RFC2544] Bradner, S. and J. McQuaid, "Benchmarking Methodology for
Network Interconnect Devices", RFC 2544, March 1999.
[MPLS-FRR-EXT]
Pan, P., Swallow, G., and A. Atlas, "Fast Reroute
Extensions to RSVP-TE for LSP Tunnels", RFC 4090,
May 2005.
[Po06] Poretsky, S., Perser, J., Erramilli, S., and S. Khurana,
"Terminology for Benchmarking Network-layer Traffic
Control Mechanisms", RFC 4689, October 2006.
[MPLS-FWD] Akhter, A., Asati, R., and C. Pignataro, "MPLS Forwarding
Benchmarking Methodology for IP Flows", RFC 5695,
November 2009.
[RFC6414] Papneja, R., Poretsky, S., Vapiwala, S., and J. Karthik,
"Benchmarking Terminology for Protection Performance",
RFC 6414, October 2011.
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12.2. Normative References
[Br97] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
Appendix A. Fast Reroute Scalability Table
This section provides the recommended numbers for evaluating the
scalability of fast reroute implementations. It also recommends the
typical numbers for IGP/VPNv4 Prefixes, LSP Tunnels and VC entries.
Based on the features supported by the device under test (DUT),
appropriate scaling limits can be used for the test bed.
A1. FRR IGP Table
No. of Headend TE Tunnels IGP Prefixes
1 100
1 500
1 1000
1 2000
1 5000
2 (Load Balance) 100
2 (Load Balance) 500
2 (Load Balance) 1000
2 (Load Balance) 2000
2 (Load Balance) 5000
100 100
500 500
1000 1000
2000 2000
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A2. FRR VPN Table
No. of Headend TE Tunnels VPNv4 Prefixes
1 100
1 500
1 1000
1 2000
1 5000
1 10000
1 20000
1 Max
2 (Load Balance) 100
2 (Load Balance) 500
2 (Load Balance) 1000
2 (Load Balance) 2000
2 (Load Balance) 5000
2 (Load Balance) 10000
2 (Load Balance) 20000
2 (Load Balance) Max
A3. FRR Mid-Point LSP Table
No of Mid-point TE LSPs could be configured at recommended levels -
100, 500, 1000, 2000, or max supported number.
A2. FRR VC Table
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No. of Headend TE Tunnels VC entries
1 100
1 500
1 1000
1 2000
1 Max
100 100
500 500
1000 1000
2000 2000
Appendix B. Abbreviations
BFD - Bidirectional Fault Detection
BGP - Border Gateway protocol
CE - Customer Edge
DUT - Device Under Test
FRR - Fast Reroute
IGP - Interior Gateway Protocol
IP - Internet Protocol
LSP - Label Switched Path
MP - Merge Point
MPLS - Multi Protocol Label Switching
N-Nhop - Next - Next Hop
Nhop - Next Hop
OIR - Online Insertion and Removal
P - Provider
PE - Provider Edge
PHP - Penultimate Hop Popping
PLR - Point of Local Repair
RSVP - Resource reSerVation Protocol
SRLG - Shared Risk Link Group
TA - Traffic Analyzer
TE - Traffic Engineering
TG - Traffic Generator
VC - Virtual Circuit
VPN - Virtual Private Network
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Authors' Addresses
Rajiv Papneja
Huawei Technologies
2330 Central Expressway
Santa Clara, CA 95050
USA
Email: rajiv.papneja@huawei.com
Samir Vapiwala
Cisco Systems
300 Beaver Brook Road
Boxborough, MA 01719
USA
Email: svapiwal@cisco.com
Jay Karthik
Cisco Systems
300 Beaver Brook Road
Boxborough, MA 01719
USA
Email: jkarthik@cisco.com
Scott Poretsky
Allot Communications
USA
Email: sporetsky@allot.com
Shankar Rao
5005 E. Dartmouth Ave.
Denver, CO 80222
USA
Email: srao@du.edu
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Jean-Louis Le Roux
France Telecom
2 av Pierre Marzin
22300 Lannion
France
Email: jeanlouis.leroux@francetelecom.com
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