TEAS Working Group                                               J. Dong
Internet-Draft                                                     Z. Li
Intended status: Informational                       Huawei Technologies
Expires: 27 April 2023                                           L. Gong
                                                            China Mobile
                                                                 G. Yang
                                                           China Telecom
                                                             J. Guichard
                                                  Futurewei Technologies
                                                               G. Mishra
                                                            Verizon Inc.
                                                                  F. Qin
                                                            China Mobile
                                                                 T. Saad
                                                               V. Beeram
                                                        Juniper Networks
                                                         24 October 2022


       Scalability Considerations for Network Resource Partition
                   draft-ietf-teas-nrp-scalability-01

Abstract

   The IETF Network Slice aims to offer a connectivity service to a
   network slice customer with specific Service Level Objectives (SLOs)
   and Service Level Expectations (SLEs) over a common underlay network.
   A Network Resource Partition (NRP) is a set of network resources that
   are allocated from the underlay network to carry a specific set of
   network slice service traffic and meet specific SLOs and SLEs.

   As the demand for IETF Network Slice increases, scalability would
   become an important factor for the deployment of IETF Network Slices.
   Although the scalability of IETF Network Slices can be improved by
   mapping a group of IETF Network Slices to one NRP, that design may
   not be suitable or possible for all deployments, thus there are
   concerns about the scalability of NRPs.

   This document discusses some scalability considerations about NRPs in
   the network control and data plane.  It also investigates a set of
   optimization mechanisms.

Status of This Memo

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





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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Network Resource Partition Scalability Requirements . . . . .   4
   3.  Network Resource Partition Scalability Considerations . . . .   5
     3.1.  Control Plane Scalability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
       3.1.1.  Distributed Control Plane . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
       3.1.2.  Centralized Control Plane . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     3.2.  Data Plane Scalability  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     3.3.  Gap Analysis of Existing Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   4.  Proposed Scalability Optimizations  . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     4.1.  Control Plane Optimization  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
       4.1.1.  Distributed Control Plane Optimization  . . . . . . .   9
       4.1.2.  Centralized Control Plane Optimization  . . . . . . .  11
     4.2.  Data Plane Optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
   5.  Solution Evolution Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
   6.  Operational Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
   7.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
   8.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
   9.  Contributors  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
   10. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
   11. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15



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     11.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
     11.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17

1.  Introduction

   The IETF Network Slice aims to offer a connectivity service to a
   network slice customer with specific Service Level Objectives (SLOs)
   and Service Level Expectations (SLEs) over a common underlay network.
   [I-D.ietf-teas-ietf-network-slices] defines the terminologies and the
   characteristics of IETF Network Slices.  It also discusses the
   general framework, the components and interfaces for requesting and
   operating IETF Network Slices.  For the realization of IETF Network
   Slices, the concept called Network Resource Partition (NRP) is
   introduced by [I-D.ietf-teas-ietf-network-slices].  An NRP is a
   collection of network resources in the underlay network, which can be
   used to ensure the requested SLOs and SLEs of IETF Network Slices
   services are met.

   [I-D.ietf-teas-enhanced-vpn] describes a layered architecture and the
   candidate technologies in different layers for delivering enhanced
   VPN (VPN+) services.  VPN+ aims to meet the needs of customers or
   applications which require connectivity services with advanced
   characteristics, such as the assurance of Service Level Objectives
   (SLOs) and specific Service Level Expectations (SLEs).  VPN+ services
   can be delivered by mapping one or a group of overlay VPNs to a
   virtual underlay network which is allocated with a set of network
   resources.  The VPN+ architecture and technologies could be used for
   the realization of IETF Network Slices.  And in the context of
   network slicing, NRP could be used to instantiate the virtual
   underlay network construct in VPN+.

   As the demand for IETF Network Slice services increases, scalability
   (the number of network slices a network can support) would become an
   important factor for the deployment of IETF Network Slices in
   specific networks.  Although the scalability of IETF Network Slices
   can be improved by mapping a group of IETF Network Slices to one NRP,
   that design may not be suitable or possible for all deployments, thus
   there are concerns about the scalability of NRPs.

   This document discusses some scalability considerations about NRPs in
   the network control and data plane.  It also investigates a set of
   optimization mechanisms.








