Network Working Group A. Atlas, Ed. Internet-Draft T. Nadeau Intended status: Informational Juniper Networks Expires: August 27, 2013 D. Ward Cisco Systems February 23, 2013 Interface to the Routing System Framework draft-ward-i2rs-framework-01 Abstract This document describes a framework for a standard, programmatic interface for full-duplex state transfer in and out of the Internet's routing system. It provides some basic use-cases, lists the type of information that might be exchanged over the interface, and describes suggested functionality for the interface to the Internet routing system. Status of this Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." This Internet-Draft will expire on August 27, 2013. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2013 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must Atlas, et al. Expires August 27, 2013 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft I2RS Framework February 2013 include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License. Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.1. Functional Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.2. Example Use-Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2. Programmatic Interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3. Common Interface Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 3.1. Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 3.2. Identity, Authorization, Authentication, and Security . . 7 3.3. Speed and Frequency of State Installation . . . . . . . . 8 3.4. Lifetime of I2RS-Installed Routing System State . . . . . 8 4. Bidirectional I2RS Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 4.1. Static Routing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 4.1.1. Routing Information Base Service . . . . . . . . . . . 11 4.1.2. Label Forwarding Information Base Service . . . . . . 12 4.1.3. Multicast Routing Information Base Service . . . . . . 13 4.2. Beyond Destination-based Routing . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 4.2.1. Policy-Based Routing Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 4.2.2. QoS State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 4.3. Protocol Interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 4.3.1. IGP Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 4.3.2. BGP Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 4.3.3. PIM and mLDP Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 4.4. Triggered Sessions and Signaling . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 4.4.1. OAM-related Sessions Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 4.4.2. Dynamic Session Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 4.4.3. Triggered Signaling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 5. Services for Learned Information from the Routing System . . . 16 5.1. Efforts to Obtain Topological Data . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 5.2. Measurements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 5.3. Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 6. Manageability Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 9. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 10. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Atlas, et al. Expires August 27, 2013 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft I2RS Framework February 2013 1. Introduction Routers that form the Internet's routing infrastructure maintain state at various layers of detail and function. For example, a typical router maintains a Routing Information Base (RIB), and implements routing protocols such as OSPF, ISIS, BGP to exchange protocol state and other information about the state of the network with other routers. A router also has information that may be required for applications to understand the network, verify that programmed state is installed in the forwarding plane, measure the behavior of various flows, routes or forwarding entries, as well as understand the configured and active states of the router. Furthermore, routers are typically configured with procedural or policy-based instructions that tell them how to convert all of this information into the forwarding operations that are installed in the forwarding plane. It is is also the active state information that describes the expected and observed operational behaviour of the router. This document sets out a framework for a common, standards-based interface to this information. This Interface to the Routing System (I2RS) facilitates control and diagnosis of the route manager's state, as well as enabling network applications to be built on top of today's routed networks. The I2RS is a programmatic asynchronous interface for transferring state into and out of the Internet's routing system, and recognizes that the routing system and a router's OS provide useful mechanisms that applications could harness to accomplish application-level goals. Fundamental to the I2RS are clear data models that define the semantics of the information that can be written and read. The I2RS provides a framework for registering for and requesting the appropriate information for each particular application. The I2RS provides a way for applications to customize network behaviour while leveraging the existing routing system. The I2RS, and therefore this document, is specifically focused on an interface for routing and forwarding data. 1.1. Functional Overview There are three key aspects to the I2RS. First, the interface is a