Network Working Group                                      T. Morin, Ed.
Internet-Draft                                        France Telecom R&D
Intended status: Informational                     B. Niven-Jenkins, Ed.
Expires: April 11, 2008                                               BT
                                                               Y. Kamite
                                                      NTT Communications
                                                                R. Zhang
                                                                      BT
                                                              N. Leymann
                                                        Deutsche Telekom
                                                        October 09, 2007


    Considerations about Multicast for BGP/MPLS VPN Standardization
                draft-morin-l3vpn-mvpn-considerations-01

Status of this Memo

   By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any
   applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on April 11, 2008.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2007).

Abstract

   The current proposal for multicast in BGP/MPLS includes multiple



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   alternative mechanisms for some of the required building blocks of
   the solution.  The aim of this document is to leverage previously
   documented requirements to identify the key elements and help move
   forward solution design, toward the definition of a standard having a
   well defined set of mandatory procedures.  The different proposed
   alternative mechanisms are examined in the light of requirements
   identified for multicast in L3VPNs, and suggestions are made about
   which of these mechanisms standardization should favor.  Issues
   related to existing deployments of early implementations are also
   addressed.

Requirements Language

   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 [RFC2119].



































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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   2.  Terminology  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   3.  Examining alternatives mechanisms for MVPN functions . . . . .  4
     3.1.  MVPN auto-discovery  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
     3.2.  S-PMSI Signaling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     3.3.  PE-PE Transmission of C-Multicast Routing  . . . . . . . .  8
     3.4.  Encapsulation techniques for P-multicast trees . . . . . . 11
     3.5.  Inter-AS deployments options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   4.  Co-located RPs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   5.  Existing deployments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
   6.  Summary of recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
   7.  IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   8.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   9.  Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   10. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
   Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 19
































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1.  Introduction

   The current proposal for multicast in BGP/MPLS
   [I-D.ietf-l3vpn-2547bis-mcast] includes multiple alternative
   mechanisms for some of the required building blocks of the solution.
   However, it does not identify the core set of mechanisms which must
   be implemented in order to ensure interoperability.  This may lead to
   a situation where implementations may support different subsets of
   the available optional mechanisms leading to implementations that do
   not interoperate.

   The aim of this document is to leverage the already expressed
   requirements [RFC4834] to identify the mechanisms that the authors
   believe are good candidates for being part of a core set of mandatory
   mechanisms which can be used to provide a base for interoperable
   solutions.

   This document will go through the different building blocks of the
   solution and provide the authors' recommendations as to which
   mechanisms the authors' favor for each building block, while
   considering the requirements already defined and the goal of a fully-
   interoperable standard.

   Considering the history of the multicast VPN proposals and
   implementations, the authors also consider it useful to discuss how
   existing deployments of early implementations
   [I-D.rosen-vpn-mcast][I-D.raggarwa-l3vpn-2547-mvpn] can fit in the
   picture, and provide suggestions in this respect.


2.  Terminology

   Please refer to [I-D.ietf-l3vpn-2547bis-mcast] and [RFC4834].


3.  Examining alternatives mechanisms for MVPN functions

3.1.  MVPN auto-discovery

   Section 5.2.10 of [RFC4834] states "The operation of a multicast VPN
   solution SHALL be as light as possible and providing automatic
   configuration and discovery SHOULD be a priority when designing a
   multicast VPN solution.  Particularly the operational burden of
   setting up multicast on a PE or for a VR/VRF SHOULD be as low as
   possible".

   The current solution document [I-D.ietf-l3vpn-2547bis-mcast]
   addresses this requirement by proposing two different mechanisms for



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   MVPN auto-discovery:

   1.  BGP-based auto-discovery (described in section 4).

   2.  Discovery using PIM running on a MI-PMSI implemented with a
       shared tree using multicast ASM, or MP2MP LDP with the same
       common tree identifier configured in all VRFs of an MVPN.

   It is the recommendation of the authors that BGP-based auto-discovery
   is the preferred solution for auto-discovery and should be supported
   by all implementations while PIM/shared-tree based auto-discovery
   should be optionally considered for migration purpose only.