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2.  Network Resource Partition Scalability Requirements

   As described in [I-D.ietf-teas-ietf-network-slices], the connectivity
   constructs of IETF Network Slices may be grouped together according
   to their characteristics (including SLOs and SLEs) and mapped to a
   given NRP.  The grouping and mapping of IETF Network Slices are
   policy-based and under the control of operator.  For example, a
   policy can be considered by an operator to host a large number of
   IETF Network Slices into a relatively small number of NRPs to reduce
   the amount of state information to be maintained in the network.
   This can help to avoid the maintenance of per IETF Network Slice
   state in the underlay network, which is equivalent to the one-to-one
   mapping between IETF Network Slices and NRPs.

   With the introduction of various services which require enhanced
   connectivity, it is expected that the number of IETF Network Slices
   will increase.  The potential number of IETF Network Slices and the
   underlying NRPs are estimated by classifying the network slice
   deployment into three typical scenarios:

   1.  IETF Network Slices can be used by a network operator to deliver
       different types of services.  For example, in a multi-service
       network, different IETF Network Slices can be created to carry,
       e.g., mobile transport services, fixed broadband services, and
       enterprise services respectively: each type of service could be
       managed by a separate team.  Some other type of services, such as
       multicast services, may also be deployed in a separate virtual
       underlay network.  Then a separate NRP may be created for each
       service type.  It is also possible that a network infrastructure
       operator provides IETF Network Slice services to other network
       operators as wholesale services, and an NRP may also be needed
       for each wholesale service operator.  In this scenario, the
       number of NRPs in a network could be relatively small, such as in
       the order of 10 or so.

   2.  IETF Network Slice services can be requested by customers of
       industrial verticals, where the assurance of SLOs and the
       fulfilment of SLEs are contractually defined between the customer
       and the slice service provider, possibly including financial
       penalties in case the service provider fails to honor the
       contract (SLO or SLE).  At the early stage of the vertical
       industrial deployment, a few customers in some industries will
       start using IETF Network Slices to address the connectivity
       requirements and performance assurance raised by their business,
       such as smart grid, manufacturing, public safety, on-line gaming,
       etc.  The realization of such IETF Network Slices may require the
       provision of different NRPs for different industries, and some
       customers may require dedicated NRPs for strict service



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       performance guarantees.  Considering the number of vertical
       industries and the number of customers in each industry, the
       number of NRPs needed may be in the order of 100.

   3.  With the advent of 5G and cloud networks, IETF Network Slices
       services could be widely used by customer of various vertical
       industries and enterprises who require guaranteed or predictable
       network service performance.  The amount of IETF Network Slices
       may increase to the order of thousands or more.  Accordingly, the
       number of NRPs needed may be in the order of 1000.

   In [TS23501], the 3GPP defines a 32-bit identifier for a 5G network
   slice with an 8-bit Slice/Service Type (SST) and a 24-bit Slice
   Differentiator (SD).  This allows mobile networks (the RAN and mobile
   core networks) to potentially support a large number of 5G network
   slices.  It is likely that multiple 5G network slices may be mapped
   to the same IETF Network Slice, but in some cases (for example, for
   specific SST or SD) the mapping may be closer to one-to-one.  This
   may require increasing number of IETF Network Slices, the number of
   required NRPs may increase as well.

   Thus the question of scalable IETF network slice services arises.
   Mapping multiple IETF Network Slices to the same NRP presents a
   significant scaling benefit, while a large number of NRPs may also be
   required, which raises scalability challenges too.

3.  Network Resource Partition Scalability Considerations

   This section analyses the scalability of NRPs in the control plane
   and data plane to understand the possible gaps in meeting the
   scalability requirements of IETF Network Slices.

3.1.  Control Plane Scalability

   The control plane for establishing and managing NRPs could be based
   on the combination of a centralized controller and a distributed
   control plane.  The following subsections consider the scalability
   property of both the distributed and centralized control plane in
   such design.

