Internet DRAFT - draft-ietf-bess-evpn-unequal-lb

draft-ietf-bess-evpn-unequal-lb







BESS WorkGroup                                          N. Malhotra, Ed.
Internet-Draft                                                A. Sajassi
Intended status: Standards Track                           Cisco Systems
Expires: 9 June 2024                                          J. Rabadan
                                                                   Nokia
                                                                J. Drake
                                                                 Juniper
                                                              A. Lingala
                                                                     ATT
                                                               S. Thoria
                                                           Cisco Systems
                                                         7 December 2023


          Weighted Multi-Path Procedures for EVPN Multi-Homing
                   draft-ietf-bess-evpn-unequal-lb-21

Abstract

   EVPN enables all-active multi-homing for a CE (Customer Equipment)
   device connected to two or more PE (Provider Equipment) devices via a
   LAG (Link Aggregation), such that bridged and routed traffic from
   remote PEs to hosts attached to the Ethernet Segment can be equally
   load balanced (it uses Equal Cost Multi Path) across the multi-homing
   PEs.  EVPN also enables multi-homing for IP subnets advertised in IP
   Prefix routes, so that routed traffic from remote PEs to those IP
   subnets can be load balanced.  This document defines extensions to
   EVPN procedures to optimally handle unequal access bandwidth
   distribution across a set of multi-homing PEs in order to:

   *  provide greater flexibility, with respect to adding or removing
      individual multi-homed PE-CE links.

   *  handle multi-homed PE-CE link failures that can result in unequal
      PE-CE access bandwidth across a set of multi-homing PEs.

   In order to achieve the above, it specifies signaling extensions and
   procedures to:

   *  Loadbalance bridged and routed traffic across egress PEs in
      proportion to PE-CE link bandwidth or a generalized weight
      distribution.









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   *  Achieve BUM (Broadcast, UnknownUnicast, Multicast) DF (Designated
      Forwarder) election distribution for a given ES (Ethernet Segment)
      across the multi-homing PE set in proportion to PE-CE link
      bandwidth.  Section 6 of this document further updates RFC 8584,
      draft-ietf-bess-evpn-per-mcast-flow-df-election and draft-ietf-
      bess-evpn-pref-df in order for the DF election extension defined
      in this document to work across different DF election algorithms.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted 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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   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on 9 June 2024.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2023 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 (https://trustee.ietf.org/
   license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document.
   Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
   and restrictions with respect to this document.  Code Components
   extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as
   described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are
   provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     1.1.  PE-CE Link Provisioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     1.2.  PE-CE Link Failures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     1.3.  Design Requirement  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   2.  Requirements Language and Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   3.  Solution Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   4.  EVPN Link Bandwidth Extended Community  . . . . . . . . . . .   8



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     4.1.  Encoding and Usage of EVPN Link Bandwidth Extended
           Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   5.  Weighted Unicast Traffic Load-balancing to an Ethernet
           Segment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     5.1.  Egress PE Behavior  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     5.2.  Ingress PE Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   6.  Weighted BUM Traffic Load-Sharing across an Ethernet
           Segment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
     6.1.  The BW Capability in the DF Election Extended
           Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
     6.2.  BW Capability and Default DF Election algorithm . . . . .  13
     6.3.  BW Capability and HRW DF Election algorithm (Type 1 and
           4)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
       6.3.1.  BW Increment  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
       6.3.2.  HRW Hash Computations with BW Increment . . . . . . .  15
     6.4.  BW Capability and Preference DF Election algorithm  . . .  16
     6.5.  Cost-Benefit Tradeoff on Link Failures  . . . . . . . . .  17
   7.  Additional Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
     7.1.  Real-time Available Bandwidth . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
     7.2.  Weighted Load-balancing to Multi-homed Subnets  . . . . .  17
     7.3.  Weighted Load-balancing without EVPN aliasing . . . . . .  18
     7.4.  EVPN IRB Multi-homing With Non-EVPN routing . . . . . . .  18
   8.  Operational Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
   9.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  19
   10. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  19
   11. Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20
   12. Contributors  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20
   13. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20
     13.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20
     13.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
   Appendix A.  BGP-Link-Bandwidth-Extended-Community  . . . . . . .  21
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21

1.  Introduction

   In an EVPN IRB (Integrated Routing and Bridging) overlay network as
   described in [RFC9135], with a CE multi-homed via a EVPN all-active
   multi-homing, bridged and routed traffic from ingress PEs can be
   equally load balanced (ECMPed) across the multi-homing egress PEs:

   *  ECMP Load-balancing for bridged unicast traffic is enabled via
      aliasing and mass-withdraw procedures detailed in [RFC7432].

   *  ECMP Load-balancing for routed unicast traffic is enabled via
      existing L3 ECMP mechanisms.






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   *  Load-sharing of bridged BUM (Broadcast, UnknownUnicast, Multicast)
      traffic on local ports is enabled via EVPN DF election procedure
      detailed in [RFC7432].

