Francois Le Faucheur
                                                           Ramesh Uppili
                                                     Cisco Systems, Inc.

                                                          Alain Vedrenne
                                                           Pierre Merckx
                                                                  Equant

                                                          Thomas Telkamp
                                                         Global Crossing

IETF Internet Draft
Expires: September, 2002
Document: draft-ietf-tewg-te-metric-igp-00.txt             March, 2002



                Use of IGP Metric as a second TE Metric



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
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Abstract

   This draft describes a common practice on how the existing IGP
   Metric can be used as an alternative metric to the TE Metric for
   Constraint Based Routing of MPLS TE Tunnels. This effectively
   results in the ability to perform Constraint Based Routing with
   optimization of one metric (e.g. link bandwidth) for some TE Tunnels
   (e.g. Data Trunks) while optimizing another metric (e.g. propagation
   delay) for some other TE Tunnels with different requirements (e.g.
   Voice Trunks).

   No protocol extensions or modifications are required. This text
   documents current router implementations and deployment practices.

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1.      Introduction

   IGP routing protocols (OSPF and IS-IS) as well as MPLS Signaling
   protocols (RSVP-TE and CR-LDP) have been extended (as specified in
   [ISIS-TE], [OSPF-TE], [RSVP-TE] and [CR-LDP]) in order to support
   the traffic engineering functionality as defined in [TE-REQ].

   These IGP routing protocol extensions currently include
   advertisement of a single additional TE Metric to be used for
   Constraint Based Routing of TE Tunnels.

   However, the objective of traffic engineering is to optimize the use
   and the performance of the network. So it seems relevant that TE
   tunnel placement may be optimized according to different
   optimization criteria. For example, some Service Providers want to
   perform traffic engineering of different classes of service
   separately so that each class of Service is transported on a
   different TE Tunnel. One example motivation for doing so is to apply
   different fast restoration policies to the different classes of
   service. Another example motivation is to take advantage of separate
   Constraint Based Routing in order to meet the different QoS
   objectives of each Class of Service. To achieve different QoS
   objectives may require enforcement by Constraint Based Routing of
   different bandwidth constraints for the different classes of service
   as defined in [DS-TE]. In some Service Provider environments, it
   also requires optimizing on a different metric during Constraint
   Based Routing.

   The most common scenario for a different metric calls for
   optimization of a metric reflecting delay (mainly propagation delay)
   when Constraint Based Routing TE LSPs that will be transporting
   voice, while optimizing a more usual metric (e.g. reflecting link
   bandwidth) when Constraint Based Routing TE LSPs that will be
   transporting data.

   [METRICS] proposes extensions so that multiple TE Metrics can be
   advertised in the IGP. If/once those are fully specified and
   implemented, they will address the above scenario. However this
   draft describes how the above scenario is currently addressed in the
   meantime by existing implementations and deployments, without any
   additional IGP extensions beyond [ISIS-TE] and [OSPF-TE], by
   effectively using the IGP Metric as a "second" TE Metric.


2.      Common Practice

   In current MPLS TE deployments, network administrators often want
   Constraint Based Routing of TE LSPs carrying data traffic to be
   based on the same metric as the metric used for Shortest Path

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                    IGP Metric as second TE Metric          March 2002

   Routing. Where this is the case, this practice allows the Constraint
   Based Routing algorithm running on the Head-End LSR to use the IGP
   Metric advertised in the IGP to compute paths for data TE LSPs
   instead of the advertised TE Metric. The TE Metric can then be used
   to convey another metric (e.g. a delay-based metric) which can be
   used by the Constraint Based Routing algorithm on the Head-End LSR
   to compute path for the TE LSPs with different requirements (e.g.
   Voice TE LSP).

   In some networks, network administrators configure the IGP metric to
   a value factoring the link propagation delay. In that case, this
   practice allows the Constraint Based Routing algorithm running on
   the Head-End LSR to use the IGP Metric advertised in the IGP to
   compute paths for delay-sensitive TE LSPs (e.g. Voice TE LSPs)
   instead of the advertised TE Metric. The TE Metric can then be used
   to convey another metric (e.g. bandwidth based metric) which can be
   used by the Constraint Based Routing algorithm to compute paths for
   the data TE LSPs.