programmatic interface meaning that it is asynchronous and offers fast, interactive access. Second, the I2RS gives access to information and state that is not usually configurable or modeled in existing implementations or configuration protocols. Third, the I2RS gives applications the ability to learn additional, structured, Atlas, et al. Expires August 27, 2013 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft I2RS Framework February 2013 filterable information and events from the router. I2RS is described as an asynchronous programmatic interface; the key properties of which are described in Section 5 of [I-D.atlas-i2rs-problem-statement]. Such an interface facilitates the specification of implicitly non- permanent state into the routing system, that can optionally be made permanent. In addition, the extraction of that information and additional dynamic information from the routing system is a critical component of the interface. A non-routing protocol or application could inject state into a network element's OS via the state- insertion aspects of the interface and that state could then be distributed in a routing or signaling protocol. Where existing mechanisms can provide part of the desired functionality, the coverage and gaps are briefly discussed in this document. The existing mechanisms, such as SNMP and NetConf, that allow state to be written and read do not meet all of the key properties given in [I-D.atlas-i2rs-problem-statement] for I2RS. The overhead of infrastructure is also quite high and many MIBs do not, in definition or practice, allow writing of state. There is also very limited capability to add new application-specific state to be distributed via the routing system. ForCES is another method for writing state into a router, but its focus is on the forwarding plane. By focusing on the forwarding plane, it requires that the forwarding plane be modeled and programmable and ignores the existence and intelligence of the router OS and routing system. ForCES provides a lower-level interface than I2RS is intended to address. 1.2. Example Use-Cases A few brief examples of ways an application could use the I2RS are presented here. These are intended to give a sense of what could be done rather than to be primary and detailed motivational use-cases. Route Control via Indirection: By enabling an application to install routes in the RIB, it is possible that when, for example, BGP resolves its IGP next-hop via the RIB, that could be to an application-installed route. In general, when a route is redistributed from one protocol to another, this is done via the RIB and such a route could have been installed via the I2RS interface. Atlas, et al. Expires August 27, 2013 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft I2RS Framework February 2013 Policy-Based Routing of Unknown Traffic: A static route, installed into the RIB, could direct otherwise unrecognized traffic towards an application, through whatever appropriate tunnel was required, for further handling. Such a static route could be programmed with indirection, so that its outgoing path is whatever is used by another particular route (e.g. to a particular server). Services with Fixed Hours: If an application were to provide services only during fixed time-periods, the application could install both a specific route on the local router in the RIB and advertise the associated prefix as being attached to the local router via the IGP. If the application knew the fixed hours, the state so installed could be temporal and automatically removed at approximately the correct time. Traffic Mirroring: The interface to the multicast RIB could be used to mirror a particular traffic flow to both its original destination and a data collector. Static Multicast Trees: An application could set up static (or partially static) multicast flows via entries in the multicast RIB without requiring an associated multicast protocol. This could be useful in networks with a fixed topology and well-planned distribution tree that provides redundancy. 2. Programmatic Interfaces A number of management interfaces exist today that allow for the indirect programming of the routing system. These include proprietary CLI, Netconf, and SNMP. However, none of these mechanisms allow for the direct programming of the routing system. Such asynchronous interfaces are needed to support dynamic time-based applications. These interfaces should cater to how applications typically interact with other applications and network services rather than forcing them to use older mechanisms that are more complex to understand, implement, as well as operate. The interfaces should allow applications to have limited, filtered or abstracted knowledge of the network. Authorization and authentication are also critical so that the I2RS can be used by a network application that is not completely controlled by the network operator but is, nonetheless, given some access to I2RS. One very critical component of the I2RS is developing standard data models with their associated semantics. While many routing protocols are standardized, associated data models for them are not yet Atlas, et al. Expires August 27, 2013 [Page 5]