   Part of the rationale for this recommendation is also based on
   section 5.2.10 of [RFC4834] which states "as far as possible, the
   design of a solution SHOULD carefully consider the number of
   protocols within the core network: if any additional protocols are
   introduced compared with the unicast VPN service, the balance between
   their advantage and operational burden SHOULD be examined
   thoroughly".

   BGP is the auto-discovery protocol used in unicast (RFC4364) VPNs and
   therefore the use of BGP-based auto-discovery within multicast VPNs
   avoids the introduction of an additional auto-discovery protocol that
   would require additional OAM processes and tools.  Service providers
   with deployed unicast (RFC4364) VPNs already have extensive
   deployment and operations experience of using BGP as an auto-
   discovery protocol including OAM processes and tools.  Such processes
   and tools will require modifications in order to support multicast
   auto-discovery but those modifications are anticipated to be less
   than those required to develop new processes and tools for a specific
   auto-discovery protocol.  Additionally, BGP supports MD5
   authentication of its peers for additional security.  In contrast,
   there are no obvious authentication mechanisms to secure PIM
   communications in any known implementation.

   Furthermore, PIM based discovery is only applicable to deployments
   using a shared tree on an MI-PMSI, whereas BGP-based auto-discovery
   does not place any restrictions on the type of multicast trees that
   can be used.  BGP-based auto-discovery is independent of the type of
   P-multicast tree used thus satisfying the requirement in section
   5.2.4.1 of [RFC4834] that "a multicast VPN solution SHOULD be
   designed so that control and forwarding planes are not
   interdependent".  Additionally, it is to be noted that a number of
   service providers have chosen to use SSM-based trees for the default
   MDTs within their current deployments, therefore relying already on
   BGP-based auto-discovery.




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   When shared trees are used, the use of BGP auto-discovery would allow
   inconsistencies in the addresses/identifiers used for the shared
   trees to be detected (e.g. the same shared tree identifier being used
   for different VPNs with distinct BGP route targets).  This is
   particularly attractive in the context of inter-AS VPNs where the
   impact of any misconfiguration could be magnified and where a single
   service provider may not operate all the ASs.

   The authors note that, in order to support the coexistence of both
   protocols (for example during migration scenarios), implementations
   could support both alternatives by providing a per-VRF configuration
   knob that would allow recognizing new PIM neighbors based on the
   reception of PIM hellos on a shared P-multicast tree, even for
   neighbors that did not advertise a BGP auto-discovery route.

3.2.  S-PMSI Signaling

   The current solution document [I-D.ietf-l3vpn-2547bis-mcast] proposes
   two mechanisms for S-PMSI Signaling:

   1.  A new UDP-based TLV protocol specifically for S-PMSI signaling
       (described in section 7.2.1).

   2.  A BGP-based mechanism for S-PMSI signaling (described in section
       7.2.2).

   It is the recommendation of the authors that BGP is the preferred
   solution for S-PMSI signaling and should be supported by all
   implementations while the UDP-based S-PMSI signaling protocol should
   be considered optional.

   Part of the rationale for this recommendation is similar to that for
   BGP-based auto-discovery and is based on section 5.2.10 of [RFC4834]
   and the desire to avoid introducing and deploying additional
   protocols unless strictly necessary.

   Furthermore:

   o  The BGP-based S-PMSI signaling mechanism can be used within MVPNs
      using either a UI-PMSI or a MI-PMSI while the UDP-based protocol
      is restricted to use within MVPNs using an MI-PMSI.

   o  The BGP-based S-PMSI signaling mechanism can be efficiently used
      in an inter-AS option B deployment context while the use of the
      UDP-based protocol does not preserve AS routing independence when
      used in an inter-AS option B context (i.e. the decision by a PE in
      an AS to use an S-PMSI for a given customer flow will impact
      routing state in other ASes).  Co-existence with unicast inter-AS



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      VPN options is strongly encouraged by section 5.2.6 of [RFC4834].

   o  The BGP-based S-PMSI signaling supports all the functionality and
      all the operational contexts that are supported by UDP-based
      protocol (and more).

   o  BGP supports MD5 authentication of its peers for additional
      security.  In contrast, there are no obvious authentication
      mechanisms to secure PIM communications in any known
      implementation.

   Therefore, it is the opinion of the authors that BGP is the preferred
   solution for performing S-PMSI signaling.

