Internet DRAFT - draft-zheng-l3vpn-pm-analysis

draft-zheng-l3vpn-pm-analysis







Network Working Group                                           L. Zheng
Internet-Draft                                                     Z. Li
Intended status: Informational                                 S. Aldrin
Expires: January 4, 2015                             Huawei Technologies
                                                               B. Parise
                                                           Cisco Systems
                                                            July 3, 2014


               Performance Monitoring Analysis for L3VPN
                    draft-zheng-l3vpn-pm-analysis-03

Abstract

   To perform the measurement of packet loss, delay and other metrics on
   a particular VPN flow, the egress PE need to tell to which specific
   ingress VRF a packet belongs to.  But for L3VPN, multipoint-to-point
   network model applies, flow identifying is a challenge.  This
   document summarizes the current performance monitoring mechanisms for
   L3VPN in MPLS networks, and analyzes various solutions and challenges
   for measuring performance metrics within these networks.  This
   document also identifies various key points which needs to be taken
   in consideration when designing L3VPN performance monitoring
   mechanisms.  Performance measurements within non-MPLS L3VPN networks
   is not within the scope of the document.

Requirements Language

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

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
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   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."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on January 4, 2015.



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Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2014 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Requirement of L3VPN Performance Monitoring . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Overview of Current Mechanisms for MPLS Networks  . . . . . .   4
     3.1.  Packet Loss and Delay Measurement for MPLS Networks . . .   4
     3.2.  Synthetic Measurements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.3.  Real packet Measurements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     3.4.  Profile for MPLS-based Transport Networks . . . . . . . .   5
   4.  Challenge for L3VPN Performance Monitoring  . . . . . . . . .   5
   5.  Design Consideration  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     5.1.  P2P Pseudo Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     5.2.  Hierarchy L3VPN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     5.3.  Control Plane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     5.4.  Data Plane  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     5.5.  MPLS OAM  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     5.6.  QoS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     5.7.  ECMP  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   6.  Manageability Consideration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   7.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   8.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   9.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     9.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     9.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9

1.  Introduction

   Level 3 Virtual Private Network (L3VPN) [RFC4364]service is widely
   deployed in the production network.  It is deployed to provide
   enterprise interconnection, Voice over IP (VoIP), video, mobile, etc.
   services.  Most of these services are sensitive to the packet loss
   and delay.  The capability of performance metrics measurement for



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   packet loss, delay, as well as related metrics is essential for
   performance monitoring and Service Level Agreement (SLA).  The
   requirement for SLA measurement for MPLS networks has been documented
   in [RFC4377].

   One popular deployment of L3VPN nowadays is in mobile backhaul
   networks.  When deploying MPLS-TP in mobile backhaul networks, due to
   the scaling issue with PWs, L3VPN is used either for end-to-end
   service delivery, or L2VPN and L3VPN are used in hybrid networking.
   The measurement capability of L3VPN provides operators with greater
   visibility into the performance characteristics of their networks,
   and provides diagnostic information in case of performance
   degradation or failure and helps for fault localization.

   To perform the measurement of packet loss, delay and other metrics on
   a particular VPN flow, the egress PE need to tell to which specific
   ingress VRF a packet belongs.  But for L3VPN, there multipoint-to-
   point (MP2P) network model applies, flow identifying is a challenge.
   This document summarizes the current performance monitoring
   mechanisms for MPLS networks, and analyzes the challenges for L3VPN
   performance monitoring.  This document also discuss the key points
   need to be taken into consideration when designing L3VPN performance
   monitoring mechanisms.  All references to L3VPN in the document
   refers to MPLS L3VPN networks.

2.  Requirement of L3VPN Performance Monitoring

   The specific user's traffic is usually tranported by the VPN of the
   service provider.  The performance mornitoring needs to be done on
   the aggregation flow beween a pair of VRFs which belong to the same
   VPN for a specific user.  And the correpsonding performance
   mornitoring report should be provided against the Service Level
   Agreement (SLA) by the service provider.  For example, in the
   following figure, the VRF11 and VRF12 belongs to VPN1 which is used
   to bear the service traffic for the specific user USER1, and the
   VRF21 and VRF22 belongs to VPN2 which is used to bear the service
   traffic for the specific user USER2.  Then the performance monitoring
   needs to be implemented on the aggregation traffic flow between VRF11
   and VRF12 for the USER1.  And the performance monitoring needs to be
   implemented on the aggregation traffic flow between VRF21 and VRF22
   for the USER2.










