Network Working Group                                         P. Francis
Internet-Draft                                                   MPI-SWS
Intended status: Informational                                     X. Xu
Expires: July 2, 2012                                             Huawei
                                                              H. Ballani
                                                              Cornell U.
                                                                  D. Jen
                                                                    UCLA
                                                          R. Raszuk, Ed.
                                                            NTT MCL Inc.
                                                                L. Zhang
                                                                    UCLA
                                                       December 30, 2011


                FIB Suppression with Virtual Aggregation
                       draft-ietf-grow-va-06.txt

Abstract

   The continued growth in the Default Free Routing Table (DFRT)
   stresses the global routing system in a number of ways.  One of the
   most costly stresses is FIB size: ISPs often must upgrade router
   hardware simply because the FIB has run out of space, and router
   vendors must design routers that have adequate FIB.  FIB suppression
   is an approach to relieving stress on the FIB by not loading selected
   RIB entries into the FIB.  Virtual Aggregation (VA) allows ISPs to
   shrink the FIBs of any and all routers, easily by an order of
   magnitude with negligible increase in path length and load.  FIB
   suppression can be deployed autonomously by an ISP without requiring
   cooperation between adjacent ISPs, and can co-exist with legacy
   routers in the ISP.

Status of this Memo

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

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."




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   This Internet-Draft will expire on July 2, 2012.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.



































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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
     1.1.  Scope of this Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
     1.2.  Requirements notation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
     1.3.  Terminology  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   2.  Overview of Virtual Aggregation (VA) . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     2.1.  Mix of Legacy and VA Routers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     2.2.  Summary of Tunnels and Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
   3.  Specification of VA  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
     3.1.  Legacy Routers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
     3.2.  Advertising and Handling Virtual Prefixes (VP) . . . . . . 12
       3.2.1.  Distinguishing VPs from Sub-prefixes . . . . . . . . . 12
       3.2.2.  Limitations on Virtual Prefixes  . . . . . . . . . . . 12
       3.2.3.  Aggregation Point Routers (APR)  . . . . . . . . . . . 13
       3.2.4.  Non-APR Routers  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
       3.2.5.  Adding and deleting VPs  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     3.3.  Border VA Routers  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
     3.4.  Advertising and Handling Sub-Prefixes  . . . . . . . . . . 15
     3.5.  Suppressing FIB Sub-prefix Routes  . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
       3.5.1.  Selecting Popular Prefixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
     3.6.  New Configuration  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
     3.7.  Interaction with Traffic Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . 18
   4.  Usage of MPLS Tunnels  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
     4.1.  Usage of Inner Label . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
   5.  IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
   6.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
     6.1.  Properly Configured VA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
     6.2.  Mis-configured VA  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
   7.  Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
   8.  References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
     8.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
     8.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

















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1.  Introduction

   ISPs today manage constant DFRT growth in a number of ways.  One way,
   of course, is for ISPs to upgrade their router hardware before DFRT
   growth outstrips the size of the FIB.  This may be too expensive for
   many ISPs.  They would prefer to extend the lifetime of routers whose
   FIBs can no longer hold the full DFRT.

   A common approach taken by lower-tier ISPs is to default route to
   their transit providers.  Routes to customers and peer ISPs are
   maintained, but everything else defaults to the provider.  This
   approach has several disadvantages.  First, packets to Internet
   destinations may take longer-than-necessary Autonomous System (AS)
   paths.  This problem can be mitigated through careful configuration
   of partial defaults, but this can require substantial configuration
   overhead.  A second problem with defaulting to providers is that the
   ISP is no longer able to provide the full DFRT to its customers.
   Finally, provider defaults prevents the ISP from being able to detect
   martian packets.  As a result, the ISP transmits packets that could
   otherwise have been dropped over its expensive provider links.

   An alternative is for the ISP to maintain full routes in its core
   routers, but to filter routes from edge routers that do not require a
   full DFRT.  These edge routers can then default route to the core
   routers.  This is often possible with edge routers that interface to
   customer networks.  The problem with this approach is that it cannot
   be used for all edge routers.  For instance, it cannot be used for
   routers that connect to transits.  It of course also does not help in
   cases where core routers themselves have inadequate FIB capacity.

   FIB Suppression is an approach to shrinking FIB size that requires no
   changes to BGP, no changes to packet forwarding mechanisms in
   routers, and relatively minor changes to control mechanisms in
   routers and configuration of those mechanisms.  The core idea behind
   FIB suppression is to run BGP as normal, and in particular to not
   shrink the RIB, but rather to not load certain RIB entries into the
   FIB.  This approach minimizes changes to routers, and in particular
   is simpler than more general routing architectures that try to shrink
   both RIB and FIB.  With FIB suppression, there are no changes to BGP
   per se.  The BGP decision process does not change, the selected AS-
   PATH does not change, and except on rare occasion the exit router
   does not change.  ISPs can deploy FIB suppression autonomously and
   with no coordination with neighboring ASes.

   This document describes an approach to FIB suppression called
   "Virtual Aggregation" (VA).  VA operates by organizing the IP (v4 or
   v6) address space into Virtual Prefixes (VP), and using tunnels to
   aggregate the (regular) sub-prefixes within each VP.  The decrease in



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   FIB size can be dramatic, easily 5x or 10x with only a slight path
   length and router load increase [nsdi09].

1.1.  Scope of this Document

   The scope of this document is limited to intra-domain VA operation.
   Individual ASs autonomously operate VA internally without any
   coordination with neighboring ASs.  For the remainder of this
   document, the terms ISP, AS, and domain are used interchangeably.

   This document applies equally to IPv4 and IPv6.

   This document is limited to the following tunnel types: MPLS Label
   Switched Paths (LSP), and of MPLS inner labels tunneled over either
   LSPs or IP headers.

