One document matched: draft-ietf-ipo-optical-inter-domain-02.txt

Differences from draft-ietf-ipo-optical-inter-domain-01.txt


Network Working Group                                      G. Bernstein 
Internet Draft                                        Grotto-Networking
Expiration Date: August 2003                             B. Rajagopalan 
Document: draft-ietf-ipo-optical-inter-domain-02.txt      D. Pendarakis 
                                                                Tellium 
                                                            Angela Chiu 
                                                            John Strand
                                                                   AT&T 
                                                              V. Sharma 
                                                               Metanoia 
                                                             Dean Cheng 
                                                                Polaris 
                                                          Rauf Izmailov 
                                                                    NEC 
                                                             Lyndon Ong
                                                                  Ciena
                                                    Sudheer Dharanikota
                                                           Frank Hujber

                                                          February 2003 
 
 
              Optical Inter Domain Routing Considerations 
 
 
Status of this Memo 
 
   This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with 
   all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026 [1].  
 
   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering 
   Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that 
   other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-
   Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of 
   six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other 
   documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet- Drafts 
   as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in 
   progress."  
   The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at 
   http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt  
   The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at 
   http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. 
    
 Abstract 
    
   This draft investigates the requirements for general inter-domain 
   and inter-area routing in optical networks and reviews the 
   applicability of existing route protocols in various optical routing 
   applications.  
    
   Table of Contents: 
   1    Introduction    2 
   1.1  Specification of Requirements   3 
   1.2  Abbreviations   3 
  
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   2    Background      3 
   2.1  Basic Concept of Domains and Network Partitioning       3 
   2.2  Major Differences between Optical and IP datagram Routing
        6 
   2.3  Differences between MPLS and Optical Circuit routing    7 
   2.4  Diversity in Optical Routing    7 
   2.4.1        Generalizing Link Diversity     9 
   2.4.2        Generalizing Node Diversity     9 
   2.5  Routing Information Categorization      10 
   2.5.1        Link and Topology Related Information   10 
   2.5.2        Domain and Node Related Information     11 
   3    Applications of Inter Domain Optical Routing    12 
   3.1  Intra Carrier Applications of Optical Inter Domain Routing
        12 
   3.1.1        Intra-Carrier Scalability       12 
   3.1.2        Intra-Carrier Inter-vendor      13 
   3.1.3        Inter-Layer Partitioning        16 
   3.1.4        Interaction with IP Layer Routing       17 
   3.1.5        Inter-Business Unit     18 
   3.2  Inter-Carrier Inter-Domain Optical Routing      19 
   3.3  Multi-Domain Connection Control 21 
   4    Multiple Layers of Optical Routing      22 
   5    Conclusion      24 
   6    Security Considerations 24 
   6.1.1        24 
   7    References      25 
   8    Acknowledgments 26 
   9    Author's Addresses      26 
    
NOTE: This draft has been updated with more current author contact
information and references, but is otherwise unchanged from the 
previous version.
    
1  Introduction 
    
   Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) has received much attention 
   recently for use as a control plane for non-packet switched 
   technologies.  In particular, optical technologies have a need to 
   upgrade their control plane as reviewed in reference [2]. Many 
   different optical switching and multiplexing technologies exist and 
   more are sure to come.  For the purposes of this draft we only 
   consider non-packet (i.e. circuit switching) forms of optical 
   switching.   
   As the requirements for and extensions to interior gateway protocols 
   such as OSPF and IS-IS have begun to be investigated in the single 
   area case, e.g., reference [3], we consider the requirements that 
   optical networking and switching impose in the inter-domain case.   
    
   First we explore the definition of a control domain and its use in 
   optical and transport networking. This is explored again later in 
   the document when we consider a number of important applications, 
   networking scenarios, where the notions of inter-control domain 
   routing are important. We review the various differences between 
   routing in the datagram case, the virtual circuit case and the 
   (real) optical circuit case.  Then we look at the optical path 
   selection/computation needs to provide for path diversity, switching 
  
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   capabilities, transport capabilities and impairments, and 
   bandwidth/resource status reporting.  
    
   To add to the concreteness of these considerations we try to 
   illustrate them with one or more specific examples from a particular 
   optical networking layer or technology. This is not to reduce the 
   generality of the requirement but to facilitate the understanding of 
   the requirement or concept. 
    
1.1 Specification of Requirements 
 
   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. 
    
1.2 Abbreviations 
    
   LSP        Label Switched Path (MPLS terminology) 
   LSR        Label Switched Router (MPLS terminology) 
   MPLS       Multiprotocol Label Switching 
   SDH        Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (ITU standard) 
   SONET      Synchronous Optical NETwork (ANSI standard) 
   STM(-N)    Synchronous Transport Module (-N) 
   STS(-N)    Synchronous Transport Signal-Level N (SONET) 
   TU-n       Tributary Unit-n (SDH) 
   TUG(-n)    Tributary Unit Group (-n) (SDH) 
   VC-n       Virtual Container-n (SDH) 
   VTn        Virtual Tributary-n (SONET) 
 
2  Background  
    
2.1 Basic Concept of Domains and Network Partitioning 
 
   In this draft we use the term domain in a general sense, i.e., 
   beyond the BGP interpretation of an Autonomous System.  In this 
   draft we will consider domains as the result of partitioning of a 
   network into subnetworks, as shown in the network of Figure 1. A 
   network may be partitioned for a variety of reasons, such as: 
   *    Administrative boundaries 
   *    Scalability of routing or signaling 
   *    Isolation of partitions for security or reliability reasons 
   *    Technology differences in the systems in different domains 
 
                       /------------------------------------\ 
                      /                                      \ 
                     /             /-\                        \ 
                     |  Domain    |NE2|<--Internal Node       |                       
                     |    B       /\-/\                        |  
                     |           /     \                       | 
                     |       /-\/       \/-\                   | 

  
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                     |      |NE1|-------|NE3|                  / 
                     \+------\-/         \-/                  / 
                     /\       |           |                  / 
                    /  \------+-----------+-----------------/ 
                   /           |           |<--- Inter-Domain Links     
                  /     /------+-----------+-----------------\ 
                 |     /       |           |                  \ 
                 |    /        |    /-\    |          /-\      \ 
                 |    | Domain |   |NE2|---+---------|NE3|      | 
                 |    |   A    |   /\-/\   |   ------/\-/       | 
                 |    |        |  /     \  |  /        |        | 
                 |    |       /-\/       \/-\/         |        | 
                 |    |      |NE1|-------|NE5|----     |        / 
                 |    \    -- \-/         \-/     \   /-\      / 
                 |     \  /    |           |       --|NE4|    / 
                 |      \/     |           |          \-/    / 
                 |      /\-----+-----------+----------------/ 
            Border Nodes       |           |<--- Inter-Domain Links 
                       \       |<----------+---- (External Links) 
                       /\------+-----------+-----------------\ 
                      /  \     |           |                  \ 
                     /    \   /-\       /-\                   |  
                     |     --|NE1|-----|NE2|                  | 
                     |        \-/       \-/                   | 
                     | Domain  |         |<--- Intra-Domain   | 
                     |    C    |         |     Links (Internal| 
                     |        /-\       /-\    Links)         | 
                     |       |NE3|-----|NE3|                  |                       
                     |        \-/       \-/                   | 
                      \                                      / 
                       \------------------------------------/ 
                                     
              Figure 1.  Partitioning a network into domains. 
    
   The Inter-Domain interface is likely to have different 
   characteristics than the Intra-Domain interface as the domain 
   boundary exists for the purpose of hiding some aspect within the 
   domain from the outside world. 
    
   For the remainder of this draft we will be concerned with "control 
   domains" that is a control domain will be hiding the internal 
   details of its control plane from other control domains. This 
   definition has a number of important ramifications when we consider 
   inter-domain protocols for routing or signaling. 
    