Internet-Draft I2RS Framework February 2013 available. Instead, each router uses different information, mechanisms, and CLI which makes a standard interface for use by applications extremely cumbersome to develop and maintain. Well- known data modeling languages, such as YANG [RFC6020], exist, have some in-progress data models, and might be used for defining the necessary data models for I2RS; however, more investigation into alternatives is required. It is understood that some portion (hopefully a small subset) will remain as proprietary extensions; the data models must support future extensions and proprietary extensions. Since the I2RS will need to support remote access between applications running on a host or server and routers in the network, at least one standard mechanism must be identified and defined to provide the transfer syntax, as defined by a protocol, used to communicate between the application and the routing system. Common functionality that I2RS needs to support includes acknowledgements, notifications, and request-reserve-commit. Appropriate candidate protocols must be identified that reduce the effort required by applications and, preferably, are familiar to application developers. Ideally, this should not require that applications understand and implement existing routing protocols to interact with I2RS. These interfaces should instead be based on light-weight, rapidly deployable approaches; technology approaches must be evaluated but examples could include ReSTful web services, JSON, XMPP, and XML. These interfaces should possess self-describing attributes (e.g. a web services interface) so that applications can quickly query and learn about the active capabilities of a device. It may be desirable to also define the local syntax (e.g. programming language APIs) that applications running local to a router can use. Since evolution is anticipated in I2RS over time, it is important that versioning and backwards compatibility are basic supported functionality. Similarly, common consistent error-handling and acknowledgement mechanisms are required that do not severely limit the scalability and responsiveness of these interfaces. 3. Common Interface Considerations 3.1. Capabilities Capability negotiation is a critical requirement because different implementations and software versions will have different abilities. Similarly, applications may have different capabilities for receiving exported information. Atlas, et al. Expires August 27, 2013 [Page 6]
Internet-Draft I2RS Framework February 2013 An I2RS agent will have offer multiple services, each with their own set of capabilities. Such capabilities may include the particular data model and what operations can be performed at what scale. The capabilities negotiated may be filtered based upon different information, such as the I2RS client application's authorization, I2RS client application's capabilities, and the desired granularity for abstraction which the I2RS client application understands. Different types of authorization may require the router to advertise different capabilities and restrictions. The capability negotiation may take place at different levels of detail based upon the I2RS client and the specific functions in the I2RS that the I2RS client is negotiating. The network element and application must use the I2RS to agree upon the proper level of abstraction for the interaction. For example, when an application describes a route between two topological items, these items may vary in detail from a network domain's name at a high level, or down to the port forwarding specifics of a particular device. The data-model and capabilities available for an element may depend upon whether the element is physical or virtual; the virtual/physical distinction does not matter to I2RS. Similarly, the location of the element may influence how an application converses with the associated network element. 3.2. Identity, Authorization, Authentication, and Security The identity of applications that wish to manipulate or interrogate the state of the routing system must be appropriately authorized. Role-based authorization and authentication is necessary; however, there are different existing solutions to this that can be investigated for use in I2RS. Being able to associate the state and the modifications to a state with a specific application would aid in troubleshooting and auditing of the routing system. By associating identity and authorization with installed state, other applications with appropriate authority can clean up state abandoned by failed I2RS client applications, if necessary. Security of communication between the application and the router is also critical and must be considered in the design of the mechanisms to support these programmatic interfaces. Atlas, et al. Expires August 27, 2013 [Page 7]
Internet-Draft I2RS Framework February 2013 3.3. Speed and Frequency of State Installation A programmatic interface does not by itself imply the frequency of state updates nor the speed at which the state installation is required. These are critical aspects of an interface and govern what an application can use the interface for. The difference between sub-second responsiveness to millions of updates and a day delay per update is, obviously, drastic. The key attributes of the programmatic interface are described in Section 5 of [I-D.atlas-i2rs-problem-statement] and include that the interface must be asynchronous. For each service in I2RS, it will be necessary to specify expected scaling, responsiveness, and performance so that applications can understand the uses to which the I2RS can be used. I2RS must support asynchronous real-time interactions between the I2RS client applications and I2RS agent on the network element. I2RS must assume that there are many unrelated applications that may be simultaneously using I2RS. This requirement for multi-headed control has a number of implications. First, the I2RS agent must do arbitration between state installed by different I2RS clients. Second, I2RS clients must be able to subscribe to change events that notify them about changes done to state by other I2RS clients, configuration, or dynamic routing. Furthermore, I2RS should construct services that cater to different scaling and frequency of update parameters: e.g., slow, but detailed queries of the system, or fast yet higher level (less detailed) queries or modifications. 