One document matched: draft-cheung-mpls-tp-mesh-protection-00.txt


MPLS Working Group                                       Tae-sik Cheung 
Internet Draft                                          Jeong-dong Ryoo 
Intended status: Standards Track                                   ETRI 
Created: March 1, 2010 
Expires: September 1, 2010                                              
                                          
                              MPLS-TP Mesh Protection 
                    draft-cheung-mpls-tp-mesh-protection-00.txt 


   Abstract 

   This document describes a mechanism to address the requirement for 
   protection of Label Switched Paths (LSPs) in an MPLS Transport 
   Profile (MPLS-TP) mesh topology. The mesh protection mechanism 
   enables multiple recovery paths to share protection resources for the 
   protection of working paths by coordinating protection switching 
   operations according to the priority assigned to each protection 
   domain. 

   This document is a product of a joint Internet Engineering Task Force 
   (IETF) / International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication 
   Standardization Sector (ITU-T) effort to include an MPLS Transport 
   Profile within the IETF MPLS and PWE3 architectures to support the 
   capabilities and functionalities of a packet transport network. 

Status of this Memo 

   This Internet-Draft is submitted to IETF in full conformance with the 
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.  

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering 
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on September 1, 2010. 







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Copyright Notice 

   Copyright (c) 2010 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   
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   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. Conventions used in this document............................. 4
   3. Mesh Protection............................................... 4
      3.1. Protection Switching Priority............................ 5
      3.2. Shared Start and End Nodes............................... 5
      3.3. Bridge and Selector in Mesh Protection................... 6
      3.4. Shared Mesh Protection Planning.......................... 7
      3.5. Mesh Protection Switching................................ 7
      3.5.1. Protection State Change Notification................... 7
      3.5.2. Protection Locking..................................... 9
   4. Operation of Mesh Protection..................................10
   5. Manageability Considerations..................................12
   6. Security Considerations.......................................12
   7. IANA Considerations...........................................12
   8. References....................................................12
      8.1. Normative References.....................................12
      8.2. Informative References...................................12

















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1. Introduction 

   The MPLS Transport Profile (MPLS-TP) is a packet transport 
   technology based on a profile of the MPLS and Pseudowires (PW) 
   [RFC3031], [RFC3985], and [RFC5085]. MPLS-TP is the application of 
   MPLS to the construction of packet-switched paths that are analogous 
   to traditional circuit-switched technologies. Requirements for MPLS-
   TP are specified in [RFC5654]. 

   An important feature of a transport network is its survivability 
   function and the ability to maintain or recover traffic following a 
   network failure or attack. According to Requirement 56 of [RFC5654], 
   MPLS-TP must provide protection and restoration mechanisms, and it 
   must also be possible to require protection of 100% of the traffic on 
   the protected path (Requirement 58). 

   1+1 and 1:1 protection can meet these requirements by reserving the 
   equivalent amount of network resources for the recovery paths as is 
   used by the normal traffic to be protected. While those dedicated 
   protection mechanisms provide very good protection capabilities, they 
   are resource inefficient and will increase overall network resource 
   consumption. Deploying 1+1 and 1:1 protection mechanisms for all 
   services that require resiliency, dramatically increases network 
   costs.  

   [RFC5654] also establishes that MPLS-TP should support shared 
   protection (Requirement 68). 1:n end-to-end protection uses one 
   recovery path to protect n working paths. This improves overall 
   network utilization, but the resource (bandwidth) allocated to a 
   recovery path is typically not sufficient to protect multiple and 
   simultaneous failures on different working paths. If multiple working 
   paths are required to be switched to a recovery path concurrently, 
   the path with the highest priority should be protected first as 
   described in [I-D.ietf-mpls-tp-survive-fwk]. 

   In 1+1 and 1:1 protection, the end points of the working path must be 
   shared with the recovery path. The same applies in 1:n protection 
   where all pairs of end nodes of the n working paths are the same, and 
   the recovery path must also share the same end points. 
   In the event that the MPLS-TP network scales up, the number of Label 
   Switched Paths (LSPs) having different end nodes will also increase. 
   The network utilization benefit for sharing protection resources 
   among multiple protection domains will increase accordingly. 