   All of the above load balancing and DF election procedures implicitly
   assume equal bandwidth distribution between the CE and the set of
   egress PEs.  Essentially, with this assumption of equal "access"
   bandwidth distribution across all egress PEs, all remote traffic is
   equally load balanced across the egress PEs.  This assumption of
   equal access bandwidth distribution can be restrictive with respect
   to adding / removing links in a multi-homed LAG interface and may
   also be easily broken on individual link failures.  A solution to
   handle unequal access bandwidth distribution across a set of egress
   PEs is specified in this document.  Primary motivation behind this
   proposal is to enable greater flexibility with respect to adding /
   removing member PE-CE links, as needed and to optimally handle PE-CE
   link failures.

1.1.  PE-CE Link Provisioning

                         +------------------------+
                         | Underlay Network Fabric|
                         +------------------------+

                             +-----+   +-----+
                             | PE1 |   | PE2 |
                             +-----+   +-----+
                                \         /
                                 \  ES-1 /
                                  \     /
                                  +\---/+
                                  | \ / |
                                  +--+--+
                                     |
                                    CE1

                                  Figure 1

   Consider CE1 that is dual-homed to egress PE1 and egress PE2 via EVPN
   all-active multi-homing with single member links of equal bandwidth
   to each PE (aka, equal access bandwidth distribution across PE1 and
   PE2).  If the provider wants to increase link bandwidth to CE1, it
   must add a link to both PE1 and PE2 in order to maintain equal access
   bandwidth distribution and inter-work with EVPN ECMP load balancing.
   In other words, for a dual-homed CE, total number of CE links must be
   provisioned in multiples of 2 (2, 4, 6, and so on).  For a triple-
   homed CE, number of CE links must be provisioned in multiples of
   three (3, 6, 9, and so on).  To generalize, for a CE that is multi-



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   homed to "n" PEs, number of PE-CE physical links provisioned must be
   an integral multiple of "n".  This is restrictive in case of dual-
   homing and very quickly becomes prohibitive in case of multi-homing.

   Instead, a provider may wish to increase PE-CE bandwidth or number of
   links in any link increments.  As an example, for CE1 dual-homed to
   egress PE1 and egress PE2 in all-active mode, provider may wish to
   add a third link to only PE1 to increase total bandwidth for this CE
   by 50%, rather than being required to increase access bandwidth by
   100% by adding a link to each of the two PEs.  While existing EVPN
   based all-active load balancing procedures do not necessarily
   preclude such asymmetric access bandwidth distribution among the PEs
   providing redundancy, it may result in unexpected traffic loss due to
   congestion in the access interface towards CE.  This traffic loss is
   due to the fact that PE1 and PE2 will continue to be treated as equal
   cost paths at remote PEs, and as a result may attract approximately
   equal amount of CE1 destined traffic, even when PE2 only has half the
   bandwidth to CE1 as PE1.  This may lead to congestion and traffic
   loss on the PE2-CE1 link.  If bandwidth distribution to CE1 across
   PE1 and PE2 is 2:1, traffic from remote hosts must also be load
   balanced across PE1 and PE2 in 2:1 manner.

1.2.  PE-CE Link Failures

   More importantly, unequal PE-CE bandwidth distribution described
   above may occur during regular operation following a link failure,
   even when PE-CE links were provisioned to provide equal bandwidth
   distribution across multi-homing PEs.

                           +------------------------+
                           | Underlay Network Fabric|
                           +------------------------+

                               +-----+   +-----+
                               | PE1 |   | PE2 |
                               +-----+   +-----+
                                 \\         //
                                  \\  ES-1 //
                                   \\     /X
                                   +\\---//+
                                   | \\ // |
                                   +---+---+
                                       |
                                      CE1

                                  Figure 2





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   Consider a CE1 that is multi-homed to egress PE1 and egress PE2 via a
   LAG with two member links to each PE.  On a PE2-CE1 physical link
   failure, LAG represented by an Ethernet Segment ES-1 on PE2 stays up,
   however, its bandwidth is cut in half.  With existing ECMP
   procedures, both PE1 and PE2 may continue to attract equal amount of
   traffic from remote PEs, even when PE1 has double the bandwidth to
   CE1.  If bandwidth distribution to CE1 across PE1 and PE2 is 2:1,
   traffic from remote hosts must also be load balanced across PE1 and
   PE2 in 2:1 manner to avoid unexpected congestion and traffic loss on
   PE2-CE1 links within the LAG.  As an alternative, min-link on LAGs is
   sometimes used to bring down the LAG interface on member link
   failures.  This however results in loss of available bandwidth in the
   network, and is not ideal.

