INTERNET-DRAFT
             Document: draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt      Yong Xue
             Category: Informational                                   (Editor)
             Expiration Date: June, 2003                          WorldCom, Inc
          
                                                                  December 2002
          
                        Optical Network Service Requirements
          
             Status of This Memo
             This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with all
             provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026. Internet-Drafts are working
             documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas,
             and its working groups.  Note that other groups may also distribute
             working documents as Internet-Drafts.
          
             Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
             and may be updated, replaced, or rendered obsolete 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".
          
             The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at
             http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt.
          
             The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
             http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html.
          
             Abstract
             This Internet Draft describes the major carrier's optical service
             requirements for the Automatically Switched Optical Networks (ASON)
             from both an end-user's as well as an operator's perspectives. Its
             focus is on the description of the service building blocks and
             service-related control plane functional requirements. The management
             functions for the optical services and their underlying networks are
             beyond the scope of this document.
          
             Table of Contents
                1. Introduction                                         2
                 1.1 Conventions used in this document                  3
                 1.2 Value Statement                                    3
                 1.3 Scope of This Document                             4
                2. Contributing Authors                                 5
                3. Abbreviations                                        6
                4. General Requirements                                 6
                 4.1 Separation of Networking Functions                 7
                 4.2 Separation of Call and Connection Control          8
                 4.3 Network and Service Scalability                    8
                 4.4 Transport Network Technology                       9
                 4.5 Service Building Blocks                            9
                5. Service Models and Applications                      9
                 5.1 Service and Connection Types                      10
                 5.2 Examples of Common Service Models                 11
          
          draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt                  [Page 1]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
                6. Network Reference Model                             12
                 6.1 Optical Networks and Subnetworks                  12
                 6.2 Network Interfaces                                12
                 6.3 Intra-Carrier Network Model                       15
                 6.4 Inter-Carrier Network Model                       16
                 6.5 Implied Control Constraints                       16
                7. Optical Service User Requirements                   16
                 7.1 Common Optical Services                           17
                 7.2 Bearer Interface Types                            17
                 7.3 Optical Service Invocation                        18
                 7.4 Optical Connection Granularity                    20
                 7.5 Other Service Parameters and Requirements         20
                8. Optical Service Provider Requirements               21
                 8.1 Access Methods to Optical Networks                22
                 8.2 Dual Homing and Network Interconnections          22
                 8.3 Inter-domain connectivity                         22
                 8.4 Names and Address Management                      23
                 8.5 Policy-Based Service Management Framework         24
                9. Control Plane Functional Requirements for Optical
                   Services                                            24
                 9.1 Control Plane Capabilities and Functions          24
                 9.2 Control Message Transport Network                 26
                 9.3 Control Plane Interface to Data Plane             27
                 9.4 Management Plane Interface to Data Plane          28
                 9.5 Control Plane Interface to Management Plane       28
                 9.6 IP and Optical Control Plane Interconnection      29
                10. Requirements for Signaling, Routing and Discovery  29
                 10.1 Requirements for information sharing over UNI,
                     I-NNI and E-NNI                                   29
                 10.2 Signaling Functions                              30
                 10.3 Routing Functions                                30
                 10.4 Requirements for path selection                  32
                 10.5 Discovery Functions                              32
                11. Requirements for service and control plane
                    resiliency                                         33
                 11.1 Service resiliency                               34
                 11.2 Control plane resiliency                         35
                12. Security Considerations                            36
                 12.1 Optical Network Security Concerns                36
                 12.2 Service Access Control                           36
                13. Acknowledgements                                   37
                14. References                                         38
                Authors' Addresses                                     39
                Appendix: Interconnection of Control Planes            41
          
              1. Introduction
          
             Optical transport networks are evolving from the current TDM-based
             SONET/SDH optical networks as defined by ANSI T1.105 and ITU Rec.
             G.803 [ansi-sonet, itu-sdh] to emerging WDM-based optical transport
             networks (OTN) as defined by ITU Rec. G.872 in [itu-otn]. Therefore in
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 2]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             the near future, carrier optical transport networks are expected to
             consist of a mixture of the SONET/SDH-based sub-networks and the WDM-
             based wavelength or fiber switched OTN sub-networks. The OTN networks
             can be either transparent or opaque depending upon if O-E-O functions
             are utilized within the optical networks. Optical networking
             encompasses the functionalities for the establishment, transmission,
             multiplexing and switching of optical connections carrying a wide
             range of user signals of varying formats and bit rate. The optical
             connections in this document include switched optical path using TDM
             channel, WADM wavelength or fiber links.
          
             Some of the challenges for the carriers are efficient bandwidth
             management and fast service provisioning in a multi-technology and
             possibly multi-vendor networking environment. The emerging and rapidly
             evolving Automatically Switched Optical Network (ASON) technology
             [itu-astn, itu-ason] is aimed at providing optical networks with
             intelligent networking functions and capabilities in its control plane
             to enable rapid optical connection provisioning, dynamic rerouting as
             well as multiplexing and switching at different granularity levels,
             including
             fiber, wavelength and TDM channel. The ASON control plane should not
             only enable the new networking functions and capabilities for the
             emerging OTN networks, but significantly enhance the service
             provisioning capabilities for the existing SONET/SDH networks as well.
          
             The ultimate goals should be to allow the carriers to automate network
             resource and topology discovery, to quickly and dynamically provision
             network resources and circuits, and to support assorted network
             survivability using ring and mesh-based protection and restoration
             techniques. The carriers see that this new networking platform will
             create tremendous business opportunities for the network operators and
             service providers to offer new services to the market, and in the long
             run to reduce their network operation cost (OpEx saving), and to
             improve their network utilization efficiency (CapEx saving).
          
             1.1 Conventions Used in This Document
          
             The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL
             NOT","SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in
             this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.
          
             1.2 Value Statement
          
             By deploying ASON technology, a carrier expects to achieve the
             following benefits from both technical and business perspectives:
             Automated Discovery: ASON technology will enable automatic network
             inventory management, topology and resource discovery which eliminates
             the manual or semi-manual process for maintaining the network
             information database that exist in most carrier environment.
          
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 3]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             Rapid Circuit Provisioning: ASON technology will enable the dynamic
             end-to-end provisioning of the optical connections across the optical
             network by using standard routing and signaling protocols.
          
             Enhanced Protection and Restoration: ASON technology will enable the
             network to dynamically reroute an optical connection in case of
             failure using mesh-based network protection and restoration
             techniques, which greatly improves the cost-effectiveness compared to
             the current line and ring protection schemes in the SONET/SDH network.
          
             - Service Flexibility: ASON technology will support provisioning of an
             assortment of existing and new services such as protocol and bit-rate
             independent transparent network services, and bandwidth-on-demand
             services.
          
             - Enhanced Interoperability: ASON technology will use a control plane
             utilizing industry and international standards-based architecture and
             protocols, which facilitate the interoperability of the optical
             network equipment from different vendors.
          
          
             In addition, the ASON control plane may offer the following potential
             value-added benefits:
          
             - Reactive traffic engineering at optical layer that allows network
             resources to be dynamically allocated to traffic flow.
          
             - Reduce the need for service providers to develop new operational
             support systems (OSS) software for the network control and new service
             provisioning on the optical network, thus speeding up the deployment
             of the optical network technology and reducing the software
             development and maintenance cost.
          
             - Potential development of a unified control plane that can be used
             for different transport technologies including OTN, SONET/SDH, ATM and
             PDH.
          
             1.3.  Scope of this document
          
             This document is intended to provide, from the carriers perspective, a
             service framework and some associated requirements in relation to the
             optical transport services to be offered in the next generation
             optical transport networking environment and their service control and
             management functions.  As such, this document concentrates on the
             requirements driving the work towards realization of automatically
             switched optical networks.  This document is intended to be protocol-
             neutral, but the specific goals include providing the requirements to
             guide the control protocol development and enhancement within IETF in
             terms of reuse of IP-centric control protocols in the optical
             transport network.
          
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 4]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             Every carrier's needs are different. The objective of this document is
             NOT to define some specific service models. Instead, some major
             service building blocks are identified that will enable the carriers
             to use them in order to create the best service platform most suitable
             to their business model. These building blocks include generic service
             types, service enabling control mechanisms and service control and
             management functions.
          
             The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) carrier group has developed a
             comprehensive set of control plane requirements for both UNI and NNI
             [oif-carrier, oif-nnireq] and they have been used as the base line
             input to this document.
          