   However, the authors recognize that the UDP-based protocol has been
   in deployment for some time and would recommend that implementations
   supporting both protocols optionally provide a per-VRF configuration
   knob to allow an implementation to use the UDP-based TLV protocol for
   S-PMSI signaling for specific VRFs in order to support the
   coexistence of both protocols (for example during migration
   scenarios).

   Apart from such migration-facilitating mechanisms, the authors
   specifically do not recommend extending the already proposed UDP-
   based TLV protocol to new types of P-multicast trees.

   Section 7.2.2.3 of [I-D.ietf-l3vpn-2547bis-mcast] proposes two
   approaches for how a source PE can decide when to start transmitting
   customer multicast traffic on a S-PMSI:

   1.  The source PE sends multicast packets for the <C-S, C-G> on both
       the I-PMSI P-multicast tree and the S-PMSI P-multicast tree
       simultaneously for a pre-configured period of time, letting the
       receiver PEs select the new tree for reception, before switching
       to only the S-PMSI.

   2.  The source PE waits for a pre-configured period of time after
       advertising the <C-S, C-G> entry bound to the S-PMSI before fully
       switching the traffic onto the S-PMSI-bound P-multicast tree.

   The first alternative has essentially two drawbacks:

   o  <C-S,C-G> traffic is sent twice for some period of time, which
      would appear to be at odds with the motivation for switching to an
      S-PMSI in order to optimize the bandwidth used by the multicast
      tree for that stream.





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   o  It is unlikely that the switchover can occur without packet loss
      or duplication if the transit delays of the I-PMSI P-multicast
      tree and the S-PMSI P-multicast tree differ.

   By contrast, the second alternative has none of these drawbacks, and
   satisfy the requirement in section 5.1.3 of [RFC4834], which states
   that "[...] a multicast VPN solution SHOULD as much as possible
   ensure that client multicast traffic packets are neither lost nor
   duplicated, even when changes occur in the way a client multicast
   data stream is carried over the provider network".  The second
   alternative also happen to be the one used in existing deployments.

   For these reasons, it is the authors' recommendation to mandate the
   implementation of the second alternative for switching to S-PMSI.

3.3.  PE-PE Transmission of C-Multicast Routing

   The current solution document [I-D.ietf-l3vpn-2547bis-mcast] proposes
   multiple mechanisms for PE-PE transmission of customer multicast
   routing information:

   1.  Full per-MVPN PIM peering across an MI-PMSI (described in section
       5.2.1).

   2.  Lightweight PIM peering across an MI-PMSI (described in section
       5.2.2)

   3.  The unicasting of PIM C-Join/Prune messages (described in section
       5.2.3)

   4.  The use of BGP for carrying C-Multicast routing (described in
       section 5.3).

   The first mechanism (full per-MVPN PIM peering across an MI-PMSI) is
   the mechanism used by [I-D.rosen-vpn-mcast] and therefore it is
   deployed and operating in MVPNs today.  The authors recognize that
   because full per-MVPN PIM peering has been in deployment for some
   time support for this mechanism may be required for backwards
   compatibility and in order to facilitate migration towards
   alternative PE-PE protocols.

   Section 4.2.4 of [RFC4834] recommends that "a multicast VPN solution
   SHOULD support several hundreds of PEs per multicast VPN, and MAY
   usefully scale up to thousands" and section 4.2.5 states that "a
   solution SHOULD scale up to thousands of PEs having multicast service
   enabled".

   At those scales of multicast deployment within a large VPN, the first



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   and third mechanisms require PEs to maintain a large number of PIM
   adjacencies with other PEs within the same MVPN and to regularly
   exchange PIM hellos with each other and refresh C-Join/Prune state.

   The third mechanism would reduce the amount of C-Join/Prune
   processing by PEs when they are not the upstream neighbor for a given
   multicast flow, but would :

   a.  require explicit tracking related state to be maintained by PEs
       when they are the upstream PE for a said customer flow, and

   b.  require refresh reduction mechanisms to be used to be applicable.

   The second mechanism (lightweight PIM peering across an MI-PMSI)
   would operate in a similar manner to full per-MVPN PIM peering except
   that PIM hellos are not transmitted and PIM C-Join/Prune refresh
   reduction would be used, thereby improving scalability.