   1. Inter-control domain routing or signaling is required to be 
      independent of a control domainĖs internal signaling or route 
      protocol or lack of either a signaling or routing protocol. This 
      is sometimes referred to as the "domain independence" property. 


  
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   2. Inter-control domain routing or signaling can not count on 
      specific protocols being implemented within the domain. 
   3. Inter-control domain routing or signaling can not require that a 
      network element participate in the internal protocols of two 
      different control domains. This is sometimes refered to as 
      "boundary on the wire" property. 
   4. The Inter-control domain routing or signaling protocol does not 
      require that the control domains be interconnected in any 
      particular fashion (except for general graph connectivity). 
    
    
   Example #1 (inter-control domain routing) 
   Consider a collection of BGP Autonomous Systems (AS).  Each of these 
   may run their own internal IGP. Of these internal IGPs, OSPFv2 and 
   IS-IS are very popular but also incompatible with each other.  
   BGP does not rely on the Autonomous Systems running a particular 
   IGP, i.e., OSPF or IS-IS.  Hence it meets the definition of an 
   inter-control domain routing protocol. Note that nothing prevents 
   BGP from being used within an ISP to glue together islands of 
   incompatible IGPs. In fact, the availability of private AS numbers 
   can help in this situation. 
 
    
   Example #2 (OSPF Areas) 
   An OSPF Area, on the other hand, is a mechanism within OSPF for 
   providing scalability. It assumes that within each OSPF area that 
   OSPF is being run in addition it requires that all border routers 
   participate in both the backbone area and one or more other their 
   own areas.  Hence OSPF with its area concept equated with a control 
   domain doesn't meet the definition of an inter-control domain 
   routing protocol in two ways. It would require OSPF to run within 
   the domains and it requires that a network element (router) 
   participate in the internal routing protocol of two separate 
   domains.  
    
   Example #3 (PNNI routing Peer Groups) 
   With ATM's PNNI routing hierarchy the concept of a peer group is 
   introduced. PNNI with peer groups does not meet the definition of an 
   a inter-control domain routing protocol since it, like OSPF, 
   requires that within a peer group ATM PNNI routing is running.  
   However, it doesnĖt require that border members of a peer group at a 
   given level in the hierarchy participate in the internal protocols 
   of both peer groups. In other words PNNI's hierarchical routing 
   allows for a "boundary on the wire" model. 
                                      


  
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   The domain concept as used here is orthogonal to the transport 
   network concept of layering.  When the term layer is used with 
   respect to the transport network we are not referring to the 7- 
   layer OSI model which includes application, presentation, etc., 
   layers.  With regard to this model all the optical transport layers 
   would lie at the "physical layer".  In the transport network, layers 
   are used for multiplexing, performance monitoring and fault 
   management purposes. Layers tend to be very technology specific.  At 
   some point an optical routing protocol must include information 
   particular to the technology layer for which it is being used to 
   acquire/disseminate topology and resource status information.  For 
   more information on layering and domain concepts see ITU-T 
   recommendation G.805 [14].  
    
2.2 Major Differences between Optical and IP datagram Routing 
    
   Let us first review the major difference between routing for optical 
   (circuit switched networks) and IP datagram networks.  In IP 
   datagram networks packet forwarding is done on a hop-by-hop basis 
   for each packet(no connection established ahead of time), while in 
   circuit switched optical networks end-to-end connections must be 
   explicitly established based on network topology and resource status 
   information.  This topology and resource status information can be 
   obtained via routing protocols. Note that the routing protocols in 
   the circuit switch case are not involved with data (or bit) 
   forwarding, i.e., they are not "service impacting", while in the IP 
   datagram case the routing protocols are explicitly involved with 
   data plane forwarding decisions and hence are very much service 
   impacting. Note that signaling or label distribution protocols that 
   set up or tear down the virtual or real circuits are service 
   impacting. 
    
   This does not imply routing is unimportant in the optical case, only 
   that its service impacting effect is secondary.  For example, 
   topology and resource status inaccuracies will affect whether a new 
   connection can be established (or a restoration connection can be 
   established) but will not (and should not) cause an existing 
   connection to be torn down. 
    
   This tends to lead to a slightly different view towards 
   incorporating new information fields (objects, LSA, etc.) into 
   optical routing protocols versus IP routing protocols.  In the 
   optical circuit case, any information that can potentially aid in 
   route computations or be used in service differentiation may be 
   incorporated into the route protocol, as either a standard element 
   or a vendor specific extension.  Whether a route computation 
   algorithm uses this information and whether two route computation 
   algorithms use this information in the same way doesnĖt matter since 
   the optical connections are explicitly routed (although perhaps 
   loosely).  

  
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   Path selection or route computation in transport case may be based 
   on a different criteria or combination of criteria on a per path 
   basis.  For example one connection may requests the lowest economic 
   cost available path while another may request the highest 
   reliability path. One important evaluation criteria for any proposed 
   inter-domain optical routing protocol is the variety of path 
   selection criteria with which it may work. 
    
2.3 Differences between MPLS and Optical Circuit routing 
    
   The bandwidth accounting needed in optical circuit-switched networks 
   is also different than in packet networks. In packet networks using 
   either ATM QoS or MPLS-TE, complex statistical measures are used to 
   characterize the load on a link, often with varying degrees of 
   accuracy.  The inexactness of such measures and the 
   ††compressibilityĖĖ of statistically multiplexed traffic imply that a 
   small percentage change in link utilization can usually be absorbed 
   by the network.  
    
   By contrast, if an OC-192 link has just one STS-1 path occupied 
   (less than 1% of the link bandwidth), it cannot accommodate an STS-
   192c path. Due to the relatively simple finite multiplex structures 
   currently use in optical networks tracking bandwidth resources is 
   much easier than packet switched networks,  however much stricter 
   bandwidth accounting is required on circuit switched links. In 
   particular, it is expected that an individual optical circuit 
   switched link can be fully utilized, while due to queuing effects a 
   packet switched link on average can never be run at full capacity 
   and is typically run at less then 80% of capacity.  This also 
   affects how protection (or restoration) bandwidth can be committed. 
   In a packet-based network, while the protection path can be 
   preconfigured, resources along it are not used until a failure 
   occurs.  In circuit-based networks, a protection path generally 
   implies a committed resource. Such basic differences restrict the 
   direct applicability of some of the traffic engineering mechanisms 
   used in packet-switched networks to circuit-switched networks. 
 
    
2.4 Diversity in Optical Routing  
 
   There are two basic demands that drive the need to discover diverse 
   routes for establishing optical paths: 
        1. Reliability/Robustness 
        2. Bandwidth capacity. 
    
   Many times multiple optical connections are set up between the same 
   end points. An important constraint on these connections is that 
   they must be diversely routed in some way [4].  In particular they 
   could be routed over paths that are link diverse, i.e., two 
   connections do not share any common link. Or the more stringent 
   constraint that the two paths should be node diverse, i.e., the two 
   paths do not traverse any common node.  
     
  
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   Additionally, insufficient bandwidth may exist to set up all the 
   desired connection across the same path (set of links) and hence we 
   need to know about alternative (diverse) ways of reaching the 
   destination that may still have unused capacity. 
 
   "Diversity" is a relationship between lightpaths. Two lightpaths are 
   said to be diverse if they have no single point of failure. In 
   traditional telephony the dominant transport failure mode is a 
   failure in the interoffice plant, such as a fiber cut inflicted by a 
   backhoe.  
    
   Data network operators have relied on their private line providers 
   to ensure diversity and so IP routing protocols have not had to deal 
   directly with the problem. GMPLS makes the complexities handled by 
   the private line provisioning process, including diversity, part of 
   the common control plane and so visible to all.  
    