3.1.1.  Distributed Control Plane

   In some networks, multiple NRPs may need to be created for the
   delivery of IETF Network Slice services.  Each NRP is associated with
   a logical topology.  The network resource attributes and the
   associated topology information of each NRP may need to be exchanged
   among the network nodes.  The scalability of the distributed control
   plane used for the distribution of NRP information needs to be



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   considered from the following aspects:

   *  The number of control protocol instances maintained on each node

   *  The number of control protocol sessions maintained on each link

   *  The number of control messages advertised by each node

   *  The amount of attributes associated with each message

   *  The number of computations (e.g., SPF computation) executed by
      each node

   As the number of NRPs increases, it is expected that at least in some
   of the above aspects, the overhead in the control plane may increase
   in proportion to the number of the NRPs.  For example, the overhead
   of maintaining separate control protocol instances (e.g., IGP
   instances) for each NRP is considered higher than maintaining the
   information of multiple NRPs in the same control protocol instance
   with appropriate separation, and the overhead of maintaining separate
   protocol sessions for different NRPs is considered higher than using
   a shared protocol session for exchanging the information of multiple
   NRPs.  To meet the scalability and performance requirements with
   increasing number of NRPs, it is suggested to select the control
   plane mechanisms which have better scalability while can still
   provide the required functionality, isolation and security for the
   NRPs.

3.1.2.  Centralized Control Plane

   The use of centralized network controllers may help to reduce the
   amount of computation overhead in the distributed control plane,
   while it may also transfer some of the scalability concerns from
   network nodes to the network controllers, thus the scalability of the
   controller also needs to be considered.

   A centralized controller can have a global view of the network, and
   is usually used for Traffic Engineering (TE) path computation with
   various constraints, or the global optimization of TE paths in the
   network.  To provide TE paths computation and optimization for
   multiple NRPs, the controller needs to keep the topology and resource
   information of all the NRPs up-to-date.  And for some events such as
   link or node failures, the resulting updates to the NRPs may need to
   be distributed to the controller in real time, and may affect the
   planning and operation of some NRPs.  When there is a significant
   change in the network which impacts multiple NRPs, or multiple NRPs
   require global optimization concurrently, there may be a heavy
   processing burden at the controllers, and a large amount of signaling



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   traffic to be exchanged between the controller and corresponding NRP
   components.  These need to be taken into consideration from a
   scalability and performance standpoints.

3.2.  Data Plane Scalability

   To provide different IETF Network Slice services with the required
   SLOs and SLEs, it is important to allocate as many different subsets
   of network resources as there are different NRPs to avoid or reduce
   the risk of interference both between different IETF network slice
   services and between slice services and other services in the
   network.  With both the use cases and the number of NRPs increases,
   it is required that the underlay network can provide a finer
   granularity of network resource partitioning for more IETF network
   slice services, which means the amount of state about the partitioned
   network resources to be maintained on the network nodes is likely to
   increase.

   IETF Network Slice service traffic needs to be processed and
   forwarded by network nodes according to a forwarding policy that is
   associated with the topology and the resource attributes of the NRP
   it is mapped to, this means that some fields in the data packet need
   to be used to identify the NRP and its associated topology and
   resources either directly or implicitly.  Different approaches for
   encapsulating the NRP information in data packets may have different
   scalability implications.

   One practical approach is to reuse some of the existing fields in the
   data packet to additionally indicate the NRP the packet belongs to.
   For example, destination IP address or MPLS forwarding label may be
   reused to identify the NRP.  This avoids the complexity of
   introducing new fields in the data packet, while the additional
   semantics introduced to the existing fields may require additional
   processing.  Moreover, introducing NRP-specific semantics to existing
   identifiers in the packet may result in the amount of the existing
   identifiers increasing in proportion to the number of the NRPs.  For
   example, if IP address is reused to further identify an NRP, for a
   node which pariticipate in M NRPs, the amount of IP addresses needed
   for reaching this node in different NRPs would increase from 1 to M.
   This may cause scalability problems in networks where a relatively
   large number of NRPs is in operation.










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   An alternative approach is to introduce a new dedicated field in the
   data packet for identifying an NRP.  And if this new field carries a
   network wide unique NRP identifier (NRP ID), it could be used
   together with the existing fields to determine the packet forwarding
   behavior.  The potential issue with this approach lies in the
   difficulty of introducing a new field in some of data plane
   technologies.

   In addition, the introduction of NRP-specific packet forwarding
   impacts the number of the forwarding entries maintained by the
   network nodes.

3.3.  Gap Analysis of Existing Mechanisms

   This section provides gap analysis of existing mechanisms which may
   be used to provide NRP identification in the data plane and the
   distribution of NRP related information using control plane
   protocols.