   The fourth mechanism (the use of BGP for carrying C-Multicast
   routing) has to solve roughly the same intrinsic scalability related
   difficulties as the other three mechanisms, but because it is based
   on TCP it has no refresh-related scalability limit, and inherits some
   BGP features that are expected to improve scalability through, for
   instance, providing a means to offload some of the processing burden
   associated with client multicast routing onto BGP route reflectors.

   Furthermore, co-existence with unicast inter-AS VPN options, and an
   equal level of security for multicast and unicast including in an
   inter-AS context, are specifically mentioned in sections 5.2.6, 5.2.8
   and 5.2.12 of [RFC4834].  The first three mechanisms impose direct PE
   to PE communications which means that they do not apply well to an
   inter-AS option B context, because of security and robustness issues
   that are involved by such a level of reachability and interaction
   between PEs in different ASes.  Their use in an inter-AS context is
   possible, but not without limitations or additional engineering
   design trade-offs depending upon the interconnect types.  By
   comparison, the fourth option (the use of BGP for carrying
   C-Multicast routing) does not have any of the above limitations
   related to inter-AS deployments, and also provides an additional
   alternative to facilitate such deployments through the possibility of
   using segmented inter-AS trees.

   Moreover, mechanisms one and two are restricted to use within MVPNs
   using an MI-PMSI, thereby necessitating:

   a.  The use of a P-multicast tree technique that allows shared trees
       (for example PIM-SM in ASM mode or MP2MP LDP).




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   b.  The use of one P-multicast tree per PE per VPN, even for PEs that
       do not have sources in their directly attached sites for that
       VPN.

   By comparison, the fourth mechanism doesn't impose either of these
   restrictions.

   Additionally, the fourth mechanism (the use of BGP for carrying
   C-Multicast routing) would appear to fit well with the current
   unicast architecture as BGP is the customer routing distribution
   protocol used in unicast VPNs and therefore using BGP for customer
   routing distribution within multicast VPNs avoids the introduction of
   an additional protocol that would require additional OAM processes
   and tools.  Service provider's with deployed unicast (RFC4364) VPNs
   already have extensive deployment and operations experience of using
   BGP as a customer routing distribution protocol including OAM
   processes and tools.  Such processes and tools will require
   modification in order to support customer multicast routing but those
   modifications are anticipated to be less than those required to
   develop new processes and tools for a distinct customer routing
   protocol.  It should be noted that because PIM will be used as the
   CE-PE customer routing distribution protocol, service providers will
   still need OAM processes and tools in order to manage the PIM
   protocol, so this rationale only applies to a subset of the tools and
   processes already in place.  Additionally, BGP supports MD5
   authentication of its peers for additional security.  In contrast,
   there are no obvious authentication mechanisms to secure PIM
   communications in any known implementation.

   An illustrative example of the benefit brought by consistency with
   unicast design is how the "extranet" feature can be implemented :
   when BGP-based mechanisms are used, the well defined and well
   understood BGP route target import/export semantics are just reused.
   By contrast, it is not specified how implementing the same feature
   would be done in the context of other alternative mechanism, and
   unclear if this is possible without significant engineering trade-
   offs.  Note that the support for such a feature is stated as a MUST
   in sections 5.1.6 of [RFC4834].

   Section 5.2.10 of [RFC4834] states that "as far as possible, the
   design of a solution SHOULD carefully consider the number of
   protocols within the core network: if any additional protocols are
   introduced compared with the unicast VPN service, the balance between
   their advantage and operational burden SHOULD be examined
   thoroughly".  Considering that the recommendation of the authors
   would be BGP for auto-discovery and S-PMSI signalling, the choice of
   BGP for customer multicast routing would be consistent with the
   protocol choice for unicast VPNs and would adequately address this



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   requirement.

   BGP-based customer multicast routing clearly presents some advantages
   over the PIM-based alternatives.  However it has yet to be deployed
   within an operational MVPN, and service providers currently lack
   experience of its implementation.  By contrast, experience proves
   that PIM-based mechanisms are operationally viable, but with well
   identified limitations.  Some of those limitations may be improved
   upon (although there is currently no clearly defined proposal to do
   this), however some of the limitations appear to be intrinsic to the
   approach.

