TEAS                                                            Z. Zhang
Internet-Draft                                                  S. Hegde
Intended status: Standards Track                        Juniper Networks
Expires: January 14, 2021                                       A. Gulko
                                                               Refinitiv
                                                           July 13, 2020


           Network Slicing with Flexible Traffic Engineering
           draft-zzhang-teas-network-slicing-with-flex-te-00

Abstract

   This document specifies procedures and signaling enhancements to
   Flexible Algoirthm to ease provisoning and to scale it better via
   Flexible Traffic Engineering, which is an integration of Flexible
   Algorithm and Segment Routing [RFC8402] Traffic Engineering (SR-TE).

Requirements Language

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP
   14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
   capitals, as shown here.

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 https://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 January 14, 2021.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2020 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.




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   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (https://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
   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  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
     1.1.  FlexAlgo Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     1.2.  Central Provisioning and Signaling of FlexAlgo  . . . . .   4
     1.3.  Flexible Traffic Engineering (FlexTE) and Targeted
           Signaling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     1.4.  Traffic Isolation and FlexAlgo/FlexTE . . . . . . . . . .   5
   2.  Specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     2.1.  Southbound BGP-LS Encoding of FAD . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     2.2.  Southbound BGP-LS Encoding of Link Administrative Group
           Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     2.3.  OSPF/ISIS Encoding of Link Administrative Group
           Information for Cetralized Advertisement  . . . . . . . .   7
     2.4.  FlexAlgo and Link AG Signaling from Controllers . . . . .   8
   3.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   4.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   5.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   6.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     6.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     6.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10

1.  Introduction

   [dong-network-slicing-problem-statement] defines Network Slicing
   Problem Statement for IP/MPLS networks.  While Virtual Private
   Networks (VPNs) have been widely deployed to provide many different
   virtual networks on the same physical operator network, and can be
   reused to provide network slicing service to applications, currently
   those VPNs share the same underlay operator network without any
   separation and isolation.

   Multi-Topology Routing (MTR) [RFC4915] [RFC5120] provides a mechanism
   to have a set of independent IP topologies referred to as Multi-
   Topologies (MTs) over the same underlay network.  It can be used to
   provide separation and isolation required by network slicing, though
   MTR has not been widely deployed over the years, except limited usage



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   of maintaining separate IGP routing domains for isolated multicast
   islands within the backbone.

   Some reasons for MTR's lack of success are listed below:

   1.  Lack of strong demand for mapping traffic to different MTs

   2.  Lack of good mechanism for mapping traffic to different MTs

   3.  Lack of operating tools to ease provisioning and monitoring

   In 5G era, 1) is no longer the case and 3) needs to be addressed
   given the network slicing requirements. 2) is addressed by SR and
   Flexible Algorithm (FlexAlgo) [ietf-lsr-flex-algo].  This document
   specifies signaling enhancements to FlexAlgo to ease provisoning and
   to scale it better via Flexible Traffic Engineering (FlexTE), which
   is an integration of FlexAlgo and Segment Routing [RFC8402] Traffic
   Engineering (SR-TE).

1.1.  FlexAlgo Background

   FlexAlgo can be viewed as a more flexible and light-weighted
   mechanism of MTR.  A Flexible Algorithm is defined as a <Calculation
   Type, Metric Type, Included/excluded Administrative Group> tuple.
   The "Included/excluded Administrative Group" defines the
   (sub-)topology used for the algorithm.  While there are different
   metric types to be used, there are no per-algorithm metric values
   advertised for links.

   Routers are configured to use certain algoirthms for its SPF
   calculations.  Definitions for the algorithms are locally configured
   and/or learnt through signaling.

   The Administrative Groups (AG) of a link, which are often referred to
   as link colors, are advertised in a 32-bit AG BitMask as sepcified in
   [RFC3630] [RFC5305] or an arbitrary length EAG BitMask as specified
   in [RFC7308].  The advertisements are originated from the router
   owning the link based on local provisioning.

   While not a mandatroy part of FlexAlgo, Segment Routing can be
   integrated with FlexAlgo seamlessly to map traffic to different
   algorithms: prefix SIDs can optionally be associated with algorithms,
   so that a prefix can be reached via different SIDs or SID lists,
   following different paths.







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1.2.  Central Provisioning and Signaling of FlexAlgo

   More and more operators use controllers for centralized
   orchestration, provisioning and signaling.  In fact, even before the
   controllers were used, the network planning was centralized, albeit
   done manually, and then configuration information resulting from
   centralized planning was entered into individual routers via out of
   band means.

   The centralized model can be applied to FlexAlgo very well - instead
   of provisioning FAD and link AGs on individual routers after
   centralized planning, the provisioning is be done centrally on the
   controllers and then constraints and link AG information are signaled
   to routers.