1.3.  Design Requirement

                              +-----------------------+
                              |Underlay Network Fabric|
                              +-----------------------+

                    +-----+   +-----+           +-----+   +-----+
                    | PE1 |   | PE2 |   .....   | PEx |   | PEn |
                    +-----+   +-----+           +-----+   +-----+
                       \       \                 //        //
                        \ L1    \ L2            // Lx     // Ln
                         \       \             //        //
                        +-\-------\-----------//--------//-+
                        |  \       \  ES-1   //        //  |
                        +----------------------------------+
                                         |
                                         CE

                                  Figure 3

   To generalize, if total link bandwidth to a CE is distributed across
   "n" egress PEs, with Lx being the total bandwidth to PEx across all
   links, traffic from ingress PEs to this CE must be load balanced
   unequally across egress PE set [PE1, PE2, ....., PEn] such that,
   fraction of total unicast and BUM flows destined for CE that are
   serviced by egress PEx is:

   Lx / [L1+L2+.....+Ln]

   Figure 3 illustrates a scenario where egress PE1..PEn are attached to
   a multi-homed Ethernet Segment, however this document generalizes
   this requirement so that the unequal load balancing can be applied to
   PEs attached to a vES or to a multi-homed subnet advertised by EVPN
   IP Prefix routes.



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   The solution specified below includes extensions to EVPN procedures
   to achieve the above.  Following assumption apply to procedure
   described in this document:

   *  For procedures related to bridged unicast and BUM traffic, EVPN
      all active multi-homing is assumed.

   *  Procedures related to bridged unicast and BUM traffic are
      applicable to both aliasing and non-alaising mode as defined in
      [RFC7432].

2.  Requirements Language and Terminology

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP
   14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
   capitals, as shown here.

   *  BW: BandWidth

   *  LAG: Link Aggregation Group

   *  ES: Ethernet Segment

   *  ESI: Ethernet Segment ID

   *  vES: Virtual Ethernet Segment

   *  EVI: Ethernet virtual Instance, this is a mac-vrf

   *  RT-1: EVPN Route Type 1 as defined in [RFC7432]

   *  RT-2: EVPN Route Type 2 as defined in [RFC7432]

   *  RT-5: EVPN Route Type 5 as defined in [RFC7432]

   *  Path-List: A forwarding object used to load-balance routed or
      bridged traffic across multiple forwarding paths.

   *  Access Bandwidth: Bandwidth of PE-CE links in an Ethernet Segment

   *  Egress PE: In the context of an Ethernet Segment or a route, this
      is the PE that advertises a locally attached Ethernet Segment RT-
      1, or a locally attached host or prefix route (RT-2, RT-5)






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   *  Ingress PE: In the context of an Ethernet Segment or a route, this
      is the receiving PE that learns remote Ethernet Segment RT-1 and/
      or host and prefix routes (RT-2, RT-5) from the Egress PE

   *  IMET: Inclusive Multicast Route

   *  DF: Designated Forwarder

   *  BDF: Backup Designated Forwarder

   *  DCI: Data Center Interconnect Router

3.  Solution Overview

   In order to achieve weighted load balancing to an ES or vES for
   overlay unicast traffic, Ethernet A-D per ES route (EVPN Route Type
   1) is leveraged to signal the Ethernet Segment weight to ingress PEs.
   Using Ethernet A-D per ES route to signal the Ethernet Segment weight
   provides a mechanism that reacts to changes in access bandwidth or
   number of access links in a service and host independent manner.
   Ingress PEs computing the MAC path-lists based on global and aliasing
   Ethernet A-D routes now have the ability to setup weighted load
   balancing path-lists based on the ES access bandwidth or number of
   links received from each egress PE that the ES is multi-homed to.

   In order to achieve weighted load balancing of overlay BUM traffic,
   EVPN ES route (Route Type 4) is leveraged to signal the ES weight to
   egress PEs within an ES's redundancy group to influence per-service
   DF election.  Egress PEs in an ES redundancy group now have the
   ability to do service carving in proportion to each egress PE's
   relative ES weight.

   Unequal load balancing to multi-homed subnets is achieved by
   signaling the weight along with the IP Prefix routes advertised for
   the subnet.

   Procedures to accomplish this are described in greater detail next.

4.  EVPN Link Bandwidth Extended Community

   A new EVPN Link Bandwidth extended community is defined for the
   solution specified in this document:

   *  This extended community is defined of type 0x06 (EVPN Extended
      Community Sub-Types).






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   *  IANA has assigned sub-type value of 0x10 for the EVPN Link
      bandwidth extended community, of type 0x06 (EVPN Extended
      Community Sub-Types).

   *  EVPN Link Bandwidth extended community is defined as transitive.

4.1.  Encoding and Usage of EVPN Link Bandwidth Extended Community

   EVPN Link Bandwidth Extended Community value field is used to carry
   total bandwidth of egress PE's all physical links in an ethernet
   segment, expressed in Mbits/sec (MegabitsPerSecond) represented as an
   unsigned integer.  Note however that the load balancing algorithm
   defined in this document uses ratio of Link Bandwidths.  Hence, the
   operator may choose a different unit or use the community as a
   generalized weight that may be set to link count, locally configured
   weight, or a value computed based on something other than link
   bandwidth.  In such case, the operator MUST ensure consistent usage
   of the unit across all egress PEs in an ethernet segment.  This may
   involve multiple routing domains/Autonomous Systems.

