One document matched: draft-chroboczek-babel-applicability-00.txt

Network Working Group                                      J. Chroboczek
Internet-Draft                         IRIF, University of Paris-Diderot
Intended status: Informational                         February 15, 2016
Expires: August 18, 2016


              Applicability of the Babel routing protocol
                draft-chroboczek-babel-applicability-00

Abstract

   This document describes some application areas where the Babel
   routing protocol [RFC6126] has been found useful.

Status of This Memo

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Existing deployments of Babel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
     2.1.  Hybrid networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
     2.2.  Large scale overlay networks  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
     2.3.  Small unmanaged networks  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Potential deployments of Babel  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     3.1.  Pure mesh networks  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  Application Areas where Babel is not recommended  . . . . . .   3
     4.1.  Large, stable networks  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     4.2.  Low-power networks  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   5.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4

1.  Introduction

   Babel [RFC6126] is a loop-avoiding distance-vector routing protocol
   that aims to be robust in a variety of environments.

   This document describes a few areas where Babel has been found
   useful.  It is structured as follows.  In Section 2, we describe
   application areas where Babel has been successfully deployed.  In
   Section 3, we describe application areas where Babel has not been
   deployed, but is likely to work well.  In Section 4, we describe
   application areas where deployment of Babel is not recommended
   because better alternatives are available.

2.  Existing deployments of Babel

2.1.  Hybrid networks

   Babel is able to deal with both classical, prefix-based ("Internet-
   style") routing and flat ("mesh-style") routing.  Because of that, it
   has seen a number of succesful deployments in medium-sized hybrid
   networks, networks that combine a wired, aggregated backbone with
   meshy wireless bits.  No other routing protocol known to us is
   similarly robust and efficient in this particular type of network.

2.2.  Large scale overlay networks

   The algorithms used by Babel allow it to remain relatively stable in
   the presence of unstable metrics, even in the presence of a feedback
   loop.  For this reason, it has been successfully deployed in large
   scale overlay networks, built out of thousands of tunnels spanning
   continents, where it is used with a metric computed from links'
   latencies [DELAY-BASED].




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2.3.  Small unmanaged networks

   Because of its small size and simple configuration, Babel has been
   deployed in small, unmanaged networks (three to five routers), where
   it serves as a more efficient replacement for RIP [RFC2453].

3.  Potential deployments of Babel

   There are a number of areas where Babel has not seen much deployment
   yet, but where we expect it to be applicable.

3.1.  Pure mesh networks

   Babel is able to deal with pure wireless mesh networks.  However,
   this particular niche is well served by a number of mature protocols,
   notably OLSR-ETX and OLSRv2 [RFC7181] with the DAT metric [DAT].

4.  Application Areas where Babel is not recommended

   There are a number of application areas where Babel is a poor fit.

4.1.  Large, stable networks

   Babel relies on periodic updates, and even in a stable network, it
   generates a constant amount of background traffic.  In large, stable,
   well-administered networks, it is preferable to use protocols layered
   above a reliable transport mechanism, such as OSPF [RFC5340], EIGRP
   [EIGRP] or IS-IS [RFC1195].

4.2.  Low-power networks

   Babel relies on periodic updates and maintains within each node an
   amount of state that is proportional to the number of reachable
   destinations.  In networks containing resource-constrained or
   exteremely low-power nodes, it may be preferable to use a protocol
   that limits the amount of state maintained and propagated; we have
   heard of AODVv2 [AODVv2], RPL [RFC6550] and LOADng [LOADng].

5.  References

   [AODVv2]   Perkins, C., Ratliff, S., Dowdell, J., Steenbrink, L., and
              V. Mercieca, "Ad Hoc On-demand Distance Vector Version 2
              (AODVv2) Routing", draft-ietf-manet-aodvv2-13 (work in
              progress), January 2016.

   [DAT]      Rogge, H. and E. Baccelli, "Packet Sequence Number based
              directional airtime metric for OLSRv2", draft-ietf-manet-
              olsrv2-dat-metric-12 (work in progress), December 2015.



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   [DELAY-BASED]
              Jonglez, B. and J. Chroboczek, "A delay-based routing
              metric", March 2014, <http://arxiv.org/abs/1403.3488>.

   [EIGRP]    Savage, D., Ng, J., Moore, S., Slice, D., Paluch, P., and
              R. White, "Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol",
              draft-savage-eigrp-04 (work in progress), August 2015.

   [LOADng]   Clausen, T., Verdiere, A., Yi, J., Niktash, A., Igarashi,
              Y., Satoh, H., Herberg, U., Lavenu, C., Lys, T., and J.
              Dean, "The Lightweight On-demand Ad hoc Distance-vector
              Routing Protocol - Next Generation (LOADng)", draft-
              clausen-lln-loadng-14 (work in progress), January 2016.

   [RFC1195]  Callon, R., "Use of OSI IS-IS for routing in TCP/IP and
              dual environments", RFC 1195, December 1990.

   [RFC2453]  Malkin, G., "RIP Version 2", STD 56, RFC 2453, November
              1998.

   [RFC5340]  Coltun, R., Ferguson, D., Moy, J., and A. Lindem, "OSPF
              for IPv6", RFC 5340, July 2008.

   [RFC6126]  Chroboczek, J., "The Babel Routing Protocol", RFC 6126,
              February 2011.

   [RFC6550]  Winter, T., Ed., Thubert, P., Ed., Brandt, A., Hui, J.,
              Kelsey, R., Levis, P., Pister, K., Struik, R., Vasseur,
              JP., and R. Alexander, "RPL: IPv6 Routing Protocol for
              Low-Power and Lossy Networks", RFC 6550, March 2012.

   [RFC7181]  Clausen, T., Dearlove, C., Jacquet, P., and U. Herberg,
              "The Optimized Link State Routing Protocol Version 2", RFC
              7181, April 2014.

Author's Address

   Juliusz Chroboczek
   IRIF, University of Paris-Diderot
   Case 7014
   75205 Paris Cedex 13
   France

   Email: jch@pps.univ-paris-diderot.fr







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