   Given that it is very common for controllers to learn network
   information via northbound BGP-LS [RFC7752], this document uses
   southbound BGP-LS to distribute FAD and link AG information from
   controllers to BGP-LS speakers.  This can also take advantages of
   inherent BGP mechanisms for optimized large scale state distribution.
   If not all routers but only IGP border routers run BGP-LS, the border
   routers will then flood received information via IGP.

1.3.  Flexible Traffic Engineering (FlexTE) and Targeted Signaling

   With current FlexAlgo mechanisms, Flexible Algorithm Definitions
   (FADs) and link AG information are flooded throughout an IGP area and
   every router will do an SPF calculation for each algorithm.  This may
   work for a few algorithms but it will not scale for larger number of
   alorithms that are necessary for large number of slices in some 5G
   scenarios.

   To address the scaling problem, the above flooded information and SPF
   caculation may be restricted to network edge only.  The idea is first
   introduced in [I-D.drake-bess-enhanced-vpn] but adapted to FlexAlgo
   in this document.

   With this scheme, the internal routers don't have per-algorithm
   information and do not do per-algorithm based SPF or per-algorithm
   prefix-SID based forwarding.  The edge routers use SR-TE Adjacency
   SID-lists to explicitly steer traffic through the network.  This is
   referred to as Flexible Traffic Engineering (FlexTE), an integraion
   of Flexible Algorithm and SR Traffic Engineering.

   Specifically, with BGP Route Target [RFC4364] and Route Target
   Constrains [RFC4684] mechanisms, the FADs and link AG information are
   only propagated to and imported by edge routers that need that
   information.  For example, if a network slice is presented to



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   application as a VPN and instantiated in the underlay with a Flexible
   Algorithm that utilizes only "red" links, then that specific FAD and
   "red" link AG information are advertised to and imported by only PEs
   for that VPN (if the same algorithm is used by many VPNs then all PEs
   of those VPNs will import the relevant information).

   For better scalability, the link AG information is encoded in a new
   type of Route Target (RT) used for the control of route propagation
   and importation, as detailed in Section 2.2 and [I-D.zzhang-idr-
   bitmask-route-target].

   Because a router may not be able to push too deep a label stack, per-
   algorithm Binding SIDs may have to be used.  For example, if there
   are 10 hops from PE1 to PE2 while the maximum labels that PE1 can
   push is 5, then PE1 has to use a label stack that specifies the
   explicit hop-by-hop path (calculated by an algorithm) to an
   intermediate router P1 and a binding SID advertised by P1 for PE2.
   For P1 to calculate the per-algorithm explicit path to PE2, it also
   needs to know the information for that algorithm, and it can do so
   following the same way as how PE1 learns the information.

1.4.  Traffic Isolation and FlexAlgo/FlexTE

   FlexAlgo as described in [I-D.ietf-lsr-flex-algo] seprates the
   routing domain into different planes.  The primary and backup paths
   are computed based on the topology that corresponds to the plane.
   FlexAlgo provides strict isolation of the data traffic between the
   different planes.  Notice that FlexAlgo is suitable for slices that
   need complete isolation.  Packet transportnetworks are expected to
   have a limited number of such isolated routing planes.

   With FlexTE, traffic isolation is achieved via SR-TE Adjacency SID
   lists, but during local Fast ReRoute (FRR) traffic may flow through
   paths that don't satisfy constraints.  If the SR-TE SID list is too
   long, Node SIDs may be used but the traffic isolation is not possible
   on the path between node SIDs, unless some internal routers also get
   targeted signaling, behave as edge routers, and advertise per-
   algorithm Node/Binding SIDs (targeted at the edge routers and those
   selected internal routers).  Therefore, FlexTE is more suitable for
   soft slicing where traffic isolation is not critical in certain
   situations.

   With 5G, network slicing requires high number of slices though they
   may not necessarily require routing plane isolation but they may need
   to satisfy certain constraints and have guaranteed Quality Of
   Service, and FlexTE as a flexible soft slicing solution allows for
   slice creation inside specific isolated planes or in a generic plane.




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   The QOS guarantees for the slices are outside the scope of this
   document.

2.  Specification

   BGP-LS [RFC7752] is for "North-Bound Distribution of Link-State and
   Traffic Engineering (TE) Information Using BGP".  This document
   extends it for south-bound distribution of FlexAlgo/TE constraint
   related information, and specifies relavent procedures for FlexAlgo
   based on centralized, targeted signaling.