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           +-----+-----+    VPN FLOW 1   +----+-----+
           |VRF11| <------------------------> |VRF12|
           |-----+     |                 |    +-----+
   +--+    |           |      +---+      |          |    +--+
   |CE|----|    PE1    |------| P |------|    PE2   |----|CE|
   +--+    |           |      +---+      |          |    +--+
           +-----+     |                 |    +-----+
           |VRF21| <------------------------> |VRF22|
           +-----+-----+    VPN FLOW 2   +----+-----+

          Figure 1: Performance Monitoring between VRFs

   In order to facilitate the description, we introduce two
   terminologies in this document:

   -- VPN flow: a VPN flow is the aggregate traffic flow between an
   ingress VRF and an egress VRF belongs to the same VPN.

   -- L3VPN Performance Monitoring (PM): L3VPN PM means the performance
   mornitoring on a VPN flow.

3.  Overview of Current Mechanisms for MPLS Networks

3.1.  Packet Loss and Delay Measurement for MPLS Networks

   [RFC6374]defines procedure and protocol mechanisms to enable the
   efficient and accurate measurement of packet loss, delay, as well as
   related metrics in MPLS networks.

   The Loss Measurement (LM) protocol can perform two distinct kinds of
   loss measurement.  In inferred mode, it can measure the loss of
   specially generated test packets (in order to infer the approximate
   data-plane loss level).  In direct mode, it can directly measure
   data-plane packet loss.  Direct mode measurements provide perfect
   loss accounting, but may require specialized hardware support and is
   only applicable to some LSP types.  Inferred measurement provides
   only approximate loss measurments but is generally applicable.  The
   LM and Delay Measurement (DM) protocols are initiated from a single
   node.  A query message may be received either by a single node or by
   multiple nodes; i.e. these protocols provide point-to-point or point-
   to-multipoint measurement capabilities.

3.2.  Synthetic Measurements

   Performance measurements are done using synthetic packets sent over
   the network.  Metrics like response time, jitter, packet loss could
   be inferred using these synthetic packet measurements.  In order to




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   perform inferred measurements, the crafted packets have to behave
   like data packets and take the same path as data packets.

3.3.  Real packet Measurements

   Measurements of actual data packets is resource intensive and
   requires special way of accounting for the measurements.  Counters
   within the network devices are primarily used to measure various
   metrics.  Various technologies like Netflow, IPFIX, etc are used to
   collect the data and process it offline to derive performance
   measurements.  When the data is aggregated, collecting per flow or
   per VPN customer traffic data becomes complex.

3.4.  Profile for MPLS-based Transport Networks

   Procedures for the measurement of packet loss, delay, and throughput
   in MPLS networks are defined in [RFC6374].  [RFC6375]describes a
   profile, i.e. a simplified subset, of procedures that suffices to
   meet the specific requirements of MPLS-based transport networks
   [RFC5921] as defined in [RFC5860].  This profile is presented for the
   convenience of implementers who are concerned exclusively with the
   transport network context.

   LM session is externally configured and the values of several
   protocol parameters can be fixed in advance at the endpoints involved
   in the session, so that inspection or negotiation of these parameters
   is not required.

4.  Challenge for L3VPN Performance Monitoring

   To perform the measurement of packet loss, delay and other metrics on
   a particular VPN flow, the egress PE need to tell to which specific
   ingress VRF a packet belongs.

   The above mentioned existing mechanisms for MPLS networks provide
   either point-to-point or point-to-multipoint measurement
   capabilities.  For a specific receiver, it could easily identify a
   specific flow by the label stack information, when LDP is not used
   and Penultimate Hop Pop (PHP) function is disabled.