   VA may operate with a mix of upgraded routers and legacy routers.
   There are no topological restrictions placed on the mix of routers.
   In order to avoid loops between upgraded and legacy routers, packets
   are always tunneled by the VA routers to the BGP NEXT_HOPs of the
   matched BGP routes.  If a given local ASBR (Autonomous System Border
   Router) is a legacy router, it must be able to terminate tunnels.

1.2.  Requirements notation

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

1.3.  Terminology

   Aggregation Point Router (APR):  An Aggregation Point Router (APR) is
      a router that aggregates a Virtual Prefix (VP) by installing
      routes (into the FIB) for all of the sub-prefixes within the VP.
      APRs advertise the VP to other routers with BGP.  For each sub-
      prefix within the VP, APRs have a tunnel from themselves to the
      remote ASBR (Autonomous System Border Router) where packets for
      that prefix should be delivered.
   Install and Suppress:  The terms "install" and "suppress" are used to
      describe whether a RIB entry has been loaded or not loaded into
      the FIB.  In particular, "install a route" means "install a route
      into the FIB", and "suppress a route" means "do not install a
      route into the FIB".







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   Legacy Router:  A router that does not run VA, and has no knowledge
      of VA.  Legacy routers, however, must be able to terminate tunnels
      when they are local ASBRs.
   Non-APR Router:  In discussing VPs, it is often necessary to
      distinguish between routers that are APRs for that VP, and routers
      that are not APRs for that VP (but of course may be APRs for other
      VPs not under discussion).  In these cases, the term "APR" is
      taken to mean "a VA router that is an APR for the given VP", and
      the term "non-APR" is taken to mean "a VA router that is not an
      APR for the given VP".  The term non-APR router is not used to
      refer to legacy routers.
   Popular Prefix:  A Popular Prefix is a sub-prefix that is installed
      in a router in addition to the sub-prefixes it holds by virtue of
      being a Aggregation Point Router.  The Popular Prefix allows
      packets to follow the shortest path.  Note that different routers
      do not need to have the same set of Popular Prefixes.
   Routing Information Base (RIB):  The term RIB is used rather sloppily
      in this document to refer either to the loc-RIB (as used in
      [RFC4271]), or to the combined Adj-RIBs-In, the Loc-RIB, and the
      Adj-RIBs-Out.
   Sub-Prefix:  A regular (physically aggregatable) prefix.  These are
      equivalent to the prefixes that would normally comprise the DFRT
      in the absence of VA.  A VA router will contain a sub-prefix entry
      either because the sub-prefix falls within a Virtual Prefix for
      which the router is an APR, or because the sub-prefix is installed
      as a Popular Prefix.  Legacy routers hold the same sub-prefixes
      that they hold today.
   Tunnel:  This document specifies the use of MPLS Label Switched Paths
      (LSP), and of MPLS inner labels tunneled over either LSPs or IP
      headers.  While in principle other types of tunnels may be used,
      they are not specified here.  This document uses the term tunnel
      to refer to the above MPLS encapsulations.
   VA router:  A router that operates Virtual Aggregation according to
      this document.
   Virtual Prefix (VP):  A Virtual Prefix (VP) is a prefix used to
      aggregate its contained regular prefixes (sub-prefixes).  The set
      of sub-prefixes in a VP are not physically aggregatable, and so
      they are aggregated at APRs through the use of tunnels.
   VP-List:  A list of defined VPs.  All routers must agree on the
      contents of this list.


2.  Overview of Virtual Aggregation (VA)

   For descriptive simplicity, this section starts by describing VA
   assuming that there are no legacy routers in the domain.  Section 2.1
   overviews the additional functions required by VA routers to
   accommodate legacy routers.



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   A key concept behind VA is to operate BGP as normal, and in
   particular to populate the RIB with the full DFRT, but to suppress
   many or most prefixes from being loaded into the FIB.  By populating
   the RIB as normal, we avoid any changes to BGP, and changes to router
   operation are relatively minor.  The basic idea behind VA is as
   follows: The address space is partitioned into large prefixes ---
   larger than any aggregatable prefix in use today.  These prefixes are
   called Virtual Prefixes (VP).  Different VPs do not need to be the
   same size.  They may be a mix of /6, /7, /8 (for IPv4), and so on.
   Indeed, an ISP can define a single /0 VP, and use it for a core/edge
   type of configuration.  That is, the core routers would maintain full
   FIBs, and edge routers could maintain default routes to the core
   routers, and suppress as much of the FIB as they wish.  Each ISP can
   independently select the size of its VPs.

   VPs are not themselves topologically aggregatable.  VA makes the VPs
   aggregatable through the use of tunnels, as follows.  Associated with
   each VP are one or more "Aggregation Point Routers" (APR).  An APR
   (for a given VP) is a router that installs routes for all sub-
   prefixes (i.e. real physically aggregatable prefixes) within the VP.
   By "install routes" here, we mean:

   1.  The route for each of the sub-prefixes is loaded into the FIB,
       and
   2.  there is a tunnel from the APR to the BGP NEXT_HOP for the route.

   The APR originates a BGP route to the VP.  This route is distributed
   within the domain, but not outside the domain.  With this structure
   in place, a packet transiting the ISP goes from the ingress router to
   the APR (usually via a tunnel), and then from the APR to the BGP
   NEXT_HOP router via a tunnel.  VA can operate with MPLS LSPs, or with
   MPLS inner labels over LSPs or IP headers.  Section 4 specifies the
   usage of MPLS tunnels.  Other tunnel types (i.e., GRE) may be used,
   but are not specified in this document.