   Diversity is discussed in the IPO WG document [5]. A key associated 
   concept, "Shared Risk Link Groups", is discussed in a number of 
   other IETF (refs) and OIF (refs) documents.  Some implications for 
   routing that are drawn in [5] are: 
     . Dealing with diversity is an unavoidable requirement for 
        routing in the optical layer.  It requires dealing with 
        constraints in the routing process but most importantly 
        requires additional state information -- the SRLG relationships 
        and also the routings of any existing circuits from which the 
        new circuit is to be diverse -- to be available to the routing process. 
    
     . At present SRLG information cannot be self-discovered. Indeed, 
        in a large network it is very difficult to maintain accurate 
        SRLG information. The problem becomes particularly daunting 
        whenever multiple administrative domains are involved, for 
        instance after the acquisition of one network by another, 
        because there normally is a likelihood that there are diversity 
        violations between the domains. It is very unlikely that 
        diversity relationships between carriers will be known any time 
        in the near future. 
 
    - Considerable variation in what different customers will mean by 
   acceptable diversity should be anticipated. Consequently we suggest 
   that an SRLG should be defined as follows: (i) It is a relationship 
   between two or more links, and (ii) it is characterized by two 
   parameters, the type of compromise (shared conduit, shared ROW, 
   shared optical ring, etc.) and the extent of the compromise (e.g., 
   the number of miles over which the compromise persisted). This will 
   allow the SRLGĖs appropriate to a particular routing request to be 
   easily identified. 
    


  
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2.4.1   Generalizing Link Diversity 
 
   Optical networks may posses a number of hierarchical signaling 
   layers.  For example two routers interconnected across an optical 
   network may communicate with IP packets encapsulated within an STS-
   48c SONET path layer signal.  Within the optical network this STS-
   48c signal may be multiplexed at the SONET line layer into an OC-192 
   line layer signal.  In addition this OC-192 may be wavelength 
   division multiplexed onto a fiber with other OC-192 signals at
   different wavelengths (lambdas).  These WDM signals can then be 
   either lambda switched, wave band switched or fiber switched.  Hence 
   when we talk about diversity we need to specify the layer to which 
   we are referring.  In the previous example we can talk about 
   diversity with respect to the SONET line layer, wave bands, and/or 
   optical fibers.  A similar situation arises when we consider the 
   definition of node diversity.  For example are we talking with 
   respect to a SONET path layer switch or an optical switch or 
   multiplexer? 
 
     The Shared Risk Link Group concept in reference [6] generalizes 
   the notion of link diversity (general list of numbers).  First it's 
   useful with respect to major outages (cable cuts, natural disasters) 
   to have a few more types of diversity defined: 
    
        1. Cable (conduit) diversity (allows us to know which fibers 
           are in the same cable (conduit).  This helps avoid sending 
           signals over routes that are most vulnerable to "ordinary" 
           cable cuts (technically known as backhoe fades). 
         
        2. Right of Way (ROW) diversity.  This helps avoid sending 
           signals over routes that are subject to larger scale 
           disasters such as ship anchor drags, train derailments, etc. 
         
        3. Geographic Route diversity. This type of diversity can help 
           one avoid sending signals over routes that are subject to 
           various larger scale disasters such as earthquakes, floods, 
           tornadoes, hurricanes, etc.  A route could be approximately 
           described by a piecewise set of latitude/longitude or UTM 
           coordinate pairs. 
         
   We also have a form of link abstraction/summarization via the link 
   bundling concept [7]. 
    
2.4.2   Generalizing Node Diversity 
    
   The concept of a node abstraction associated with GMPLS appears in 
   reference [11] where it is used to generalize the concept of an 
   explicitly routed path.  In this case an abstract node can be a set 
   of IP addresses or an AS number. From the point of view of node 
   diverse routing specific concepts of interest include: 
     1. Nodes, i.e., individual switching elements.  
     2. Switching centers, i.e., a central office or exchange site. 
     3. Cities, or towns that contain more that one switching center. 
  
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     4. Metro areas, or counties 
     5. States,  
     6. Countries, or  
     7. Geographic Regions 
    
2.5 Routing Information Categorization  
   Different applications of inter-domain optical routing call for 
   different types of information to be shared or hidden between 
   domains. In the following we decompose the information that can be 
   transferred via a routing protocol broadly into link/topology 
   information and node/domain information. We further subdivide these 
   categories and will use this taxonomy of routing information when 
   discussing the routing applications.  
 
2.5.1   Link and Topology Related Information 
   -Internal topology- information is information concerning the nodes 
   and links and their connectivity within a domain. This type of 
   information is traditionally shared within a domain via an intra-
   domain (interior gateway) routing protocol such as OSPF or IS-IS 
   within a single area. For example the existence of nodes that only 
   have links to other nodes within the domain, i.e., do not have links 
   to other domains, would be strictly internal topology information. 
   These nodes are known as internal nodes, while nodes with links to 
   other domains are known as border nodes. Also included in this 
   information is link/port property information such as whether the 
   link is protected and what type of protection is being used, e.g., 
   linear 1+1, linear 1:N, or some type of ring such as a 4F-BLSR [cite 
   T1 document]. 
 
   -Internal Resource- Information is concerned with the bandwidth 
   available on links within a domain and possibly other resource 
   related information. This information plays an important role in 
   path selection within a domain. 
 
   -Inter-Domain Topology- Information is concerned with how the 
   domains are interconnected. This information can be key in inter-
   domain path selection, for example, in determining diverse routes. 
   For the network in Figure 1 this information would let us know that 
   domain A has two distinct links to domain B, domain A has two 
   distinct links to domain C, but that domains B and C are not 
   directly connected via any links.  
 
   -Inter-Domain Resource- Information is concerned with the available 
   bandwidth on inter-domain links. This information is important for 
   inter-domain path selection and inter-domain traffic engineering 
   purposes. For example in Figure 1 this information would give us 
   some kind of bandwidth or capacity measure on the links between 
  
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   domain A and domain B, and the links between domains A and C.  The 
   exact nature of this information may be application/context 
   dependent. 
 
2.5.2   Domain and Node Related Information  
   -Reachability- information tells us what addresses are directly 
   reachable via a particular domain. These systems can be end systems 
   (clients) to the network or nodes within the network depending upon 
   the application/context.  Suppose in domain B of Figure 1 each of 
   the network elements, NE1-NE3, have subtending end systems, and that 
   NE1-NE3 do not represent a valid final destination for a path. Under 
   this assumption the collection of the addresses of all these 
   subtending end systems would form the reachability information for 
   domain B. 
   -Subnetwork Capability- information is concerned with the 
   capabilities or features offered by the domain as a whole. This 
   information is used in some applications where sharing the internal 
   topology and resource information is inappropriate. This information 
   can include: (a) Switching capabilities, (b) Protection 
   capabilities, (c) Some kind of overall available capacity measure, 
   (d) Reliability measures. 
   Examples: 
   1.   For example, in the SONET realm, one subnetwork may switch down 
        to an STS-3c granularity while another switches down to an STS-
        1 granularity.  Understanding what types of signals within a 
        SDH/SONET multiplex structure can be switched by a subnetwork 
        is important.  Similar examples of granularity in switching 
        apply to the waveband case. 
   2.   Some networking technologies, particularly SONET/SDH, provide a 
        wide range of standardized protection technologies. But not all 
        domains will offer all protection options.  For example, a 2/4-
        F BLSR based subnetwork could offer extra data traffic, ring 
        protected traffic and non-preemptible unprotected traffic, 
        (NUT)[8], while a mesh network might offer shared SONET line 
        layer linear protection and some form of mesh protection. 
   3.   Some domains may be in locations that have lower incidences of 
        link failure.  Such information could be helpful in computing 
        routes to statistically "share the pain".                                     
 
   -End System Capabilities- information: While properties of the 
   subnetwork are very important when trying to decide which domain to 
   use to access a system (in the case of multi-homing), end systems 
   also posses a wide variety of capabilities. Throwing end system 
   capabilities such as a system's ability to support SONET/SDH virtual 
   concatenation for distribution into a routing protocol may not be 
   that advantageous since it somewhat counters the ability to 

  
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   summarize reachability information.  Detailed end-system information 
   may alternatively be obtained via a directory service or some type 
   of direct query between the end systems. 
    