   Requirement 68 of [RFC5654] specifies that MPLS-TP should support 1:n 
   shared mesh recovery, and Requirement 69 states that MPLS-TP must 
   support sharing of protection resources. It may be possible that some 
   working paths are sufficiently disjoint and would be unlikely to be 
   simultaneously affected by a single network failure. Typically, such 
   a scenario is hard to track in real network environments where new 
   services are often added and removed. 

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   In mesh protection, network resources may be shared to provide 
   protection for working paths that do not share end points at the edge 
   of a protection domain. This form of protection can make very 
   efficient use of network resources, but requires careful 
   synchronization to ensure that only one set of traffic is switched to 
   the protection resources at any one time. 

   This document defines a mesh protection mechanism which coordinates 
   the use of shared protection resource based on the protection 
   switching priority assigned to each protection domain. The mechanism 
   builds on the Protection State Coordination (PSC) messages introduced 
   in [I-D.ietf-mpls-tp-linear-protection]. 


2. Conventions used in this document 

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", 
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this 
   document are to be interpreted as described in RFC-2119 [RFC2119]. 


3. Mesh Protection 

   Figure 1 shows a simple case of mesh protection. Consider two paths 
   ABCDE and VWXYZ. These paths do not share end points so they cannot 
   make use of 1:n protection even though they also do not share any 
   common points of failure. 

   ABCDE may be protected by the path APQRE, and VWXYZ can be protected 
   by the path VPQRZ. In both cases, 1:1 or 1+1 protection may be used. 
   However, it can be seen that, if 1:1 protection is used for both 
   paths, the network segment PQR carries no traffic if there are no 
   failures affecting either of the two working paths. Furthermore, in 
   the event of only one failure, the segment PQR carries traffic from 
   only one of the working paths. 

   Thus, it is possible for the network resources on the segment PQR to 
   be shared by the two recovery paths. In this way, mesh protection can 
   substantially reduce the amount of network resources that have to be 
   reserved to provide protection of a 1:n nature. 












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             A----B----C----D----E 
              \                 / 
               \               / 
                \             / 
                 P-----Q-----R 
                /             \ 
               /               \ 
              /                 \ 
             V----W----X----Y----Z 

       Figure 1 : A Mesh Protection Topology 

   The remainder of this document sets out some of the challenges 
   introduced by mesh protection, and describes solutions built on the 
   Protection State Coordination (PSC) messages introduced for 1:1 
   linear protection in [I-D.ietf-mpls-tp-linear-protection]. 

3.1. Protection Switching Priority 

   A Protection Switching Priority needs to be defined for each 
   protection domain that has a recovery path sharing the same 
   protection resource. According to the priority, a recovery path can 
   displace the other recovery path already using the shared protection 
   resources and protect its own working path. 

   The Protection Switching Priority should be provisioned by the 
   network management system. By default, equal priority is assumed 
   resulting in first-come first-served recovery. 

3.2. Shared Start and End Nodes 

   A Shared Start Node is the first node of a shared protection segment. 
   For example, in Figure 1, node P is a Shared Start Node on recovery 
   paths APQRE and VPQRZ. A Shared Start Node acts as a Maintenance 
   Intermediate Point (MIP) node for each recovery path sharing the same 
   protection resources. 

   Similarly, a Shared End Node is the last node of a shared protection 
   segment (for example, node R in Figure 1). Shared End Nodes are also 
   MIPs on the recovery paths that share the protection resources. 












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           A------B------C  D------E------F 
            \           /    \           / 
             \         /      \         / 
              \       /        \       / 
               P-----Q----------R-----S 
              /                        \ 
             /                          \ 
            /                            \ 
           G--------------H---------------J 
        
       Figure 2: A More Complex Mesh Protection Example  

   Figure 2 shows a more complex example of mesh protection. Three 
   working paths ABC, DEF, and GHJ are protected by the recovery paths 
   APQC, DRSF, and GPQRSJ, respectively. 