   The BGP NEXT_HOP can be either the local ASBR or the remote ASBR.  In
   the former case, an inner label is used to tunnel packets
   (Section 4.1).  In either case, all tunnel headers are stripped by
   the local ASBR before the packet is delivered to the remote ASBR.  In
   other words, the remote ASBR sees a normal IP packet, and is
   completely unaware of the existence of VA in the neighboring ISP.

   Note that the AS-PATH is not effected at all by VA.  This means among
   other things that AS-level policies are not effected by VA.  The
   packet may not, however, follow the shortest path within the ISP
   (where shortest path is defined here as the path that would have been
   taken if VA were not operating), because the APR may not be on the
   shortest path between the ingress and egress routers.  When this



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   happens, the packet experiences additional latency and creates extra
   load (by virtue of taking more hops than it otherwise would have).
   Note also that, with VA, a packet may occasionally take a different
   exit point than it otherwise would have.  This can occur for instance
   when the exit point nearest to the selected APR is different than the
   exit point nearest to the router initiating the tunnel to the APR.

   VA can avoid traversing the APR for selected routes by installing
   these routes in non-APR routers.  In other words, even if an ingress
   router is not an APR for a given sub-prefix, it MAY install that sub-
   prefix into its FIB.  Packets in this case are tunneled directly from
   the ingress to the BGP NEXT_HOP.  These extra routes are called
   "Popular Prefixes", and are typically installed for policy reasons
   (e.g. customer routes are always installed), or for sub-prefixes that
   carry a high volume of traffic (Section 3.5.1).  Different routers
   may have different Popular Prefixes.  As such, an ISP may assign
   Popular Prefixes per router, per POP, or uniformly across the ISP.  A
   given router may have zero Popular Prefixes, or the majority of its
   FIB may consist of Popular Prefixes.  The effectiveness of Popular
   Prefixes to reduce traffic load relies on the fact that traffic
   volumes follow something like a power-law distribution: i.e. that 90%
   of traffic is destined to 10% of the destinations.  Internet traffic
   measurement studies over the years have consistently shown that
   traffic patterns follow this distribution [nsdi09], though there is
   no guarantee that they always will.

   Note that for routing to work properly, every packet must sooner or
   later reach a router that has installed a sub-prefix route that
   matches the packet.  This would obviously be the case for a given
   sub-prefix if every router has installed a route for that sub-prefix.
   If this is not the case, then there MUST be at least one Aggregation
   Point Router (APR) for the sub-prefix's Virtual Prefix (VP).
   Ideally, every POP contains at least two APRs for every Virtual
   Prefix.  By having APRs in every POP, the latency imposed by routing
   to the APR is minimal (the extra hop is within the POP).  By having
   more than one APR, there is a redundant APR should one fail.  In
   practice it is often not possible to have an APR for every VP in
   every POP.  This is because some POPs may have only one or a few
   routers, and therefore there may not have enough cumulative FIB space
   in the POP to hold every sub-prefix.  Note that any router ("edge",
   "core", etc.)  MAY be an APR.

   It is important that both the contents of BGP RIBs, as well as the
   contents of the Routing Table (as defined in Section 3.2 of
   [RFC4271]) not be modified by VA (other than the introduction of
   routes to VPs).  This is because PIM-SM [RFC4601] relies on the
   contents of the Routing Table to build its own trees and forwarding
   table.  Therefore, FIB suppression MUST take place between the



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   Routing Table and the actual FIB(s).

2.1.  Mix of Legacy and VA Routers

   It is important that an ISP be able to operate with a mix of "VA
   routers" and "legacy routers".  This allows ISPs to deploy VA in an
   incremental fashion and to continue to use routers that for whatever
   reason cannot be upgraded.  This document allows such a mix, and
   indeed places no topological restrictions on that mix.  It does,
   however, require that legacy routers are able to forward tunneled
   packets, are able to serve as tunnel endpoints, and are able to
   participate in distribution of tunnel information required to
   establish themselves as tunnel endpoints.  Depending on the tunnel
   type, legacy routers MAY also be able to initiate tunneled packets,
   though this is an OPTIONAL requirement.  Legacy routers MUST use
   their own address as the BGP NEXT_HOP.

2.2.  Summary of Tunnels and Paths

   To summarize, the following tunnels are created:

   1.  From all VA routers to all BGP NEXT_HOP addresses (where the BGP
       NEXT_HOP address is either an APR, a local ASBR, or the remote
       ASBR neighbor of a VA router).
   2.  Optionally, from all legacy routers to all BGP NEXT_HOP
       addresses.
   There are a number of possible paths that packets may take through an
   ISP, summarized in the following diagram.  Here, "VA" is a VA router,
   "LR" is a legacy router, the symbol "==>" represents a tunneled
   packet (through zero or more routers), "-->" represents an untunneled
   packet, and "(pop)" represents stripping the tunnel header.  The
   symbol "::>" represents the portion of the path where although the
   tunnel is targeted to the receiving node, the outer header has been
   stripped.

















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                                             Egress
                                             Router
           Ingress    Some       APR         (Local     Remote
           Router     Router     Router      ASBR)      ASBR
           -------    ------     ------      ------     --------
       1.    VA===================>VA=========>VA(pop)::::>Peer ASBR

       2.    VA===================>VA=========>LR--------->Peer ASBR

       3.    VA===============================>VA(pop)::::>Peer ASBR

       4.    VA===============================>LR--------->Peer ASBR

       (The following two exist in the case where legacy routers
        can initiate tunneled packets.)

       5.    LR===============================>VA(pop)::::>Peer ASBR

       6.    LR===============================>LR--------->Peer ASBR

       (The following two exist in the case where legacy routers
        cannot initiate tunneled packets.)

