Reducing Redundancy in IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX) and Packet Sampling (PSAMP) Reports
RFC 5473

Network Working Group                                          E. Boschi
Request for Comments: 5473                                Hitachi Europe
Category: Informational                                          L. Mark
                                                         Fraunhofer IFAM
                                                               B. Claise
                                                     Cisco Systems, Inc.
                                                              March 2009

       Reducing Redundancy in IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX)
                  and Packet Sampling (PSAMP) Reports

Status of This Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  It does
   not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of this
   memo is unlimited.

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Abstract

   This document describes a bandwidth saving method for exporting Flow
   or packet information using the IP Flow Information eXport (IPFIX)
   protocol.  As the Packet Sampling (PSAMP) protocol is based on IPFIX,
   these considerations are valid for PSAMP exports as well.

Boschi, et al.               Informational                      [Page 1]
RFC 5473                  Reducing Redundancy                 March 2009

   This method works by separating information common to several Flow
   Records from information specific to an individual Flow Record.
   Common Flow information is exported only once in a Data Record
   defined by an Options Template, while the rest of the specific Flow
   information is associated with the common information via a unique
   identifier.

Table of Contents

   1. Introduction ....................................................3
      1.1. IPFIX Documents Overview ...................................3
      1.2. PSAMP Documents Overview ...................................4
   2. Terminology .....................................................4
      2.1. Terminology Summary Table ..................................5
      2.2. IPFIX Flows versus PSAMP Packets ...........................5
   3. Specifications for Bandwidth-Saving Information Export ..........5
      3.1. Problem Statement and High-Level Solution ..................6
      3.2. Data Reduction Technique ...................................7
   4. Transport Protocol Choice .......................................8
      4.1. PR-SCTP ....................................................9
      4.2. UDP ........................................................9
      4.3. TCP ........................................................9
   5. commonPropertiesID Management ...................................9
   6. The Collecting Process Side ....................................10
      6.1. UDP .......................................................11
      6.2. TCP .......................................................12
   7. Advanced Techniques ............................................12
      7.1. Multiple Data Reduction ...................................12
      7.2. Cascading Common Properties ...............................15
   8. Export and Evaluation Considerations ...........................15
      8.1. Transport Protocol Choice .................................16
      8.2. Reduced Size Encoding .....................................16
      8.3. Efficiency Gain ...........................................16
   9. Security Considerations ........................................17
   10. Acknowledgments ...............................................17
   11. References ....................................................17
      11.1. Normative References .....................................17