SRv6 Operations (SRv6OPS) BoF
Friday, 22 March 2024
09:30 - 11:30 Local
Administrivia: Chairs (5 min)
Operator's Presentation (1 hour)
Presentations from operators highlighting potential SRv6 operational
discussion topics for the proposed WG. Each presentation had 10 mins
including time for clarifying questions.
MTN (Zoltan Miklos)
Zoltan Miklos from MTN shared the challenges and requirements of the
MTN SRv6 network.
- Warren Kumari: As someone born in South Africa, thanks for sharing
how the networks are changing and the challenges faced.
Bell Canada (Daniel Voyer)
Daniel Voyer from Bell Canada shared the C-SID address allocation
strategy and its impact.
Thomas Graf from Swisscom shared the SRv6 network observability
challenges.
Alibaba Cloud (Linjian Song)
Linjian Song from Alibaba Cloud talked about SRv6 operations
requirement in the cloud scenario.
China Mobile (Tianji Jiang)
Tianji Jiang from China Mobile summarized the challenges in SRv6
network operations.
- Dan Voyer: Clarify if the 10K node is the total number of nodes in
the network or just an island?
- Tianji Jiang: 10K is just in the CMNet (backbone network).
- Weiqiang Cheng: In our IP Backbone-CMNet, there are more than 10K
core routers. In the mobile backhaul, more than 2 million routers.
This might be the largest backbone network.
Charter Discussion (40 mins)
Dhruv Dhody went over the current proposed charter with mission, scope,
deliverables and relationships with other WGs.
- Greg Mirsky: By approving this BoF, is IESG sending a message that
SRv6 is not IPv6?
- Warren: No.
- Greg: As per V6OPS's existing charter, it should be covered in
V6OPS.
- Warren: This is not uncommon. If there is enough work for SRv6, it's
ok to break it out.
- Greg: What would be the relationship between V6OPS and this new
proposed WG is not clear to me? What is specific about SRv6 that can
not be addressed in V6OPS?
- Warren: We could update the V6OPS charter to split the SRv6OPS to
this new WG. Clearly, they're related but we do carve out focused
work. Anyways point taken.
- Xipeng Xiao: V6OPS is rarely doing anything related to SRv6 right
now. SRv6 is an application of IPv6 (not competition). SRv6OPS can
be a useful ecosystem partner.
- Xuesong Geng: As a vendor, I support the forming of this WG for
discussing operator presentations. Providers can give the operator's
input that vendors/WG should incorporate.
- Tom Hill (BT): Overlap with other WGs such as NMOPS covering generic
network management. +1 to Greg. If the WG is formed, we need to be
critical to make sure the operations are working as well as they
can.
- Alvaro Retna: Happy to see operators in IETF talking about the
technology we developed in SPRING. Concerned with potential
conflicts that we may create (ex CSID is still in development in
SPRING). The charter text that talks about taking on work after
SPRING should extend to others like IPPM. A lot of coordination is
needed - overlapping chairs, overlapping ADs, everything in SPRING,
irrespective of the charter, we need to operationalize the
coordination.
- Andrew Alston: PCE work does not have ops wg but it works fine.
SPRING charter gives PCEP extensions to PCE WG, BFD, TILFA, IPPM
etc. SPRING would need to be rechartered simultaneously to avoid WG
shopping.
- Dhruv: Yes, we need to take it into account and update impacted
charters as well.
- Daniel Huang (ZTE): We need more operators use-cases and
requirements; very impressive and insightful presentations. I
believe it's quite reasonable to have focused WG.
- Cheng Li (Huawei): I see a lot of SRv6 deployment projects with
similar problems. A dedicated SRv6 ops WG can deliver faster which
is needed in this case. Support the WG creation.