   But in the case of L3VPN, multipoint-to-point network model applies ,
   it makes the identification of a flow a challenge, for packet loss
   and delay measurement.  According to the label allocation mechanisms
   of L3VPN, a private label itself cannot uniquely identify a specific
   VPN flow.  That is, when the egress PE allocates VPN label for a
   specific prefix of a VPN, the same label will be advertised to all
   its peers.  Given a VPN flow, the egress PE cannot tell which ingress




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   VRF is from based on the private label it carries.  As a result, it's
   not feasible to perform the loss or delay measurement on this flow.

   Some people may argue this could be solved by using " tunnel label +
   private label" for flow identification, but it is not true.  In L3VPN
   when LDP LSP applies[RFC5036], the LSPs may be merged at any
   intermediate nodes along the LSP.  The egress PE cannot derive a
   unique identifier of the source PE from label stack.  The tunnel
   label cannot help for flow identification due to the LSP merge.  When
   TE LSP applies [RFC3209] in L3VPN, the ingress VRF could be
   identified by the " tunnel label + private label" only if no extranet
   exist.  The egress PE cannot tell which specific VRF a packet belongs
   to, when extranet (If the various sites in a VPN are owned by
   different enterprises) exist on ingress PE.  Figure 1 shows an
   example of extranet VPN.  In the extranet VPN, both Site 11 and Site
   12 can access to Site 1.  But Site 11 and Site 12 cannot access to
   each other.  Then VRF1 on PE1 allocates the same label L for the
   specific prefix to VRF11 and VRF12 on PE2.  Thus when PE1 receives
   the VPN flow from PE3, it cannot tell if the flow is from VRF11 or
   VRF12 by the label stack.

   +------+         +------------+    +-------------+           +------+
   | SITE |----+----|     PE1    +----+      PE3    +-----+-----+ SITE |
   |   1  |    |VRF1|            |    |             |VRF13|     |  13  |
   +------+    +----+------------+    +------+------+-----+     +------+
                            |                |
                            |                |
                            |          +------+------+
                            +----------+     PE2     |
                                       |             |
                                       +-----+-+-----+
                                       |VRF11| |VRF12|
                                       +-----+ +-----+
                                          |       |
                                          |       |
                                    +------+    +------+
                                    | SITE |    | SITE |
                                    |  11  |    |  12  |
                                    +------+    +------+

                     Figure3: Extranet VPN on Ingress PE

   The current label allocation mechanism of L3VPN makes the flow
   identification a challenge for L3VPN performance monitoring, as a
   result the current performance monitoring mechanisms for MPLS
   networks cannot be applied to L3VPN networks.  Without any backward
   compatible extensions or alteration to current label allocation




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   mechanisms, performance measurements cannot be performed in L3VPN
   networks.

5.  Design Consideration

   This section discuss the key points need to be taken in consideration
   when designing L3VPN performance monitoring mechanism.

5.1.  P2P Pseudo Connection

   As analyzed above, to perform the packet loss or delay measurement on
   a specific VPN flow, it is critical for the egress PE to uniquely
   identify the ingress VRF, i.e. to establish the Point-to-Point pseudo
   connection between the two VRFs.  Current allocation mechanism may
   need extension or alteration to help build up the Point-to-Point
   pseudo connection.  Once the Point-to-Point pesudo connection is
   built up, current measurement mechanisms may be applied to L3VPN .

5.2.  Hierarchy L3VPN

   There are flexible hierarchy L3VPN deployment scenarios such as
   inter-AS, carrier's carrier, etc.  [RFC4364].  The the design of LM
   and DM mechanisms should take these scenarios into account.

5.3.  Control Plane

   In L3VPN, BGP is used to distribute a particular route, as well as an
   MPLS label that is mapped to that route [RFC4364].  The label mapping
   information for a particular route is piggybacked in the same BGP
   Update message that is used to distribute the route itself.  In order
   to setup the Point-to-Point pseudo connection between ingress and
   egress VRFs the current label distribution mechanism may be altered.
   For compatibility, this alteration SHOULD NOT change the current
   label distribution mechanism dramatically.

5.4.  Data Plane

   Same as for control plane, for compatibility reason, the data plane
   should as far as possible be compatible with the current L3VPN
   forwarding procedure.