             The fundamental principles and basic set of requirements for the
             control plane of the automatic switched optical networks have been
             provided in a series of ITU Recommendations under the umbrella of ITU
             ASTN/ASON architectural and functional requirements as listed below:
          
             Architecture:
             - ITU-T Rec. G.8070/Y.1301 (2001), Requirements for the Automatic
             Switched Transport Network (ASTN)[itu-astn]
          
              - ITU-T Rec. G.8080/Y.1304  (2001), Architecture of the Automatic
             Switched Optical Network (ASON)[itu-ason]
          
             Signaling:
             - ITU-T Rec.  G.7713/Y.1704 (2001), Distributed Call and Connection
             Management (DCM)[itu-dcm]
          
             Routing:
             - ITU-T Draft Rec. G.7715/Y.1706 (2002), Architecture and Requirements
             for Routing in the Automatically Switched Optical Network [itu-rtg]
          
             Discovery:
             - ITU-T Rec. G.7714/Y.1705 (2001), Generalized Automatic Discovery
             [itu-disc]
          
             Signaling Communication Network:
             - ITU-T Rec. G.7712/Y.1703 (2001), Architecture and Specification of
             Data Communication Network [itu-dcn]
          
             This document provides further detailed requirements based on the
             ASTN/ASON framework. In addition, even though for IP over Optical we
             consider IP as a major client to the optical network in this document,
             the same requirements and principles should be equally applicable to
             non-IP clients such as SONET/SDH, ATM, ITU G.709, Ethernet, etc. The
             general architecture for IP over Optical is described in the IP over
             Optical framework document [ipo-frame]
          
             2. Contributing Authors
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 5]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             This document was the combined effort of the editors and the following
             authors who contributed to this document:
                Monica Lazer
                Jennifer Yates
                Dongmei Wang
                Ananth Nagarajan
                Hirokazu Ishimatsu
                Olga Aparicio
                Steven Wright
          
             3. Acronyms
          
              APON     ATM Passive Optical Network
              ASON     Automatic Switched Optical Networking
              ASTN     Automatic Switched Transport Network
              CAC      Connection Admission Control
              EPON     Ethernet Passive Optical Network
              ESCON    Enterprise Storage Connectivity
              FC       Fiber Channel
              FICON    Fiber Connectivity
              NNI      Node-to-Node Interface
              UNI      User-to-Network Interface
              I-NNI    Internal NNI
              E-NNI    External NNI
              NE       Network Element
              OTN      Optical Transport Network
              CNE      Customer/Client Network Element
              ONE      Optical Network Element
              OLS      Optical Line System
              PI       Physical Interface
              PDH      Plesiosynchronous Digital Hierarchy
              CI       Control Interface
              SLA      Service Level Agreement
              SCN      Signaling Communication Network
              SONET    Synchronous Digital Hierarchy
              SDH      Synchronous Optical Network
          
             4. General Requirements
             In order to provide the carriers with flexibility and control of the
             optical networks, the following set of architectural requirements are
             essential.
          
             4.1. Separation of Networking Functions
          
             A fundamental architectural principle of the ASON network is to
             segregate the networking functions within each layer network into
             three logical functional planes: control plane, data plane and
             management plane. They are responsible for providing network control
             functions, data transmission functions and network management
             functions respectively. The crux of the ASON network is the networking
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 6]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             intelligence that contains automatic routing, signaling and discovery
             functions to automate the network control functions.
          
             Control Plane: includes the functions related to networking control
             capabilities such as routing, signaling, and policy control, as well
             as resource and service discovery. These functions are automated.
          
             Data Plane (Transport Plane): includes the functions related to bearer
             channels and signal transmission.
          
             Management Plane: includes the functions related to the management
             functions of network element, networks and network resources and
             services. These functions are less automated as compared to control
             plane functions.
          
             Each plane consists of a set of interconnected functional or control
             entities, physical or logical, responsible for providing the
             networking or control functions defined for that network layer.
          
             Each plane has clearly defined functional responsibilities. However,
             the management plane is responsible for the management of both control
             and data planes, thus playing an authoritative role in overall control
             and management functions as discussed in Section 9.
          
             The separation of the control plane from both the data and management
             plane is beneficial to the carriers in that it:
          
             - Allows equipment vendors to have a modular system design that will
             be more reliable and maintainable.
          
             - Allows carriers to have the flexibility to choose a third party
             vendor control plane software systems as the control plane solution
             for its switched optical network.
          
             - Allows carriers to deploy a unified control plane and OSS/management
             systems to manage and control different types of transport networks it
             owns.
          
             - Allows carriers to use a separate control network specially designed
             and engineered for the control plane communications.
          
          
             The separation of control, management and transport function is
             required and it shall accommodate both logical and physical level
             separation. The logical separation refers to functional separation
             while physical separation refers to the case where the control,
             management and transport functions physically reside in different
             equipment or locations.
          
             Note that it is in contrast to the IP network where the control
             messages and user traffic are routed and switched based on the same
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 7]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             network topology due to the associated in-band signaling nature of the
             IP network.
          
             When the physical separation is allowed between the control and data
             plane, a standardized interface and control protocol (e.g. GSMP [ietf-
             gsmp]) should be supported.
          
             4.2. Separation of call and connection control
          
             To support many enhanced optical services, such as scheduled bandwidth
             on demand, diverse circuit provisioning and bundled connections, a
             call model based on the separation of call control and connection
             control is essential.
          
             The call control is responsible for the end-to-end session
             negotiation, call admission control and call state maintenance while
             connection control is responsible for setting up the connections
             associated with a call across the network. A call can correspond to
             zero, one or more connections depending upon the number of connections
             needed to support the call.
          
             The existence of the connection depends upon the existence of its
             associated call session and connection can be deleted and re-
             established while still keeping the call session up.
          
             The call control shall be provided at an ingress port or gateway port
             to the network such as UNI and E-NNI [see Section 6 for definition].
             The connection control is provided at the originating node of the
             circuit as well as on each link along the path.
          
             The control plane shall support the separation of the call control
             from the connection control.
          
             The control plane shall support call  admission control on call setup
             and connection admission control on connection setup.
          
             4.3.  Network and Service Scalability
          
             Although some specific applications or networks may be on a small
             scale, the control plane protocol and functional capabilities shall
             support large-scale networks.
          
             In terms of the scale and complexity of the future optical network,
             the following assumption can be made when considering the scalability
             and performance that are required of the optical control and
             management functions.
             - There may be up to thousands of OXC nodes and the same or higher
             order of magnitude of OADMs per carrier network.
          
             - There may be up to thousands of terminating ports/wavelength per OXC
             node.
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 8]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
          
             - There may be up to hundreds of parallel fibers between a pair of OXC
             nodes.
          
             - There may be up to hundreds of wavelength channels transmitted on
             each fiber.
          
             As for the frequency and duration of the optical connections:
          
             - The expected end-to-end connection setup/teardown time should be in
             the order of seconds, preferably less.
          
             - The expected connection holding times should be in the order of
             minutes or greater.
          
             - There may be up to millions of simultaneous optical connections
             switched across a single carrier network.
          
             4.4. Transport Network Technology
          
             Optical services can be offered over different types of underlying
             optical transport technologies including both TDM-based SONET/SDH
             network and WDM-based OTN networks.
          
             Standards-based transport technologies SONET/SDH as defined in the ITU
             Rec. G.803 and OTN implementation framing as defined in ITU Rec. G.709
             [itu-g709] shall be supported.
          
             Note that the service characteristics such as bandwidth granularity
             and signaling framing hierarchy to a large degree will be determined
             by the capabilities and constraints of the server layer network.
          
             4.5.  Service Building Blocks
          
             One of the goals of this document is to identify a set of basic
             service building blocks the carriers can use to create the best
             suitable service models that serve their business needs.
          
             The service building blocks are comprised of a well-defined set of
             capabilities and a basic set of control and management functions.
             These capabilities and functions should support a basic set of
             services and enable a carrier to build enhanced services through
             extensions and customizations. Examples of the building blocks include
             the connection types, provisioning methods, control interfaces, policy
             control functions, and domain internetworking mechanisms, etc.
          
             5.  Service Model and Applications
          
             A carrier's optical network supports multiple types of service models.
             Each service model may have its own service operations, target
             markets, and service management requirements.
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 9]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
          
             5.1.  Service and Connection Types
          
             The optical network is primarily offering optical paths that are fixed
             bandwidth connections between two client network elements, such as IP
             routers or ATM switches, established across the optical network. A
             connection is also defined by its demarcation from ingress access
             point, across the optical network, to egress access point of the
             optical network.
          
             The following connection capability topologies must be supported:
          
             - Bi-directional point-to-point connection
          
             - Uni-directional point-to-point connection
          
             - Uni-directional point-to-multipoint connection
          
             The point-to-point connections are the primary concerns of the
             carriers. In this case, the following three types of network
             connections based on different connection set-up control methods shall
             be supported:
             - Permanent connection (PC): Established hop-by-hop directly on each
             ONE along a specified path without relying on the network routing and
             signaling capability. The connection has two fixed end-points and
             fixed cross-connect configuration along the path and stays up until it
             is deleted. This is similar to the concept of PVC in ATM and there is
             no automatic re-routing capability.
          
             - Switched connection (SC): Established through UNI signaling
             interface and the connection is dynamically established by network
             using the network routing and signaling functions. This is similar to
             the concept of SVC in ATM.
          
             - Soft permanent connection (SPC): Established by specifying two PC at
             end-points and let the network dynamically establishes a SC connection
             in between. This is similar to the SPVC concept in ATM.
          
             The PC and SPC connections should be provisioned via management plane
             to control interface and the SC connection should be provisioned via
             signaled UNI interface.
          
             Note that even though automated rapid optical connection provisioning
             is required, the carriers expect the majority of provisioned circuits,
             at least in short term, to have a long lifespan ranging from months to
             years.
          
             In terms of service provisioning, some carriers may choose to perform
             testing prior to turning over to the customer.
          
             5.2.  Examples of Common Service Models
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 10]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
          
             Each carrier may define its own service model based on it business
             strategy and environment. The following are example service models
             that carriers may use.
          
             5.2.1.  Provisioned Bandwidth Service (PBS)
          
             The PBS model provides enhanced leased/private line services
             provisioned via service management interface (MI) using either PC or
             SPC type of connection. The provisioning can be real-time or near
             real-time. It has the following characteristics:
             - Connection request goes through a well-defined management interface
          
             - Client/Server relationship between clients and optical network.
          
             - Clients have no optical network visibility and depend on network
             intelligence or operator for optical connection setup.
          