   Moreover to improve the clarity of the proposed specifications,
   considering that neither hello suppression nor refresh reduction
   procedures are currently specified or documented and that it is not
   clear what the impact to the PIM state machine of these additional
   procedures may be, the authors recommend that the proposals for
   lightweight PIM peering across an MI-PMSI (the second mechanism) and
   for the unicasting of PIM C-Join/Prune messages (the third mechanism)
   be removed from the current solution document
   [I-D.ietf-l3vpn-2547bis-mcast] until the additional PIM hello and
   refresh reduction procedures have been well specified and both their
   impact and benefit on an MPVN deployment is understood.

   Consequently, at the present time and until there is experience with
   all of the proposed mechanisms it is not clear which of the above
   mechanisms should be recommended as the preferred solution to
   implementers.  However, it would appear prudent for implementations
   to consider supporting both the fourth (BGP-based) and first (full
   per-MPVN PIM peering) mechanisms.  Further experience on both
   implementation is likely to be required before some best practice can
   be defined.

3.4.  Encapsulation techniques for P-multicast trees

   In this section the authors will not make any restricting
   recommendations as the appropriateness of a specific core (P) data
   plane technology will depend on a large number of factors, for
   example the service provider's currently deployed unicast data plane,
   many of which are service provider specific.

   However, implementations should not unreasonably restrict the data
   plane technology that can be used, and should not force the use of
   the same technology for different VPNs attached to a single PE.
   Initial implementations may only support a reduced set of
   encapsulation techniques and data plane technologies but this should
   not be considered a limiting factor that hinders future support for
   other encapsulation techniques, data plane technologies or



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   interoperability.

   Section 5.2.4.1 of [RFC4834] states "In a multicast VPN solution
   extending a unicast L3 PPVPN solution, consistency in the tunneling
   technology has to be favored: such a solution SHOULD allow the use of
   the same tunneling technology for multicast as for unicast.
   Deployment consistency, ease of operation and potential migrations
   are the main motivations behind this requirement."

   Current unicast VPN deployments use a variety of LDP, RSVP-TE and
   GRE/IP for encapsulating customer packets for transport across the
   provider core of VPN services.  It is recommended that
   implementations support the three corresponding multicast tree
   encapsulations techniques, namely: mLDP, P2MP RSVP-TE and GRE/IP
   multicast in order to allow the same encapsulations to be used for
   unicast and multicast traffic as well as facilitating migration from
   [I-D.rosen-vpn-mcast] to an MPLS label based encapsulation.

3.5.  Inter-AS deployments options

   There are a number of scenarios that lead to the requirement for
   inter-AS multicast VPNs, including:

   1.  A service provider may have a large network that they have
       segmented into a number of ASs.

   2.  A service provider's multicast VPN may consist of a number of ASs
       due to aquisitions and mergers with other service providers.

   3.  A service provider may wish to interconnect their multicast VPN
       platform with that of another service provider.

   The first scenario can be considered the "simplest" because the
   network is wholly managed by a single service provider under a single
   strategy and is therefore likely to use a consistent set of
   technologies across each AS.

   The second scenario may be more complex than the first because the
   strategy and technology choices made for each AS may have been
   different due to their differing history and the service provider may
   not have (or may be unwilling to) unified the strategy and technology
   choices for each AS.

   The third scenario is the most complex because in addition to the
   complexity of the second scenario, the ASs are managed by different
   service providers and therefore may be subject to a different trust
   model than the other scenarios.




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   Section 5.2.6 of [RFC4834] states "A solution MUST support inter-AS
   multicast VPNs, and SHOULD support inter-provider multicast VPNs.
   Considerations about coexistence with unicast inter-AS VPN Options A,
   B and C (as described in section 10 of [RFC4364]) are strongly
   encouraged." and "A multicast VPN solution SHOULD provide inter-AS
   mechanisms requiring the least possible coordination between
   providers, and keep the need for detailed knowledge of providers'
   networks to a minimum - all this being in comparison with
   corresponding unicast VPN options."

   Section 8 of [I-D.ietf-l3vpn-2547bis-mcast] addresses these
   requirements by proposing two approaches for mVPN inter-AS
   deployments:

   1.  Segmented inter-AS tunnels where each AS constructs its own
       separate multicast tunnels which are then 'stitched' together by
       the ASBRs (described in section 8.2).