3.4. Lifetime of I2RS-Installed Routing System State In routers today, the lifetime of different routing state depends upon how that state was learned and committed. If the state is configuration state, then it is ephemeral when just in the running configuration or persistent when written to the startup configuration. If the state is learned via a routing protocol or SNMP, it is ephemeral, lasting only until the router reboots or the state is withdrawn. Unlike previous injection mechanisms that implied the state lifetime, I2RS requires that multiple models be supported for the lifetime of state it installs. This is because the lifetime or persistence of state of the routing system can vary based on the application that programmed it, policies or security authorization of the application. To provide flexibility, pre-programming, and handle dependencies, it Atlas, et al. Expires August 27, 2013 [Page 8]
Internet-Draft I2RS Framework February 2013 is necessary to have multiple models of when a operation is to be handled. Similarly, there are multiple models for when an operation is to expire. There are three aspects to be considered. Persistence ?: Does state installed survive reboot? Persistent: State installed by the I2RS client remains on the I2RS agent's network element across reboots or restarts of the system. The installed state can be dynamically removed or manipulated by an application, by configuration, or by the routing system itself. This state does not appear in the router's configuration; it is processed after all the configuration upon a reboot. Ephemeral: State installed by the I2RS client remains on the I2RS agent's network element in its active memory until such time as the installed state is either removed by a routing or signaling protocol, removed by a configuration initiated by an application, or the router reboots. In the case of the latter, past state is forgotten when the router reboots. Operation Start-Time: There are different models for when an I2RS agent should start an I2RS operation. Immediate: When the operation is received, it should be acted upon as quickly as reasonable (e.g. queued with other outstanding requests if necessary). Temporal: An application may provide an operation that is to be initiated at a particular time. When the specified time is reached, the operation should be acted upon as quickly as reasonable. Implementations may, of course, strive to improve the time-accuracy at which the operation is initiated. Triggered: The operation should be initiated when the specified triggering event has happened. A triggering event could be the successful or failed completion of another operation. A triggering event could be a system event, such as an interface up or down, or another event such as a particular route changing its next-hops. State Expiration: When state is installed by an I2RS client, there are two different models to consider for when that state is to be removed. Atlas, et al. Expires August 27, 2013 [Page 9]
Internet-Draft I2RS Framework February 2013 Temporal: When state is installed by an I2RS client, it has an expiration time specified. When that time has passed, the I2RS agent removes that state from the network element. The state can also be dynamically removed or manipulated by an I2RS client, by configuration or the routing system itself. Unbounded: When state is installed by an I2RS client, that state does not explicitly expire. The state can be dynamically removed or manipulated by an I2RS client, by configuration, or by the routing system itself. Because it is possible to request operations in models other than "Immediate" and some of the start-times will be at an unknown future point (e.g. "Triggered"), it is not feasible to guarantee that the resources required by an operation will always be available without reserving them from the time the operation is received. While that type of resource reservation should be possible, I2RS clients must also be able to handle an operation failing or being preempted due to resources or due to a higher priority or better authorized I2RS client taking ownership of the associated state or resource. 4. Bidirectional I2RS Services I2RS is a bidirectional programmatic interface that allows both routing and non-routing applications to install, remove, read, and otherwise manipulate the state of the routing system. Just as the Internet routing system is not a single protocol or implementation layer, neither does it make sense for the I2RS to be at a single layer or reside within a single protocol. For each protocol or layer, there are different data models, abstractions and interface syntaxes and semantics required. However with this in mind, it is ideal that a minimal set of mechanism(s) to define, transfer and manipulate this state will be specified with as few optional characteristics as possible. This will foster better interoperability between different vendor implementations. Since I2RS is focused on the routing system, the layers of interest start with the RIB and continue up through the IGPs, BGP, RSVP-TE, LDP, etc. The intent is neither to provide I2RS services to the forwarding plane nor to provide I2RS services to application layers. It is critical that these I2RS servies provide the ability to learn state, filtered by request, as well as to install state. I2RS assumes that there will be multiple applications using I2RS and therefore the ability to read state is necessary to fully know the network element's state. In general, if an I2RS service allows the Atlas, et al. Expires August 27, 2013 [Page 10]