             5.2.2.  Bandwidth on Demand Service (BDS)
          
             The BDS model provides bandwidth-on-demand dynamic connection services
             via signaled user-network interface (UNI). The provisioning is real-
             time and is using SC type of optical connection. It has the following
             characteristics:
             - Signaled connection request via UNI directly from the user or its
             proxy.
          
             - Customer has no or limited network visibility depending upon the
             control interconnection model used and network administrative policy.
          
             - Relies on network or client intelligence for connection set-up
             depending upon the control plane interconnection model used.
          
             5.2.3.  Optical Virtual Private Network (OVPN)
          
             The OVPN model provides virtual private network at the optical layer
             between a specified set of user sites.  It has the following
             characteristics:
          
             - Customers contract for specific set of network resources such as
             optical connection ports, wavelengths, etc.
          
             - Closed User Group (CUG) concept is supported as in normal VPN.
          
             - Optical connection can be of PC, SPC or SC type depending upon the
             provisioning method used.
          
             - An OVPN site can request dynamic reconfiguration of the connections
             between sites within the same CUG.
          
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 11]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             - A customer may have visibility and control of network resources up
             to the extent allowed by the customer service contract.
          
             At a minimum, the PBS, BDS and OVPN service models described above
             shall be supported by the control functions.
          
             6.  Network Reference Model
          
             This section discusses major architectural and functional components
             of a generic carrier optical network, which will provide a reference
             model for describing the requirements for the control and management
             of carrier optical services.
          
             6.1.  Optical Networks and Sub-networks
          
             As mentioned before, there are two main types of optical networks that
             are currently under consideration: SDH/SONET network as defined in ITU
             Rec. G.803, and OTN as defined in ITU Rec. G.872.
          
             In the current SONET/SDH-based optical network, digital cross-connects
             (DXC) and add-drop multiplexer (ADM) and line multiplexer terminal
             (LMT) are connected in ring or linear topology. Similarly, we assume
             an OTN is composed of a set of optical cross-connects (OXC) and
             optical add-drop multiplexer (OADM) which is interconnected in a
             general mesh topology using DWDM optical line systems (OLS).
          
             It is often convenient for easy discussion and description to treat an
             optical network as an sub-network cloud, in which the details of the
             network become less important, instead focus is on the function and
             the interfaces the optical network provides. In general, a subnetwork
             can be defined as a set of access points on the network boundary and a
             set of point-to-point optical connections between those access points.
          
             6.2. Control Domains and Interfaces
             A generic carrier network reference model describes a multi-carrier
             network environment. Each individual carrier network can be further
             partitioned into sub-networks or administrative domains based on
             administrative, technological or architectural reasons. This partition
             can be recursive. Similarly, a network can be partitioned into control
             domains that match the administrative domains and are controlled by a
             single administrative policy.  The control domains can be recursively
             divided into sub-domains to form control hierarchy for scalability.
             The control domain concept can be applied to routing, signaling and
             protection & restoration to form an autonomous control function
             domain.
          
             The demarcation between domains can be either logical or physical and
             consists of a set of reference points identifiable in the optical
             network. From the control plane perspective, these reference points
             define a set of control interfaces in terms of optical control and
             management functionality as illustrated in Figure 1.
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 12]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
          
                                     +---------------------------------------+
                                     |    Single carrier network             |
                   +------------+    |                                       |
                   |Customer    |    |  +------------+       +------------+  |
                   |IP          |    |  |            |       |            |  |
                   |Network     +-UNI|- +  Optical   +--UNI--+CarrierÆs IP|  |
                   |            |    |  | Subnetwork |       |  network   |  |
                   +------------+    |  | (Domain A) +--+    |            |  |
                                     |  +------+-----+  |    +------+-----+  |
                                     |         |        |           |        |
                                     |       I-NNI    E-NNI        UNI       |
                   +------------+    |         |        |           |        |
                   |Customer    |    |  +------+-----+  |    +------+-----+  |
                   |IP          +-UNI|- +            |  +----+            |  |
                   |Network     |    |  | Optical    |       |  Optical   |  |
                   |            |    |  | Subnetwork +-E-NNI-+ Subnetwork |  |
                   +------------+    |  | (Domain A) |       | (Domain B) |  |
                                     |  +------+-----+       +------+-----+  |
                                     |         |                    |        |
                                     +---------------------------------------+
                                              UNI                 E-NNI
                                               |                    |
                                        +------+-------+    +-------+--------+
                                        |              |    |                |
                                        | Other Client |    |  Other Carrier |
                                        |Network       |    | Network        |
                                        | (ATM/SONET)  |    |                |
                                        +--------------+    +----------------+
          
                Figure 1 Generic Carrier Network Reference Model
          
             The network interfaces encompass two aspects of the networking
             functions: user data plane interface and control plane interface. The
             former concerns about user data transmission across the physical
             network interface and the latter concerns about the control message
             exchange across the network interface such as signaling, routing, etc.
             We call the former physical interface (PI) and the latter control
             interface (CI). Unless otherwise stated, the CI is assumed in the
             remaining of this document.
          
             6.2.1.  Control Plane Interfaces
          
             The Control Interface defines the relationship between two connected
             network entities on both sides of the interface. For each control
             interface, we need to define the architectural function that each side
             plays and a controlled set of information that can be exchanged across
             the interface. The information flowing over this logical interface may
             include, but not limited to:
             - Interface endpoint name and address
          
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 13]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             - Reachability/summarized network address information
          
             - Topology/routing information
          
             - Authentication and connection admission control information
          
             - Connection management signaling messages
          
             - Network resource control information
          
             Different types of interfaces can be defined for network control and
             architectural purposes and can be used as the network reference points
             in the control plane. In this document, the following set of
             interfaces is defined as shown in Figure 1.
             User-Network Interface (UNI): is a bi-directional control interface
             between service requester and service provider control entities. The
             service request control entity resides outside the carrier network
             control domain.
          
             Network-Network/Node-Node Interface (NNI): is a bi-directional
             signaling interface between two optical network elements or sub-
             networks.
          
             We differentiate between internal NNI (I-NNI) and external NNI (E-NNI)
             as follows:
             - E-NNI: A NNI between two control plane entities belonging to
             different control domains.
          
             - I-NNI: A NNI between two control plane entities within the same
             control domain in the carrier network.
          
             Different types of interface, internal vs. external, have different
             implied trust relationship for security and access control purposes.
             The trust relationship is not binary. Instead a policy-based control
             mechanism need to be in place to restrict the type and amount of
             information that can flow cross each type of interfaces depending on
             the carrier's service and business requirements.
          
             Generally, two networks have a fully trusted relationship if they
             belong to the same administrative domain. In this case, the control
             information exchanged across the control interface between them should
             be unlimited. Otherwise, the type and amount of the control
             information that can go across the information should be constrained
             by the administrative policy.
          
             An example of fully trusted interface is an I-NNI between two optical
             network elements in a single control domain. Non-trusted interface
             examples include an E-NNI between two different carriers or a UNI
             interface between a carrier optical network and its customers. The
             trust level can be different for the non-trusted UNI or E-NNI
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 14]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             interface depending upon if it within the carrier or not. In general,
             intra-carrier E-NNI has higher trust level than inter-carrier E-NNI.
          
             The control plane shall support the UNI and NNI interface described
             above and the interfaces shall be configurable in terms of the type
             and amount of control information exchange and their behavior shall be
             consistent with the configuration (i.e., external versus internal
             interfaces).
          
             6.3. Intra-Carrier Network Model
          
             Intra-carrier network model concerns the network service control and
             management issues within networks owned by a single carrier.
          
             6.3.1. Multiple Sub-networks
          
             Without loss of generality, the optical network owned by a carrier
             service operator can be depicted as consisting of one or more optical
             sub-networks interconnected by direct optical links. There may be many
             different reasons for more than one optical sub-network. It may be the
             result of using hierarchical layering, different technologies across
             access, metro and long haul (as discussed below), or a result of
             business mergers and acquisitions or incremental optical network
             technology deployment by the carrier using different vendors or
             technologies.
          
             A sub-network may be a single vendor and single technology network.
             But in general, the carrier's optical network is heterogeneous in
             terms of equipment vendor and the technology utilized in each sub-
             network.
          
             6.3.2.  Access, Metro and Long-haul networks
          
             Few carriers have end-to-end ownership of the optical networks. Even
             if they do, access, metro and long-haul networks often belong to
             different administrative divisions as separate optical sub-networks.
             Therefore Inter-(sub)-networks interconnection is essential in terms
             of supporting the end-to-end optical service provisioning and
             management. The access, metro and long-haul networks may use different
             technologies and architectures, and as such may have different network
             properties.
          
             In general, end-to-end optical connectivity may easily cross multiple
             sub-networks with the following possible scenarios:
                  Access -- Metro -- Access
                  Access - Metro -- Long Haul -- Metro - Access
          
             6.4.  Inter-Carrier Network Model
          
             The inter-carrier model focuses on the service and control aspects
             between different carrier networks and describes the internetworking
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 15]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             relationship between them. The inter-carrier connection is often not
             only constrained technical and business requirements, but by the
             government regulations as well,
          
             Inter-carrier interconnection provides for connectivity between
             optical network operators. To provide globally reachable end-to-end
             optical services, optical service control and management between
             different carrier networks becomes essential. For example, it is
             possible to support distributed peering within the IP client layer
             network where the connectivity between two distant IP routers can be
             achieved via an inter-carrier optical transport connection.
          