   In order to facilitate this, as well as avoid interop issues because
   of provisioning error, one octet in the extended community's six
   octet 'value' field is used to explicitly signal if the weight
   encoded in the remaining five octets is link bandwidth expressed in
   Mbps or a generalized weight value.  This results in the following
   encoding for EVPN link bandwidth extended community:

    0                   1                   2                   3
    0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |      Type     |    Sub-Type   |  Value-Units  |               |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+               +
   |                          Value-Weight                         |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

                                  Figure 4

   Value-Units is encoded as:

   *  0x00: weight expressed using default units of Mbps

   *  0x01: generalized weight expressed in something other than Mbps

   Generalized weight units are intentionally left arbritrary to allow
   for flexibility in its usage for different applications without
   having to define new encoding for each non-default application.
   Implementations MUST support the default units of Mbps, while support
   of non-default generalized weight is considered optional.



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   Additionally, following considerations apply to handling of this
   extended community at the ingress PE:

   *  An ingress PE MUST check for consistent 'Value-Units' received in
      the EVPN link bandwidth exteneded community from each egress PE in
      an Ethernet Segment.  In case of any inconsistency in 'Value-
      Units' across egress PEs in an Ethernet Segment, this EVPN Link
      Bandwidth extended community is to be ignored.

   *  An ingress PE MUST ensure that each route contains only a single
      instance of this extended community sub-type.  In case of more
      than one instance, this EVPN Link Bandwidth extended community is
      to be ignored.

5.  Weighted Unicast Traffic Load-balancing to an Ethernet Segment

5.1.  Egress PE Behavior

   A PE that is part of an Ethernet Segment's redundancy group MUST
   advertise an additional "EVPN link bandwidth" extended community with
   Ethernet A-D per ES route (EVPN Route Type 1), that carries total
   bandwidth of PE's physical links in an Ethernet Segment or a
   generalized weight.  New EVPN link bandwidth extended community
   defined in this document is used for this purpose.

   EVPN link bandwidth extended community MUST NOT be attached to per-
   EVI RT-1 or to EVPN RT-2 as it is a physical ESI property and hence
   advertised per-ESI.

5.2.  Ingress PE Behavior

   An ingress PE MUST ensure that the EVPN link bandwidth extended
   community is recevied from all the egress PEs in an Ethernet Segment
   and check for consistent 'Value-Units' received from each egress PE
   in an Ethernet Segment.  In case of missing EVPN Link Bandwidth
   extended community or inconsistent 'Value-Units' from any of the
   egress PEs in an Ethernet Segment, this EVPN Link Bandwidth extended
   community is to be ignored by the ingress PE and ingress PE is to
   follow regular ECMP forwarding to that Ethernet Segment.  Ingress PE
   MUST generate a syslog when the EVPN Link Bandwidth extended
   community is ignored.










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   Once consistency of 'Value-Units' is validated, ingress PE SHOULD use
   the 'Value-Weight' received from each egress PE to compute a relative
   (normalized) weight for each egress PE, per ES, and then use this
   relative weight to compute a weighted path-list to be used for load
   balancing, as opposed to using an ECMP path-list for load balancing
   across the egress PE paths.  Egress PE Weight and resulting weighted
   path-list computation at ingress PEs is a local matter.  An example
   computation algorithm is shown below to illustrate the idea:

   if,

   L(x,y) : link bandwidth advertised by egress PE-x for ES-y

   W(x,y) : normalized weight assigned to egress PE-x for ES-y

   H(y) : Highest Common Factor (HCF) of [L(1,y), L(2,y), ....., L(n,y)]

   then, the normalized weight assigned to egress PE-x for ES-y may be
   computed as follows:

   W(x,y) = L(x,y) / H(y)

   For a MAC+IP route (EVPN Route Type 2) received with ES-y, ingress PE
   may compute MAC and IP forwarding path-list weighted by the above
   normalized weights.

   As an example, for a CE multi-homed to PE-1, PE-2, PE-3 via 2, 1, and
   1 GE physical links respectively, as part of a LAG represented by ES-
   10:

   L(1, 10) = 2000 Mbps

   L(2, 10) = 1000 Mbps

   L(3, 10) = 1000 Mbps

   H(10) = 1000

   Normalized weights assigned to each egress PE for ES-10 are as
   follows:

   W(1, 10) = 2000 / 1000 = 2.

   W(2, 10) = 1000 / 1000 = 1.

   W(3, 10) = 1000 / 1000 = 1.





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   For a remote MAC+IP host route received with ES-10, forwarding load
   balancing path-list may now be computed as: [PE-1, PE-1, PE-2, PE-3]
   instead of [PE-1, PE-2, PE-3].  This now results in load balancing of
   all traffic destined for ES-10 across the three egress PEs in
   proportion to ES-10 bandwidth at each egress PE.