   2.  Non-segmented inter-AS tunnels where the multicast tunnels are
       end-to-end across ASes, so even though the PEs belonging to a
       given MVPN may be in different ASs the ASBRs play no special role
       and function merely as P routers (described in section 8.1).

   Section 5.2.6 of [RFC4834] also states "Within each service provider
   the service provider SHOULD be able on its own to pick the most
   appropriate tunneling mechanism to carry (multicast) traffic among
   PEs (just like what is done today for unicast)".  Segmented inter-AS
   tunnels is the only solution that is capable of meeting this
   requirement.

   The segmented inter-AS solution would appear to offer the largest
   degree of deployment flexibility to operators, however the non-
   segmented inter-AS solution can simplify deployment in a restricted
   number of scenarios and [I-D.rosen-vpn-mcast] only supports the non-
   segmented inter-AS solution and therefore the non-segmented inter-AS
   solution is likely to be required by some operators for backward
   compatibility and during migration from [I-D.rosen-vpn-mcast] to
   [I-D.ietf-l3vpn-2547bis-mcast].

   The applicability of segmented or non-segmented inter-AS tunnels to a
   given deployment or inter-provider interconnect will depend on a
   number of factors specific to each service provider.  However, due to
   the additional deployment flexibility offered by segmented inter-AS
   tunnels, it is the recommendation of the authors that all
   implementations should support the segmented inter-AS model.
   Additionally, the authors recommend that implementations should
   consider supporting the non-segmented inter-AS model in order to
   facilitate co-existence with existing deployments, and as a feature



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   to provide a lighter engineering in a restricted set of scenarios,
   although it is recognised that initial implementations may only
   support one or the other.

   Additionally, the authors note that the proposed BGP-based approaches
   for S-PMSI signaling and C-multicast routing information distribution
   provide a good fit with both segmented and non-segmented inter-AS
   tunnels.  In contrast the UDP-TLV based approach for S-PMSI signaling
   appears to be incompatible with segmented inter-AS tunnels, and it is
   unclear if the proposed PIM-based approaches for C-multicast routing
   information distribution would be fully applicable to segmented
   inter-AS tunnels.


4.  Co-located RPs

   Section 5.1.10.1 of [RFC4834] states "In the case of PIM-SM in ASM
   mode, engineering of the RP function requires the deployment of
   specific protocols and associated configurations.  A service provider
   may offer to manage customers' multicast protocol operation on their
   behalf.  This implies that it is necessary to consider cases where a
   customer's RPs are outsourced (e.g., on PEs).  Consequently, a VPN
   solution MAY support the hosting of the RP function in a VR or VRF."

   Co-locating a customer's RP on a PE can provide some benefits to the
   customer as outlined in section 5.1.10.3 of [RFC4834] which states
   "In the case of PIM-SM, when a source starts to emit traffic toward a
   group (in ASM mode), if sources and receivers are located in VPN
   sites that are different than that of the RP, then traffic may
   transiently flow twice through the SP network and the CE-PE link of
   the RP (from source to RP, and then from RP to receivers).  This
   traffic peak, even short, may not be convenient depending on the
   traffic and link bandwidth.

   However, customers who have already deployed multicast within their
   networks and have therefore already deployed their own internal RPs
   are often reluctant to hand over the control of their RPs to their
   service provider and make use of a co-located RP model.

   Also, providing colocating the RP on PE will require the activation
   of MSDP or the processing of PIM Registers on the PE.  Securing the
   PE routers for such acitivity requires special care, additional work,
   and will likely rely on specific features to be provided by the
   routers themselves.

   The applicability of the co-located RP model to a given MVPN will
   thus depend on a number of factors specific to each customer and
   service provider.  It is therefore the recommendation of the authors



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   that implementations should support a co-located RP model, but that
   support for a co-located RP model within an implementation should not
   restrict deployments to using a co-located RP model, and
   implementations should also support deployments when no RP is co-
   located on a PE router and where all RPs are deployed within the
   customers' networks.