Internet-Draft I2RS Framework February 2013 setting of state, the ability to read and modify that state is also necessary. 4.1. Static Routing The ability to specify static routes exists via CLI and MIBs but these mechanisms do not provide a programmatic interface. I2RS solves this problem by proposing interfaces to the RIB, LFIB, and Multicast RIBs. By installing static routes into the RIB layer, I2RS is able to utilize the existing router OS and its mechanisms for distributing the selected routes into the FIB and LIB. This avoids the need to model or standardize the forwarding plane. 4.1.1. Routing Information Base Service The RIB is populated with routes and next-hops as supplied by configuration, management, or routing protocols. A route has a preference based upon the specific source from which the route was derived. Static routes, specified via CLI, can be installed with an appropriate preference. The FIB is populated by selecting from the RIB based on policy and tie-breaking criteria. The I2RS service should allow dynamic reading and writing of routes into the RIB. There are several important attributes associated with doing so, as follows: Preference Value: This allows decisions between conflicting routes, whether I2RS-installed or otherwise. I2RS-installed routes can each be installed with a different preference value. Route Table Context: There can be different route table contexts in the RIB. Examples include multiple protocols (e.g. IPv4, IPv6), multiple topologies, different uses, and multiple networks (e.g. VRF tables for VPNs). Appropriate application-level abstractions are required to describe the desired route table context. Route or Traffic Identification The specific IP prefix or even interface must be specified. Outgoing Path and Encapsulation: It is necessary to specify the outgoing path and associated encapsulation. This may be done directly or indirectly. This is one of the more complex aspects with the following considerations. Atlas, et al. Expires August 27, 2013 [Page 11]
Internet-Draft I2RS Framework February 2013 Primary Next-Hops: To support multi-path forwarding, multiple primary next-hops can be specified and the traffic flows split among them. Indirection: Instead of specifying particular primary next-hops, it is critical to be able to provide the ability for indirection, such as is used between BGP routes and IGP routes. Thus, the outgoing path might be specified via indirection to be the same as another route's. Encapsulation: Associated with each primary next-hop can be details on the type of encapsulation for the packet. Such encapsulation could be MPLS, GRE, etc. as supported by the router. Protection: For fast-reroute protection, each primary next-hop may have one or more alternate next-hops specified. Those are to be used when the primary next-hop fails. DSCP: For QoS, the desired DSCP to be used for the outgoing traffic can be specified. It is useful for an application to be able to read out the RIB state associated with particular traffic and be able to learn both the preferred route and its source as well as other candidates with lower preference. Although there is no standardized model or specification of a RIB, it may be possible to build an interoperable bi-directional service without one. 4.1.2. Label Forwarding Information Base Service The LFIB has a similar role to the RIB for MPLS labeled packets. Each entry has slightly different information to accommodate MPLS forwarding and semantics. Although static MPLS can be used to configure specific state into the LFIB, there is no bidirectional programmatic interface to program, modify, or read the associated state. Each entry in the LFIB requires a MPLS label context (e.g. platform, per-interface, or other context), incoming label, label operation, and next-hops with associated encapsulation, label operation, and so on. Via the I2RS LFIB service, an application could supply the information for an entry using either a pre-allocated MPLS label or a newly allocated MPLS label that is returned to the application. Atlas, et al. Expires August 27, 2013 [Page 12]
