Internet Draft                                            Shai Herzog
Expiration: August 1999                                       IPHighway
File: draft-ietf-rap-signaled-priority-02.txt





              Signaled Preemption Priority Policy Element


                           February 13, 1999



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
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Abstract

  This document describes a preemption priority policy element for use
  by signaled policy based admission protocols (such as [RSVP] and
  [COPS]).

  Preemption priority defines a relative importance (rank) within the
  set of flows competing to be admitted into the network. Rather than
  admitting flows by order of arrival (First Come First Admitted)
  network nodes may consider priorities to preempt some previously
  admitted low priority flows in order to make room for a newer, high-
  priority flow.







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Table of Contents


Abstract.............................................................1
Table of Contents....................................................2
1 Introduction.......................................................3
2 Scope and Applicability............................................3
3 Stateless Policy...................................................4
4 Policy Element Format..............................................4
5 Priority Merging Issues............................................6
5.1  Priority Merging Strategies.....................................7
5.1.1 Take priority of highest QoS...................................7
5.1.2 Take highest priority..........................................7
5.1.3 Force error on heterogeneous merge.............................8
5.2  Modifying Priority Elements.....................................8
6 Error Processing...................................................9
7 Security Considerations............................................9
8 References........................................................10
9 Author Information................................................10
Appendix A: Example.................................................11
A.1  Computing Merged Priority......................................11
A.2  Translation (Compression) of Priority Elements.................11































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1  Introduction

  Traditional Capacity based Admission Control (CAC) indiscriminately
  admits new flows until capacity is exhausted (First Come First
  Admitted). Policy based Admission Control (PAC) on the other hand
  attempts to minimize the significance of order of arrival and use
  policy based admission criteria instead.

  One of the more popular policy criteria is the rank of importance of
  a flow relative to the others competing for admission into a network
  node. Preemption Priority takes effect only when a set of flows
  attempting admission through a node represents overbooking of
  resources such that based on CAC some would have to be rejected.
  Preemption priority criteria help the node select the most important
  flows (highest priority) for admission, while rejecting the low
  priority ones.

  Network nodes which support preemption should consider priorities to
  preempt some previously admitted low-priority flows in order to make
  room for a newer, high-priority flow.

  This document describes the format and applicability of the
  preemption priority represented as a policy element in [RSVP-EXT].

2  Scope and Applicability

  The Framework document for policy-based admission control [RAP]
  describes the various components that participate in policy decision
  making (i.e., PDP, PEP and LDP). The emphasis of PREEMPTION_PRI
  elements is to be simple, stateless, and light-weight such that they
  could be implemented internally within a node’s LDP (Local Decision
  Point).

  Certain base assumptions are made in the usage model for
  PREEMPTION_PRI elements:

  - They are created by PDPs

     In a model where PDPs control PEPs at the periphery of the policy
     domain (e.g., in border routers), PDPs reduce sets of relevant
     policy rules into a single priority criterion. This priority as
     expressed in the PREEMPTION_PRI element can then be communicated
     to downstream PEPs of the same policy domain, which have LDPs but
     no controlling PDP.







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  - They can be processed by LDPs

     PREEMPTION_PRI elements are processed by LDPs of nodes that do not
     have a controlling PDP. LDPs may interpret these objects, forward
     them as is, or perform local merging to forward an equivalent
     merged PREEMPTION_PRI policy element. LDPs must follow the merging
     strategy that was encoded by PDPs in the PREEMPTION_PRI objects.
     (Clearly, a PDP, being a superset of LDP, may act as an LDP as
     well).

  - They are enforced by PEPs

     PREEMPTION_PRI elements interact with a node’s traffic control
     module (and capacity admission control) to enforce priorities, and
     preempt previously admitted flows when the need arises.

3  Stateless Policy

  Signaled Preemption Priority is stateless (does not require past
  history or external information to be interpreted). Therefore, when
  carried in COPS messages for the outsourcing of policy decisions,
  these objects are included as COPS Stateless Policy Data Decision
  objects (see [COSP, COPS-RSVP]).

4  Policy Element Format

  The format of Policy Data objects is defined in [RSVP-EXT]. A single
  Policy Data object may contain one or more policy elements, each
  representing a different (and perhaps orthogonal) policy.

  The format of preemption priority policy element is as follows:

     +-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
     | Length (12)               | P-Type = PREEMPTION_PRI   |
     +------+------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
     | Flags       | M. Strategy | Error Code  | Reserved(0) |
     +------+------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
     | Preemption Priority       | Defending Priority        |
     +------+------+-------------+-------------+-------------+













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  Length: 16 bits

     Always 12. The overall length of the policy element, in bytes.

  P-Type: 16 bits

     PREEMPTION_PRI  = 1
     The preemption priority policy element number was assigned by IANA
     as defined in [RSVP-EXT].