3  Applications of Inter Domain Optical Routing 
    
   In this section we review some of the main applications of optical 
   inter-control domain routing. We also review which aspects of the 
   definition of control domain is most relevant to the application. 
    
3.1 Intra Carrier Applications of Optical Inter Domain Routing  
 
   Intra Carrier inter domain routing refers to a situation where the 
   network that is to be partitioned into areas is under the control of 
   one administrative entity. The main reasons for this partitioning in 
   optical networks stem from scalability, inter-vendor 
   interoperability, legacy equipment interoperability, and inter-layer 
   partitioning. 
    
3.1.1   Intra-Carrier Scalability 
   As networks grow it is useful to partition a carriers network into 
   separate optical routing domains which share limited or summarized 
   information amongst each other. This reduces the overhead of 
   information exchange across the network as a whole, and reduces the 
   convergence time of routing protocols within a particular area.  
   Hence we see in the inter-carrier scalability application that we 
   will hide or summarize internal topology and resource information, 
   while completely sharing inter-domain topology and resources 
   information so that diverse paths can still be calculated. Note that 
   general domain capabilities/capacity as well as reachability 
   information would tend to be shared as completely as possible. For 
   example the network shown in Figure 1 can be approximately 
   represented as shown in Figure 2. This summarized network topology 
   only has 4 links whose state need to be advertised in a routing 
   protocol versus 17 links in the original network. Note that we may 
   also advertise the capabilities of the three domains in Figure 2 as 
   opposed to the 12 nodes of Figure 1. In Note that this partitioning 
   into domains can recurse, i.e., we can have multiple levels of 
   routing hierarchy to permit larger and larger networks.  Such was 
   the motivation behind the extensive hierarchical routing capability 
   within ATM's PNNI routing protocol.  The trade off to partitioning 
   into domains for scalability is that less information is available 
   for use in the route selection process, which can lead to 
   inefficient utilization of network resources.  On the other hand 
   frequently this partitioning occurs on somewhat "natural" boundaries 
   and as such the potential inefficiencies can be minimized. 
    
            --------                  ------ 

  
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                draft-ipo-optical-inter-domain-02.txt   February 2003 
 
 
          /-        -\              /-      -\              ----- 
        //       NE 3 \mmmmmm     //          \\           /     \ 
       /         Port 2 \    mmmmm NE 3   NE 5  \         /NE 3   \ 
      /                  \      / Port 4  Port 6 \    mmmmmPort 17  \ 
     |                    |     |                mmmmm   |         | 
     |                    |    |                  |      |         | 
    |                      |   |     Domain A     |     | Domain C  | 
    |       Domain B       |   |                  |     |           | 
    |                      |   | NE 2     NE 1    |      |         | 
     |                    |     |Port 5   Port 2 mmmmmmmmmNE 1     | 
     |                        mmm                /       \Port 21  / 
      \          NE 1    /mmmm   \              /         \       / 
       \         Port 7 mm        \\          //           \     / 
        \\            //            \-      -/              ----- 
          \-        -/                ------ 
            -------- 
        Figure 2.  Summarized topology for the network of Figure 1. 
                                      
   Also in Figure 2 we show the end points of the links between being 
   identified by the triple of (domain, NE address, NE port number). 
   This information is available via the discovery process. Though not 
   strictly necessary including the identification of border nodes in a 
   domain, allowing other nodes to understand whether these links 
   terminate on the same or different nodes is valuable in setting up 
   diverse inter-domain paths. 
   In current intra-domain IP routing protocols, such as OSPF's, a 
   multiple area capability provides for intra-carrier scalability. 
   However, this is currently done by sharing reachability information 
   and using a distance-vector method to obtain routes.  This does not 
   discover and propagate inter-domain topology information and hence 
   insufficient information is available for diverse route 
   calculations. In addition OSPF areas are required to be assembled in 
   a particular fashion with all areas bordering on a single backbone 
   area. 
   When the topology within the domain is approximated or hidden then 
   signaling and call processing at the domain border will receive an 
   approximated (loose) route and the border node or signaling entity 
   must then translate this to a precise route through the domain.  
   Hence there is some linkage between multi-domain connection control 
   and inter-area/inter-domain routing. 
    
3.1.2   Intra-Carrier Inter-vendor 
   An important application of intra-carrier optical routing is the 
   intra-carrier inter-vendor scenario. From a carrierĖs perspective, 
   the use of domains provides a clean way to isolate clouds of 


  
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                draft-ipo-optical-inter-domain-02.txt   February 2003 
 
 
   equipment belonging to different vendors, while at the same time 
   allowing for interoperability between the vendors. 
   An advantage of this method is that it allows the vendors complete 
   freedom to use any combination of routing protocols or traditional 
   management-based methods to propagate topology and resources 
   internal to their domains. In other words, the routing entity in 
   each domain could obtain this information either by participating in 
   a routing protocol like OSPF, or by querying each NE via an EMS, or 
   by simply having the required information manually configured into 
   it. Here the "domain independence" and "boundary on the wire" 
   properties of an inter-control domain routing protocol are being 
   stressed. 
    
   Note that the routing entity shown in each vendorĖs cloud in Figure 
   3 is in reality an abstract representation of the routing 
   intelligence within the vendor cloud. This intelligence may either 
   be implemented in a distributed way, by having a routing protocol 
   running at each NE, or in a centralized way, through the use of an 
   intelligent, centralized routing entity that communicates with the 
   individual NEĖs (either via a protocol or by querying individual 
   elements) to retrieve connectivity and resource information that it 
   uses to build a complete topology and resource map of the domain. 
   Therefore, vendors may use different protocols as the primary option 
   between their own devices, adding specialized features or optimizing 
   their performance based on their choice of protocol. 
                    /------------------------------------\ 
                   /            /-\                       \ 
                  /  Domain B  |NE3|          +-------+    \ 
                  | (Vendor 2) /\-/\          |Routing|    | 
                  |           /     \         |Entity |    | 
                  |       /-\/       \/-\     +-------+    | 
                  \      |NE1|-------|NE2|       @         / 
                   \      \-/:        \-/        @        / 
                    \------+-:---------+---------@-------/ 
     Neighbor discovery    | :         |         @ Exchange of routing  
     Between NEs in the    | :         |         @ information between  
     same domain.    ----> | :         |         @ the domains routing  
                           | :         |         @ entities. 
                    /------+-:---------+---------@-------\ 
                   /       | :         |         @        \ 
                  /        /-\       /-\      +-------+    \ 
                  |       |NE1|-----|NE2|     |Routing|     | 
                  |        \-/\     /\-/      |Entity |     | 
                  |            \/-\/          +-------+     | 
                  |  Domain A  |NE3|                        | 
                  | (Vendor 1)  \-/                        / 
                   \                                      / 
                    \------------------------------------/ 
    
  
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                draft-ipo-optical-inter-domain-02.txt   February 2003 
 
 
            Figure 3.  Intra-Carrier Inter-vendor routing domains 
   Even if it is a centralized entity, the routing entity could still 
   be run on a given NE in the vendor cloud. In other words, these 
   entities could be distributed, or centralized onto a single node, or 
   independent of any of the nodes.  In ATM's PNNI protocol, for 
   example, this was centralized on a node elected as the  "peer group 
   leader".  In the inter-vendor case, it can be particularly 
   advantageous to centralize this so that the flow of information can 
   be monitored.  A centralized routing entity could apply flooding and 
   summarization mechanisms as if it is a switching system.  Since this 
   is optical rather than IP routing, signaling would be carried by a 
   control channel between the routing entity and the neighboring 
   system, rather than being carried over the data links. The functions 
   of the routing entity include:  (a) direct reachability exchange 
   (that is, which NEĖs can be directly reached from this domain, (b) 
   verification of area connectedness (that is, understanding how the 
   two domains are interconnected), (c) area/domain topology (possibly 
   summarized) exchange and updates, and (d) topology updates 
   concerning other domains/areas. 
    