- Éric Vyncke (from chat): With more and more IPv6 deployments, I do
not want to have a 4-hour V6OPS meeting... Let's have focused WG
- Boris Khasanov (from chat): IMO, it's just about sharing of
experience, that is really helpful
- Ran Pang: We deployed the SRv6 network. A dedicated SRv6OPS wg would
be helpful for management guidance, observability, and
trooubleshooting.
- Martin Horneffer (from chat): I do think that early exchange of
operator consideration and discussion of best practices - including
addressing considerations - is very helpful.
- Randy Bush (from chat): These interactions with protocol groups are
inherent in the ops area.
- Mohamed Boucadair (from chat): Alvaro has a point but this can be
complementary. Ops cons should be ideally handled in parallel of the
spec, but we need some experience before making reco and guidance.
This wg will provide more that part
- Benoît Claise (from chat): Regarding Eric's point. I could write the
same point for NMOP: we don't to have a 4 hour NMOP meeting. It's
interesting to observe the discussion, which is mainly "where should
this work happen?" I assume/hope that we all agree that this work
must happen somewhere.
- Dan Voyer (from chat): I thought it was obvious by doing this BoF
where this work should go
- Eric Vynke: (slide 12 on scope) Refine the charter scope last
bullet, what is the meaning of reaches consensus in SPRING?
- Robert Wilton: Good to see operators here in IETF coming together to
solve issues. Encourage that. Could follow NMOPS in being
operator-led and focused (not in favour of it being in the scope of
NMOPS). Some potential overlap but solvable. Enough people and
deployments here? It appears so. It's a good place to try. Nothing
is set in stone, in favour of trying something here and recharter or
closing.
- Pete Resnick (from chat): Outsider view, but seems to me that
questions about fixing charters of other WGs, distributing work
among WGs, which area, etc. are really up to the IESG and not for
the BOF to decide. There do seem to be some scope concerns, which
should be good input from the BOF, but people seem to be saying
there is stuff to be done here.
- Robin Li: Good to see the operator here discussing SRv6 operations
issues. Vendors had long debates in SPRING and RTGWG. Now SRv6 is
deployed. A good platform to identify issues with interoperability.
This WG is helpful to improve SRv6 technology.
- Jim (RTGAD hat on): We can put to bed the argument that SRv6 is not
deployed, which is good. There is clear community interest in doing
the work. The question is where to do it (new WG or existing V6ops
or ...). If the WG is formed, it does not prevent us from folding it
into v6ops later on.
- Adrian Farrel: The charter text does not show what it is not
intended. The WG perhaps does not work on protocol extension.
- Dhruv: No standard track document.
- Mohamed Boucadair (from chat): "Solutions and protocol extensions
are not within its scope."
- Adrian Farrel (from chat): Perhaps "Development of..."
- Dan Voyer: My experience in SPRING, BESS tells me that we do not
have a clear voice to express the use case and challenges while we
focus on the solutions. This new WG as a forum for operators focused
on challenges with existing technology would be helpful. Good for
operators and also for different vendors.
- Mahesh Jethanandani (from chat): I agree with others that NMOP is
probably not the right place for bringing this work. I think there
is enough focused work being defined here to form a WG.
- Yisong Liu: During the SRv6 deployment in our network, we face many
challenges such as address planning, inter-AS, protection etc. Other
WG may provide many technologies to solve them, but as an operator,
we would like a place to share our experience.
- Cheng: See interest/support for the work. The agenda for SPRING and
V6OPS is already overloaded and very hard to get a slot for
presentation and chairs are overloaded. Why not have a more focused
WG for that part?
- Randy Bush (from chat): this discussion kinda points out that we do
not know how operators/operations fit in
- Antoine Fressancourt (from chat): +1 Randy, even more so since in
other WG, I often hear struggles in finding inputs from operators
from vendors
- Chongfeng Xie: Useful WG. The name should be reconsidered. SRv6 is
part of IPv6 and can conflict with V6OPS. SRv6 makes the network
complex. How to make it more reliable/secure is what we should do is
important
- Andrew Alston (from chat): +1 - srv6 is ipv6 - or it isn't -
creating this working group makes it explicit that it isn't - and if
we acknowledge that then I'm quite happy with that - but lets
acknowledge that and be open with it
- Linjian: Alibaba support the WG and would like to contribute to the
WG. Based on Alibaba's experience on DevOps, we would like to share
it. Seeing other operators use cases is helpful too.