Internet-Draft I2RS Framework February 2013 4.1.3. Multicast Routing Information Base Service There is no bidirectional programmatic interface to add, modify, remove or read state from the multicast RIB. This I2RS service would add those capabilities. Multicast forwarding state can be set up by a variety of protocols. As with the unicast RIB, an application may wish to install a new route for multicast. The state to add might be the full multicast route information - including the incoming interface, the particular multicast traffic (e.g. (source, group) or MPLS label), and the outgoing interfaces and associated encapsulations to replicate the traffic too. The multicast state added need not match to well-known protocol installed state. For instance, traffic received on an specified set, or all, interfaces that is destined to a particular prefix from all sources or a particular prefix could be subject to the specified replication. 4.2. Beyond Destination-based Routing Routing decisions and traffic treatment is not merely expressable via destination-based routing or even (S, G) routing, such as in multicast. Capturing these aspects into appropriate interfaces for the I2RS provides the ability for applications to control them as well. 4.2.1. Policy-Based Routing Service A common feature of routers is the ability to specify policy-based routing (PBR) rules for accepting, dropping, or differently forwarding particular traffic. This is a very useful functionality for an application to be able to rapidly add and remove state into. Such state would indicate the particular traffic to be affected and its subsequent behavior (e.g. drop, accept, forward on specified outgoing path and encapsulation, QoS, DSCP marking, policing, etc.). Such state is made more complex by the potential importance of ordering among the PBR rules. While PBR rules can be specified via CLI, this mechanism is not a streaming programmatic interface nor is there generally the ability to specify particular time-based lifetimes for each rule. 4.2.2. QoS State While per-hop behaviors are defined as well as standard DSCP meanings, the details of QoS configuration are not standardized and Atlas, et al. Expires August 27, 2013 [Page 13]
Internet-Draft I2RS Framework February 2013 can be highly variable depending upon platform. It is NOT a goal of this work to standardize QoS configurations. Instead, a data object model can define push/pull configurations. More investigation is needed to better describe the details. 4.3. Protocol Interactions Providing I2RS interfaces to the various routing protocols allows applications to specify policy, local topology changes, and availability to influence the routing protocols in a way that the detailed addition or modification of routes in the RIB does not. The decision to distribute the routing state via a routing or signaling protocol depends upon the protocol-layer at which this state is injected into the routing system. It may also depend upon which routing domain or domains this information is injected as well. In addition it is necessary to have the ability to pull state regarding various protocols from the router, a mechanism to register for asynchronous events, and the means to obtain those asynchronous events. An example of such state might be peer up/down. 4.3.1. IGP Services The lack of a programmatic interface to the IGPs limits the ability of applications to influence and modify the desired behavior of the IGP. An application may need to indicate that a router is overloaded (via ISIS or the method described in [RFC3137]) because that router does not yet have sufficient state synchronized or installed into it. When critical state is provided not merely by routers but also from applications via the I2RS, a synchronization mechanism can be needed. The ability for an application to modify the local topology can be part of this interface. One possibility is to allow modification of local interface metrics to generally influence selected routes. A more extensive interface might include the ability to create a OSPF or ISIS adjacency across a specified interface (virtual or real) with the appropriate associated encapsulation. The ability to attach a prefix to the local router would provide a straightforward method for an application to program a single router and have the proper routes computed and installed by all other routers in the relevant domains. Additional aspects to the prefix attachment, such as the metric with which to attach the prefix and fast-reroute characteristics, would be part of the interface. Atlas, et al. Expires August 27, 2013 [Page 14]
Internet-Draft I2RS Framework February 2013 Beyond such pure routing information, the need for an application to be able to install state to be flooded via an IGP has already been recognized. [I-D.ietf-isis-genapp] specifies a mechanism for flooding generalized application information via ISIS, but does not describe how an application can generate or consume this information. Similarly, [RFC5250] specifies Opaque LSAs for OSPF to provide for application-specific information to be flooded. An I2RS service and associated data object model would provide such a mechanism. Additional investigation will identify other state that applications may wish to install. From the IGP, applications via I2RS can extract significant topological information about the routers, links, and associated attributes. 4.3.2. BGP Service BGP carries significant policy and per-application specific information as well as internet routes. A significant service to BGP is expected, with different data object models for different applications. For example, the I2RS service to BGP could provide the ability to specify the policy on which paths BGP chooses to advertise. Additionally, the ability to specify information with an application-specified AFI/SAFI could provide substantial flexibility and control. An existing example of application information carried in BGP is BGP Flowspec [RFC5575] which can be used to provide traffic filtering and aid in handling denial-of-service attacks. The ability to extract information from BGP is also quite critical. A useful example of this is the information available from BGP via [I-D.gredler-idr-ls-distribution], which allows link-state topology information to be carried in BGP. 4.3.3. PIM and mLDP Services For PIM and mLDP, there are at least two types of state that an application might wish to install. First, an application might add an interface to join a particular multicast group. Second, an application might provide an upstream route for traffic to be received from - rather than having PIM or mLDP need to consult the unicast RIB. Additional investigation will identify other state that applications may wish to install. Atlas, et al. Expires August 27, 2013 [Page 15]