   One existing mechanism of building NRPs is to use resource-aware
   Segment Identifiers (either SR-MPLS or SRv6)
   [I-D.ietf-spring-resource-aware-segments] to identify the allocated
   network resources in the data plane based on the mechanisms described
   in [I-D.ietf-spring-sr-for-enhanced-vpn], and then distribute the
   resource attributes and the associated logical topology information
   in the control plane using mechanisms based on Multi-topology
   [I-D.ietf-lsr-isis-sr-vtn-mt] or Flex-Algo
   [I-D.zhu-lsr-isis-sr-vtn-flexalgo].  This mechanism is suitable for
   networks where a relatively small number of NRPs are needed.  As the
   number of NRPs increases, there may be several scalability challenges
   with this approach:

   1.  The number of SR SIDs will increase in proportion to the number
       of NRPs in the network, which will bring challenges both to the
       distribution of SR SIDs and the related information in the
       control plane, and to the installation of forwarding entries for
       resource-aware SIDs in the data plane.

   2.  If each NRP is associated with an independent logical topology or
       algorithm, the number of route computations (e.g., SPF
       computations) will increase in proportion to the number of NRPs
       in the network, which may introduce significant overhead to the
       control plane of network nodes.








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   3.  The maximum number of logical topologies supported by OSPF
       [RFC4915] is 128, the maximum number of logical topologies
       supported by IS-IS [RFC5120] is 4096, and the maximum number of
       Flexible Algorithms [I-D.ietf-lsr-flex-algo] is 128.  Some of
       these technologies may not meet the required number of NRPs in
       some network scenarios.

4.  Proposed Scalability Optimizations

   To support more IETF Network Slice services while keeping the amount
   of network state at a reasonable scale, one basic approach is to
   classify a set of IETF Network Slice services (e.g., services which
   have similar service characteristics and performance requirements)
   into a group, and such group of IETF Network Slice services are
   mapped to one NRP, which is allocated with an aggregated set of
   network resources and the combination of the required logical
   topologies to meet the service requirements of the whole group of
   IETF Network Slice services.  Different groups of IETF Network Slice
   services may be mapped to different NRPs, each of which is allocated
   with different set of network resources from the underlay network.
   According to operator's deployment policy, appropriate grouping of
   IETF Network Slice services and mapping them to a set of NRPs with
   proper network resource allocation could still meet the IETF Network
   Slice service requirements.  However, in some network scenarios, such
   aggregation mechanism may not be applicable.  The following sub-
   sections proposes further optimization in control plane and data
   plane respectively.

4.1.  Control Plane Optimization


4.1.1.  Distributed Control Plane Optimization

   Several optimization mechanisms can be considered to reduce the
   distributed control plane overhead and improve its scalability.

   The first control plane optimization consists in reducing the amount
   of control plane sessions used for the establishment and maintenance
   of the NRPs.  When multiple NRPs have the same connection
   relationship between two adjacent network nodes, it is proposed that
   one single control protocol session is used for these NRPs.  The
   information specific to the different NRPs can be exchanged over the
   same control protocol session, with necessary identification
   information to distinguish the information of different NRPs in the
   control message.  This could reduce the overhead of node in creating
   and maintaining a separate control protocol session for each NRP, and
   could also reduce the amount of control plane messages.




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   The second control plane optimization is to decouple the resource
   information of the NRP from the associated logical topology
   information, so that the resource attributes and the topology
   attributes of the NRP can be advertised and processed separately.  In
   a network, it is possible that multiple NRPs are associated with the
   same logical topology, or multiple NRPs may share the same set of
   network resources hosted by a specific set of network nodes and
   links.  With topology sharing, it is more efficient to advertise only
   one copy of the topology information, and multiple NRPs deployed over
   the very same topology could exploit such topology information.  More
   importantly, with this approach, the result of topology-based route
   computation could also be shared by multiple NRPs, so that the
   overhead of per NRP route computation could be avoided.  Similarly,
   for the resource sharing case, information about a set of network
   resources allocated on a particular network node or link could be
   advertised in the control plane only once and then be referred to by
   multiple NRPs which share that set of resource.

