Problem Statement for the Interface to the Routing System
RFC 7920

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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                     A. Atlas, Ed.
Request for Comments: 7920                              Juniper Networks
Category: Informational                                   T. Nadeau, Ed.
ISSN: 2070-1721                                                  Brocade
                                                                 D. Ward
                                                           Cisco Systems
                                                               June 2016

       Problem Statement for the Interface to the Routing System

Abstract

   Traditionally, routing systems have implemented routing and signaling
   (e.g., MPLS) to control traffic forwarding in a network.  Route
   computation has been controlled by relatively static policies that
   define link cost, route cost, or import and export routing policies.
   Requirements have emerged to more dynamically manage and program
   routing systems due to the advent of highly dynamic data-center
   networking, on-demand WAN services, dynamic policy-driven traffic
   steering and service chaining, the need for real-time security threat
   responsiveness via traffic control, and a paradigm of separating
   policy-based decision-making from the router itself.  These
   requirements should allow controlling routing information and traffic
   paths and extracting network topology information, traffic
   statistics, and other network analytics from routing systems.

   This document proposes meeting this need via an Interface to the
   Routing System (I2RS).

Status of This Memo

   This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
   published for informational purposes.

   This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
   (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has
   received public review and has been approved for publication by the
   Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Not all documents
   approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
   Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 7841.

   Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
   and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
   http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7920.

Atlas, et al.                 Informational                     [Page 1]
RFC 7920                 I2RS Problem Statement                June 2016

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2016 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
   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
   2. I2RS Model and Problem Area for the IETF ........................4
   3. Standard Data Models of Routing State for Installation ..........6
   4. Learning Router Information .....................................7
   5. Aspects to be Considered for an I2RS Protocol ...................8
   6. Security Considerations .........................................9
   7. References .....................................................10
      7.1. Normative References ......................................10
      7.2. Informative References ....................................10
   Appendix A.  Existing Management Interfaces .......................11
   Acknowledgements ..................................................12
   Authors' Addresses ................................................12

Atlas, et al.                 Informational                     [Page 2]
RFC 7920                 I2RS Problem Statement                June 2016

1.  Introduction

   Traditionally, routing systems have implemented routing and signaling
   (e.g., MPLS) to control traffic forwarding in a network.  Route
   computation has been controlled by relatively static policies that
   define link cost, route cost, or import and export routing policies.
   The advent of highly dynamic data-center networking, on-demand WAN
   services, dynamic policy-driven traffic steering and service
   chaining, the need for real-time security threat responsiveness via
   traffic control, and a paradigm of separating policy-based decision-
   making from the router itself has created the need to more
   dynamically manage and program routing systems in order to control
   routing information and traffic paths and to extract network topology
   information, traffic statistics, and other network analytics from