       7.    LR------->VA (remaining paths as in 1 to 4 above)

       8.    LR------->LR--------------------->LR--------->Peer ASBR


   The first and second paths represent the case where the ingress
   router does not have a Popular Prefix for the destination, and MUST
   tunnel the packet to an APR.  The third and fourth paths represent
   the case where the ingress router does have a Popular Prefix for the
   destination, and so tunnels the packet directly to the egress.  The
   fifth and sixth paths are similar to the third and fourth paths
   respectively, but where the ingress is a legacy router that can
   initiate tunneled packets, and effectively has the Popular Prefix by
   virtue of holding the entire DFRT.  (Note that some ISPs have only
   partial RIBs in their customer-facing edge routers, and default route
   to a router that holds the full DFRT.  This case is not shown here,
   but works perfectly well.)  Finally, paths 7 and 8 represent the case
   where legacy routers cannot initiate a tunneled packet.

   VA prevents the routing loops that might otherwise occur when VA
   routers and legacy routers are mixed.  In particular, VA avoids the
   case where a legacy router is forwarding packets towards the BGP
   NEXT_HOP, while a VA router is forwarding packets towards the APR,
   with each router thinking that the other is on the shortest path to
   their respective targets.



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   In the first four types of path, the loop is avoided because tunnels
   are used all the way to the egress.  As a result, there is never an
   opportunity for a legacy router to try to route based on the
   destination address unless the legacy router is the egress, in which
   case it forwards the packet to the remote ASBR.

   In the 5th and 6th cases, the ingress is a legacy router, but this
   router can initiate tunnels and has the full FIB, and so simply
   tunnels the packet to the egress router.

   In the 7th and 8th cases, the legacy ingress cannot initiate tunnels,
   and so forwards the packet hop-by-hop towards the BGP NEXT_HOP.  The
   packet will work its way towards the egress router, and will either
   progress through a series of legacy routers (in which case the IGP
   prevents loops), or it will eventually reach a VA router, after which
   it will take tunnels as in the 1st and 2nd cases.


3.  Specification of VA

   This section describes in detail how to operate VA.

3.1.  Legacy Routers

   VA can operate with a mix of VA and legacy routers.  To prevent the
   types of loops described in Section 2.2, however, legacy routers MUST
   satisfy the following requirements:

   1.  When forwarding externally-received routes over iBGP, the BGP
       NEXT_HOP attribute MUST be set to the legacy router itself.
   2.  Legacy routers MUST be able to detunnel packets addressed to
       themselves at the BGP NEXT_HOP address.  They MUST also be able
       to convey the tunnel information needed by other routers to
       initiate tunneled packets to them.  If a legacy router cannot
       detunnel and convey tunnel parameters, then the AS cannot use VA.
   3.  Legacy routers MUST be able to forward all tunneled packets.
   4.  Every legacy router MUST hold its complete FIB.  Note, however,
       that this FIB does not necessarily need to contain the full DFRT.
       This might be the case, for instance, if the router is an edge
       router that defaults to a core router.

   As long as legacy routers participating in tunneling as described
   above there are no topological restrictions on the legacy routers.
   They may be freely mixed with VA routers without the possibility of
   forming sustained loops (Section 2.2).






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3.2.  Advertising and Handling Virtual Prefixes (VP)

3.2.1.  Distinguishing VPs from Sub-prefixes

   VA routers MUST be able to distinguish VPs from sub-prefixes.  This
   is primarily in order to know which routes to install.  In
   particular, non-APR routers SHOULD know which prefixes are VPs before
   they receive routes for those VPs, for instance when they first boot
   up.  This is in order to avoid the situation where they unnecessarily
   start filling their FIBs with routes that they ultimately don't need
   to install (Section 3.5).  This leads to the following requirement:

   It MUST be possible to configure the complete list of VPs into all VA
   routers.  This list is known as the VP-List.

3.2.2.  Limitations on Virtual Prefixes

   From the point of view of best-match routing semantics, VPs are
   treated identically to any other prefix.  In other words, if the
   longest matching prefix is a VP, then the packet is routed towards
   the VP.  If a packet matching a VP reaches an APR for that VP, and
   the APR does not have a better matching route, then the packet is
   discarded by the APR (just as a router that originates any prefix
   will discard a packet that does not have a better match).

   The overall semantics of VPs, however, are slightly different from
   those of real prefixes.  Without VA, when a router originates a route
   for a (real) prefix, the expectation is that the addresses within the
   prefix are within the originating AS (or a customer of the AS).  For
   VPs, this is not the case.  APRs originate VPs whose sub-prefixes
   exist in different ASes.  Because of this, VPs MUST not be advertised
   across AS boundaries.  This is done with NO_EXPORT Communities
   Attribute (Section 3.2.3).

   It is up to individual domains to define their own VPs.  VPs MUST be
   "larger" (span a larger address space) than any real sub-prefix.  If
   a VP is smaller than a real prefix, then packets that match the real
   prefix will nevertheless be routed to an APR owning the VP, at which
   point the packet will be dropped if it does not match a sub-prefix
   within the VP (Section 6).

   (Note that, in principle there are cases where a VP could be smaller
   than a real prefix.  This is where the egress router to the real
   prefix is a VA router.  In this case, the APR could theoretically
   tunnel the packet to the appropriate remote ASBR, which would then
   forward the packet correctly.  On the other hand, if the egress
   router is a legacy router, then the APR could not tunnel matching
   packets to the egress.  This is because the egress would view the VP



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   as a better match, and would loop the packet back to the APR.  For
   this reason we require that VPs be larger than any real prefixes, and
   that APRs never install prefixes larger than a VP in their FIBs.)

   It is valid for a VP to be a subset of another VP.  For example, 20/7
   and 20/8 can both be VPs.  In fact, this capability is necessary for
   "splitting" a VP without temporarily increasing the FIB size in any
   router.  (Section 3.2.5).