             6.5. Implied Control Constraints
          
             The intra-carrier and inter-carrier models have different implied
             control constraints. For example, in the intra-carrier model, the
             address for routing and signaling only need to be unique with the
             carrier while the inter-carrier model requires the address to be
             globally unique.
          
             In the intra-carrier network model, the network itself forms the
             largest control domain within the carrier network. This domain is
             usually partitioned into multiple sub-domains, either flat or
             hierarchical. The UNI and E-NNI interfaces are internal to the carrier
             network, therefore higher trust level is assumed. Because of this,
             direct signaling between domains and summarized topology and resource
             information exchanged can be allowed across the internal UNI or intra-
             carrier E-NNI interfaces.
          
             In the inter-carrier network model, each carrier's optical network is
             a separate administrative domain. Both the UNI interface between the
             user and the carrier network and the NNI interface between two
             carrier's networks are crossing the carrier's administrative boundary
             and therefore are external interfaces by definition.
          
             In terms of control information exchange, the topology information
             shall not be allowed to cross both E-NNI and UNI interfaces.
          
             7.  Optical Service User Requirements
          
             This section describes the user requirements for optical services,
             which in turn impose the requirements on service control and
             management for the network operators. The user requirements reflect
             the perception of the optical service from a user's point of view.
          
             7.1.  Common Optical Services
          
             The basic unit of an optical transport service is fixed-bandwidth
             optical connectivity between applications. However different services
             are created based on its supported signal characteristics (format, bit
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 16]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             rate, etc), the service invocation methods and possibly the associated
             Service Level Agreement (SLA) provided by the service provider.
          
             At present, the following are the major optical services provided in
             the industry:
             - SONET/SDH, with different degrees of transparency
          
             - Optical wavelength services, transparent or opaque
          
             - Ethernet at 10Mbps, 100Mbps, 1 Gbps and 10 Gbps
          
             - Storage Area Networks (SANs) based on Fiber Connectivity (FICON),
             Enterprise Storage Connectivity (ESCON) and Fiber Channel (FC).
          
             Optical Wavelength Service refers to transport services where signal
             framing is negotiated between the client and the network operator
             (framing and bit-rate dependent), and only the payload is carried
             transparently. SONET/SDH transport is most widely used for network-
             wide transport. Different levels of transparency can be achieved in
             the SONET/SDH transmission.
          
             Ethernet Services, specifically 1Gb/s and 10Gbs Ethernet services, are
             gaining more popularity due to the lower costs of the customers'
             premises equipment and its simplified management requirements
             (compared to SONET or SDH).
          
             Ethernet services may be carried over either SONET/SDH (GFP mapping)
             or WDM networks. The Ethernet service requests will require some
             service specific parameters: priority class, VLAN ID/Tag, traffic
             aggregation parameters.
          
             ESCON and FICON are proprietary versions of the SAN service, while
             Fiber Channel is the standard alternative. As is the case with
             Ethernet services, SAN services may be carried over either SONET/SDH
             (using GFP mapping) or WDM networks.
          
             The control plane shall provide the carrier with the capability
             functionality to provision, control and manage all the services listed
             above.
          
             7.2.  Bearer Interface Types
          
             All the bearer interfaces implemented in the ONE shall be supported by
             the control plane and associated signaling protocols.
          
             The signaling shall support the following interface types protocol:
             - SDH/SONET
             - Ethernet
             - FC-N for Fiber Channel services
             - OTN (G.709)
             - PDH (Plesiosynchronous Digital Hierarchy)
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 17]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             - Passive Optical Network (PON) based on ATM (APON) and Ethernet
             (EPON)
             - ESCON and FICON
          
             7.3.  Optical Service Invocation
             As mentioned earlier, the methods of service invocation play an
             important role in defining different services.
          
             7.3.1. Provider-Initiated Service Provisioning
          
             In this scenario, users forward their service request to the provider
             via a well-defined service management interface. All connection
             management operations, including set-up, release, query, or
             modification shall be invoked from the management plane. This
             provisioning method is for PC and SPC connections.
          
             7.3.2. User-Initiated Service Provisioning
          
             In this scenario, users forward their service request to the provider
             via a well-defined UNI interface in the control plane (including proxy
             signaling). All connection management operation requests, including
             set-up, release, query, or modification shall be invoked from directly
             connected user devices, or its signaling proxy. This provisioning
             method is for SC connection.
          
             7.3.3. Call set-up requirements
             In summary the following requirements for the control plane have been
             identified:
             - The control plane shall support action result codes as responses to
             any requests over the control interfaces.
          
             - The control plane shall support requests for call set-up, subject to
             policies in effect between the user and the network.
          
             - The control plane shall support the destination client device's
             decision to accept or reject call set-up requests from the source
             client's device.
          
             - The control plane shall support requests for call set-up and
             deletion across multiple (sub)networks.
          
             - NNI signaling shall support requests for call set-up, subject to
             policies in effect between the (sub)networks.
          
             - Call set-up shall be supported for both uni-directional and bi-
             directional connections.
          
             - Upon call request initiation, the control plane shall generate a
             network unique Call-ID associated with the connection, to be used for
             information retrieval or other activities related to that connection.
          
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 18]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             - CAC shall be provided as part of the call control functionality. It
             is the role of the CAC function to determine if the call can be
             allowed to proceed based on resource availability and authentication.
          
             - Negotiation for call set-up for multiple service level options shall
             be supported.
          
             - The policy management system must determine what kinds of call setup
             requests can be authorized.
          
             - The control plane elements need the ability to rate limit (or pace)
             call setup attempts into the network.
          
             - The control plane shall report to the management plane, the
             success/failures of a call request.
          
             - Upon a connection request failure, the control plane shall report to
             the management plane a cause code identifying the reason for the
             failure and all allocated resources shall be released. A negative
             acknowledgment shall be returned to the source.
          
             - Upon a connection request success a positive acknowledgment shall be
             returned to the source when a connection has been successfully
             established.
          
             - The control plane shall support requests for call release by Call-
             ID.
          
             - The control plane shall allow any end point or any intermediate node
             to initiate call release procedures.
          
             - Upon call release completion all resources associated with the call
             shall become available for access for new requests.
          
             - The management plane shall be able to release calls or connections
             established by the control plane both gracefully and forcibly on
             demand.
          
             - Partially deleted calls or connections shall not remain within the
             network.
          
             - End-to-end acknowledgments shall be used for connection deletion
             requests.
          
             - Connection deletion shall not result in either restoration or
             protection being initiated.
          
             - The control plane shall support management plane and neighboring
             device requests for status query.
          
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 19]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             - The UNI shall support initial registration and updates of the client
             with the network via the control plane.
          
             7.4.  Optical Connection granularity
          
             The service granularity is determined by the specific technology,
             framing and bit rate of the physical interface between the ONE and the
             client at the edge and by the capabilities of the ONE. The control
             plane needs to support signaling and routing for all the services
             supported by the ONE. In general, there should not be a one-to-one
             correspondence imposed between the granularity of the service provided
             and the maximum capacity of the interface to the user.
          
             The control plane shall support the ITU Rec. G.709 connection
             granularity for the OTN network.
          
             The control plane shall support the SDH/SONET connection granularity.
          
             The optical control plane shall support sub-rate interfaces such as VT
             /TU granularity (as low as 1.5 Mb/s).
          
             The following fiber channel interfaces shall be supported by the
             control plane if the given interfaces are available on the equipment:
          
             - FC-12
             - FC-50
             - FC-100
             - FC-200
          
             Encoding of service types in the protocols used shall be such that new
             service types can be added by adding new code point values or objects.
          
             7.5.  Other Service Parameters and Requirements
          
             7.5.1 Classes of Service
          
             We use "service level" to describe priority related characteristics of
             connections, such as holding priority, set-up priority, or restoration
             priority. The intent currently is to allow each carrier to define the
             actual service level in terms of priority, protection, and restoration
             options. Therefore, individual carriers will determine mapping of
             individual service levels to a specific set of quality features.
          
             The control plane shall be capable of mapping individual service
             classes into specific priority or protection and restoration options.
          
             7.5.2.  Diverse Routing Attributes
          
             Diversity refers to the fact that a disjoint set of network resources
             (links and nodes) is utilized to provision multiple parallel optical
             connections terminated between a pair of ingress and egress ports.
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 20]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             There are different levels of diversity based on link, node or
             administrative policy as described below. In the simple node and link
             diversity case:
             - Two optical connections are said to be node-disjoint diverse, if the
             two connections do not share any node along the path except the
             ingress and egress nodes.
             - Two optical connections are said to be link-disjoint diverse, if the
             two connections do not share any link along the path.
          
             A more general concept of diversity is the Shared Risk Group (SRG)
             that is based on a risk-sharing model and allows the definition of
             administrative policy-based diversity.  A SRG is defined as a group of
             links or nodes that share a common risk component, whose failure can
             potentially cause the failure of all the links or nodes in the group.
             When the SRG is applied to the link resource, it is referred to as
             shared risk link group (SRLG). For example, all fiber links that go
             through a common conduit under the ground belong to the same SRLG
             group, because the conduit is a shared risk component whose failure,
             such as a cut, may cause all fibers in the conduit to break. Note that
             SRLG is a relation defined within a group of links based upon a
             specific risk factor that can be defined based on various technical or
             administrative grounds such as ôsharing a conduitö, ôwithin 10 miles
             of distance proximityö etc.  Please see ITU-T G.7715 for more
             discussion [itu-rtg].
          