   Please note that the pathlist computation algorithm above is for
   illustration only.  Weighted pathlist computation based on the
   received EVPN link bandwidth extended community is a local
   implementation choice.  As an example, if the received link badwidth
   values do not result in a good HCF H(y) in the computation method
   above to be able to compute reasonable weights that can be programmed
   in hardware, implementation MAY choose another approximation to
   arrive at rounded integer weight values that can be programmed in
   hardware.

   Weighted path-list computation must only be done for an ES if EVPN
   link bandwidth extended community is received from all of the egress
   PE's advertising reachability to that ES via Ethernet A-D per ES
   Route Type 1.  In an unlikely event that EVPN link bandwidth extended
   community is not received from one or more egress PEs, forwarding
   path-list should be computed using regular ECMP semantics.  Note that
   a default weight cannot be assumed for an egress PE that does not
   advertise its link bandwidth as the weight to be used in path-list
   computation is relative.

   If per-ES RT-1 is not advertised or withdrawn from any of the egress
   PE(s), as per [RFC7432], egress PE is removed from the forwarding
   path-list for that [EVI, ES].  Hence, the weighted path-list MUST be
   re-computed.

   In an unlikely scenario that per-[ES, EVI] RT-1 is not advertised
   from any of the egress PE(s), as per [RFC7432], egress PE is not
   included in the forwarding path-list for that [EVI, ES].  Hence, the
   weighted path-list for the [EVI, ES] MUST be computed based only on
   the weights received from egress PEs that advertised the per-[ES,
   EVI] RT-1.

6.  Weighted BUM Traffic Load-Sharing across an Ethernet Segment

   Optionally, load sharing of per-service DF role, weighted by
   individual egress PE's link-bandwidth share within a multi-homed ES
   may also be achieved.

   In order to do that, a new DF Election Capability [RFC8584] called
   "BW" (Bandwidth Weighted DF Election) is defined.  BW MAY be used
   along with some DF Election Types, as described in the following
   sections.



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6.1.  The BW Capability in the DF Election Extended Community

   [RFC8584] defines a new extended community for PEs within a
   redundancy group to signal and agree on uniform DF Election Type and
   Capabilities for each ES.  This document requests IANA to allocate a
   bit in the "DF Election capabilities" registry setup by [RFC8584]:

   Bit 4: BW (Bandwidth Weighted DF Election)

   ES routes advertised with the BW bit set will indicate the desire of
   the advertising egress PE to consider the link-bandwidth in the DF
   Election algorithm defined by the value in the "DF Type".

   As per [RFC8584], all the egress PEs in the ES MUST advertise the
   same Capabilities and DF Type, otherwise the PEs will fall back to
   Default [RFC7432] DF Election procedure.

   The BW Capability MAY be advertised with the following DF Types:

   *  Type 0: Default DF Election algorithm, as in [RFC7432]

   *  Type 1: HRW (Highest Random Weight) algorithm, as in [RFC8584]

   *  Type 2: Preference algorithm, as in [EVPN-DF-PREF]

   *  Type 4: HRW per-multicast flow DF Election, as in [EVPN-PER-MCAST-
      FLOW-DF]

   The following sections describe how the DF Election procedures are
   modified for the above DF Types when the BW Capability is used.

6.2.  BW Capability and Default DF Election algorithm

   When all the PEs in the Ethernet Segment (ES) agree to use the BW
   Capability with DF Type 0, the Default DF Election procedure as
   defined in [RFC7432] is modified as follows:

   *  Each PE advertises a "EVPN Link Bandwidth" extended community
      along with the ES route to signal the PE-CE link bandwidth (LBW)
      for the ES.

   *  A receiving egress PE MUST use the ES link bandwidth extended
      community received from each egress PE to compute a relative
      weight for each egress PE in an Ethernet Segment.

   *  The DF Election procedure MUST now use this weighted list of
      egress PEs to compute the per-VLAN Designated Forwarder, such that
      the DF role is distributed in proportion to this normalized



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      weight.  As a result, a single PE may have multiple ordinals in
      the DF candidate PE list and 'N' used in (V mod N) operation as
      defined in [RFC7432] is modified to be total number of ordinals
      instead of being total number of egress PEs in an Ethernet
      Segment.

   Considering the same example as in Section 5.2, the candidate PE list
   for DF election is:

   [PE-1, PE-1, PE-2, PE-3].

   The DF for a given VLAN-a on ES-10 is now computed as (VLAN-a % 4).
   This would result in the DF role being distributed across PE1, PE2,
   and PE3 in portion to each PE's normalized weight for ES-10.

6.3.  BW Capability and HRW DF Election algorithm (Type 1 and 4)

   [RFC8584] introduces Highest Random Weight (HRW) algorithm (DF Type
   1) for DF election in order to solve potential DF election skew
   depending on Ethernet tag space distribution.  [EVPN-PER-MCAST-FLOW-
   DF] further extends HRW algorithm for per-multicast flow based hash
   computations (DF Type 4).  This section describes extensions to HRW
   Algorithm for EVPN DF Election specified in [RFC8584] and in [EVPN-
   PER-MCAST-FLOW-DF] in order to achieve DF election distribution that
   is weighted by link bandwidth.