3.2.3.  Aggregation Point Routers (APR)

   For each VP for which a router is an APR, the router does the
   following:

   1.  The APR MUST originate a BGP route to the VP.  In this route, the
       NLRI are all of the VPs for which the router is an APR.  This is
       true even for VPs that are a subset of another VP.  The ORIGIN is
       set to INCOMPLETE (value 2), the AS number of the APR's AS is
       used in the AS_PATH, and the BGP NEXT_HOP is set to the address
       of the APR.  The ATOMIC_AGGREGATE and AGGREGATOR attributes are
       not included.
   2.  The APR MUST attach a NO_EXPORT Communities Attribute [RFC1997]
       to the route.
   3.  The APR MUST be able to detunnel packets addressed to itself at
       its BGP NEXT_HOP address.  It MUST also be able to convey the
       tunnel information needed by other routers to initiate tunneled
       packets to them.
   4.  If a packet is received at the APR whose best match route is the
       VP (i.e. it matches the VP but not any sub-prefixes within the
       VP), then the packet MUST be discarded (see Section 3.2.2).  This
       can be accomplished by never installing a prefix larger than the
       VP into the FIB, or by installing the VP as a route to \dev\null.

3.2.3.1.  Selecting APRs

   An ISP is free to select APRs however it chooses.  The details of
   this are outside the scope of this document.  Nevertheless, a few
   comments are made here.  In general, APRs should be selected such
   that the distance to the nearest APR for any VP is small---ideally
   within the same POP.  Depending on the number of routers in a POP,
   and the sizes of the FIBs in the routers relative to the DFRT size,
   it may not be possible for all VPs to be represented in a given POP.
   In addition, there should be multiple APRs for each VP, again ideally
   in each POP, so that the failure of one does not unduly disrupt
   traffic.






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3.2.4.  Non-APR Routers

   A non-APR router MUST install at least the following routes:

   1.  Routes to VPs (identifiable using the VP-List).
   2.  Routes to all sub-prefixes that are not covered by any VP in the
       VP-List.

   If the non-APR has a tunnel to the BGP NEXT_HOP of any such route, it
   MUST use the tunnel to forward packets to the BGP NEXT_HOP.

   When an APR fails, routers must select another APR to send packets to
   (if there is one).  This happens, however, through normal internal
   BGP convergence mechanisms.

3.2.5.  Adding and deleting VPs

   An ISP may from time to time wish to reconfigure its VP-List.  There
   are a number of reasons for this.  For instance, early in its
   deployment an ISP may configure one or a small number of VPs in order
   to test VA.  As the ISP gets more confident with VA, it may increase
   the number of VPs.  Or, an ISP may start with a small number of large
   VPs (i.e. /4's or even one /0), and over time move to more smaller
   VPs in order to save even more FIB.  In this case, the ISP will need
   to "split" a VP.  Finally, since the address space is not uniformly
   populated with prefixes, the ISP may want to change the size of VPs
   in order to balance FIB size across routers.  This can involve both
   splitting and merging VPs.  Of course, an ISP must be able to modify
   its VP-List without 1) interrupting service to any destinations, or
   2) temporarily increasing the size of any FIB (i.e. where the FIB
   size during the change is no bigger than its largest size either
   before or after the change).

   The first step for adding a VP is to configure the APRs for the VP.
   This causes the APRs to originate routes for the VP.  Non-APR routers
   will install this route according to the rules in Section 3.2.4 even
   though they do not yet recognize that the prefix is a VP.
   Subsequently the VP is added to the VP-List of non-APR routers.  The
   Non-APR routers can then start suppressing the sub-prefixes with no
   loss of service.

   To delete a VP, the process is reversed.  First, the VP is removed
   from the VP-Lists of non-APRs.  This causes the non-APRs to install
   the sub-prefixes.  After all sub-prefixes have been installed, the VP
   may be removed from the APRs.

   In many cases, it is desirable to split a VP.  For instance, consider
   the case where two routers, Ra and Rb, are APRs for the same prefix.



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   It would be possible to shrink the FIB in both routers by splitting
   the VP into two VPs (i.e. split one /6 into two /7's), and assigning
   each router to one of the VPs.  While this could in theory be done by
   first deleting the larger VP, and then adding the smaller VPs, doing
   so would temporarily increase the FIB size in non-APRs, which may not
   have adequate space for such an increase.  For this reason, we allow
   overlapping VPs.

   To split a VP, first the two smaller VPs are added to the VP-Lists of
   all non-APR routers (in addition to the larger superset VP).  Next,
   the smaller VPs are added to the selected APRs (which may or may not
   be APRs for the larger VP).  Because the smaller VPs are a better
   match than the larger VP, this will cause the non-APR routers to
   forward packets to the APRs for the smaller VPs.  Next, the larger VP
   can be removed from the VP-Lists of all non-APR routers.  Finally,
   the larger VP can be removed from its APRs.

   To merge two VPs, the new larger VP is configured in all non-APRs.
   This has no effect on FIB size or APR selection, since the smaller
   VPs are better matches.  Next the larger VP is configured in its
   selected APRs.  Next the smaller VPs are deleted from all non-APRs.
   Finally, the smaller VPs are deleted from their corresponding APRs.

3.3.  Border VA Routers

   A VA router that is an ASBR MUST do the following:

   1.  When forwarding externally-received routes over iBGP, if a tunnel
       with an inner label is used, the ASBR MUST set the BGP NEXT_HOP
       attribute to itself.  Otherwise, the BGP NEXT_HOP attribute is
       left unchanged.
   2.  They MUST establish tunnels as described in Section 4.
   3.  The ASBR MUST detunnel the packet before forwarding the packet to
       the remote ASBR.
   4.  The ASBR MUST be able to forward the packet without a FIB lookup.
       In other words, the tunnel information itself contains all the
       information needed by the border router to know which remote ASBR
       should receive the packet.