5.  Existing deployments

   Some suggestions provided in this document can be used to
   incrementally modify currently deployed implementations without
   hindering these deployments, and without hindering the consistency of
   the standardized solution by providing optional per-VRF configuration
   knobs to support modes of operation compatible with currently
   deployed implementations, while at the same time using the
   recommended approach on implementations supporting the standard.

   In cases where this may not be easily achieved, a recommended
   approach would be to provide a per-VRF configuration knob that allows
   incremental per-VPN migration of the mechanisms used by a PE device,
   which would allow migration with some per-VPN interruption of service
   (e.g. during a maintenance window).

   Mechanisms allowing "live" migration by providing concurrent use of
   multiple alternatives for a given PE and a given VPN, is not seen as
   a priority considering the expected implementation complexity
   associated with such mechanisms.  However, if there happen to be
   cases where they could be viably implemented relatively simply, such
   mechanisms may help improve migration management.


6.  Summary of recommendations

   The following list summarizes the authors' recommendations.  These
   recommendations are not intended to prevent the implementation of
   alternative solutions, rather they are the authors' recommendations
   for the mechanisms that should be made mandatory in
   [I-D.ietf-l3vpn-2547bis-mcast] and therefore be supported by all
   implementations.

   It is the authors' recommendation:

   o  that BGP-based auto-discovery be the mandated solution for auto-
      discovery;

   o  that BGP be the mandated solution for S-PMSI signaling;




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   o  that the mandated solution for S-PMSI switch-over be the mechanism
      based on the source-connected PE switching traffic from the I-PMSI
      tunnel to the S-PMSI tunnel, without transmitting traffic on both
      at the time;

   o  that implementations support both the BGP-based and the full per-
      MPVN PIM peering solutions for PE-PE transmission of customer
      multicast routing until further operational experience is gained
      with both solutions;

   o  that implementations support the following multicast tree
      encapsulations: mLDP, P2MP RSVP-TE and GRE/IP;

   o  that implementations support segmented inter-AS tunnels and
      consider supporting non-segmented inter-AS tunnels[[in order to
      maintain backwards compatibility and for migration]].

   o  that implementations support a co-located RP model, but that
      implementations should not restrict deployments to having to use a
      co-located RP model.


7.  IANA Considerations

   This document makes no request of IANA.

   Note to RFC Editor: this section may be removed on publication as an
   RFC.


8.  Security Considerations

   This document does not by itself raise any particular security
   considerations.


9.  Acknowledgements

   [To be completed]


10.  Informative References

   [I-D.ietf-l3vpn-2547bis-mcast]
              Rosen, E. and R. Aggarwal, "Multicast in MPLS/BGP IP
              VPNs", draft-ietf-l3vpn-2547bis-mcast-03 (work in
              progress), October 2006.




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   [I-D.raggarwa-l3vpn-2547-mvpn]
              Aggarwal, R., "Base Specification for Multicast in BGP/
              MPLS VPNs", draft-raggarwa-l3vpn-2547-mvpn-00 (work in
              progress), June 2004.

   [I-D.rosen-vpn-mcast]
              Rosen, E., "Multicast in MPLS/BGP VPNs",
              draft-rosen-vpn-mcast-08 (work in progress),
              December 2004.

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

   [RFC4834]  Morin, T., "Requirements for Multicast in L3 Provider-
              Provisioned Virtual Private Networks (PPVPNs)", RFC 4834,
              April 2007.


Authors' Addresses

   Thomas Morin (editor)
   France Telecom R&D
   2 rue Pierre Marzin
   Lannion  22307
   France

   Email: thomas.morin@orange-ftgroup.com


   Ben Niven-Jenkins (editor)
   BT
   208 Callisto House, Adastral Park
   Ipswich, Suffolk  IP5 3RE
   UK

   Email: benjamin.niven-jenkins@bt.com


   Yuji Kamite
   NTT Communications Corporation
   Tokyo Opera City Tower
   3-20-2 Nishi Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku
   Tokyo  163-1421
   Japan

   Email: y.kamite@ntt.com





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   Raymond Zhang
   BT
   2160 E. Grand Ave.
   El Segundo  CA 90025
   USA

   Email: raymond.zhang@bt.com


   Nicolai Leymann
   Deutsche Telekom
   Goslarer Ufer 35
   10589 Berlin
   Germany

   Email: nicolai.leymann@t-systems.com



































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