   More generally, the TE Metric can be used to carry any arbitrary
   metric that may be useful for Constraint Based Routing of the set of
   LSPs which need optimization on another metric than the IGP metric.

2.1.    Head-End LSR Implementation Practice

   A Head-End LSR implements the current practice by:

   (i)    Allowing configuration, for each TE LSP to be routed, of
          whether the IGP Metric or the TE Metric is to be used by the
          Constraint Based Routing algorithm.

   (ii)   Enabling the Constraint Based Routing algorithm to make use
          of either the TE Metric or the IGP Metric, depending on the
          above configuration for the considered TE-LSP

2.2.    Network Deployment Practice

   A Service Provider deploys this practice by:

   (i)    Configuring, on every relevant link, the TE Metric to reflect
          whatever  metric is appropriate (e.g. delay-based metric) for
          Constraint Based Routing of some LSPs as an alternative
          metric to the IGP Metric

   (ii)   Configuring, for every TE LSP, whether this LSP is to be
          constraint based routed according to the TE Metric or IGP
          Metric

2.3.    Constraints

   The practice described in this document has the following
   constraints:

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                    IGP Metric as second TE Metric          March 2002


   (i)    it only allows TE Tunnels to be routed on either of two
          metrics (i.e. it cannot allow TE Tunnels to be routed on one
          of three, or more, metrics). [METRICS] proposes extensions
          which could be used to relax this constraints when necessary.

   (ii)   it can only be used where the IGP Metric is appropriate as
          one of the two metrics to be used for constraint based
          routing (i.e. it cannot allow TE Tunnels to be routed on
          either of two metrics while allowing IGP SPF to be based on a
          third metric). [METRICS] proposes extensions which could be
          used to relax this constraint when necessary.

   (iii)  it can only be used on links which support an IGP adjacency
          so that an IGP Metric is indeed advertised for the link. For
          example, this practice can not be used on Forwarding
          Adjacencies (see [LSP-HIER]).

   Note that, as with [METRICS], this practice does not recommend that
   the TE Metric and the IGP metric be used simultaneously during path
   computation for a given LSP. This is known to be an NP-complete
   problem.

2.4.    Interoperability

   Where path computation is entirely performed by the Head-End (e.g.
   intra-area operations with path computation on Head-end), this
   practice does not raise any interoperability issue among LSRs since
   the use of one metric or the other is a matter purely local to the
   Head-End LSR.

   Where path computation involves another component than the Head-End
   (e.g. with inter-area operations where path computation is shared
   between the Head-End and Area Boundary Routers or a Path Computation
   Server), this practice requires that which metric to optimize on be
   signaled along with the other constraints (bandwidth, affinity) for
   the LSP. See [PATH-COMP] for a proposal on how to signal which
   metric to optimize to another component involved in path computation
   when RSVP-TE is used as the protocol to signal path computation
   information.


3.      Migration Considerations

   Service Providers need to consider how to migrate from the current
   implementation to the new one supporting this practice.

   Although the head-end routers act independently from each other,
   some migration scenarios may require that all head-end routers be
   upgraded to the new implementation to avoid any disruption on
   existing TE-LSPs before two metrics can effectively be used by TE.
   The reason is that routers with current implementation are expected

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                    IGP Metric as second TE Metric          March 2002

   to always use the TE metric for Constraint Based Routing of all
   tunnels; so when the TE metric is reconfigured to reflect the
   "second metric" (say to a delay-based metric) on links in the
   network, then all TE-LSPs would get routed based on the "second
   metric" metric, while the intent may be that only the TE-LSPs
   explicitly configured so should be routed based on the "second
   metric".

   A possible migration scenario would look like this:

        1) upgrade software on all head-end routers in the network to
           support this practice.