   In this example, the recovery path GPQRSJ shares resources with two 
   other recovery paths, and both P and R are Shared Start Nodes, while 
   Q and S are Shared End Nodes. 
     
3.3. Bridge and Selector in Mesh Protection 

   Figure 3 shows some example bridges and selectors for nodes in the 
   mesh protection topology shown in Figure 2. At the top of the figure 
   we see the bridge and selector at node A. Traffic is normally sent 
   and received to/from node B, but in the event of a protection 
   switch, the traffic is sent and received to/from node P. 

   Further down the figure we see the bridge and selector at Node P. 
   Node P is a Shared Start Node of the protection segment PQ. Normally 
   it sees no traffic and the settings of the selector and bridge are 
   not important. However, depending on the protection actions, the 
   selector can be set to send the traffic from node A or G to node Q, 
   and the bridge can also be set to send the traffic from node Q to 
   node A or G. 
  
                            --<---- 
                           |        To/From B 
              Bridge  -----+------> 
       --->------o--->     | 
                      -----+--- 
                           |   |                   Bridge and Selector
                           |   |                   at Node A 
                      <----    | 
       <---------o----         | 
             Selector <--------+--- 
                               |    To/From P 
                                --> 



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                ---->--        
       To/From A       |       
                <------+-----  Bridge 
                       |     <---o------ 
                    ---+-----  
                   |   |             To/From Q     Bridge and Switch
                   |   |                           at Node P 
                   |    ---->  
                   |         ----o-----> 
                ---+--------> Selector 
       To/From G   | 
                <-- 
        
       Figure 3 : Examples of Bridges and Selectors 
       for Mesh Protection 

3.4. Mesh Protection Planning 

   Mesh protection will typically be subject to careful network 
   planning. This will include: 

   - Determining which working paths are disjoint and so will not be 
     subject to common failures. 

   - Assigning priorities to the working paths so that the recovery 
     paths can be activated correctly. 

   - Ensuring that working paths of high protection priority do not 
     share resources on their recovery paths in such a way that would
     mean that one of them could not be protected. 

   - Enabling the necessary MIP functions at the Shared Start and End 
     Nodes. 

   In many networks, it may provide a considerable simplification of 
   mesh protection to divide the network into distinct protection 
   domains, however, more effective operation of mesh networks examines 
   the working paths separately and does not impose a protection domain 
   model. 

   Note also that some control plane features of GMPLS may be used to 
   dynamically install mesh protection. These features are out of scope 
   for this document which focuses on the operation of mesh protection 
   switching once it has been installed. 

3.5. Mesh Protection Switching  

3.5.1. Protection State Change Notification 




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   If an end node of a working path detects a failure condition, it 
   triggers the protection switching by exchanging PSC messages with its 
   peer end node at the other end of the working/recovery path. 
   Coordination must also be achieved with all of the Shared Nodes 
   (Shared Start Nodes and Shared End Nodes) along the recovery path to 
   ensure that: 

   - the resources allocated to the recovery path are available, and 
       
   - any lower priority traffic is displaced from the shared protection 
     resources before they are allocated to the new recovery path. 

   Similarly, when protection switching has completed, all Shared Nodes 
   along the path must be notified. 

   Protection state change is notified using the PSC messages defined in 
   [I-D.ietf-mpls-tp-linear-protection]. These messages are sent 
   from one end of a recovery path to the other, and are intercepted by 
   the Shared Nodes. 

   The PSC messages are carried as OAM messages in the GACh. Such 
   messages are usually targeted specifically at MIPs or MEPs. This 
   means there are two possible ways that the PSC message could be 
   delivered to the Shared Nodes. 

       o Option 1: Use a P2P message 

   The end node of the recovery path that is becoming active sends 
   messages directly to each Shared Node along the recovery path (each 
   Shared Node acts as a MIP). This is done by properly setting the TTL 
   values of the messages for each MIP. This requires N messages to be 
   sent if N Shared Nodes exist on the recovery path. Furthermore, it 
   requires that the end nodes of the recovery path know about all of 
   the Shared Nodes - this is perfectly possible in simple 
   configurations or through the use of a dynamic control plane. 

       o Option 2: Use a P2MP message 

   The end node sends a message similar to a route trace to the peer end 
   node. It will be passed to all MIPs in the Shared Nodes. When a 
   Shared Node receives the message, it will simultaneously take a copy 
   of the message for local use, and forward a copy to the next hop. 