             Therefore, two optical connections are said to be SRG-disjoint diverse
             if the two connections do not have any links or nodes that belong to
             the same SRG along the path.
          
             The ability to route service paths diversely is a required control
             feature. Diverse routing is one of the connection parameters and is
             specified at the time of the connection creation.
          
             The control plane routing algorithms shall be able to route an optical
             connection diversely from a previously routed connection in terms of
             link disjoint path, node disjoint path and SRG disjoint path.
          
             8.  Optical Service Provider Requirements
          
             This section discusses specific service control and management
             requirements from the service provider's point of view.
          
             8.1.  Service Access Methods to Optical Networks
          
             In order to have access to the optical network service, a customer
             needs to be physically connected to the service provider network on
             the transport plane. The control plane connection may or may not be
             required depending upon the service invocation model provided to the
             customer: provisioned vs. signaled. For the signaled, either direct or
             indirect signaling methods can be used depending upon if the UNI proxy
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 21]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             is utilized on the client side. The detailed discussion on the UNI
             signaling methods is in [oif-uni].
          
             Multiple access methods blow shall be supported:
          
             - Cross-office access (CNE co-located with ONE)
          
             - Direct remote access (Dedicated links to the user)
          
             - Remote access via access sub-network (via a
             multiplexing/distribution sub-network)
          
             8.2.  Dual Homing and Network Interconnections
          
             Dual homing is a special case of the access network. Client devices
             can be dual homed to the same or different hub, the same or different
             access network, the same or different core networks, the same or
             different carriers.  The different levels of dual homing connectivity
             result in many different combinations of configurations. The main
             objective for dual homing is for enhanced survivability.
          
             Dual homing must be supported. Dual homing shall not require the use
             of multiple addresses for the same client device.
          
             8.3.  Inter-domain connectivity
          
             A domain is a portion of a network, or an entire network that is
             controlled by a single control plane entity.  This section discusses
             the various requirements for connecting domains.
          
             8.3.1.  Multi-Level Hierarchy
          
             Traditionally current transport networks are divided into core inter-
             city long haul networks, regional intra-city metro networks and access
             networks. Due to the differences in transmission technologies,
             service, and multiplexing needs, the three types of networks are
             served by different types of network elements and often have different
             capabilities.  The network hierarchy is usually implemented through
             the control domain hierarchy.
          
             When control domains exists for routing and signaling purpose, there
             will be intra-domain routing/signaling and inter-domain
             routing/signaling. In general, domain-based routing/signaling autonomy
             is desired and the intra-domain routing/signaling and the inter-domain
             routing/signaling should be agnostic to each other.
          
             Routing and signaling for multi-level hierarchies shall be supported
             to allow carriers to configure their networks as needed.
          
             8.3.2.  Network Interconnections
          
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 22]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             Sub-networks may have multiple points of inter-connections. All
             relevant NNI functions, such as routing, reachability information
             exchanges, and inter-connection topology discovery must recognize and
             support multiple points of inter-connections between subnetworks. Dual
             inter-connection is often used as a survivable architecture.
          
             The control plane shall provide support for routing and signaling for
             subnetworks having multiple points of interconnection.
          
             8.4.  Names and Address Management
          
             8.4.1.  Address Space Separation
          
             To ensure the scalability of and smooth migration toward to the
             optical switched network, the separation of three address spaces are
             required as discussed in [oif-addr]:
          
             - Internal transport network addresses: This is used for routing
             control plane messages within the transport network. For example, if
             GMPLS is used then IP address should be used.
          
             - Transport Network Assigned (TNA) address: This is a routable address
             in the optical transport network and is assigned by the
             network.
          
             - Client addresses: This address has significance in the client layer.
             For example, if the clients are ATM switches, the NSAP address can be
             used. If the clients are IP router, then IP address should be used.
          
             8.4.2.  Directory Services
          
             Directory Services shall support address resolution and translation
             between various user/client device names or address and the
             corresponding TNA addresses.  UNI shall use the user naming schemes
             for connection request. The directory service is essential for the
             implementation of overlay model.
          
             8.4.3.  Network element Identification
          
             Each control domain and each network element within a carrier network
             shall be uniquely identifiable. Similarly all the service access
             points shall be uniquely identifiable.
          
             8.5.  Policy-Based Service Management Framework
          
             The optical service must be supported by a robust policy-based
             management system to be able to make important decisions.
          
             Examples of policy decisions include:
             - What types of connections can be set up for a given UNI?
          
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 23]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             - What information can be shared and what information must be
             restricted in automatic discovery functions?
          
             - What are the security policies over signaling interfaces?
          
             - What routing policies should be applied in the path selection? E.g
             The definition of the link diversity.
          
             Requirements:
             - Service and network policies related to configuration and
             provisioning, admission control, and support of Service Level
             Agreements (SLAs) must be flexible, and at the same time simple and
             scalable.
          
             - The policy-based management framework must be based on standards-
             based policy systems (e.g., IETF COPS [rfc2784]).
          
             - In addition, the IPO service management system must support and be
             backwards compatible with legacy service management systems.
          
             9.  Control Plane Functional Requirements for Optical Services
             This section addresses the requirements for the optical control plane
             in support of service provisioning.
          
             The scope of the control plane includes the control of the interfaces
             and network resources within an optical network and the interfaces
             between the optical network and its client networks. In other words,
             it should include both NNI and UNI aspects.
          
             9.1.  Control Plane Capabilities and Functions
          
             The control capabilities are supported by the underlying control
             functions and protocols built in the control plane.
          
             9.1.1.  Network Control Capabilities
          
             The following capabilities are required in the network control plane
             to successfully deliver automated provisioning for optical services:
             - Network resource discovery
          
             - Address assignment and resolution
          
             - Routing information propagation and dissemination
          
             - Path calculation and selection
          
             - Connection management
          
             These capabilities may be supported by a combination of functions
             across the control and the management planes.
          
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 24]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             9.1.2.  Control Plane Functions for Network Control
          
             The following are essential functions needed to support network
             control capabilities:
             - Signaling
             - Routing
             - Automatic resource, service and neighbor discovery
          
             Specific requirements for signaling, routing and discovery are
             addressed in Section 10.
          
             The general requirements for the control plane functions to support
             optical networking and service functions include:
          
             - The control plane must have the capability to establish, teardown
             and maintain the end-to-end connection, and the hop-by-hop connection
             segments between any two end-points.
          
             - The control plane must have the capability to support optical
             traffic-engineering (e.g. wavelength management) requirements
             including resource discovery and dissemination, constraint-based
             routing and path computation.
          
             - The control plane shall support network status or action result code
             responses to any requests over the control interfaces.
          
             - The control plane shall support call admission control on UNI and
             connection-admission control on NNI.
          
             - The control plane shall support graceful release of network
             resources associated with the connection after a successful connection
             teardown or failed connection.
          
             - The control plane shall support management plane request for
             connection attributes/status query.
          
             - The control plane must have the capability to support various
             protection and restoration schemes.
          
             - Control plane failures shall not affect active connections and shall
             not adversely impact the transport and data planes.
          
             - The control plane should support separation of control function
             entities including routing, signaling and discovery and should allow
             different control distributions of those functionalities, including
             centralized, distributed or hybrid.
          
             - The control plane should support physical separation of the control
             plane from the transport plane to support either tightly coupled or
             loosely coupled control plane solutions.
          
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 25]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             - The control plane should support the routing and signaling proxy to
             participate in the normal routing and signaling message exchange and
             processing.
          
             - Resilience and security are crucial issues for the control plane and
             will be addressed in Section 11 and 12 of this document respectively.
          
             9.2.  Signaling Communication Network (SCN)
          
             The signaling communication network is a transport network for control
             plane messages and it consists of a set of control channels that
             interconnects the nodes within the control plane. Therefore, the
             signaling communication network must be accessible by each of the
             communicating nodes (e.g., OXCs). If an out-of-band IP-based control
             message transport network is an overlay network built on top of the IP
             data network using some tunneling technologies, these tunnels must be
             standards-based such as IPSec, GRE, etc.
          
             - The signaling communication network must terminate at each of the
             nodes in the transport plane.
          
             - The signaling communication network shall not be assumed to have the
             same topology as the data plane, nor shall the data plane and control
             plane traffic be assumed to be congruently routed.
          
             A control channel is the communication path for transporting control
             messages between network nodes, and over the UNI (i.e., between the
             UNI entity on the user side and the UNI entity on the network side ).
             The control messages include signaling messages, routing information
             messages, and other control maintenance protocol messages such as
             neighbor and service discovery.
          
             The following three types of signaling in the control channel shall be
             supported:
          
             - In-band signaling: The signaling messages are carried over a logical
             communication channel embedded in the data-carrying optical link or
             channel. For example, using the overhead bytes in SONET data framing
             as a logical communication channel falls into the in-band signaling
             methods.
          
             - In fiber, Out-of-band signaling: The signaling messages are carried
             over a dedicated communication channel separate from the optical data-
             bearing channels, but within the same fiber. For example, a dedicated
             wavelength or TDM channel may be used within the same fiber as the
             data channels.
          
             - Out-of-fiber signaling: The signaling messages are carried over a
             dedicated communication channel or path within different fibers to
             those used by the optical data-bearing channels. For example,
             dedicated optical fiber links or communication path via separate and
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 26]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             independent IP-based network infrastructure are both classified as
             out-of-fiber signaling.
          
             The UNI control channel and proxy signaling defined in the OIF UNI 1.0
             [oif-uni] shall be supported.
          
             The signaling communication network provides communication mechanisms
             between entities in the control plane.
          