   When a carrier partitions its network for inter-vendor 
   interoperability as described above, it may still share information 
   about the internal topology of the domains in some standardized form 
   that has been agreed upon between the vendors. Although one option 
   is to force both vendors to adopt a new common protocol, another is 
   to require that only a minimum subset of reachability/topology 
   information be shared between the vendor clouds. The latter option 
   helps during fault situations, by providing fault isolation at the 
   domain boundaries. It prevents an outage in a domain composed of one 
   vendorĖs equipment from causing a reaction in an adjacent domain 
   composed of another vendorĖs equipment, thus preventing a situation 
   that would typically degenerate into a process known as ††finger 
   pointingĖĖ between the two vendors. 
 
   The setup described above takes into account the three most 
   important sub-cases of inter-carrier inter-vendor partitioning: 
        a. The first is where both vendor domains run distributed 
        routing protocols. This is the most flexible case, and is the 
        situation when new equipment capable of running such protocols 
        is deployed.  
         
        b. The second is where the optical subnetworks or domains 
        (which includes a large number of existing installations) do 
        not run any internal routing protocol (because the NEĖs are not 
        capable of doing so), relying instead on EMS-based topology 
        discovery/resource management. In this case, interoperability 
  
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                draft-ipo-optical-inter-domain-02.txt   February 2003 
 
 
        with other vendor clouds can be realized by having the routing 
        entity run as a separate software entity with access to the 
        appropriate information. These entities may exchange routing 
        proxy addresses through the neighbor discovery protocol, and 
        then exchange routing information (proxying for the entire 
        domain) with each other. The basic advantage here is that even 
        though the vendor specific element management system (EMS) 
        knows the topology of its subnetwork, it is far easier to get 
        an inter-domain routing protocol to share information than 
        trying to get the separate vendors management systems to 
        communicate.    
        c.  The third is where one domain has a centralized routing 
        entity, while the other runs a distributed routing protocol. 
        Once again, the neighbor discovery process between the area 
        border NEĖs could be used to advertise the address of the 
        routing entity. 
    
3.1.3   Inter-Layer Partitioning  
   In transport networks layering is a part of the multiplex and OA&M 
   structure of the signals, playing a role in multiplexing, monitoring 
   and general link management.  Layering in the transport network is 
   defined in fairly abstract terms in [G.805] and the concepts are 
   applied to SDH in [G.803].  As explained in a recent ITU SG15 
   document (WD45 Q.14/15) not all the layers in the transport network 
   are of interest to the control plane, or to routing in particular. 
   Some layers may not contain active switching elements, however this 
   does not mean that information flow concerning a non-switching layer 
   is not valuable in routing. For example in [GB-WDM-SRLG] static WDM 
   layer information was used to set the SRLGs for SONET lines (i.e., 
   information passed around by a link state protocol operating at the 
   SONET line layer). It should be noted that much of the information 
   available from non-switching layers relates to performance 
   monitoring and fault management.  
    
   In this situation the network is partitioned into sub-networks that 
   operate at different switching layers. One reason for doing this is 
   that not all the information from one layer is necessary or relevant 
   to another layer.  For example, between transparent optical switches 
   and SDH/SONET path (VC) layer switches, the optical switches have no 
   direct use for the SONET layer information. In addition optical 
   networks may keep a lot more physical layer information (such as the 
   properties of every optical amplifier on a WDM span) that is of no 
   use to the SONET layer.  One again this promotes scalability, but 
   also simplifies the implementation by reducing inter-layer 
   information transfer to that which is actually useful. 
    

  
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                draft-ipo-optical-inter-domain-02.txt   February 2003 
 
 
   Now in network planning it is very useful to have a view of the 
   current higher layer traffic matrix [9] being satisfied and higher 
   layer traffic trend measurements over time.  Although we can 
   somewhat see this in higher layer resource status changes over time, 
   this represents a link level view when we really desire the trend 
   (change in time) of the traffic matrices between sites.  How this 
   information gets distributed is an open issue. Currently individual 
   nodes in a GMPLS network know only about connections that they 
   source or sink. Network planning is generally a longer time horizon 
   process than even traffic engineering hence it is an open question 
   as to whether this would ever be a useful function to incorporate 
   into a network element. 
    
   Now looking the other way is initially simpler, i.e., it is easier 
   to ask: what can a higher layer use for path selection/computation 
   from a lower layer. The first item that springs to mind is diversity 
   information. For example in setting up a SONET STS-1 path we can use 
   information from a WDM system concerning which  SONET lines share 
   the same WDM fiber.  This is information, however, is already 
   abstracted into routing protocols via SRLG concept. Other 
   information from a lower layer is of questionable value since it 
   tends to be technology specific and puts more and more burden on the 
   upper layer to be able to effectively understand and use this 
   information. 
    
3.1.4   Interaction with IP Layer Routing 
   The applicability of IP-based routing protocols has, over the years, 
   been constantly expanded to increasingly more circuit-oriented 
   layers. The community began with pure datagram routing, gradually 
   expanded to cover virtual-circuit switched packet routing (for e.g., 
   MPLS), and is finally looking at the application of routing 
   protocols to real circuit switching, e.g. the optical layer. 
    
   However, as pointed out earlier in this document, it is not clear 
   that the different layers should necessarily share the same instance 
   of the routing protocols. Indeed, there may be significant reasons 
   for not doing so and many carrier tend to partition their networks 
   along switching layer boundaries. For example, IP-layer reachability 
   information is not particularly useful for the optical layer, so it 
   seems an overkill to burden the optical equipment with storing and 
   distributing that information. (It is an extra expense on memory and 
   processing for information that the optical layer does not really 
   care about, so there is little incentive for a vendor to want to do 
   so.) Likewise, information on physical plant (fibers, conduits, 
   ducts) diversity, which is crucial at the optical transport layer, 
   is very unlikely to be used directly by the IP layer. So, it would 

  
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                draft-ipo-optical-inter-domain-02.txt   February 2003 
 
 
   be quite wasteful of resources to burden the IP layer routing with 
   distributing and manipulating this information. Thus, the extent of 
   interaction or integration with IP layer routing (if any) requires 
   careful consideration. 
    
3.1.5   Inter-Business Unit  
    
   A slightly different but interesting application of intra-carrier 
   optical routing occurs in the intra-carrier inter-business unit 
   scenario. This arises because a carrier often has multiple 
   administrative domains, with groups of administrative domains being 
   under the purview of independent BUĖs within the carrier. 
    
   Note that different BUĖs represent independent cost centers with 
   their own profit objectives and sales targets. As a result, while 
   the BUĖs can profitably share topology information and would like to 
   do so, they may not be so inclined to advertise the details of their 
   resource usage into domains belonging to other BUs.  Since each BU 
   has its own revenue targets, advertising detailed resource 
   availability information to other, potentially competing, BUs can 
   have a negative impact on a BUs revenue generation. This is because 
   the knowledge of available resources in one BU may enable other BUs 
   within the carrier to requisition capacity from this BU. This would 
   force the BU in question to yield to their request, possibly at the 
   expense of selling capacity to more profitable, external, revenue 
   generating customers. 
   Thus, this scenario is likely to have an additional dimension of 
   information sharing, namely, policy-based information sharing, which 
   does not apply to the other cases that we have discussed so far. 
    