                  # O #### O #### O        * O **** O **** O
                 #  #      #      #       *  *      *      *
                O   #      #      #      O   *      *      *
                 #  #      #      #       *  *      *      *
                  # O #### O #### O        * O **** O **** O

                        NRP-1                    NRP-2
                         ^^                       ^^
                         ||      O-----O-----O    ||
                         <<<<  / | \ / |     |  >>>>
                              O  |  X  |     |
                               \ | / \ |     |
                                 O-----O-----O

                            Underlay Network Topology

          Legend

          O     Virtual node
          ###   Virtual links with a set of reserved resources
          ***   Virtual links with another set of reserved resources

                   Figure 1. Topology Sharing between NRPs

   Figure 1 gives an example of two NRPs that share the same logical
   topology.  NRP-1 and NRP-2 are associated with the same logical
   topology, while the resource attributes of each NRP are different.
   In this case, the information of the shared network topology can be
   advertised using either MT or Flex-Algo, then the two NRPs can be
   associated with the same MT or Flex-Algo, and the outcomes of



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   topology-based route computation can be shared by the two NRPs for
   further generating the corresponding NRP-specific routing and
   forwarding entries.

                    # O #### O #### O         * O ***** O #### O
                   #  #      #      #        *     * *  #      #
                  O   #      #      #       O       *   #      #
                   #  #      #      #        *     * *  #      #
                    # O #### O #### O         * O ***** O #### O

                          NRP-1                      NRP-2
                           ^^                         ^^
                           ||       O-----O-----O     ||
                           <<<<   / | \ / |     |   >>>>
                                 O  |  X  |     |
                                  \ | / \ |     |
                                    O-----O-----O

                              Underlay Network Topology

           Legend

           O     Virtual node
           ###   Virtual links with a set of reserved resource
           ***   Virtual links with another set of reserved resource

                     Figure 2. Resource Sharing between NRPs

   Figure 2 gives another example of two NRPs which have different
   logical topologies, while they share the same set of network
   resources on a subset of the links.  In this case, the information
   about the shared resources allocated on the those links needs to be
   advertised only once, then both NRP-1 and NRP-2 can refer to the
   common set of allocated link resource for constraint based path
   computation.

4.1.2.  Centralized Control Plane Optimization

   For the optimization of the centralized control plane, it is
   suggested that the centralized controller is used as a complementary
   computational facility to the distributed control plane rather than a
   replacement, so that the workload for NRP-specific path computation
   can be shared by both the centralized controller and the network
   nodes.  In addition, the centralized controller may be realized with
   multiple network entities, each of which is responsible for one
   subset or region of the network.  This is the typical approach for
   scale out of the centralized controller.




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4.2.  Data Plane Optimization

   One optimization in the data plane consists in decoupling the
   identifiers used for topology-based forwarding from the identifier
   used for the NRP-inferred resource-specific processing.  One possible
   mechanism is to introduce a dedicated network-wide NRP Identifier
   (NRP ID) in the packet header to uniquely identify the set of local
   network resources allocated to an NRP on each participating network
   node and link for the processing of packets.  Then the existing
   identifiers in the packet header used for topology based forwarding
   (e.g., destination IP address, MPLS forwarding labels) are kept
   unchanged.  The benefit is the amount of the existing topology-
   specific identifiers will not be impacted by the increasing number of
   NRPs.  Since this new NRP ID field will be used together with other
   existing fields of the packet to determine the packet forwarding
   behavior, this may require network nodes to maintain a hierarchical
   forwarding table in data plane.  Figure 3 shows the concept of using
   separate data plane identifiers for topology-specific and resource-
   specific packet forwarding and processing purposes.

                         +--------------------------+
                         |       Packet Header      |
                         |                          |
                         | +----------------------+ |
                         | | Topology-specific IDs| |
                         | +----------------------+ |
                         |                          |
                         | +----------------------+ |
                         | |    Global NRP-ID     | |
                         | +----------------------+ |
                         +--------------------------+

    Figure 3. Decoupled Topology and Resource Identifiers in data packet

   In an IPv6 [RFC8200] network, this could be achieved by introducing a
   dedicated field in either the IPv6 base header or the extension
   headers to carry the NRP ID for the resource-specific forwarding,
   while keeping the destination IP address field used for routing
   towards the destination prefix in the corresponding topology.  Note
   that the NRP ID needs to be parsed by every node along the path which
   is capable of NRP-aware forwarding.
   [I-D.ietf-6man-enhanced-vpn-vtn-id] introduces the mechanism of
   carrying the VTN resource ID (which is equivalent to NRP ID in the
   context of network slicing) in IPv6 Hop-by-Hop extension header.