             - The signaling communication network shall support reliable message
             transfer.
          
             - The signaling communication network shall have its own OAM
             mechanisms.
          
             - The signaling communication network shall use protocols that support
             congestion control mechanisms.
          
             In addition, the signaling communication network should support
             message priorities. Message prioritization allows time critical
             messages, such as those used for restoration, to have priority over
             other messages, such as other connection signaling messages and
             topology and resource discovery messages.
          
             The signaling communication network shall be highly reliable and
             implement failure recovery.
          
             9.3  Control Plane Interface to Data Plane
          
             In the situation where the control plane and data plane are decoupled,
             this interface needs to be standardized. Requirements for a standard
             control-data plane interface are under study. The specification of a
             control plane interface to the data plane is outside the scope of this
             document.
          
             Control plane should support a standards based interface to configure
             switching fabrics and port functions via the management plane.
          
             Data plane shall monitor and detect the failure (LOL, LOS, etc.) and
             quality degradation (high BER, etc.) of the signals and be able to
             provide signal-failure and signal-degrade alarms to the control plane
             accordingly to trigger proper mitigation actions in the control plane.
          
             9.4.  Management Plane Interface to Data Plane
          
             The management plane shall be responsible for the network resource
             management in the data plane. It should be able to partition the
             network resources and control the allocation and the deallocation of
             the resource for use by the control plane.
          
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 27]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             Data plane shall monitor and detect the failure and quality
             degradation of the signals and be able to provide signal-failure and
             signal-degrade alarms plus associated detailed fault information to
             the management plane to trigger and enable the management for fault
             location and repair.
          
             Management plane failures shall not affect the normal operation of a
             configured and operational control plane or data plane.
          
             9.5.  Control Plane Interface to Management Plane
          
             The control plane is considered a managed entity within a network.
             Therefore, it is subject to management requirements just as other
             managed entities in the network are subject to such requirements.
          
             The control plane should be able to service the requests from the
             management plane for end-to-end connection provisioning (e.g. SPC
             connection) and control plane database information query (e.g.
             topology database)
          
             The control plane shall report all control plane faults to the
             management plane with detailed fault information
          
             The control, management and transport plane each has its well-defined
             network functions. Those functions are orthogonal to each other.
             However, this does not imply total independency. Since the management
             plane is responsible for the management of both control plane and
             transport plane, the management plane plays an authoritative role
          
             In general, the management plane shall have authority over the control
             plane. Management plane should be able to configure the routing,
             signaling and discovery control parameters such as hold-down timers,
             hello-interval, etc. to affect the behavior of the control plane.
          
             In the case of network failure, both the management plane and the
             control plane need fault information at the same priority. The control
             plane shall be responsible for providing necessary statistic data such
             as call counts and traffic stats to the management plane. They should
             be available upon query from the management plane. The management
             plane shall be able to tear down connections established by the
             control plane both gracefully and forcibly on demand.
          
             9.6.  IP and Optical Control Plane Interconnection
          
             The control plane interconnection model defines how two control
             networks can be interconnected in terms of controlling relationship
             and control information flow allowed between them. There are three
             basic types of control plane network interconnection models: overlay,
             peer and hybrid, which are defined in the IETF IPO WG document [ipo-
             frame]. See Appendix A for more discussion.
          
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 28]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             Choosing the level of coupling depends upon a number of different
             factors, some of which are:
             - Variety of clients using the optical network
          
             - Relationship between the client and optical network
          
             - Operating model of the carrier
          
             Overlay model (UNI like model) shall be supported for client to
             optical control plane interconnection.
          
             Other models are optional for client to optical control plane
             interconnection.
          
             For optical to optical control plane interconnection all three models
             shall be supported. In general, the priority for support of
             interconnection models should be overlay, hybrid and peer, in
             decreasing order.
          
             10.  Requirements for Signaling, Routing and Discovery
          
             10.1.  Requirements for information sharing over UNI, I-NNI and E-NNI
          
             Different types of interfaces shall impose different requirements and
             functionality due to their different trust relationships.
             Specifically:
          
             -  Topology information shall not be exchanged across inter-carrier E-
             NNI and UNI.
          
             -  The control plane shall allow the carrier to configure the type and
             extent of control information exchange across various interfaces.
          
             -  Address resolution exchange over UNI is needed if an addressing
             directory service is not available.
          
             10.2.  Signaling Functions
          
             Call and connection control and management signaling messages are used
             for the establishment, modification, status query and release of an
             end-to-end optical connection.  Unless otherwise specified, the word
             "signaling" refers to both inter-domain and intra-domain signaling.
             - The inter-domain signaling protocol shall be agnostic to the intra-
             domain signaling protocol for all the domains within the network.
          
             - Signaling shall support both strict and loose routing.
          
             - Signaling shall support individual as well as groups of connection
             requests.
          
             - Signaling shall support fault notifications.
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 29]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
          
             - Inter-domain signaling shall support per connection, globally unique
             identifiers for all connection management primitives based on a well-
             defined naming scheme.
          
             - Inter-domain signaling shall support crank-back and rerouting.
          
             10.3.  Routing Functions
          
             Routing includes reachability information propagation, network
             topology/resource information dissemination and path computation.
             Network topology/resource information dissemination is to provide each
             node in the network with information about the carrier network such
             that a single node is able to support constraint-based path selection.
             A mixture of hop-by-hop routing, explicit/source routing and
             hierarchical routing will likely be used within future transport
             networks.
          
             All three mechanisms (Hop-by-hop routing, explicit / source-based
             routing and hierarchical routing) must be supported.  Messages
             crossing untrusted boundaries must not contain information regarding
             the details of an internal network topology.
          
             Requirements for routing information dissemination:
             - The inter-domain routing protocol shall be agnostic to the intra-
             domain routing protocol within any of the domains within the network.
          
             - The exchange of the following types of information shall be
             supported by inter-domain routing protocols:
             - Inter-domain topology
             - Per-domain topology abstraction
             - Per domain reachability summarization
          
             Major concerns for routing protocol performance are scalability and
             stability, which impose the following requirement on the routing
             protocols:
             - The routing protocol shall scale with the size of the network
          
             The routing protocols shall support following requirements:
          
             - Routing protocol shall support hierarchical routing information
             dissemination, including topology information aggregation and
             summarization.
          
             - The routing protocol(s) shall minimize global information and keep
             information locally significant as much as possible. Over external
             interfaces only reachability information, next routing hop and service
             capability information should be exchanged. Any other network related
             information shall not leak out to other networks.
          
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 30]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             - The routing protocol shall be able to minimize global information
             and keep information locally significant as much as possible (e.g.,
             information local to a node, a sub-network, a domain, etc). For
             example, a single optical node may have thousands of ports. The ports
             with common characteristics need not to be advertised individually.
             - The routing protocol shall distinguish static routing information
             and dynamic routing information. The routing protocol operation shall
             update dynamic and static routing information differently. Only
             dynamic routing information shall be updated in real time.
          
             - Routing protocol shall be able to control the dynamic information
             updating frequency through different types of thresholds. Two types of
             thresholds could be defined: absolute threshold and relative
             threshold.
          
             - The routing protocol shall support trigger-based and timeout-based
             information update.
          
             - Inter-domain routing protocol shall support policy-based routing
             information exchange.
          
             - The routing protocol shall be able to support different levels of
             protection/restoration and other resiliency requirements. These are
             discussed in Section 11.
          
             All the scalability techniques will impact the network resource
             representation accuracy. The tradeoff between accuracy of the routing
             information and the routing protocol scalability is an important
             consideration to be made by network operators.
          
             10.4.  Requirements for path selection
          
              The following are functional requirements for path selection:
             - Path selection shall support shortest path routing.
          
             - Path selection shall also support constraint-based routing. At least
             the following constraints shall be supported:
             - Cost
             - Link utilization
             - Diversity
             - Service Class
          
             - Path selection shall be able to include/exclude some specific
             network resources, based on policy.
          
             - Path selection shall be able to support different levels of
             diversity, including node, link, SRLG and SRG.
          
             - Path selection algorithms shall provide carriers the ability to
             support a wide range of services and multiple levels of service
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 31]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             classes. Parameters such as service type, transparency, bandwidth,
             latency, bit error rate, etc. may be relevant.
          
             Constraint-based routing in the optical network in significantly
             complex Compared to the IP network. There are many optical layer
             constraints to consider such as wavelength, diversity, optical layer
             impairments, etc.  A detailed discussion on the routing constraints at
             the optical layer is in [ietf-olr].
          
             10.5.  Discovery Functions
             The discovery functions include neighbor, resource and service
             discovery. The control plane shall support both manual configuration
             and automatic discovery
          
             10.5.1.  Neighbor discovery
             Neighbor Discovery can be described as an instance of auto-discovery
             that is used for associating two network entities within a layer
             network based on a specified adjacency relation.
          
             The control plane shall support the following neighbor discovery
             capabilities as described in [itu-disc]:
             - Physical media adjacency that detects and verifies the physical
             layer network connectivity between two connected network element
             ports.
          
             - Logical network adjacency that detects and verifies the logical
             network layer connection above the physical layer between network
             layer specific ports.
          
             - Control adjacency that detects and verifies the logical neighboring
             relation between two control entities associated with data plane
             network elements that form either physical or logical adjacency.
          
              The control plane shall support manual neighbor adjacency
             configuration to either overwrite or supplement the automatic neighbor
             discovery function.
          