   An on-demand OAM message like route trace may contain the required 
   information or a PSC message itself may be transferred using a pre-
   provisioned P2MP LSP. In this option, the end node becomes a root 
   node and all Shared Nodes and the peer end node become leaf nodes. 





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   An additional, optional stage in the coordination of protection state 
   involves notifying the end points of recovery paths that could use 
   the shared resources that the resources are now in use at a 
   particular priority and that the working paths may no longer be 
   protected. This feature is for future study. 

3.5.2. Protection Locking 

   If a Shared Node receives a message notifying that a recovery path 
   needs to use the shared protection resources, it compares the 
   priority of the recovery path with the priority of the recovery 
   path (if any) currently using the resources. 

   If the current use of the shared protection resources has an equal or 
   higher priority, the Shared Node does nothing. If it has a lower 
   priority or there is no current use of the shared protection 
   resources, then the Shared Node locks the protection resources to 
   disable the current recovery path from accessing the shared 
   protection resources or prohibit any further protection switching by 
   a lower priority recovery path. 

   When the Shared Node receives a message notifying the clearance of 
   protection state, it unlocks the protection resources. 

   There are two options on how to lock the protection resources. 

       o Option 1: Use a PSC Lockout message 

   A Lockout message defined in [I-D.ietf-mpls-tp-linear-protection] can 
   be used as a lock message for mesh protection. When two end nodes of 
   a protection domain receive a Lockout message, it will be the highest 
   priority request and the protection switching is locked. 

   This option will also need to consider how to deal with the messages 
   generated by each end node. In the current version of [I-D.ietf-mpls- 
   tp-linear-protection], it will not affect the mesh protection 
   operation because each end node will generate the same messages when 
   it receives a Lockout from the far-end node (actually from the Shared 
   Nodes). For other protection types, further considerations will be 
   discussed in future versions of this document. 

       o Option 2: Use an OAM Lock message 

   A Lock instruction message defined in [I-D.ietf-mpls-tp-oam-
   framework] may be used as a lock message for mesh protection. When 
   two end nodes of a protection domain receive a Lock message, they 
   will consider that the recovery path is unavailable. 
 
   In this option, the OAM Lock message may be sent periodically to 
   maintain the lock state. 


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   Mesh protection should support both unidirectional and bidirectional 
   protection. A shared protection resource may be available to provide 
   bidirectional protection for some working paths, and unidirectional 
   protection for other working paths. Further considerations for these 
   requirements will be included in future versions of this document. 


4. Operation of Mesh Protection 

   In Figure 4, the following assumptions are made: 

   a. There are three working paths WA (ABC), WD (DEF), and WG (GHJ) 
      with protection priorities PA, PD, and PG, respectively. 

   b. Protection switching priority is PA > PG > PD. (PA is the highest 
      protection priority.) 

   c. All working paths are protected by 1:1 bidirectional protection 
      switching which utilizes the PSC protocol as described in 
       [I-D.ietf-mpls-tp-linear-protection]. Since it uses a 1-phase PSC 
      protocol, no confirmation from the peer node is required. 
       
                WA(PA)           WD(PD) 
           A------B------C  D------E------F 
            \           /    \           / 
             \         /      \         / 
              \       /        \       / 
               P-----Q----------R-----S 
              /                        \ 
             /                          \ 
            /           WG(PG)           \ 
           G------xx------H---------------J 
              SF on G<-H 
        
        Figure 4 : Mesh Protection Example 1 

   If a failure occurs between nodes G and H as shown in Figure 4, mesh 
   protection will operate as follows: 

   a. G detects a failure on the working path WG. 

   b. G sends a message notifying the protecting state to the Shared 
      Nodes P, Q, R, and S. 

   c. Shared Nodes P and Q compare the priority PA with PG and do 
      nothing (PA > PG), but Shared Nodes R and S compare the priority 
      PD with PG and send lock messages to end nodes D and F (PD < PG). 