  Flags: 8 bits

     Reserved (always 0).

  Merge Strategy: 8 bit

     1    Take priority of highest QoS: recommended
     2    Take highest priority: aggressive
     3    Force Error on heterogeneous merge

  Reserved: 8 bits

  Error code: 8 bits

     0  NO_ERROR        Value used for regular PREEMPTION_PRI elements
     1  PREEMPTION      This previously admitted flow was preempted
     2  HETEROGENEOUS   This element encountered heterogeneous merge

  Reserved: 8 bits

     Always 0.

  Preemption Priority: 16 bit (unsigned)

     The priority of the new flow compared with the defending priority
     of previously admitted flows. Higher values represent higher
     Priority.

  Defending Priority: 16 bits (unsigned)

     Once a flow was admitted, the preemption priority becomes
     irrelevant. Instead, its defending priority is used to compare
     with the preemption priority of new flows.

     For any specific flow, its preemption priority must always be less
     than or equal to the defending priority. A wide gap between
     preemption and defending priority provides added stability:
     moderate preemption priority makes it harder for a flow to preempt
     others, but once it succeeded, the higher defending priority makes


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     it easier for the flow to avoid preemption itself. This provides a
     mechanism for balancing between order dependency and priority.

5  Priority Merging Issues

  Consider the case where two RSVP reservations merge:

         F1: QoS=High,  Priority=Low
         F2: QoS=Low,   Priority=High

  F1+F2= F3: QoS=High,  Priority=???

  The merged reservation F3 should have QoS=Hi, but what Priority
  should it assume? Several negative side-effects have been identified
  that may affect such a merger:

  Free-Riders:

  If F3 assumes Priority=High, then F1 got a free ride, assuming high
  priority that was only intended to the low QoS F2. If one associates
  costs as a function of QoS and priority, F1 receives an “expensive”
  priority without having to “pay” for it.

  Denial of Service:

  If F3 assumes Priority=Low, the merged flow could be preempted or
  fail even though F2 presented high priority.

  Denial of service is virtually the inverse of the free-rider
  problem. When flows compete for resources, if one flow receives
  undeserving high priority it may be able to preempt another
  deserving flow (hence one free-rider turns out to be another’s
  denial of service).

  Instability:

  The combination of preemption priority, killer reservation and
  blockade state [RSVP] may increase the instability of admitted flows
  where a reservation may be preempted, reinstated, and preempted
  again periodically.













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.1 Priority Merging Strategies

  In merging situations LDPs may receive multiple preemption  elements
  and must compute the priority of the merged flow according to the
  following rules:

   a. Preemption priority and defending priority are merged and
      computed separately, irrespective of each other.

   b. Participating priority elements are selected.

      All priority elements are examined according to their merging
      strategy to decide whether they should participate in the merged
      result (as specified bellow).

   c. The highest priority of all participating priority elements is
      computed.

  The remainder of this section describes the different merging
  strategies the can be specified in the PREEMPTION_PRI element.

1.1 Take priority of highest QoS

  The PREEMPTION_PRI element would participate in the merged
  reservation only if it belongs to a flow that contributed to the
  merged QoS level (i.e., that its QoS requirement does not constitute
  a subset another reservation.)
  A simple way to determine whether a flow contributed to the merged
  QoS result is to compute the merged QoS with and without it and to
  compare the results (although this is clearly not the most efficient
  method).

  The reasoning for this approach is that the highest QoS flow is the
  one dominating the merged reservation and as such its priority
  should dominate it as well. This approach is the most amiable to the
  prevention of priority distortions such as free-riders and denial of
  service.

  This is a recommended merging strategy.

1.2 Take highest priority

  All PREEMPTION_PRI elements participate in the merged reservation.

  This strategy disassociates priority and QoS level, and therefore is
  highly subject to free-riders and its inverse image, denial of
  service.

  This is not a recommended method, but may be simpler to implement.


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1.3 Force error on heterogeneous merge

  A PREEMPTION_PRI element may participate in a merged reservation
  only if all other flows in the merged reservation have the same QoS
  level (homogeneous flows).

  The reasoning for this approach assumes that the heterogeneous case
  is relatively rare and too complicated to deal with, thus it better
  be prohibited.

  This strategy lends itself to denial of service, when a single
  receiver specifying a non-compatible QoS level may cause denial of
  service for all other receivers of the merged reservation.

  Note: The determination of heterogeneous flows applies to QoS level
  only (FLOWSPEC values), and is a matter for local (LDP) definition.
  Other types of heterogeneous reservations (e.g. conflicting
  reservation styles) are handled by RSVP and are unrelated to this
  PREEMPTION_PRI element.

.2 Modifying Priority Elements

  When POLICY_DATA objects are protected by integrity, LDPs should not
  attempt to modify them. They must be forwarded as-is or else their
  security envelope would be invalidated. In other cases, LDPs may
  modify and merge incoming PREEMPTION_PRI elements to reduce their
  size and number according to the following rule:

  - Merging is performed for each merging strategy separately.