2.1.  Southbound BGP-LS Encoding of FAD

   Currently BGP-LS uses the following NLRI format with AFI 16388 and
   SAFI 71/72:

        0                   1                   2                   3
        0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |            NLRI Type          |     Total NLRI Length         |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                                                               |
       +      Route Distinguisher (only with SAFI 72)                  +
       |                                                               |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |                                                               |
       //                  Link-State NLRI (variable)                 //
       |                                                               |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

   A new NLRI type TBD1 is added to advertise FAD.  For simplicity, the
   variale Link-State NLRI field has the exactly same TLV format of ISIS
   FAD Sub-TLV as specified in [I-D.ietf-lsr-flex-algo], including the
   Type number and Sub-TLVs.

                      +------+-------------------------------+
                      | Type | NLRI Type                     |
                      +------+-------------------------------+
                      |  1   | Node NLRI                     |
                      |  2   | Link NLRI                     |
                      |  3   | IPv4 Topology Prefix NLRI     |
                      |  4   | IPv6 Topology Prefix NLRI     |
                      | TBD1 | Flexible Algorithm Definition |
                      +------+-------------------------------+







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2.2.  Southbound BGP-LS Encoding of Link Administrative Group
      Information

   Currently, BGP-LS encodes link Administrative Group information as a
   Type 1088 Administrative Group TLV in BGP-LS attribute attached to
   Link NLRIs that are propagated northbound from routers to
   controllers.  For the southbound signaling of Administrative Group
   information from controllers, for the purpose of targeted propagation
   and importation, the Administrative Group information are encoded in
   a new Bitmask Route Target as specified in [I-D.zzhang-idr-bitmask-
   route-target].  The Administrative Group TLV is omitted from the BGP-
   LS Attribute for the link because the information is already encoded
   in the BitMask RT.

   Specifically, the EAG BitMask is encoded into the Bitmask field of a
   Bitmask RT that is attached to the Link NLRI for the link.  The
   Global Administrator (GA) Type, GA Length, and Local Administrator
   fields are set according to the operator's need to provide a context.

   To distinguish from Link NLRIs signaled northbound by routers, the
   Protocol-ID of the Link NLRI is set to BGP (to be assigned by IANA).

2.3.  OSPF/ISIS Encoding of Link Administrative Group Information for
      Cetralized Advertisement

   When centralized provisioning and signaling is not used, an OSPF
   router advertises its local links' attributes in OSPFv2 Extended Link
   Opaque LSAs.  The LSA includes OSPFv2 Extended Link TLVs, one for
   each link, which in turn includes sub-TLVs for specific link
   attributes.

   The same OSPFv2 Extended Link TLVs can be used for ABRs to flood link
   attributes that are centrally provisioned on and signaled from
   controllers, but they MUST additionally carry a new sub-TLV to
   indidate the routers that host the links, because these Extended Link
   TLVs are in the Extended Link Opaque LSAs originated by the ABRs not
   those originated by the routers hosting the links.  The sub-TLV is
   called Hosting Router sub-TLV, with a new TBD2 type and a 4-octet
   value for the Rouer ID of the router hosting the link.

   For OSPFv3, a router advertises its local links' TE attributes in
   Intra-Area-TE LSAs, which contains Link TLVs with link attribute sub-
   TLVs.  Similarly to OSPFv2, when ABRs flood the link attributes that
   are centrally provisioned on and signaled from controllers, the Link
   TLVs MUST carry the Hosting Router sub-TLV.

   For ISIS, the Link Administrative Group information is signaled as
   sub-TLVs in Extended IS Reachability TLV [RFC5305].  Similarlly, when



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   ABRs flood the link attributes that are centrally provisioned on and
   signaled from controllers, the Extended IS Reachability TLV MUST
   carry a new Hosting System sub-TLV.  The sub-TLV has a new type TBD3
   and a 7-octet value for system ID and pseudonode number.

   When a router receives a OSPFv2/OSPFv3 Link TLV with Hosting Router
   sub-TLV or an ISIS Extended IS Reachability TLV with Hosting System
   sub-TLV, it MUST associate the link with the advertised hosting
   router/system, not with the originator of the OSPF LSA or ISIS LSP.

2.4.  FlexAlgo and Link AG Signaling from Controllers

   With centralized provisioning and signaling, a controller signals
   Link AG information using BGP-LS Link NLRI with a BitMask RT
   attached, as specified in Section 2.2.

   The controller signals FADs used in the domain using the BGP-LS NLRI
   type TBD1.  The updates carry a Bitmask RT with the bits set for the
   AGs that the FADs care about.

   Routers that need to learn the information MUST have a BitMask RT
   locally configured, with the bits set for the AGs that they care
   about, so that they will import corresponding NLRIs.  In case of
   FlexTE, only edge routers and some internal routers will have the
   BitMask RT locally configured.  Otherwise, all BGP-LS routers are
   configured with a BitMask RT to import all FAD and Link NLRIs.