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   d. WD (i.e., nodes D and F) locks its recovery path and changes its 
      state from normal to unavailable (i.e., unprotected). (Protection 
      switching for WD is then prohibited.) 

           SF on A<-B 
                WA(PA)           WD(PD) 
           A--xx--B------C  D------E------F 
            \           /    \           / 
             \         /      \         / 
              \       /        \       / 
               P-----Q----------R-----S 
              /                        \ 
             /                          \ 
            /           WG(PG)           \ 
           G------xx------H---------------J 
              SF on G<-H 
        
       Figure 5 : Mesh Protection Example 2 

   Figure 5 shows a progression from Figure 4. While WG is in protecting 
   state with its traffic following the recovery path GPQRSJ, another 
   failure occurs on the link AB affecting WA. Mesh protection will 
   operate as follows: 

    a. Node A detects a failure on the working path WA. 

    b. A sends a message notifying the protecting state to P and Q. 

    c. P and Q compare the priority of PG (currently using the shared 
       protection resources) with PA, and sends a lock message to G and 
       J. 

    d. WG locks its recovery path and changes its state from protecting 
       to unavailable. (The previous protection state is now overruled.) 

    e. G and J send messages notifying the clearance of protecting state 
       to Shared Nodes P, Q, R, and S. 

    f. R and S send unlock messages to D and F. 

    g. WD unlocks its recovery path and changes its state from 
       unavailable to normal. 

   When WG is forced to lock its recovery path, it may try to find 
   another available path. m:n protection or other recovery mechanism 
   can be used for this, but this discussion is out of scope of this 
   document. 





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5. Manageability Considerations 

   To be added in future version.   


6. Security Considerations 

   To be added in future version. 


7. IANA Considerations 

   To be added in future version. 


8. References 

8.1. Normative References 

     [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate 
               Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC2119, March 1997. 

     [RFC5654] Brungard, D., Betts, M., Sprecher, N. and Ueno, S., 
               "Requirements of an MPLS Transport Profile", RFC5654, 
               September 2009. 


8.2. Informative References 

     [RFC3031]  Rosen, E., Viswanathan, A. and Callon, R., 
                "Multiprotocol Label Switching Architecture", RFC3031, 
                January 2001.
                
     [RFC3985]  Bryant, S. and P. Pate, "Pseudo Wire Emulation 
                Edge-to-Edge (PWE3) Architecture", RFC3985, March 2005.

     [RFC5085]  Nadeau, T. and Pignataro, C., "Pseudo Wire (PW) Virtual 
                Circuit Connectivity Verification ((VCCV): A Control
                Channel for Pseudowires", RFC5085, December 2007.
  
     [I-D.ietf-mpls-tp-survive-fwk] Sprecher, N. and Farrel A., 
               "Multiprotocol Label Switching Transport Profile 
               Survivability Framework", 
               draft-ietf-mpls-tp-survive-fwk, work on progress. 

     [I-D.ietf-mpls-tp-linear-protection] Bryant, S., Sprecher, N., 
               Van Helvoort, H., Fulignoli, A. and Weingarten, Y.,
               "MPLS-TP Linear Protection", 
               draft-ietf-mpls-tp-linear-protection, work on progress. 



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[I-D.ietf-mpls-tp-oam-framework] Busi, S., Niven-Jenkins, B. and 
               Allan, D., "MPLS-TP OAM Framework", 
               draft-ietf-mpls-tp-oam-framework, work on progress. 

















































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Authors' Addresses

   Tae-sik Cheung
   ETRI
   161 Gajeong, Yuseong, Daejeon, 305-700, South Korea 

   Phone: +82 42 860 5646 
   Email: cts@etri.re.kr 

   Jeong-dong Ryoo
   ETRI
   161 Gajeong, Yuseong, Daejeon, 305-700, South Korea 
          
   Phone: +82 42 860 5384 
   Email: ryoo@etri.re.kr 





































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