Internet-Draft I2RS Framework February 2013 4.4. Triggered Sessions and Signaling 4.4.1. OAM-related Sessions Interface An application may need to trigger new OAM sessions (e.g. BFD, VCCP, etc.) using an appropriate template. For example, there may be applications that need to create a new tunnel, verify its functionality via new triggered OAM sessions, and then bring it into service if that OAM indicates successful functionality. More investigation is needed to better describe the details. 4.4.2. Dynamic Session Creation An application may wish to trigger a peering relationship for a protocol. For instance, a targeted LDP session may be required to exchange state installed locally with a remote router. More investigation is needed to better describe the different cases and details. 4.4.3. Triggered Signaling To easily create dynamic state throughout the network, an application may need to trigger signaling via protocols such as RSVP-TE. An example of such an application can be a Stateful Path Computation Element (PCE)[I-D.ietf-pce-stateful-pce], which has control of various LSPs that need to be signaled. More investigation is needed to better describe the different cases and details. 5. Services for Learned Information from the Routing System Just as applications need to inject state into the routing system to meet various application-specific and policy-based requirements, it is critical that applications be able to also extract necessary state from the routing system. A part of each of these services is the ability to specify the generation of the desired information (e.g., collecting specific per- flow measurements) and the ability to specify appropriate filters to indicate the specifics and abstraction level of the information to be provided The types of information to extract can be generally grouped into the following different categories. Atlas, et al. Expires August 27, 2013 [Page 16]
Internet-Draft I2RS Framework February 2013 Topological: The need to understand the network topology, at a suitable abstraction layer, is critical to applications. Connectivity is not sufficient - the associated costs, bandwidths, latencies, etc. are all important aspects of the network topology that strongly influence the decision-making and behavior of applications. Measurements: Applications require measurements of traffic and network behavior in order to have a more meaningful feedback control loop. Such information may be per-interface, per-flow, per-firewall rule, per-queue, etc. Events: There are a variety of asynchronous events that an application may require or use as triggering conditions for starting other operations. An obvious example is interface state events. Configuration: For some aspects, it may be necessary for applications to be able to learn about the routing configuration on a box. This is partially available via various MIBs and NetConf. What additional information needs to be exported and the appropriate mechanisms needs further examination. The need to extract information from the network is not new; there is on-going work in the IETF in this area. This framework describes those efforts in the context of the above categories and starts the discussion of the aspects still required. 5.1. Efforts to Obtain Topological Data Topological data can be defined and presented at different layers (e.g. Layer-2, Layer-3) and with different characteristics exposed or hidden (e.g. physical or virtual, SRLGs, bandwidth, latency, etc.). It can also have different states, such as configured but unavailable, configurable, active, broken, administratively disabled, etc. To solve the problem of only being able to obtain topological data via listening to the IGP in each area, BGP-LS [I-D.gredler-idr-ls-distribution] defines extensions to BGP so that link-state topology information can be carried in BGP and a single BGP listener in the AS can therefore learn and distribute the entire AS's current link-state topology. BGP-LS solves the problem of distributing topological information throughout the network. While I2RS may expand the information to be distributed, I2RS addresses the API aspect of BGP-LS and not the network-wide distribution. At another level, ALTO [RFC5693] provides topological information at Atlas, et al. Expires August 27, 2013 [Page 17]