   Two examples where the inter-business unit scenario could become 
   important are in the case of metro-core-metro networks within a 
   given carrier, and in the case of regional networks within a 
   carrier. 
    
   In the metro-core-metro situation, such as the one depicted in  
   resource sharing between them. 
    
                       /------------------------------------\ 
                      /                                      \ 
                     /             /-\                        \ 
                     |  Domain    |NE2|                        | 
        Metro BU     |    B       /\-/\<-- Metro Ring          | 
        Network      |           /     \                       | 
                     |       /-\/       \/-\                   | 
                     |      |NE1|-------|NE3|                  / 
                     \       \-/         \-/                  / 
                      \       |           |                  / 
  
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                draft-ipo-optical-inter-domain-02.txt   February 2003 
 
 
                       \------+-----------+-----------------/ 
                              |           |    
                       /------+-----------+-----------------\ 
                      /       |           |                  \ 
                     /        |    /-\    |          /-\      \ 
                     | Domain |   |NE2|---+---------|NE3|      | 
         CORE BU     |   A    |   /\-/\   |   ------/\-/       | 
         Network     |        |  /     \  |  /        |        | 
                     |       /-\/       \/-\/         |<--Core | 
                     |      |NE1|-------|NE5|----     |   Mesh / 
                     \       \-/         \-/     \   /-\      / 
                      \       |           |       --|NE4|    / 
                       \      |           |          \-/    / 
                        \-----+-----------+----------------/ 
                              |           |     
                       /------+-----------+-----------------\ 
                      /       |           |                  \ 
                     /        /-\       /-\                   \  
                     |       |NE1|-----|NE2|                  | 
        Metro BU     | Domain \-/       \-/                   | 
        Network      |   C     |         |<--- Metro Ring     | 
                     |         |         |                    | 
                     |        /-\       /-\                   | 
                     |       |NE3|-----|NE3|                  |                       
                     |        \-/       \-/                   | 
                      \                                      / 
                       \------------------------------------/ 
         
   Figure 4, the metro network domains could be under the jurisdiction       Deleted   of one BU, while the core network domains belong to a different BU. 
   In this case, for example, it is possible that the metro BU, armed 
   with resource availability information about the core BUĖs domains, 
   could requisition capacity from the core network when needed. This 
   may harm the core networkĖs profit goals, because they may not be 
   able to charge an internal customer the same rates that they could 
   charge for the same capacity from an external customer, thus 
   motivating the need for selective, policy-based resource sharing 
   between them. 
    
                       /------------------------------------\ 
                      /                                      \ 
                     /             /-\                        \ 
                     |  Domain    |NE2|                        | 
        Metro BU     |    B       /\-/\<-- Metro Ring          | 
        Network      |           /     \                       | 
                     |       /-\/       \/-\                   | 
                     |      |NE1|-------|NE3|                  / 
                     \       \-/         \-/                  / 
                      \       |           |                  / 
                       \------+-----------+-----------------/ 
                              |           |    
                       /------+-----------+-----------------\ 
                      /       |           |                  \ 
  
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                draft-ipo-optical-inter-domain-02.txt   February 2003 
 
 
                     /        |    /-\    |          /-\      \ 
                     | Domain |   |NE2|---+---------|NE3|      | 
         CORE BU     |   A    |   /\-/\   |   ------/\-/       | 
         Network     |        |  /     \  |  /        |        | 
                     |       /-\/       \/-\/         |<--Core | 
                     |      |NE1|-------|NE5|----     |   Mesh / 
                     \       \-/         \-/     \   /-\      / 
                      \       |           |       --|NE4|    / 
                       \      |           |          \-/    / 
                        \-----+-----------+----------------/ 
                              |           |     
                       /------+-----------+-----------------\ 
                      /       |           |                  \ 
                     /        /-\       /-\                   \  
                     |       |NE1|-----|NE2|                  | 
        Metro BU     | Domain \-/       \-/                   | 
        Network      |   C     |         |<--- Metro Ring     | 
                     |         |         |                    | 
                     |        /-\       /-\                   | 
                     |       |NE3|-----|NE3|                  |                       
                     |        \-/       \-/                   | 
                      \                                      / 
                       \------------------------------------/ 
         
       Figure 4. Intra-carrier inter-business unit routing domains. 
    
    
3.2 Inter-Carrier Inter-Domain Optical Routing  
    
   In this case we are talking about dealing with outside entities, 
   i.e., between service providers.  There may be a range of levels of 
   trust here; for example there might be some level of trust between 
   two providers that have formed a marketing alliance or have some 
   other form of business relationship. In general, however, trust can 
   not be assumed. In this case, all the concerns of revealing too much 
   information about one's network come into play.  However, not 
   revealing enough, say about diversity capabilities may also lead 
   customers elsewhere. Also there are some other security issues not 
   seen before. For example, in route distribution one carrier might 
   not be inclined to pass on routing information that could point the 
   way to competitive alternatives. This impacts the methods for route 
   updates, etc. 
 
   With the interest in bandwidth trading [10] we can also look at this 
   as an advertisement of network connectivity and capability with of 
   course any "warts" covered up. This would include reliance on other 
   carrier for fibers or lambdas.  Also a fair amount of details such 
   as "unused capacity" would not be advertised since this maybe 
   financially sensitive information. 
    
   Private line pricing today is based primarily on the service itself 
   (bandwidth, end-points, etc.) and the holding time, and there is no 

  
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                draft-ipo-optical-inter-domain-02.txt   February 2003 
 
 
   reason to expect that this will change. When multiple service 
   providers are involved the algorithm for dividing up the revenue 
   stream (which can be quite large even for a single connection) must 
   be explicit by connect time. This could be done off-line or could be 
   done at connect time. In either case, the entity or entities doing 
   the routing will need to take provider pricing structures into 
   account whenever there is a choice between providers that needs to 
   be made. The routing logic could do this explicitly if the prices 
   are captured in the advertised metrics or some other advertised 
   data; alternatively it could be done by some sort of policy control, 
   as it is today by BGP. 
    
   The essence of bandwidth trading is the existence of competing price 
   structures that are known to the entity deciding which competitor to 
   use.  It is possible to create plausible bandwidth trading scenarios 
   involving the UNI, the NNI, or both. If the NNI is involved, these 
   price structures will need to be established across it. The 
   situation is further complicated by the fact that bandwidth trading 
   could be realized using any one of a number of business models, each 
   with its own information requirements. To give two examples: If an 
   auction model were used the buyer might repeatedly broadcast the 
   lowest bid received to date and solicit lower bids from the 
   competing providers. On the other hand, if there were a more formal 
   market the providers might post their asking prices in some public 
   fashion and a buyer would be matched by some third party with the 
   lowest offer. 
     
   In the inter-carrier case notions of hierarchy seem rather 
   sensitive, i.e., he who controls the summarization and advertisement 
   may have an undue advantage over competitors.  In addition, a 
   "bandwidth aggregator" may want to advertise capabilities that he 
   has put together via deals with multiple carriers... 
    
   Notes: We can attempt to extend the SRLG concept to links between 
   ASs but we will need the two ASs to agree on the meaning and number 
   of the list of 32 bit integers that comprise the SRLG, i.e., 
   previously the SRLG concept was one of AS scope.  And this is also 
   where things get tricky since it may not be possible to distinguish 
   diverse routes based upon differing path vectors (i.e., AS number 
   traversal list).  The reason for this is due the fact that many 
   carriers "fill out" their networks by renting either dark fiber or 
   "lambdas" from a WDM system and hence although the path vectors may 
   be AS diverse they may not even be fiber diverse. 
    