   In an MPLS [RFC3032] network, this may be achieved by inserting a
   dedicated NRP ID either in the MPLS label stack or a specific field
   that follows the MPLS label stack.  Thus the existing MPLS forwarding



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   labels are used for topology-specific packet forwarding purposes, and
   the NRP ID is used to determine the set of network resources for
   packet processing.  This requires that both the forwarding label and
   the NRP ID are parsed by nodes along the forwarding path of the
   packet, and the forwarding behavior may depend on the position of the
   NRP ID in the packet.  The detailed extensions to MPLS is currently
   under discussion as part of the work conducted by the MPLS Open
   Design Team, and is out of the scope of this document.

5.  Solution Evolution Perspectives

   Based on the analysis provided by this document, the control and data
   plane for NRP need to evolve to support the increasing number of IETF
   Network Slice services and the increasing number of NRPs in the
   network.  This section describes the foreseeable solution evolution
   taking the SR-based NRP solutions as an example, while the analysis
   and optimization in this document are generic and not specific to SR.

   First, by introducing resource-awareness with specific SR SIDs
   [I-D.ietf-spring-resource-aware-segments], and using Multi-Topology
   or Flex-Algo mechanisms to define the logical topology of the NRP,
   providing a limited number of NRPs in the network is possible, and
   can meet the requirements for a relatively small number of IETF
   Network Slice services.  This mechanism is called the "basic SR-based
   NRP".

   As the required number of IETF Network Slice services increases, more
   NRPs may be needed, then the control plane scalability could be
   improved by decoupling the topology attributes from the resource
   attributes, so that multiple NRPs could share the same topology or
   resource attributes to reduce the overhead.  The data plane can still
   rely on the resource-aware SIDs.  This mechanism is called the
   "scalable SR-based NRP".  Both the basic and the scalable SR-based
   NRP mechanisms are described in
   [I-D.ietf-spring-sr-for-enhanced-vpn].

   Whenever the data plane scalability becomes a concern, a dedicated
   NRP ID can be introduced in the data packet to decouple the resource-
   specific identifiers from the topology-specific identifiers in the
   data plane, so as to reduce the number of IP addresses or SR SIDs
   needed in supporting a large number of NRPs.  This is called the NRP-
   ID-based mechanism.









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6.  Operational Considerations

   The instantiation of NRPs require NRP-specific configurations of the
   participating network nodes and links.  There can also be cases where
   the topology or the set of network resources allocated to an existing
   NRP needs to be modified.  Of course, the amount of configurations
   for NRP instantiation and modification will increase with the number
   of NRPs.

   For the management and operation of NRPs and the optimization of
   paths within the NRPs, the status of NRPs needs to be monitored and
   reported to the network controller.  The increasing number of NRPs
   would require additional NRP status information to be monitored.

7.  Security Considerations

   This document discusses scalability considerations about the network
   control plane and data plane of NRPs in the realization of IETF
   Network Slice services, and investigates some mechanisms for
   scalability optimization.  As the number of NRPs supported in the
   data plane and control plane of the network can be limited, this may
   be exploited as an attack vector by requesting a large number of
   network slices, which then result in the creation of a large number
   of NRPs.

   One protection against this is to improve the scalability of the
   system to support more NRPs.  Another possible solution is to make
   the network slice controller aware of the scaling constraints of the
   system and dampen the arrival rate of new network slices and NRPs
   request, and raise alarms when the thresholds are crossed.

   The security considerations in [I-D.ietf-teas-ietf-network-slices]
   and [I-D.ietf-teas-enhanced-vpn] also apply to this document.

8.  IANA Considerations

   This document makes no request of IANA.

9.  Contributors

   Zhibo Hu
   Email: huzhibo@huawei.com

   Hongjie Yang
   Email: hongjie.yang@huawei.com






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10.  Acknowledgments

   The authors would like to thank Adrian Farrel, Dhruv Dhody, Donald
   Eastlake, Kenichi Ogaki, Mohamed Boucadair, Christian Jacquenet and
   Kiran Makhijani for their review and valuable comments to this
   document.