3.4.  Advertising and Handling Sub-Prefixes

   Sub-prefixes are advertised and handled by BGP as normal.  VA does
   not effect this behavior.  The only difference in the handling of
   sub-prefixes is that they might not be installed in the FIB, as
   described in Section 3.5.

   In those cases where the route is installed, packets forwarded to
   prefixes external to the AS MUST be transmitted via the tunnel



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   established as described in Section 3.3.

3.5.  Suppressing FIB Sub-prefix Routes

   Any route not for a known VP (i.e. not in the VP-List) is taken to be
   a sub-prefix.  The following rules are used to determine if a sub-
   prefix route can be suppressed.

   1.  A VA router MUST NOT FIB-install a sub-prefix route for which
       there is no tunnel to the BGP NEXT_HOP address.  This is to
       prevent a loop whereby the APR forwards the packet hop-by-hop
       towards the next hop, but a router on the path that has FIB-
       suppressed the sub-prefix forwards it back to the APR.
   2.  If the router is an APR, a route for every sub-prefix within the
       VP MUST be FIB-installed (subject to the above limitation that
       there be a tunnel).
   3.  If a non-APR router has a sub-prefix route that does not fall
       within any VP (as determined by the VP-List), then the route MUST
       be installed.  This may occur because the ISP hasn't defined a VP
       covering that prefix, for instance during an incremental
       deployment build-up.
   4.  If an ASBR is using strict uRPF to do ingress filtering, then it
       MUST install routes for which the remote ASBR is the BGP NEXT_HOP
       [RFC2827].  Note that only an APR may do loose uRPF filtering,
       and then only for routes to sub-prefixes within its VPs.
   5.  All other sub-prefix routes MAY be suppressed.  Such "optional"
       sub-prefixes that are nevertheless installed are referred to as
       Popular Prefixes.  Note, however, that whether or not to install
       a given sub-prefix SHOULD NOT be based on whether or not there is
       an active route to a VP in the VP-List.  This avoids the
       situation whereby, during BGP initialization, the router receives
       some sub-prefix routes before receiving the corresponding VP
       route, with the result that it installs routes in its FIB that it
       will only remove a short time later, possibly even overflowing
       its FIB.

3.5.1.  Selecting Popular Prefixes

   Individual routers MAY independently choose which sub-prefixes are
   Popular Prefixes.  There is no need for different routers to install
   the same sub-prefixes.  There is therefore significant leeway as to
   how routers select Popular Prefixes.  As a general rule, routers
   should fill the FIB as much as possible, because the cost of doing so
   is relatively small, and more FIB entries leads to fewer packets
   taking a longer path.  Broadly speaking, an ISP may choose to fill
   the FIB by making routers APRs for as many VPs as possible, or by
   assigning relatively few APRs and rather filling the FIB with Popular
   Prefixes.  Several basic approaches to selecting Popular Prefixes are



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   outlined here.  Router vendors are free to implement whatever
   approaches they want.

   1.  Policy-based: The simplest approach for network administrators is
       to have broad policies that routers use to determine which sub-
       prefixes are designated as popular.  An obvious policy would be a
       "customer routes" policy, whereby all customer routes are
       installed (as identified for instance by appropriate community
       attribute tags).  Another policy would be for a router to install
       prefixes originated by specific ASes.  For instance, two ISPs
       could mutually agree to install each other's originated prefixes.
       A third policy might be to install prefixes with the shortest AS-
       PATH.
   2.  Static list: Another approach would be to configure static lists
       of specific prefixes to install.  For instance, prefixes
       associated with an SLA might be configured.  Or, a list of
       prefixes for the most popular websites might be installed.
   3.  High-volume prefixes: By installing high-volume prefixes as
       Popular Prefixes, the latency and load associated with the longer
       path required by VA is minimized.  One approach would be for an
       ISP to measure its traffic volume over time (days or a few
       weeks), and statically configure high-volume prefixes as Popular
       Prefixes.  There is strong evidence that prefixes that are high-
       volume tend to remain high-volume over multi-day or multi-week
       timeframes (though not necessarily at short timeframes like
       minutes or seconds).  High-volume prefixes MAY also be installed
       automatically.  For this, a router measures its own traffic
       volumes, and installs and removes Popular Prefixes in response to
       changes in traffic load.  The downside of this approach is that
       it complicates debugging network problems.  If packets are being
       dropped somewhere in the network, it is more difficult to find
       out where if the selected path can change dynamically.

3.6.  New Configuration

   VA places new configuration requirements on ISP administrators.
   Namely, the administrator does the following.

   1.  Select VPs, and configure the VP-List into all VA routers.  As a
       general rule, having a larger number of relatively small prefixes
       gives administrators the most flexibility in terms of filling
       available FIB with sub-prefixes, and in terms of balancing load
       across routers.  Once an administrator has selected a VP-List, it
       is just as easy to configure routers with a large list as a small
       list.  A good list might be one where the number of VPs is
       relatively large, say 100 or so (noting again that each VP must
       be smaller than a real prefix), and the number of sub-prefixes
       within each VP is roughly the same.