             10.5.2. Resource Discovery
          
             Resource discovery is concerned with the ability to verify physical
             connectivity between two ports on adjacent network elements, improve
             inventory management of network resources, detect configuration
             mismatches between adjacent ports, associating port characteristics of
             adjacent network elements, etc. Resource discovery shall be supported.
          
             Resource discovery can be achieved through either manual provisioning
             or automated procedures. The procedures are generic while the specific
             mechanisms and control information can be technology dependent.
          
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 32]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             After neighbor discovery, resource verification and monitoring must be
             performed periodically to verify physical attributes to ensure
             compatibility.
          
             10.5.3. Service Discovery
          
             Service Discovery can be described as an instance of auto-discovery
             that is used for verifying and exchanging service capabilities of a
             network. Service discovery can only happen after neighbor discovery.
             Since service capabilities of a network can dynamically change,
             service discovery may need to be repeated. Service discovery is
             required for all the optical services supported.
          
             11.  Requirements for service and control plane resiliency
          
             Resiliency is a network capability to continue its operations under
             the condition of failures within the network.  The automatic switched
             optical network assumes the separation of control plane and data
             plane. Therefore the failures in the network can be divided into those
             affecting the data plane and those affecting the control plane. To
             provide enhanced optical services, resiliency measures in both data
             plane and control plane should be implemented. The following failure-
             handling principles shall be supported.
          
             The control plane shall provide optical service failure detection and
             recovery functions such that the failures in the data plane within the
             control plane coverage can be quickly mitigated.
          
             The failure of control plane shall not in any way adversely affect the
             normal functioning of existing optical connections in the data plane.
          
             In general, there shall be no single point of failure for all major
             control plane functions, including signaling, routing etc. The control
             plane shall provide reliable transfer of signaling messages and flow
             control mechanisms for easing any congestion within the control plane.
          
             11.1.  Service resiliency
          
             In circuit-switched transport networks, the quality and reliability of
             the established optical connections in the transport plane can be
             enhanced by the protection and restoration mechanisms provided by the
             control plane functions.  Rapid recovery is required by transport
             network providers to protect service and also to support stringent
             Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that dictate high reliability and
             availability for customer connectivity.
          
             The protection and restoration actions are usually in reaction to the
             failure in the networks. However, during the network maintenance
             affecting the protected connections, a network operator needs to
             proactively force the traffic on the protected connections to switch
             to its protection connection. Therefore in order to support easy
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 33]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             network maintenance, it is required that management initiated
             protection and restoration be supported.
          
             The failure and signal degradation in the transport plane is usually
             technology specific and therefore shall be monitored and detected by
             the transport plane.
          
             The transport plane shall report both physical level failure and
             signal degradation to the control plane in the form of the signal
             failure alarm and signal degrade alarm.
          
             The control plane shall support both alarm-triggered and hold-down
             timers based protection switching and dynamic restoration for failure
             recovery.
          
             Clients will have different requirements for connection availability.
             These requirements can be expressed in terms of the "service level",
             which can be mapped to different restoration and protection options
             and priority related connection characteristics, such as holding
             priority (e.g. pre-emptable or not), set-up priority, or restoration
             priority. However, how the mapping of individual service levels to a
             specific set of protection/restoration options and individual carriers
             will determine connection priorities.
          
             In order for the network to support multiple grades of service, the
             control plane must support differing protection and restoration
             options on a per connection basis.
          
             In order for the network to support multiple grades of service, the
             control plane must support setup priority, restoration priority and
             holding priority on a per connection basis.
          
             In general, the following protection schemes shall be considered for
             all protection cases within the network:
             - Dedicated protection: 1+1 and 1:1
             - Shared protection: 1:N and M:N.
             - Unprotected
          
             The control plane shall support "extra-traffic" capability, which
             allows unprotected traffic to be transmitted on the protection
             circuit.
          
             The control plane shall support both trunk-side and drop-side
             protection switching.
          
             The following restoration schemes should be supported:
             - Restorable
             - Un-restorable
          
             Protection and restoration shall be supported on both an end-to-end
             basis and a link-by-link basis.
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 34]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
          
             Protection and restoration configuration should be based on software
             only.
          
             The control plane shall allow the modification of protection and
             restoration attributes on a per-connection basis.
             The control plane shall support mechanisms for reserving bandwidth
             resources for restoration.
          
             The control plane shall support mechanisms for normalizing connection
             routing (reversion) after failure repair.
          
             Normal connection management operations (e.g., connection deletion)
             shall not result in protection/restoration being initiated.
          
             11.2.  Control plane resiliency
          
             The control plane may be affected by failures in signaling network
             connectivity and by software failures (e.g., signaling, topology and
             resource discovery modules).
          
             The control plane should implement signaling message priorities to
             ensure that restoration messages receive preferential treatment,
             resulting in faster restoration.
          
             The optical control plane signaling network shall support protection
             and restoration options to enable it to be self-healing in case of
             failures within the control plane.
          
             Control network failure detection mechanisms shall distinguish between
             control channel and software process failures.
          
             The control plane failure shall only impact the capability to
             provision new services.
          
             Fault localization techniques for the isolation of failed control
             resources shall be supported.
          
             Recovery from control plane failures shall result in complete recovery
             and re-synchronization of the network.
          
             There shall not be a single point of failure in the control plane
             systems design.
          
             Partial or total failure of the control plane shall not affect the
             existing established connections. It should only lose the capability
             to accept the new connection requests.
          
             12.  Security Considerations
          
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 35]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             In this section, security considerations and requirements for optical
             services and associated control plane requirements are described.
          
          
             12.1.  Optical Network Security Concerns
          
             Since optical service is directly related to the physical network,
             which is fundamental to a telecommunications infrastructure, stringent
             security assurance mechanism should be implemented in optical
             networks.
          
             In terms of security, an optical connection consists of two aspects.
             One is security of the data plane where an optical connection itself
             belongs, and the other is security of the control plane.
          
             12.1.1.  Data Plane Security
          
             - Misconnection shall be avoided in order to keep the user's data
             confidential.  For enhancing integrity and confidentiality of data, it
             may be helpful to support scrambling of data at layer 2 or encryption
             of data at a higher layer.
          
          
             12.1.2.  Control Plane Security
          
             It is desirable to decouple the control plane from the data plane
             physically.
          
             Restoration shall not result in miss-connections (connections
             established to a destination other than that intended), even for short
             periods of time (e.g., during contention resolution). For example,
             signaling messages, used to restore connectivity after failure, should
             not be forwarded by a node before contention has been resolved.
          
             Additional security mechanisms should be provided to guard against
             intrusions on the signaling network. Some of these may be done with
             the help of the management plane.
             - Network information shall not be advertised across external
             interfaces (UNI or E-NNI). The advertisement of network information
             across the E-NNI shall be controlled and limited in a configurable
             policy based fashion. The advertisement of network information shall
             be isolated and managed separately by each administration.
          
             - The signaling network itself shall be secure, blocking all
             unauthorized access.  The signaling network topology and addresses
             shall not be advertised outside a carrier's domain of trust.
          
             - Identification, authentication and access control shall be
             rigorously used by network operators for providing access to the
             control plane.
          
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 36]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             - Discovery information, including neighbor discovery, service
             discovery, resource discovery and reachability information should be
             exchanged in a secure way.
          
             - Information on security-relevant events occurring in the control
             plane or security-relevant operations performed or attempted in the
             control plane shall be logged in the management plane.
          
             - The management plane shall be able to analyze and exploit logged
             data in order to check if they violate or threat security of the
             control plane.
          
             - The control plane shall be able to generate alarm notifications
             about security related events to the management plane in an adjustable
             and selectable fashion.
          
             - The control plane shall support recovery from successful and
             attempted intrusion attacks.
          
             12.2.  Service Access Control
          
             From a security perspective, network resources should be protected
             from unauthorized accesses and should not be used by unauthorized
             entities. Service access control is the mechanism that limits and
             controls entities trying to access network resources. Especially on
             the UNI and E-NNI, Connection Admission Control (CAC) functions should
             also support the following security features:
             - CAC should be applied to any entity that tries to access network
             resources through the UNI (or E-NNI). CAC should include an
             authentication function of an entity in order to prevent masquerade
             (spoofing). Masquerade is fraudulent use of network resources by
             pretending to be a different entity. An authenticated entity should be
             given a service access level on a configurable policy basis.
          
             - The UNI and NNI should provide optional mechanisms to ensure origin
             authentication and message integrity for connection management
             requests such as set-up, tear-down and modify and connection signaling
             messages. This is important in order to prevent Denial of Service
             attacks. The UNI and E-NNI should also include mechanisms, such as
             usage-based billing based on CAC, to ensure non-repudiation of
             connection management messages.
          
             - Each entity should be authorized to use network resources according
             to the administrative policy set by the operator.
          
             13. Acknowledgements
             The authors of this document would like to extend our special
             appreciation to John Strand for his initial contributions to the
             carrier requirements. We also want to acknowledge the valuable inputs
             from, Yangguang Xu, Zhiwei Lin, Eve Verma, Daniel Awduche, James
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 37]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             Luciani, Deborah Brunhard, Lynn Neir, Wesam Alanqar, Tammy Ferris, and
             Mark Jones.
          
             14. References
             14.1 Normative References
          
             [rfc2026] S. Bradner, "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3,"
             BCP 9, RFC 2026, IETF October 1996.
          
             [rfc2119] S. Bradner, ôKey words for use in RFC to indicate
             requirement levelsö, BCP 14, RFC 2119, 1997
             [itu-astn] ITU-T Rec. G.8070/Y.1301 (2001), ôRequirements for the
             Automatic Switched Transport Network (ASTN)ö.
          