     There is no known algorithm to merge PREEMPTION_PRI element of
     different merging strategies without loosing valuable information
     that may affect OTHER nodes.

  - For each merging strategy, the highest QoS of all participating
     PREEMPTION_PRI elements is taken and is placed in an outgoing
     PREEMPTION_PRI element of this merging strategy.

  This approach effectively compresses the number of forwarded
  PREEMPTION_PRI elements to at most to the number of different
  merging strategies, regardless of the number of receivers (See the
  example in Appendix A.2).









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6  Error Processing

  A PREEMPTION_PRI error object is sent back toward the appropriate
  receivers when an error involving PREEMPTION_PRI elements occur.

  PREEMPTION

  When a previously admitted flow is preempted, a copy of the
  preempting flow’s PREEMPTION_PRI element is sent back toward the PDP
  that originated the preempted PREEMPTION_PRI object. This PDP,
  having information on both the preempting and the preempted
  priorities may construct a higher priority PREEMPTION_PRI element in
  an effort to re-instate the preempted flow.

  Heterogeneity

  When a flow F1 with Heterogeneous Error merging strategy set in its
  PREEMPTION_PRI element encounters heterogeneity the PREEMPTION_PRI
  element is sent back toward receivers with the Heterogeneity error
  code set.

7  Security Considerations

  The integrity of PREEMPTION_PRI is guaranteed, as any other policy
  element, by the encapsulation into a Policy Data object [RSVP-EXT].

  Further security mechanisms are not warranted, especially
  considering that preemption priority aims to provide simple and
  quick guidance to routers within a trusted zone or at least a single
  zone (no zone boundaries are crossed).























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8  References

  [RSVP-EXT]  Herzog, S. "RSVP Extensions for Policy Control",
          Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-rap-rsvp-ext-02.txt, Jan. 1999.

  [COPS-RSVP]  Boyle, J., Cohen, R., Durham, D., Herzog, S., Raja,n
          R., Sastry, A., “COPS usage for RSVP” Internet-Draft, draft-
          ietf-rap-cops-rsvp-02.txt, Jan 1999.

  [RAP]   Yavatkar, R., et al., "A Framework for Policy Based
          Admission Control",IETF <draft-ietf-rap-framework-02.txt>,
          Jan., 1999.

  [COPS]  Boyle, J., Cohen, R., Durham, D., Herzog, S., Raja,n R.,
          Sastry, A., "The COPS (Common Open Policy Service) Protocol",
          IETF <draft-ietf-rap-cops-05.txt>, Jan. 1999.

  [RSVP]  Braden, R. ed., "Resource ReSerVation Protocol (RSVP) -
          Functional Specification.", IETF RFC 2205, Proposed Standard,
          Sep. 1997.

9  Author Information


  Shai Herzog, IPHighway
  Parker Plaza, Suite 1500
  400 Kelby St.
  Fort-Lee, NJ 07024
  (201) 585-0800
  herzog@iphighway.com


























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Appendix A:    Example

  The following examples describe the computation of merged priority
  elements as well as the translation (compression) of PREEMPTION_PRI
  elements.

A.1 Computing Merged Priority


                               r1
                              /   QoS=Hi (Pr=3, St=Highest QoS)
                             /
           s1-----A---------B--------r2  QoS=Low (Pr=4, St=Highest PP)
                   \         \
                    \         \   QoS=Low  (Pr=7, St=Highest QoS)
                     r4        r3

             QoS=Low (Pr=9, St=Error)

           Example 1: Merging preemption priority elements

  Example one describes a multicast scenario with one sender and four
  receivers each with each own PREEMPTION_PRI element definition.

  r1, r2 and r3 merge in B. The resulting priority is 4.

  Reason: The PREEMPTION_PRI of r3 doesn’t participate (since r3 is
  not contributing to the merged QoS) and the priority is the highest
  of the PREEMPTION_PRI from r1 and r2.

  r1, r2, r3 and r4 merge in A. The resulting priority is again 4: r4
  doesn’t participate because its own QoS=Low is incompatible with the
  other (r1) QoS=High. An error PREEMPTION_PRI should be sent back to
  r4 telling it that its PREEMPTION_PRI element encountered
  heterogeneity.

A.2 Translation (Compression) of Priority Elements

  Given this set of participating PREEMPTION_PRI elements, the
  following compression can take place at the merging node:

  From:
           (Pr=3, St=Highest QoS)
           (Pr=7, St=Highest QoS)
           (Pr=4, St=Highest PP)
           (Pr=9, St=Highest PP)
           (Pr=6, St=Highest PP)
  To:
           (Pr=7, St=Highest QoS)
           (Pr=9, St=Highest PP)

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