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   2.  Select and configure APRs.  There are three primary
       considerations here.  First, there needs to be enough APRs to
       failover to should one or more APRs crash.  Second, APR
       assignment should not result in router overload.  Third,
       excessively long paths should be avoided.  Ideally there should
       be two APRs for each VP within each PoP, but this may not be
       possible for small PoPs.  Failing this, there should be at least
       two APRs in each geographical region, so as to minimize path
       length increase.  Routers should have the appropriate counters to
       allow administrators to know the volume of APR traffic each
       router is handling so as to adjust load by adding or removing APR
       assignments.
   3.  Select and configure Popular Prefixes or Popular Prefix policies.
       There are two general goals here.  The first is to minimize load
       overall by minimizing the number of packets that take longer
       paths.  The second is to insure that specific selected prefixes
       don't have overly long paths.  These goals have to be weighed
       against the administrative overhead of configuring potentially
       thousands of Popular Prefixes.  As one example a small ISP may
       wish to keep it simple by doing nothing more than indicating that
       customer routes should be installed.  In this case, the
       administrator could otherwise assign as many APRs as possible
       while leaving enough FIB space for customer routes.  As another
       example, a large ISP could build a management system that takes
       into consideration the traffic matrix, customer SLAs, robustness
       requirements, FIB sizes, topology, and router capacity, and
       periodically automatically computes APR and Popular Prefix
       assignments.

3.7.  Interaction with Traffic Engineering

   In VA, some traffic traverses an APR as an intermediate "hop", and
   some does not.  For that traffic that does not, there is no
   difference between how that traffic is handled and how it is handled
   in a non-VA network with edge-to-edge tunnels.  As a result, there
   should be no difference in how traffic engineering operates on that
   traffic.

   For traffic that does traverse APR "hop", the following holds: Any
   traffic engineering decisions that affect the BGP NEXT_HOP must be
   made at the APR.  Traffic engineering decisions that effects the
   router path through the AS may be handled in one of two ways.  First,
   the path decision may simply be made twice independently, once for
   the ingress-to-APR tunnel, and once for the APR-to-egress tunnel.
   This approach requires no changes to the traffic engineering
   mechanisms per se, but it may not make optimal path selection
   decisions.  Second, the traffic engineering decision may take into
   account both tunnels, even to the point of choosing among multiple



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   transit APRs.  This approach may be more optimal, but is more complex
   and requires changes to existing mechanisms.

   Overall, if the majority of traffic does not involve an APR "hop",
   for instance through the use of popular prefixes, then VA in any
   event has a minimal impact on traffic engineering, and so the impact
   of VA may potentially be ignored.


4.  Usage of MPLS Tunnels

   VA utilizes a straight-forward application of MPLS.  The tunnels are
   MPLS Label Switched Paths (LSP), and are signaled using either the
   Label Distribution Protocol (LDP) [RFC5036] or RSVP-TE [RFC3209].
   Both VA and legacy routers MUST participate in this signaling.

   APRs and ASBRs initiate tunnels.  In both cases, Downstream
   Unsolicited tunnels are initiated to all IGP neighbors with the full
   BGP NEXT_HOP address as the Forwarding Equivalence Class (FEC).  In
   the case of APRs, the BGP NEXT_HOP is the APR's own address.  In the
   case of legacy ASBRs, the BGP NEXT_HOP is the ASBR's own address.  In
   the case of VA ASBRs, the BGP NEXT_HOP is that of the remote ASBR.

   Existing Penultimate Hop Popping (PHP) mechanisms in the data plane
   can be used for forwarding packets to remote ASBRs.

4.1.  Usage of Inner Label

   Besides using a separate LSP to identify the remote ASBR as described
   above, it is also possible to use an inner label to identify the
   remote ASBR.  Either an outer label or an IP tunnel identifies the
   local ASBR.

   When a local ASBR advertises a route into iBGP, it sets the NEXT_HOP
   to itself, and assigns a label to the route.  This label is used as
   the inner label, and identifies the remote ASBR from which the route
   was received [RFC3107].

   The presence of the inner label in the iBGP update acts as the signal
   to the receiving router that an inner label MUST be used in packets
   tunneled to the NEXT_HOP address.  If there is an LSP established
   targeted to the NEXT_HOP address, then it is used to tunnel the
   packet to the NEXT_HOP address.  Otherwise, an IP header address to
   the NEXT_HOP address is used.







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5.  IANA Considerations

   There are no IANA considerations.


6.  Security Considerations

   We consider the security implications of VA under two scenarios, one
   where VA is assumed to be configured and operated correctly, and one
   where it is mis-configured.  A cornerstone of VA operation is that
   the basic behavior of BGP doesn't change, especially inter-domain.
   Among other things, this makes it easier to reason about security.

6.1.  Properly Configured VA

   If VA is configured and operated properly, then the external behavior
   of an AS does not change.  The same upstream ASes are selected, and
   the same prefixes and AS-PATHs are advertised.  Therefore, a properly
   configured VA domain has no security impact on other domains.

   If another ISP starts advertising a prefix that is larger than a
   given VP, this prefix will be ignored by APRs that have a VP that
   falls within the larger prefix (Section 3.2.3).  As a result, packets
   that might otherwise have been routed to the new larger prefix will
   be dropped at the APRs.  Note that the trend in the Internet is
   towards large prefixes being broken up into smaller ones, not the
   reverse.  Therefore, such a larger prefix is likely to be invalid.
   If it is determined without a doubt that the larger prefix is valid,
   then the ISP will have to reconfigure its VPs.

   VA does not change an ISP's ability to do ingress filtering using
   strict uRPF (Section 3.5).

   Regarding DoS attacks, there are two issues that need to be
   considered.  First, does VA result in new types of DoS attacks?
   Second, does VA make it more difficult to deploy DoS defense systems.
   Regarding the first issue, one possibility is that an attacker
   targets a given router by flooding the network with traffic to
   prefixes that are not popular, and for which that router is an APR.
   This would cause a disproportionate amount of traffic to be forwarded
   to the APR(s).  While it is up to individual ISPs to decide if this
   attack is a concern, it does not strike the authors that this attack
   is likely to significantly worsen the DoS problem.

   Many DoS defense systems use dynamically established Routing Table
   entries to divert victims' traffic into LSPs that carry the traffic
   to scrubbers.  This mechanism works with VA---it simply over-rides
   whatever route is in place.  This mechanism works equally well with



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   APRs and non-APRs.