6.3.1.  BW Increment

   A new variable called "bandwidth increment" is computed for each [PE,
   ES] advertising the ES link bandwidth extended community as follows:

   In the context of an ES,

   L(i) = Link bandwidth advertised by PE(i) for this ES

   Lmin = lowest link bandwidth advertised across all PEs for this ES

   Bandwidth increment, "b(i)" for a given PE(i) advertising a link
   bandwidth of L(i) is defined as an integer value computed as:

   b(i) = L(i) / Lmin

   As an example,

   with L(1) = 10, L(2) = 10, L(3) = 20

   bandwidth increment for each PE would be computed as:




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   b(1) = 1, b(2) = 1, b(3) = 2

   with L(1) = 10, L(2) = 10, L(3) = 10

   bandwidth increment for each PE would be computed as:

   b(1) = 1, b(2) = 1, b(3) = 1

   Note that the bandwidth increment must always be an integer,
   including, in an unlikely scenario of a PE's link bandwidth not being
   an exact multiple of Lmin.  If it computes to a non-integer value
   (including as a result of link failure), it MUST be rounded down to
   an integer.

6.3.2.  HRW Hash Computations with BW Increment

   HRW algorithm as described in [RFC8584] and in [EVPN-PER-MCAST-FLOW-
   DF] computes a random hash value for each PE(i), where, (0 < i <= N),
   PE(i) is the PE at ordinal i, and Address(i) is the IP address of
   PE(i).

   For 'N' PEs sharing an Ethernet segment, this results in 'N'
   candidate hash computations.  The PE that has the highest hash value
   is selected as the DF.

   We refer to this hash value as "affinity" in this document.  Hash or
   affinity computation for each PE(i) is extended to be computed one
   per bandwidth increment associated with PE(i) instead of a single
   affinity computation per PE(i).

   PE(i) with b(i) = j, results in j affinity computations:

   affinity(i, x), where 1 < x <= j

   This essentially results in number of candidate HRW hash computations
   for each PE that is directly proportional to that PE's relative
   bandwidth within an ES and hence gives PE(i) a probability of being
   DF in proportion to it's relative bandwidth within an ES.

   As an example, consider an ES that is multi-homed to two PEs, PE1 and
   PE2, with equal bandwidth distribution across PE1 and PE2.  This
   would result in a total of two candidate hash computations:

   affinity(PE1, 1)

   affinity(PE2, 1)





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   Now, consider a scenario with PE1's link bandwidth as 2x that of PE2.
   This would result in a total of three candidate hash computations to
   be used for DF election:

   affinity(PE1, 1)

   affinity(PE1, 2)

   affinity(PE2, 1)

   which would give PE1 2/3 probability of getting elected as a DF, in
   proportion to its relative bandwidth in the ES.

   Depending on the chosen HRW hash function, affinity function MUST be
   extended to include bandwidth increment in the computation.

   For e.g.,

   affinity function specified in [EVPN-PER-MCAST-FLOW-DF] MUST be
   extended as follows to incorporate bandwidth increment j:

   affinity(S,G,V, ESI, Address(i,j)) =
   (1103515245.((1103515245.Address(i).j + 12345) XOR
   D(S,G,V,ESI))+12345) (mod 2^31)

   affinity or random function specified in [RFC8584] MUST be extended
   as follows to incorporate bandwidth increment j:

   affinity(v, Es, Address(i,j)) = (1103515245((1103515245.Address(i).j
   + 12345) XOR D(v,Es))+12345)(mod 2^31)

6.4.  BW Capability and Preference DF Election algorithm

   This section applies to ES'es where all the PEs in the ES agree use
   the BW Capability with DF Type 2.  The BW Capability modifies the
   Preference DF Election procedure [EVPN-DF-PREF], by adding the LBW
   value as a tie-breaker as follows:

   Section 4.1, bullet (f) in [EVPN-DF-PREF] is updated to now consider
   the LBW value as below:

   f) In case of equal Preference in two or more PEs in the ES, the tie-
   breakers will be the DP (Don't Preempt me) bit, the LBW value and the
   lowest IP PE in that order.  For instance:

   *  If vES1 parameters were [Pref=500,DP=0,LBW=1000] in PE1 and
      [Pref=500,DP=1, LBW=2000] in PE2, PE2 would be elected due to the
      DP bit.



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   *  If vES1 parameters were [Pref=500,DP=0,LBW=1000] in PE1 and
      [Pref=500,DP=0, LBW=2000] in PE2, PE2 would be elected due to a
      higher LBW, even if PE1's IP address is lower.

   *  The LBW exchanged value has no impact on the Non-Revertive option
      described in [EVPN-DF-PREF].

6.5.  Cost-Benefit Tradeoff on Link Failures

   While incorporating link bandwidth into the DF election process
   provides optimal BUM traffic distribution across the ES links, it
   also implies that DF elections are re-adjusted on link failures or
   bandwidth changes.  If the operator does not wish to have this level
   of churn in their DF election, then they should not advertise the BW
   capability.  Not advertising BW capability may result in less than
   optimal BUM traffic distribution while still retaining the ability to
   allow an ingress PE to do weighted ECMP for its unicast traffic to a
   set of egress PEs.