        2) change the TE-LSPs configuration on the head-end routers to
           use the IGP metric (e.g. bandwidth-based) for Constraint
           Based Routing rather than the TE metric.

        3) configure TE metric on the links to reflect the "second
           metric" (e.g. delay-based).

        4) modify the LSP configuration of the subset of TE-LSPs which
           need to be Constraint Based routed using the "second metric"
           (e.g. delay-based), and/or create new TE-LSPs with such a
           configuration.

   It is desirable that step 2 is non-disruptive (i.e. the routing of a
   LSP will not be affected in any way, and the data transmission will
   not be interrupted) by the change of LSP configuration to use "IGP
   Metric" as long as the actual value of the "IGP Metric" and "TE
   Metric" are equal on every link at the time of LSP reconfiguration
   (as would be the case at step 2 in migration scenario above which
   assumed that TE Metric was initially equal to IGP Metric).


4.      Security Considerations


   The practice described in this draft does not raise specific
   security issues beyond those of existing TE.


5.      Acknowledgment

   This document has benefited from discussion with Jean-Philippe
   Vasseur.



References

   [TE-REQ] Awduche et al, Requirements for Traffic Engineering over
   MPLS, RFC2702, September 1999.

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                    IGP Metric as second TE Metric          March 2002


   [OSPF-TE] Katz, Yeung, Traffic Engineering Extensions to OSPF,
   draft-katz-yeung-ospf-traffic-06.txt, October 2001.

   [ISIS-TE] Smit, Li, IS-IS extensions for Traffic Engineering, draft-
   ietf-isis-traffic-03.txt, June 2001.

   [RSVP-TE] Awduche et al, "RSVP-TE: Extensions to RSVP for LSP
   Tunnels", draft-ietf-mpls-rsvp-lsp-tunnel-08.txt, February 2001.

   [CR-LDP] Jamoussi et al., "Constraint-Based LSP Setup using LDP",
   draft-ietf-mpls-cr-ldp-05.txt, February 2001

   [METRICS] Fedyk et al, "Multiple Metrics for Traffic Engineering
   with IS-IS and OSPF", draft-fedyk-isis-ospf-te-metrics-01.txt,
   November 2000.

   [DS-TE] Le Faucheur et al, "Requirements for support of Diff-Serv-
   aware MPLS Traffic Engineering", draft-ietf-tewg-diff-te-reqts-
   02.txt, November 2001.

   [PATH-COMP] Vasseur et al, "RSVP Path computation request and reply
   messages",  draft-vasseur-mpls-path-computation-rsvp- 01.txt,
   November 2001.

   [LSP-HIER] Kompella et al, "LSP Hierarchy with Generalized MPLS TE",
   draft-ietf-mpls-lsp-hierarchy-04.txt, February 2002.


Authors' Address:

   Francois Le Faucheur
   Cisco Systems, Inc.
   Village d'Entreprise Green Side - Batiment T3
   400, Avenue de Roumanille
   06410 Biot-Sophia Antipolis
   France
   Phone: +33 4 97 23 26 19
   Email: flefauch@cisco.com

   Ramesh Uppili
   Cisco Systems, Inc.
   300 Apollo Drive
   Chelmsford, Massachussets 01824
   USA
   Phone: +1 978 244-4949
   Email: ruppili@cisco.com

   Alain Vedrenne
   EQUANT
   400 Galleria Parkway
   Atlanta, Georgia 30339

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                    IGP Metric as second TE Metric          March 2002

   USA
   Phone: +1 (678)-346-3466
   Email: alain.vedrenne@equant.com

   Pierre Merckx
   EQUANT
   1041 route des Dolines - BP 347
   06906 SOPHIA ANTIPOLIS Cedex
   FRANCE
   Phone: +33 (0)492 96 6454
   Email: pierre.merckx@equant.com

   Thomas Telkamp
   Global Crossing
   Olympia 6
   1213 NP Hilversum
   The Netherlands
   Phone: +31 35 655 651
   E-mail: telkamp@gblx.net

































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