6.2.  Mis-configured VA

   VA introduces the possibility that a VP is advertised outside of an
   AS.  This in fact should be a low probability event since routers
   filter these, but it is considered here none-the-less.

   If an AS leaks a large VP (i.e. larger than any real prefixes), then
   the impact is minimal.  Smaller prefixes will be preferred because of
   best-match semantics, and so the only impact is that packets that
   otherwise have no matching routes will be sent to the misbehaving AS
   and dropped there.  If an AS leaks a small VP (i.e. smaller than a
   real prefix), then packets to that AS will be hijacked by the
   misbehaving AS and dropped.  (This can happen with or without VA, and
   so doesn't represent a new security problem per se.)

   Although VPs MUST be larger than real prefixes, there is
   intentionally no mechanism designed to automatically insure that this
   is the case.  Such a mechanisms would be dangerous.  For instance, if
   an ISP somewhere advertised a very large prefix (a /4, say), then
   this would cause APRs to throw out all VPs that are smaller than
   this.  For this reason, VPs must be set through configuration only.


7.  Acknowledgements

   The authors would like to acknowledge the efforts of Xinyang Zhang
   and Jia Wang, who worked on CRIO (Core Router Integrated Overlay), an
   early inter-domain variant of FIB suppression, and the efforts of
   Hitesh Ballani and Tuan Cao, who worked on the configuration-only
   variant of VA that works with legacy routers.  We would also like to
   thank Scott Brim, Daniel Ginsburg, and Rajiv Asati for their helpful
   comments.  In particular, Daniel's comments significantly simplified
   the spec (eliminating the need for a new Extended Communities
   Attribute).  Finally, we would like to thank Wes George, Med
   Boucadair, and Bruno Decraene for their reviews and suggestions.


8.  References

8.1.  Normative References

   [RFC1997]  Chandrasekeran, R., Traina, P., and T. Li, "BGP
              Communities Attribute", RFC 1997, August 1996.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.



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   [RFC2827]  Ferguson, P. and D. Senie, "Network Ingress Filtering:
              Defeating Denial of Service Attacks which employ IP Source
              Address Spoofing", BCP 38, RFC 2827, May 2000.

   [RFC3107]  Rekhter, Y. and E. Rosen, "Carrying Label Information in
              BGP-4", RFC 3107, May 2001.

   [RFC3209]  Awduche, D., Berger, L., Gan, D., Li, T., Srinivasan, V.,
              and G. Swallow, "RSVP-TE: Extensions to RSVP for LSP
              Tunnels", RFC 3209, December 2001.

   [RFC4271]  Rekhter, Y., Li, T., and S. Hares, "A Border Gateway
              Protocol 4 (BGP-4)", RFC 4271, January 2006.

   [RFC4601]  Fenner, B., Handley, M., Holbrook, H., and I. Kouvelas,
              "Protocol Independent Multicast - Sparse Mode (PIM-SM):
              Protocol Specification (Revised)", RFC 4601, August 2006.

   [RFC5036]  Andersson, L., Minei, I., and B. Thomas, "LDP
              Specification", RFC 5036, October 2007.

8.2.  Informative References

   [I-D.ietf-grow-simple-va]
              Francis, P., Xu, X., Ballani, H., Raszuk, R., and L.
              Zhang, "Simple Virtual Aggregation (S-VA)",
              draft-ietf-grow-simple-va-00 (work in progress),
              March 2010.

   [I-D.ietf-grow-va-gre]
              Francis, P., Raszuk, R., and X. Xu, "GRE and IP-in-IP
              Tunnels for Virtual Aggregation",
              draft-ietf-grow-va-gre-00 (work in progress), July 2009.

   [I-D.ietf-grow-va-mpls]
              Francis, P. and X. Xu, "MPLS Tunnels for Virtual
              Aggregation", draft-ietf-grow-va-mpls-00 (work in
              progress), May 2009.

   [I-D.ietf-grow-va-mpls-innerlabel]
              Xu, X. and P. Francis, "Proposal to use an inner MPLS
              label to identify the remote ASBR VA",
              draft-ietf-grow-va-mpls-innerlabel-00 (work in progress),
              September 2009.

   [nsdi09]   Ballani, H., Francis, P., Cao, T., and J. Wang, "Making
              Routers Last Longer with ViAggre", ACM Usenix NSDI 2009 ht
              tp://www.usenix.org/events/nsdi09/tech/full_papers/



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              ballani/ballani.pdf, April 2009.


Authors' Addresses

   Paul Francis
   Max Planck Institute for Software Systems
   Gottlieb-Daimler-Strasse
   Kaiserslautern  67633
   Germany

   Phone: +49 631 930 39600
   Email: francis@mpi-sws.org


   Xiaohu Xu
   Huawei Technologies
   No.3 Xinxi Rd., Shang-Di Information Industry Base, Hai-Dian District
   Beijing, Beijing  100085
   P.R.China

   Phone: +86 10 82836073
   Email: xuxh@huawei.com


   Hitesh Ballani
   Cornell University
   4130 Upson Hall
   Ithaca, NY  14853
   US

   Phone: +1 607 279 6780
   Email: hitesh@cs.cornell.edu


   Dan Jen
   UCLA
   4805 Boelter Hall
   Los Angeles, CA  90095
   US

   Phone:
   Email: jenster@cs.ucla.edu








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   Robert Raszuk (editor)
   NTT MCL Inc.
   101 S Ellsworth Avenue Suite 350
   San Mateo, CA  94401
   US

   Email: robert@raszuk.net


   Lixia Zhang
   UCLA
   3713 Boelter Hall
   Los Angeles, CA  90095
   US

   Phone:
   Email: lixia@cs.ucla.edu


































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