Internet-Draft I2RS Framework February 2013 a higher abstraction layer, which can be based upon network policy, and with application-relevant services located in it. The mechanism for ALTO obtaining the topology can vary and policy can apply to what is provided or abstracted. Neither of these fully meet the need to obtain detailed, layered topological state that provides more information than the current functional status. While there are currently no sufficiently complete standards, the need for such functionality can be deduced by the number of proprietary systems that have been developed to obtain and manage topology; even Element Management Systems start with the need for learning and manipulating the topology. Similarly, orchestration layers for applications start with the need to manage topology and the associated database. Detailed topology includes aspects such as physical nodes, physical links, virtual links, port to interface mapping, etc. The details should include the operational and administrative state as well as relevant parameters ranging from link bandwidth to SRLG membership. Layering is critical to provide the topology at the level of abstraction where it can be easily used by the application. A key aspect of this service is the ability to easily rate-limit, filter and specify the desired information to be extracted. This will help in allowing the service to scale when queries are done. 5.2. Measurements IPFIX [RFC5470] provides a way to measure and export per-traffic flow statistics. Applications that need to collect information about particular flows thus have a clear need to be able to install state to configure IPFIX to measure and export the relevant flows to the appropriate collectors. 5.3. Events A programmatic interface for application to subscribe to asynchronous events is necessary. In addition to the interface state events already mentioned, an application may wish to subscribe to certain OAM-triggered events that aren't otherwise exported. A RIB-based event could be reporting when the next-hops associated with a route have changed. Other events could be used to verify that forwarding state has been programmed. For example, an application could request an event whenever a particular route in the RIB has its forwarding plane installation completed. When an application registers for events, the application may request Atlas, et al. Expires August 27, 2013 [Page 18]
Internet-Draft I2RS Framework February 2013 to get only the first such event, all such events, or all events until a certain time. The full set of such events, that are not specifically related to other services, needs to be investigated and defined. 6. Manageability Considerations Manageability plays a key aspect in I2RS. Some initial examples include: Data Authorization Levels: The data-models used for I2RS need the ability to indicate the required authorization level for installing or reading a particular subset of data. This allows control of what interactions each application can have. Resource Limitations: Using I2RS, applications can consume resources, whether those be operations in a time-frame, entries in the RIB, stored operations to be triggered, etc. The ability to set resource limits based upon authorization is critical. Configuration Interactions: The interaction of state installed via the I2RS and via a router's configuration needs to be clearly defined. 7. IANA Considerations This document includes no request to IANA. 8. Security Considerations This framework describes interfaces that clearly require serious consideration of security. The ability to identify, authenticate and authorize applications that wish to install state is necessary and briefly described in Section 3.2. Security of communications from the applications is also required. More specifics on the security requirements requires further investigation. 9. Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Ken Gray, Adrian Farrel, Bruno Rijsman, Rex Fernando, Jan Medved, John Scudder, and Hannes Gredler Atlas, et al. Expires August 27, 2013 [Page 19]
Internet-Draft I2RS Framework February 2013 for their suggestions and review. 10. Informative References [I-D.atlas-i2rs-problem-statement] Atlas, A., Nadeau, T., and D. Ward, "Interface to the Routing System Problem Statement", draft-atlas-i2rs-problem-statement-01 (work in progress), February 2013. [I-D.gredler-idr-ls-distribution] Gredler, H., Medved, J., Previdi, S., and A. Farrel, "North-Bound Distribution of Link-State and TE Information using BGP", draft-gredler-idr-ls-distribution-02 (work in progress), July 2012. [I-D.ietf-isis-genapp] Ginsberg, L., Previdi, S., and M. Shand, "Advertising Generic Information in IS-IS", draft-ietf-isis-genapp-04 (work in progress), November 2010. [I-D.ietf-pce-stateful-pce] Crabbe, E., Medved, J., Minei, I., and R. Varga, "PCEP Extensions for Stateful PCE", draft-ietf-pce-stateful-pce-02 (work in progress), October 2012. [RFC3137] Retana, A., Nguyen, L., White, R., Zinin, A., and D. McPherson, "OSPF Stub Router Advertisement", RFC 3137, June 2001. [RFC5250] Berger, L., Bryskin, I., Zinin, A., and R. Coltun, "The OSPF Opaque LSA Option", RFC 5250, July 2008. [RFC5470] Sadasivan, G., Brownlee, N., Claise, B., and J. Quittek, "Architecture for IP Flow Information Export", RFC 5470, March 2009. [RFC5575] Marques, P., Sheth, N., Raszuk, R., Greene, B., Mauch, J., and D. McPherson, "Dissemination of Flow Specification Rules", RFC 5575, August 2009. [RFC5693] Seedorf, J. and E. Burger, "Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) Problem Statement", RFC 5693, October 2009. [RFC6020] Bjorklund, M., "YANG - A Data Modeling Language for the Atlas, et al. Expires August 27, 2013 [Page 20]
Internet-Draft I2RS Framework February 2013 Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF)", RFC 6020, October 2010. Authors' Addresses Alia Atlas (editor) Juniper Networks 10 Technology Park Drive Westford, MA 01886 USA Email: akatlas@juniper.net Thomas Nadeau Juniper Networks 1194 N. Mathilda Ave. Sunnyvale, CA 94089 USA Email: tnadeau@juniper.net Dave Ward Cisco Systems Tasman Drive San Jose, CA 95134 USA Email: wardd@cisco.com Atlas, et al. Expires August 27, 2013 [Page 21]