   Hence there is a need for sharing of diversity information or 
   constraints between ASs when setting up diverse connections across 
   multiple ASs.  This gets us somewhat into a quandary over which 
   information needs to be public and how to coordinate its 
   distribution.  In this sense geographic link information may be the 
   simplest and least contentious to get various players to disclose 
   and standardize. 
    

  
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                draft-ipo-optical-inter-domain-02.txt   February 2003 
 
 
   Notes:  (1) The real issue is consistency between the cloud/ASĖs 
   since in many cases they are sharing conduit, ROW, etc.  Getting 
   this to happen could be very problematic. It would be preferable to 
   see a diversity option that doesnĖt require this. For example, 
   ensure that there is diversity within each cloud and then do 
   restoration separately within each cloud. (2)  See the definition of 
   SRLG in the Carrier Requirements -- an equivalence class of links, 
   the extent of violation, and the level. (3) Flexibility in defining 
   the level of violation seems very desirable -- these historically 
   have drifted in time. There are many others -- eg, if the shared 
   resources are SPRING protected thatĖs less of a problem than 
   otherwise. 
    
   Notes: Participation in the inter-domain network carries constraints 
   on the carriers. First, in order to participate, each provider 
   network MUST be willing to advertise the destinations that are 
   reachable through his network at each entry point and advertise the 
   formats available. Without providing such information, there is 
   little motivation to participate since it is unlikely that others 
   will be able to access services of which they are not aware. Second, 
   every participating carriers MUST agree to fairly include the 
   information made available by every other carrier so that each 
   carrier has an equal opportunity to provide services. There may be 
   specific exceptions, but the carrier claiming those exceptions MUST 
   advertise the exceptions themselves. In this manner, other carriers 
   that might otherwise be aware of distant services can be prompted to 
   seek those services manually.  Note a combination of minimal 
   required information transferred with deferral to the originating 
   subnetwork along with some basic security mechanisms such as 
   integrity and non-repudiation may be useful in helping organizations 
   to "play nice". 
    
3.3 Multi-Domain Connection Control 
    
   MPLSĖ loose routing capability allows one to specify a route for an 
   optical connection in terms of a sequence of optical AS numbers.  
   This, for example, is handled via RSVP-TEĖs abstract node concept 
   [11]. Currently there is nothing in the GMPLS signaling 
   specification that differentiates between intra AS boundaries, i.e., 
   between two neighbor optical LSRs in the same AS, and inter AS 
   boundaries, i.e. between two neighbor optical LSRs in different ASs.  
   Note that these same notions can apply to separate routing domains 
   within an AS. There may, however, be some useful reasons for 
   differentiating these two cases: 
    
         1. Separation of signaling domains, 
         2. Separation of protection domains. 
    
   While routing protocols (used for their topology information) in the 
   optical case are not "service impacting", signaling protocols most 
   certainly are.  It is desirable to build some type of "wall" between 
   optical ASs so that faults in one that lead to "signaling storms" do 
   not get propagated to other ASs.  Note that the same motivation 
  
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                draft-ipo-optical-inter-domain-02.txt   February 2003 
 
 
   applies for isolating other kinds of clouds, like vendors specific 
   ones. 
    
   The natural situation where "signaling storms" would be most likely 
   to arise is during network restoration signaling, i.e., signaling to 
   recover connections during major network outages, e.g., natural 
   disasters etc. In this case it may be very advantageous to break up 
   general source reroute forms of restoration into per domain segments 
   or to start reroute at domain boundaries rather than all the way 
   back at the originating node. Note that this has the advantage of 
   reducing the need for globally consistent SRLGĖs. (See earlier SRLG 
   comment.) Such a capability requires some loose coordination between 
   the local, intermediate and global protection mechanisms [12].  This 
   is typically implemented via hold off timers, i.e., one layer of 
   protection will not attempt restoration until a more fundamental 
   (local) form has been given a chance to recover the connection [12].  
    
   In other words, prevention of restoration related signaling storms 
   may require the breaking up of a large network into multiple 
   signaling (and hence routing) domains. These domains could be within 
   the same AS.  
 
4  Multiple Layers of Optical Routing 
 
   As previously discussed, there are multiple layers of signals 
   included in what in the IP model one would call the Physical Layer. 
   One could separate the layers by creating sublayers in the Physical 
   Layer.  For example, sublayers in the Physical Layer might be, top 
   to bottom: SDH LOVCs, SDH HOVCs, and Lambdas. If a system supports 
   only one of the three, then isolation of the sublayers is a given; 
   it's geographical. But there are systems which will support more 
   than one physical sublayer, therefore, it is necessary to establish 
   whether or not there is a need to isolate the sublayers in the same 
   manner. Or put another way is there a reason to "integrate" the 
   sublayers for the purposes of routing (topology dissemination). 
    
   If they are isolated, then there will be separate topological models 
   for each sublayer: one mesh for the LOVC, one for the HOVC, one for 
   the Lambda, and possibly others. The appropriate way to access a 
   sublayer is via the use of sublayer SAPs (service access points). 
   For example, in this way, one may find that use of Lambdas is more 
   efficient because each sublayer can assess the availability of 
   services at its own layer before searching for coarser-granularity 
   services. On the other hand, the control plane must accommodate 
   three separate routing protocols, or at least three separate 
   instances of the same routing protocol, all operating at both intra 
   and inter-domain level.  
    
   Example (SDH multiplexing) 
   For transport across an SDH network, the lower order signals must be 
   multiplexed into a non-concatenated higher order signal. Hence LOVCs 
   are not routed independently, but only as tributaries of HOVCs. In 
   addition in the SDH hierarchy there is a signal, VC3, that can be 
  
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                draft-ipo-optical-inter-domain-02.txt   February 2003 
 
 
   treated (multiplexed) as either a LOVC or a HOVC.  With this tight 
   and somewhat confused coupling of these layers it may beneficial to 
   sometimes combine them into the same route protocol instance.  
 
    
   The alternative to separate routing protocols per sublayer is the 
   original notion behind GMPLS routing and the forwarding adjaciency 
   concept [13]. Rather than separating the route protocols into 
   separate layers (or sublayers) with distinct topologies, each ONE 
   would advertise the services it can provide, along with its topology 
   information. For example, a ONE (optical network element) might 
   advertise that it carries a route to node A with STS-N service and 
   clear-channel lambda service and carries multiple routes to node B 
   with STS-N service. It might, alternatively, advertise its entire 
   network with summarized link capacity information for every included 
   link. Neighboring carriers would, implicitly, be allowed to 
   summarize that information for internal advertisement via its IGP. 
   Further consideration could be given to a query service, where a 
   carrier advertises the geographical area it serves without detailed 
   reachability or capacity information. A second carrier desiring 
   service could query the first carrier as to reachability for a 
   specific destination, and the first carrier would respond with 
   availability and capacity information. 
 
   Integrating multiple layers into the same routing protocol instance 
   leaves us fewer routing protocols to manage. The downside of this is 
   that more information must be exchanged via this routing protocol 
   and more network elements participate in this single instance of the 
   routing protocol which can lead to scalability concerns. If the 
   equipment working on the different sublayers comes from different 
   vendors there would be little incentive to integrate multiple layers 
   into the routing protocol for a single layer product.   
   Regardless of whether multiple layers are integrated into the same 
   routing protocol instance it can be very useful to share information 
   between layers as illustrated by the following examples: 
    
    
        o Drop side links between layers: Capabilities of the links 
          that are between the (client and server) layers need to be 
          propagated into the routing protocol. 
        o Summarize link capabilities: Summarizing the server layer 
          capabilities in the client layer will reduce the amount of 
          information required for multi-layer constraint based path 
          computation. 
        o Send only that are required: Sending only the capabilities 
          that are useful in the constraint path computation in the 
          client layer. 
 