             [itu-ason] ITU-T Rec. G.8080/Y.1304  (2001), ôArchitecture of the
             Automatic Switched Optical Network (ASON)ö.
          
             [itu-dcm] ITU-T Rec.  G.7713/Y.1704 (2001), ôDistributed Call and
             Connection Management (DCM)ö.
          
             [itu-rtg] ITU-T Rec. G.7715/Y.1706 (2002), ôArchitecture and
             Requirements for Routing in the Automatic Switched Optical Networksö.
          
             [itu-disc] ITU-T Rec. G.7714/Y.1705 (2001), ôGeneralized Automatic
             Discovery Techniques.
          
             14.2 Informative References
          
             [itu-otn] ITU-T G.872 (2000) û ôArchitecture of Optical Transport
             Networksö.
          
             [itu-g709] ITU-T G.709 (2001)û ôNetwork Node Interface for the Optical
             Transport Networkö.
          
             [itu-sdh] ITU-T Rec. G.803 (2000), ôArchitecture of Transport Networks
             based on the Synchronous Digital Hierarchyö
          
             [ipo-frw] B. Rajagopalan, et. al ôIP over Optical Networks: A
             Frameworkö, work in progress, IETF
          
             [oif-addr]  M. Lazer, "High Level Requirements on Optical Network
             Addressing", oif2001.196, 2001
          
             [oif-carrier] Y. Xue and M. Lazer, et al, ôCarrier Optical Service
             Framework and Associated Requirements for UNIö, OIF2000.155, 2000
          
             [oif-nnireq] M. Lazer et al, ôCarrier NNI Requirementsö, OIF2002.229,
             2002
          
             [ipo-olr]  A Chiu and J. Strand et al.,  "Impairments and Other
             Constraints on Optical Layer Routing", work in progress, IETF
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 38]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
          
             [ietf-gsmp] A. Doria, et al ôGeneral Switch Management Protocol V3ö,
             work in progress, IETF, 2002
          
             [rfc2748] D. Durham, et al, ôThe COPS (Common Open Policy Services)
             Protocolö, RFC 2748, Jan. 2000
          
             [oif-uni] Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF), "UNI 1.0 Signaling
             Specification," December, 2001.
          
             [ansi-sonet] ANSI T1.105-2001, ôSynchronous Optical Network (SONET) -
             Basic Description including Multiplex Structure, Rates and Formatsö,
             2001
          
             [itu-dcn]ITU-T Rec. G.7712/Y.1703 (2001), ôArchitecture and
             Specification of Data Communication Networkö.
          
          
             14 Author's Addresses
          
             Yong Xue
             UUNET/WorldCom
             22001 Loudoun County Parkway
             Ashburn, VA 20147
             Email: yxue@cox.net
          
             Monica Lazer
             AT&T
             900 ROUTE 202/206N PO BX 752
             BEDMINSTER, NJ  07921-0000
             mlazer@att.com
          
             Jennifer Yates
             AT&T Labs
             180 PARK AVE, P.O. BOX 971
             FLORHAM PARK, NJ  07932-0000
             jyates@research.att.com
          
             Dongmei Wang
             AT&T Labs
             Room B180, Building 103
             180 Park Avenue
             Florham Park, NJ 07932
             mei@research.att.com
          
             Ananth Nagarajan
             Sprint
             6220 Sprint Parkway
             Overland Park, KS 66251, USA
             ananth.nagarajan@mail.sprint.com
          
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 39]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             Hirokazu Ishimatsu
             Japan Telecom Co., LTD
             2-9-1 Hatchobori, Chuo-ku,
             Tokyo 104-0032 Japan
             Phone: +81 3 5540 8493
             Fax: +81 3 5540 8485
             hirokazu.ishimatsu@japan-telecom.co.jp
          
             Olga Aparicio
             Cable & Wireless Global
             11700 Plaza America Drive
             Reston, VA 20191
             Phone: 703-292-2022
             Email: olga.aparicio@cwusa.com
          
             Steven Wright
             Science & Technology
             BellSouth Telecommunications
             41G70 BSC
             675 West Peachtree St. NE.
             Atlanta, GA 30375
             Phone +1 (404) 332-2194
             Email: steven.wright@snt.bellsouth.com
          
          
             Appendix A: Interconnection of Control Planes
          
             The interconnection of the IP router (client) and optical control
             planes can be realized in a number of ways depending on the required
             level of coupling.  The control planes can be loosely or tightly
             coupled.  Loose coupling is generally referred to as the overlay model
             and tight coupling is referred to as the peer model. Additionally
             there is the augmented model that is somewhat in between the other two
             models but more akin to the peer model.  The model selected determines
             the following:
             - The details of the topology, resource and reachability information
             advertised between the client and optical networks
          
             - The level of control IP routers can exercise in selecting paths
             across the optical network
          
             The next three sections discuss these models in more details and the
             last section describes the coupling requirements from a carrier's
             perspective.
          
              Peer Model (I-NNI like model)
          
             Under the peer model, the IP router clients act as peers of the
             optical transport network, such that single routing protocol instance
             runs over both the IP and optical domains.  In this regard the optical
             network elements are treated just like any other router as far as the
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 40]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             control plane is concerned. The peer model, although not strictly an
             internal NNI, behaves like an I-NNI in the sense that there is sharing
             of resource and topology information.
          
             Presumably a common IGP such as OSPF or IS-IS, with appropriate
             extensions, will be used to distribute topology information.  One
             tacit assumption here is that a common addressing scheme will also be
             used for the optical and IP networks.  A common address space can be
             trivially realized by using IP addresses in both IP and optical
             domains.  Thus, the optical networks elements become IP addressable
             entities.
          
             The obvious advantage of the peer model is the seamless
             interconnection between the client and optical transport networks. The
             tradeoff is that the tight integration and the optical specific
             routing information that must be known to the IP clients.
          
             The discussion above has focused on the client to optical control
             plane inter-connection.  The discussion applies equally well to inter-
             connecting two optical control planes.
          
             Overlay (UNI-like model)
          
             Under the overlay model, the IP client routing, topology distribution,
             and signaling protocols are independent of the routing, topology
             distribution, and signaling protocols at the optical layer. This model
             is conceptually similar to the classical IP over ATM model, but
             applied to an optical sub-network directly.
          
             Though the overlay model dictates that the client and optical network
             are independent this still allows the optical network to re-use IP
             layer protocols to perform the routing and signaling functions.
          
             In addition to the protocols being independent the addressing scheme
             used between the client and optical network must be independent in the
             overlay model.  That is, the use of IP layer addressing in the clients
             must not place any specific requirement upon the addressing used
             within the optical control plane.
          
             The overlay model would provide a UNI to the client networks through
             which the clients could request to add, delete or modify optical
             connections.  The optical network would additionally provide
             reachability information to the clients but no topology information
             would be provided across the UNI.
          
             Augmented model (E-NNI like model)
          
             Under the augmented model, there are actually separate routing
             instances in the IP and optical domains, but information from one
             routing instance is passed through the other routing instance.  For
             example, external IP addresses could be carried within the optical
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 41]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             routing protocols to allow reachability information to be passed to IP
             clients.  A typical implementation would use BGP between the IP client
             and optical network.
          
             The augmented model, although not strictly an external NNI, behaves
             like an E-NNI in that there is limited sharing of information.
          
             Generally in a carrier environment there will be more than just IP
             routers connected to the optical network.  Some other examples of
             clients could be ATM switches or SONET ADM equipment.  This may drive
             the decision towards loose coupling to prevent undue burdens upon non-
             IP router clients.  Also, loose coupling would ensure that future
             clients are not hampered by legacy technologies.
          
             Additionally, a carrier may for business reasons want a separation
             between the client and optical networks.  For example, the ISP
             business unit may not want to be tightly coupled with the optical
             network business unit.  Another reason for separation might be just
             pure politics that play out in a large carrier.  That is, it would
             seem unlikely to force the optical transport network to run that same
             set of protocols as the IP router networks.  Also, by forcing the same
             set of protocols in both networks the evolution of the networks is
             directly tied together.  That is, it would seem you could not upgrade
             the optical transport network protocols without taking into
             consideration the impact on the IP router network (and vice versa).
          
             Operating models also play a role in deciding the level of coupling.
             Four main operating models envisioned for an optical transport
             network:
             Category 1: ISP owning all of its own infrastructure (i.e. including
             fiber and duct to the customer premises)
          
             Category 2:  ISP leasing some or all of its capacity from a third
             party
          
             Category 3:  Carriers carrier providing layer 1 services
          
             Category 4:  Service provider offering multiple layer 1, 2, and 3
             services over a common infrastructure
          
             Although relatively few, if any, ISPs fall into category 1 it would
             seem the mostly likely of the four to use the peer model.  The other
             operating models would lend themselves more likely to choose an
             overlay model.  Most carriers would fall into category 4 and thus
             would most likely choose an overlay model architecture.
          
          
             Full Copyright Statement
          
             Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2002).  All Rights Reserved.
          
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 42]


              Y. Xue et al            Informational
          
             This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
             others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
             or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
             distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
             provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
             included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
             document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
             the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
             Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
             Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
             in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
             translate it into languages other than English.
          
             The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
             revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.
          
             This document and the information contained herein is provided on an
             "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING
             TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT
             NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN
             WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
             MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
          
          
          
             draft-ietf-ipo-carrier-requirements-05.txt          [page 43]