7.  Additional Considerations

7.1.  Real-time Available Bandwidth

   PE-CE link bandwidth availability may sometimes vary in real-time
   disproportionately across PE-CE links within a multi-homed ES due to
   various factors such as flow based hashing combined with fat flows
   and unbalanced hashing.  Reacting to real-time available bandwidth is
   at this time outside the scope of this document.

7.2.  Weighted Load-balancing to Multi-homed Subnets

   EVPN Link bandwidth extended community may also be used to achieve
   unequal load-balancing of prefix routed traffic by including this
   extended community in EVPN Route Type 5.  When included in EVPN RT-5,
   its value is to be interpreted as egress PE's relative weight for the
   prefix included in this RT-5.  Ingress PE will then compute the
   forwarding path-list for the prefix route using weighted paths
   received from each egress PE.  EVPN Link bandwidth extended community
   MUST be encoded with "Value-Units = 0x01" to signal a generalized
   weight associated with the advertising PE.











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7.3.  Weighted Load-balancing without EVPN aliasing

   [RFC7432] defines per-[ES, EVI] RT-1 based EVPN aliasing procedure as
   an optional propcedure.  In an unlikely scenario where an EVPN
   implementation does not support EVPN aliasing procedures, MAC
   forwarding path-list at the ingress PE is computed based on per-ES
   RT-1 and RT-2 routes received from egress PEs instead of per-ES RT-1
   and per-[ES, EVI] RT-1 from egress PEs.  In such a case, only the
   weights received via per-ES RT-1 from the egress PEs included in the
   MAC path-list are to be considered for weighted path-list
   computation.

7.4.  EVPN IRB Multi-homing With Non-EVPN routing

   EVPN-LAG based multi-homing on an IRB gateway may also be deployed
   together with non-EVPN routing, such as global routing or an L3VPN
   routing control plane.  Key property that differentiates this set of
   use cases from EVPN IRB use cases discussed earlier is that EVPN
   control plane is used only to enable LAG interface based multi-homing
   and not as an overlay VPN control plane.  Applicability of weighted
   ECMP procedures specified in this document to these set of use cases
   is an area of further consideration beyond the scope of this
   document.

8.  Operational Considerations

   *  In order for the solution specified in this document to function
      correctly, implementation SHOULD ensure that EVPN Link Bandwidth
      Extended Comminiuty is being advertised with same "Value-Units"
      across all PEs.

   *  Further, when a generalized weight option is used with "Value-
      Units = 0x1", implementation SHOULD ensure that the weights are
      assigned to each PE in a consistent manner.

   *  Implementation SHOULD alert the users via syslog when an
      inconsistency in "Value-Units" is detected across the PE set for a
      given ESI or prefix.

   *  Implementation SHOULD also alert users via syslog if an
      unreasonable discrepancy is detected across advertised BW or
      weights from different PEs, such that the implementation is unable
      to compute a weighted pathlist that can be programmed in hardware.
      This could likely result from inconsistent units of weight used by
      different PEs.






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   *  Operators MAY monitor the traffic flow distribution and DF
      election distribution across the egress PE set to ensure that the
      implementation is working as expected.

9.  Security Considerations

   Security considerations discussed in [RFC7432] and [RFC8584] apply to
   this document.  Methods described in this document further extend
   signaling of multi-homed devices using ESI LAG.  They are hence
   subject to same considerations if the control plane or data plane was
   to be compromised.  As an example, if control plane is compromised,
   signaling of heavily skewed Link Bandwidth Attributes could result in
   all traffic to be directed towards one PE resulting in its host
   facing links to be overloaded.  Exposure to such an attack is limited
   by suggested syslogs discussed in Operational Consideration section.
   Considerations for protecting control and data plane described in
   [RFC7432] are equally applicable to signaling of Link Bandwidth
   Attribute defined in this document.

10.  IANA Considerations

   [RFC8584] defines a new extended community for PEs within a
   redundancy group to signal and agree on uniform DF Election Type and
   Capabilities for each ES.  This document requests IANA to allocate a
   bit in the "DF Election capabilities" registry setup by [RFC8584]
   with the following suggested bit number:

   Bit 4: BW (Bandwidth Weighted DF Election)

   A new EVPN Link Bandwidth extended community is defined to signal
   local ES link bandwidth to ingress PEs.  This extended community is
   defined of type 0x06 (EVPN Extended Community Sub-Types).  IANA has
   assigned a sub-type value of 0x10 for the EVPN Link bandwidth
   extended community, of type 0x06 (EVPN Extended Community Sub-Types).
   EVPN Link Bandwidth extended community is defined as transitive.