- Ketan Talaulikar (from chat): From what I am hearing, there seems to
be a need for some (or more) informational and BCP documents to be
developed (led by operators?) alongside developing protocol work. It
seems like creating space for that to happen at the IETF - whether
in existing WGs or in dedicated WGs is the question.
- Greg: Agree SPRING is not the right place. V6OPS can have longer
sessions with dedicated time for SRv6.
- Xuesong: Lots of problems can be solved without protocol extension
such as Dan and Thomas presentation
- Jim: Need to clarify deliverables. Deliverables could be no
documents and it's a venue for discussion. Extending SPRING to two
sessions is an option.
- Warren: MOPS(Media OPS) provides a venue for people to share
experiences.
- Andrew Alston (from chat): and Im not convinced there is consensus
here - there is support - but Im not at all convinced there is
consensus - but thats for the chairs to judge not me :)
BoF Questions
-
Are there operators here who have already deployed SRv6 in their
networks? (Question For Operators Only)
- 35 Yes
- 7 No
- 15 No Opinion
-
Are there operators here that are planning or evaluating SRv6
deployment in their networks? (Question For Operators Only)
- 41 Yes
- 4 No
- 13 No Opinion
- Tom Hill: There might be a lot of folks working for the same
company
- Dhruv: Just one data point
-
Is there interest and focus in the subject matter presented today to
warrant the formation of a WG?
- 79 Yes
- 15 No
- 9 No Opinion
-
Who would be willing to contribute: Drafts, Operational
presentations,etc?
- 66 Yes
- 17 No
- 15 No Opinion
- Greg: Is this conditional to forming WG or unconditional?
-
Who would be willing to review drafts?
- 77 Yes
- 12 No
- 8 No Opinion
- Dhruv: Never seen this many folks review a draft ever :)
-
Is there support to form a WG with the proposed charter? (Assuming
any charter revisions will be discussed and made)
- 73 Yes
- 21 No
- 14 No opinion
- Andrew: Too much overlap. SRv6 should be treated as IPv6 or ack that
SRv6 is not IPv6.
- Greg: +1 to Andrew. a dedicated session in SPRING or V6OPS that is a
reasonable place to have this discussion.
- Tom Hill: Not convinced with rationale. How to guarantee the charter
change?
- Duruv: At BOF we discuss the current charter as of now, further
changes will be made and discussed on the mailing list. This is just
one input, it is not binding.
- Warren: The BoF question responses only indicate a direction at this
moment in time.
- Tom Hill: Chairs would commit to charter revision based on today's
discussion is fine.
- Matthew Bocci: Do not know what I am signing up for based on this
BoF question
- Ketan: Existing operation consideration in the draft is never
enough. There is a need for BCP and informational documents. This is
beyond just SRv6 and we need a solution for routing work.
- Jeff Tantsura: On one side I love to see people presenting
operational topics. On the other side, it is sad that this can't be
done in SPRING. If operators need their own WG for this then
something is broken at IETF but we should not create more
bureaucracy. But if this is what Operators need to keep sharing
experience, then this is good.
- Tianji: Another SDO has a dedicated venue for operation discussion.
IETF should allow for a boost in both technology and operations.
- Warren: A SPRING session focused on OPS with separate chairs is an
option. It is a structural problem of IETF and we need to discuss
things.
- Xipeng Xiao: Not convinced by the argument that if SRv6OPS WG is
formed then SRv6 is not part of IPv6. In that case, why did we
define SRv6 in SPRING in the first place (and not in 6man and
v6ops)?
Dhruv: Thanks everyone for a good discussion at this BoF.