5.5.  MPLS OAM

   [RFC6374], [RFC6375]defines procedure and protocol mechanisms to
   enable the measurement of packet loss, delay, as well as related
   metrics for MPLS networks.  These mechanisms SHOULD be reasonably
   reused in L3VPN networks.  The addressing of source an destination of




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   Loss Measurement (LM) and Delay Measurement (DM) messages may needed
   to be changed to identify the measured VRF.

   LSP ping and trace based on [RFC4379] are used to perform various
   metric measurement which includes jitter etc.  Most of the
   measurements like response time, jitter, etc., are inferred
   measurements with synthetic measurements and not necessarily the true
   representation of the data packets traversing the network, especially
   with respect to packet loss measurements.

5.6.  QoS

   Performing the packet loss or delay measurement in L3VPN network,
   either proactive or on-demand, SHOULD NOT impact the customer QoS
   experience.

5.7.  ECMP

   Performance measurements within ECMP networks poses a bigger
   challenge.  When the data packet traverse the network, the logic of
   hashing on to a ECMP path is a local decision based on the header
   information it is carrying.  Number of labels, IP header, UDP header
   could play a role in considering which path the packet traverses.
   When PM is measured with synthetic packets, the crafted packets have
   to be constructed to ensure various ECMP paths are measured.  This
   poses a big challenge for the source, which generates these packets,
   to reflect the behavior of the actual data traffic and measure the
   metrics.  [RFC4379] provides various mechanisms to perform LM and DM
   measurements over ECMP networks.

6.  Manageability Consideration

   [RFC6374] describes manageability consideration of packet loss and
   delay measurement for MPLS network.  The defined mechanisms should be
   reused for L3VPN PM.

7.  Security Considerations

   This document does not change the security properties of L3VPN.

8.  IANA Considerations

   This document makes no request to IANA.








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9.  References

9.1.  Normative References

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

9.2.  Informative References

   [RFC3209]  Awduche, D., Berger, L., Gan, D., Li, T., Srinivasan, V.,
              and G. Swallow, "RSVP-TE: Extensions to RSVP for LSP
              Tunnels", RFC 3209, December 2001.

   [RFC4364]  Rosen, E. and Y. Rekhter, "BGP/MPLS IP Virtual Private
              Networks (VPNs)", RFC 4364, February 2006.

   [RFC4377]  Nadeau, T., Morrow, M., Swallow, G., Allan, D., and S.
              Matsushima, "Operations and Management (OAM) Requirements
              for Multi-Protocol Label Switched (MPLS) Networks", RFC
              4377, February 2006.

   [RFC4379]  Kompella, K. and G. Swallow, "Detecting Multi-Protocol
              Label Switched (MPLS) Data Plane Failures", RFC 4379,
              February 2006.

   [RFC5036]  Andersson, L., Minei, I., and B. Thomas, "LDP
              Specification", RFC 5036, October 2007.

   [RFC5860]  Vigoureux, M., Ward, D., and M. Betts, "Requirements for
              Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (OAM) in MPLS
              Transport Networks", RFC 5860, May 2010.

   [RFC5921]  Bocci, M., Bryant, S., Frost, D., Levrau, L., and L.
              Berger, "A Framework for MPLS in Transport Networks", RFC
              5921, July 2010.

   [RFC6374]  Frost, D. and S. Bryant, "Packet Loss and Delay
              Measurement for MPLS Networks", RFC 6374, September 2011.

   [RFC6375]  Frost, D. and S. Bryant, "A Packet Loss and Delay
              Measurement Profile for MPLS-Based Transport Networks",
              RFC 6375, September 2011.

Authors' Addresses







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   Lianshu Zheng
   Huawei Technologies
   Huawei Building, No.156 Beiqing Rd.
   Beijing  100095
   China

   Email: vero.zheng@huawei.com


   Zhenbin Li
   Huawei Technologies
   Huawei Building, No.156 Beiqing Rd.
   Beijing  100095
   China

   Email: lizhenbin@huawei.com


   Sam K. Aldrin
   Huawei Technologies

   Email: aldrin.ietf@gmail.com


   Bhavani Parise
   Cisco Systems

   Email: bhavani@cisco.com























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