   IANA is requested to set up a registry called "Value-Units" for the
   1-octet field in the EVPN Link Bandwidth Extended Community.  New
   registrations will be made through the "RFC Required" procedure
   defined in [RFC8126].  The following are suggested initial values in
   that registry exist:

   Value       Name                             Reference
   ----        ----------------                 -------------
   0           Weight in units of Mbps          This document
   1           Generalized Weight               This document
   2-255       Unassigned




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11.  Acknowledgements

   Authors would like to thank Satya Mohanty for valuable review and
   inputs with respect to HRW and weighted HRW algorithm refinements
   specified in this document.  Authors would also like to thank Bruno
   Decraene and Sergey Fomin for valuable review and comments.

12.  Contributors

   Satya Ranjan Mohanty
   Cisco Systems
   US
   Email: satyamoh@cisco.com

13.  References

13.1.  Normative References

   [EVPN-DF-PREF]
              Rabadan, J., Sathappan, S., Przygienda, T., Lin, W.,
              Drake, J., Sajassi, A., Mohanty, S., and , "Preference-
              based EVPN DF Election", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft,
              draft-ietf-bess-evpn-pref-df-06, 19 June 2020,
              <https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-bess-evpn-pref-df-
              06.txt>.

   [EVPN-PER-MCAST-FLOW-DF]
              Sajassi, A., mishra, m., Thoria, S., Rabadan, J., and J.
              Drake, "Per multicast flow Designated Forwarder Election
              for EVPN", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-
              bess-evpn-per-mcast-flow-df-election-04, 31 August 2020,
              <http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-bess-evpn-
              per-mcast-flow-df-election-04.txt>.

   [EVPN-VIRTUAL-ES]
              Sajassi, A., Brissette, P., Schell, R., Drake, J.,
              Rabadan, J., and , "EVPN Virtual Ethernet Segment", Work
              in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-bess-evpn-virtual-
              eth-segment-06, 9 March 2020,
              <https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-bess-evpn-virtual-
              eth-segment-06.txt>.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.





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   [RFC7432]  Sajassi, A., Ed., Aggarwal, R., Bitar, N., Isaac, A.,
              Uttaro, J., Drake, J., and W. Henderickx, "BGP MPLS-Based
              Ethernet VPN", RFC 7432, DOI 10.17487/RFC7432, February
              2015, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7432>.

   [RFC7814]  Xu, X., Jacquenet, C., Raszuk, R., Boyes, T., and B. Fee,
              "Virtual Subnet: A BGP/MPLS IP VPN-Based Subnet Extension
              Solution", RFC 7814, DOI 10.17487/RFC7814, March 2016,
              <https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7814>.

   [RFC8584]  Rabadan, J., Ed., Mohanty, R., Sajassi, N., Drake, A.,
              Nagaraj, K., and S. Sathappan, "Framework for Ethernet VPN
              Designated Forwarder Election Extensibility", RFC 8584,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8584, April 2019,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8584>.

13.2.  Informative References

   [BGP-LINK-BW]
              Mohapatra, P. and R. Fernando, "BGP Link Bandwidth
              Extended Community", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft,
              draft-ietf-idr-link-bandwidth-07, March 2019,
              <https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-idr-link-
              bandwidth-07.txt>.

   [RFC9135]  Sajassi, A., Salam, S., Thoria, S., Drake, J., and J.
              Rabadan, "Integrated Routing and Bridging in EVPN",
              RFC 9135, DOI 10.17487/RFC9135, October 2021,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9135>.

Appendix A.  BGP-Link-Bandwidth-Extended-Community

   Link bandwidth extended community described in [BGP-LINK-BW] for
   layer 3 VPNs was considered for re-use here.  This Link bandwidth
   extended community is however defined in [BGP-LINK-BW] as optional
   non-transitive.  Since it is not possible to change deployed behavior
   of extended community defined in [BGP-LINK-BW], it was decided to
   define a new one.  In inter-AS scenarios, link-bandwidth needs to be
   signaled to eBGP neighbors.  When signaled across AS boundary, this
   extended community can be used to achieve optimal load-balancing
   towards egress PEs in a different AS.  This is applicable both when
   next-hop is changed or unchanged across AS boundaries.

Authors' Addresses







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   Neeraj Malhotra (editor)
   Cisco Systems
   170 W. Tasman Drive
   San Jose, CA 95134
   United States of America
   Email: nmalhotr@cisco.com


   Ali Sajassi
   Cisco Systems
   170 W. Tasman Drive
   San Jose, CA 95134
   United States of America
   Email: sajassi@cisco.com


   Jorge Rabadan
   Nokia
   777 E. Middlefield Road
   Mountain View, CA 94043
   United States of America
   Email: jorge.rabadan@nokia.com


   John Drake
   Juniper
   Email: jdrake@juniper.net


   Avinash Lingala
   ATT
   200 S. Laurel Avenue
   Middletown, CA 07748
   United States of America
   Email: ar977m@att.com


   Samir Thoria
   Cisco Systems
   170 W. Tasman Drive
   San Jose, CA 95134
   United States of America
   Email: sthoria@cisco.com








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