 
5  Conclusion 
    


  
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                draft-ipo-optical-inter-domain-02.txt   February 2003 
 
 
   Key properties of optical control domains and an optical inter 
   control domain routing protocol were reviewed. The stringent 
   properties of "independence of internal domain control plane 
   mechanisms" as well as support for "boundary on the wire" were shown 
   to be crucial to the definition of control domain by showing their 
   use in several mainstream optical inter-networking scenarios.  
    
   Via examples we saw that BGP is the only existing IP routing 
   protocol for which the "internal domain independence" and "boundary 
   on the wire" property hold.  However, it was described how important 
   the ability to diversely route optical connections is to the 
   reliability and resilience of the optical network.  In addition it 
   was pointed out that flexibility in choosing/computing paths can be 
   very important to an optical network operator so that they can offer 
   a range of differentiated services.  In this light BGP does not 
   currently meet the needs of an optical inter control domain routing 
   protocol. 
     
   As of this writing we are therefore looking at two alternatives for 
   an optical inter control domain routing protocol. (1) Extensions to 
   a link state type protocol (such as OSPF, IS-IS or PNNI routing) to 
   work at the control domain level rather than node to node level. Or 
   (2) Extensions to a path vector type protocol (such as BGP) to 
   provide diverse routing support and enhance path selection/network 
   optimization. 
 
    
6  Security Considerations 
 
6.1.1    
 
   Protection of the routing information exchanged across an optical 
   inter-domain interface is of high importance; erroneous reachability 
   or topology information may result in connection provisioning 
   requests that either fail or are routed across sub-optimal paths. It 
   is also possible that failed requests may consume significant 
   control and transport resources for a transient amount of time. It 
   follows that erroneous routing information could result in degraded 
   carrier network operation, or even render a carrierĖs network 
   inoperable. Security requirements are expected to be of higher 
   importance in interfaces between different administrative domains.  
   Therefore, an optical inter-domain routing protocol should provide 
   the following: 
    
  1. Authenticate entities with which routing information is exchanged. 
     For example, a carrier should authenticate the identity of other 
     carriers it is connected to. The specific mechanisms used for 
     authentication should provide protection against attacks; for 
     example they should not be based on simple clear-text password 
     authentication schemes. 
    
  2. Guarantee the integrity of routing information (topology, 
     reachability and resource status) exchanged across the interface. 
  
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                draft-ipo-optical-inter-domain-02.txt   February 2003 
 
 
     This requirement can be satisfied using security mechanisms at 
     different layers. For example, each routing message could be 
     individually authenticated using a keyed message digest, which is 
     embedded in the message. Both OSPF and BGP provide such options. 
     Alternatively, the two parties could establish a security 
     association at the network layer using IPSEC, which could be used 
     to provide security services to the optical inter-domain routing 
     protocol. 
    
   From the point of view of routing, information integrity is likely 
   to be the most important requirement. However, in some cases it 
   might be necessary to provide confidentiality of the routing 
   information as well. A possible scenario for this is when a carrier 
   would like to advertise information privately to another carrier, 
   but does not wish to publicly disseminate this information, due to 
   policy constraints. 
    
   It should be noted than none of the known mechanisms that provide 
   information integrity (such as keyed digests or IPSEC) can provide 
   adequate protection against a compromised node participating in the 
   inter-domain routing protocol. This is an item for further study. 
 
7  References
 
   [1] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", BCP 
      9, RFC 2026, October 1996. 
    
   [2] G. Bernstein, J. Yates, D. Saha, "IP-Centric Control and 
      Management of Optical Transport Networks", IEEE Communications 
      Magazine, October 2000. 
    
   [3] G. Bernstein, E. Mannie, V. Sharma, "Framework for MPLS-based 
      Control of Optical SDH/SONET Networks", <draft-ietf-ccamp-
      sdhsonet-control-02.txt>, February 2003.  
    
   [4] Ramesh Bhandari, Survivable Networks: Algorithms for Diverse 
      Routing, Kluwer Academic Publishers,1999.  
    
   [5] Strand, J. (ed.) "Impairments And Other Constraints On Optical 
      Layer Routing", work in progress, draft-ietf-ipo-impairments-
      00.txt, May 2001. 
    
   [6] Kompella, K., et. al. "IS-IS Extensions in Support of 
      Generalized MPLS", Work in Progress, draft-ietf-isis-gmpls-
      extensions-16.txt, December 2002. 
    
   [7]  K. Kompella, et. al. "Link Bundling in MPLS Traffic 
      Engineering", Work in Progress, draft-ietf-mpls-bundle-
      04.txt, July 2002. 
    
 


  
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                draft-ipo-optical-inter-domain-02.txt   February 2003 
 
 
 
   [8]  ANSI T1.105.01-1995, Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) 
      Automatic Protection Switching, American National Standards 
      institute.  
    
   [9]  Robert S. Cahn, Wide Area Network Design: Concepts and Tools 
      for Optimization, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., 1998.  
    
   [10] Meghan Fuller, "Bandwidth trading no longer a case of 'if' but 
      'when' says report", Lightwave, June 2001. (www.light-wave.com) 
    
   [11] RFC 3209, "RSVP-TE: Extensions to RSVP for LSP 
      Tunnels", December 2001.  
    
   [12] K. Owens, V. Sharma, M. Oommen, "Network Survivability 
      Considerations for Traffic Engineered IP Networks",  Work in 
      Progress, draft-owens-te-network-survivability-03.txt, May 2002. 
    
   [13]  K. Kompella and Y. Rekhter,  "LSP Hierarchy with MPLS TE", 
      draft-ietf-mpls-lsp-hierarchy-08.txt, Internet Draft, Work in 
      Progress, September 2002. 
   [14] G.805, Generic Functional Architecture of Transport Networks, 
      ITU-T, March 2000. 
    
 
    
8  Acknowledgments 
    
   The authors would like to thank Shezad Mirza of BT and Cheryl 
   Sanchez of Calix for their help. 
    
 
9  Author's Addresses 
    
   Greg Bernstein
   Grotto-Networking
   Phone: (510) 573-2237 
   Email: gregb@grotto-networking.com

   Lyndon Ong 
   Ciena Corporation 
   5965 Silver Creek Valley Road 
   San Jose, CA 95015
   Phone: (408) 834-7894 
   Email: lyong@ciena.com 
    
   Bala Rajagopalan, Dimitrios Pendarakis 
   Tellium, Inc 
   2 Crescent Place 
   Ocean Port, NJ 07757 
   Email: braja@tellium.com, dpendarakis@Tellium.com 
    
   Angela Chiu
   John Strand  
   AT&T Labs  
  
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                draft-ipo-optical-inter-domain-02.txt   February 2003 
 
 
   200 Laurel Ave.   
   Middletown, NJ 07748  
   Phone:(732) 420-9061 Angela,  (732) 420-9036 John  
   Email: chiu@research.att.com, jls@research.att.com 
    
   Vishal Sharma 
   Metanoia, Inc. 
   335 Elan Village Lane, Unit 203 
   San Jose, CA 95134 
   Phone:  +1 408 943 1794 
   Email: v.sharma@ieee.org 
    
   Rauf Izmailov 
   NEC USA, Inc. 
   4 Independence Way 
   Princeton, NJ 08540 
   Email: rauf@nec-lab.com 
    
   Dean Cheng  
   Polaris Networks Inc. 
   6810 Santa Teresa Bl. 
   San Jose CA 95119 
   Email: dcheng@polarinetworks.com 

   Sudheer Dharanikota

   Frank Hujber














  
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