   To optimize the propagation of south-bound BGP-LS NLRIs, Route Target
   Constrain [RFC4684] mechanisms SHOULD be used for Bitmask RT as well,
   as specified in [I-D.zzhang-idr-bgp-rt-constrain-extension].

3.  Security Considerations

   To be added.

4.  IANA Considerations

   To be added.

5.  Acknowledgements

   The authors thank Jeff Haas, Srihari Sangli and Colby Barth for their
   comments and suggestions.








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6.  References

6.1.  Normative References

   [I-D.ietf-lsr-flex-algo]
              Psenak, P., Hegde, S., Filsfils, C., Talaulikar, K., and
              A. Gulko, "IGP Flexible Algorithm", draft-ietf-lsr-flex-
              algo-07 (work in progress), April 2020.

   [I-D.zzhang-idr-bgp-rt-constrains-extension]
              Zhang, Z. and J. Haas, "Route Target Constrain Extension",
              draft-zzhang-idr-bgp-rt-constrains-extension-00 (work in
              progress), July 2020.

   [I-D.zzhang-idr-bitmask-route-target]
              Zhang, Z., Ramachandra, S., and J. Haas, "Bitmask Route
              Target", draft-zzhang-idr-bitmask-route-target-00 (work in
              progress), July 2020.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

   [RFC7752]  Gredler, H., Ed., Medved, J., Previdi, S., Farrel, A., and
              S. Ray, "North-Bound Distribution of Link-State and
              Traffic Engineering (TE) Information Using BGP", RFC 7752,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7752, March 2016,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7752>.

   [RFC8174]  Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.

   [RFC8402]  Filsfils, C., Ed., Previdi, S., Ed., Ginsberg, L.,
              Decraene, B., Litkowski, S., and R. Shakir, "Segment
              Routing Architecture", RFC 8402, DOI 10.17487/RFC8402,
              July 2018, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8402>.

6.2.  Informative References

   [I-D.dong-network-slicing-problem-statement]
              Dong, J. and S. Bryant, "Problem Statement of Network
              Slicing in IP/MPLS Networks", draft-dong-network-slicing-
              problem-statement-00 (work in progress), October 2016.






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   [I-D.drake-bess-enhanced-vpn]
              Drake, J., Farrel, A., Jalil, L., and A. Lingala, "BGP-LS
              Filters : A Framework for Network Slicing and Enhanced
              VPNs", draft-drake-bess-enhanced-vpn-03 (work in
              progress), May 2020.

   [RFC3630]  Katz, D., Kompella, K., and D. Yeung, "Traffic Engineering
              (TE) Extensions to OSPF Version 2", RFC 3630,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC3630, September 2003,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3630>.

   [RFC4364]  Rosen, E. and Y. Rekhter, "BGP/MPLS IP Virtual Private
              Networks (VPNs)", RFC 4364, DOI 10.17487/RFC4364, February
              2006, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4364>.

   [RFC4684]  Marques, P., Bonica, R., Fang, L., Martini, L., Raszuk,
              R., Patel, K., and J. Guichard, "Constrained Route
              Distribution for Border Gateway Protocol/MultiProtocol
              Label Switching (BGP/MPLS) Internet Protocol (IP) Virtual
              Private Networks (VPNs)", RFC 4684, DOI 10.17487/RFC4684,
              November 2006, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4684>.

   [RFC4915]  Psenak, P., Mirtorabi, S., Roy, A., Nguyen, L., and P.
              Pillay-Esnault, "Multi-Topology (MT) Routing in OSPF",
              RFC 4915, DOI 10.17487/RFC4915, June 2007,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4915>.

   [RFC5120]  Przygienda, T., Shen, N., and N. Sheth, "M-ISIS: Multi
              Topology (MT) Routing in Intermediate System to
              Intermediate Systems (IS-ISs)", RFC 5120,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5120, February 2008,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5120>.

   [RFC5305]  Li, T. and H. Smit, "IS-IS Extensions for Traffic
              Engineering", RFC 5305, DOI 10.17487/RFC5305, October
              2008, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5305>.

   [RFC7308]  Osborne, E., "Extended Administrative Groups in MPLS
              Traffic Engineering (MPLS-TE)", RFC 7308,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7308, July 2014,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7308>.

Authors' Addresses

   Zhaohui Zhang
   Juniper Networks

   EMail: zzhang@juniper.net



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   Shraddha Hegde
   Juniper Networks

   EMail: shraddha@juniper.net


   Arkadiy Gulko
   Refinitiv

   EMail: arkadiy.gulko@refinitiv.com









































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