11.  References

11.1.  Normative References

   [I-D.ietf-teas-enhanced-vpn]
              Dong, J., Bryant, S., Li, Z., Miyasaka, T., and Y. Lee, "A
              Framework for Enhanced Virtual Private Network (VPN+)",
              Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-teas-
              enhanced-vpn-11, 19 September 2022,
              <https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-teas-enhanced-
              vpn-11.txt>.

   [I-D.ietf-teas-ietf-network-slices]
              Farrel, A., Drake, J., Rokui, R., Homma, S., Makhijani,
              K., Contreras, L. M., and J. Tantsura, "Framework for IETF
              Network Slices", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-
              ietf-teas-ietf-network-slices-15, 21 October 2022,
              <https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-teas-ietf-
              network-slices-15.txt>.

   [RFC3032]  Rosen, E., Tappan, D., Fedorkow, G., Rekhter, Y.,
              Farinacci, D., Li, T., and A. Conta, "MPLS Label Stack
              Encoding", RFC 3032, DOI 10.17487/RFC3032, January 2001,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3032>.

   [RFC8200]  Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6
              (IPv6) Specification", STD 86, RFC 8200,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8200, July 2017,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8200>.

11.2.  Informative References

   [I-D.ietf-6man-enhanced-vpn-vtn-id]
              Dong, J., Li, Z., Xie, C., Ma, C., and G. Mishra,
              "Carrying Virtual Transport Network (VTN) Information in
              IPv6 Extension Header", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft,
              draft-ietf-6man-enhanced-vpn-vtn-id-01, 11 July 2022,
              <https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-6man-enhanced-
              vpn-vtn-id-01.txt>.





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   [I-D.ietf-lsr-flex-algo]
              Psenak, P., Hegde, S., Filsfils, C., Talaulikar, K., and
              A. Gulko, "IGP Flexible Algorithm", Work in Progress,
              Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-lsr-flex-algo-26, 17 October
              2022, <https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-lsr-
              flex-algo-26.txt>.

   [I-D.ietf-lsr-isis-sr-vtn-mt]
              Xie, C., Ma, C., Dong, J., and Z. Li, "Using IS-IS Multi-
              Topology (MT) for Segment Routing based Virtual Transport
              Network", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-
              lsr-isis-sr-vtn-mt-03, 10 July 2022,
              <https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-lsr-isis-sr-
              vtn-mt-03.txt>.

   [I-D.ietf-spring-resource-aware-segments]
              Dong, J., Bryant, S., Miyasaka, T., Zhu, Y., Qin, F., Li,
              Z., and F. Clad, "Introducing Resource Awareness to SR
              Segments", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-
              spring-resource-aware-segments-06, 11 October 2022,
              <https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-spring-
              resource-aware-segments-06.txt>.

   [I-D.ietf-spring-sr-for-enhanced-vpn]
              Dong, J., Bryant, S., Miyasaka, T., Zhu, Y., Qin, F., Li,
              Z., and F. Clad, "Segment Routing based Virtual Transport
              Network (VTN) for Enhanced VPN", Work in Progress,
              Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-spring-sr-for-enhanced-vpn-04,
              11 October 2022, <https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-
              ietf-spring-sr-for-enhanced-vpn-04.txt>.

   [I-D.zhu-lsr-isis-sr-vtn-flexalgo]
              Zhu, Y., Dong, J., and Z. Hu, "Using Flex-Algo for Segment
              Routing (SR) based Virtual Transport Network (VTN)", Work
              in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-zhu-lsr-isis-sr-vtn-
              flexalgo-05, 11 July 2022,
              <https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-zhu-lsr-isis-sr-
              vtn-flexalgo-05.txt>.

   [RFC4915]  Psenak, P., Mirtorabi, S., Roy, A., Nguyen, L., and P.
              Pillay-Esnault, "Multi-Topology (MT) Routing in OSPF",
              RFC 4915, DOI 10.17487/RFC4915, June 2007,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4915>.








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   [RFC5120]  Przygienda, T., Shen, N., and N. Sheth, "M-ISIS: Multi
              Topology (MT) Routing in Intermediate System to
              Intermediate Systems (IS-ISs)", RFC 5120,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5120, February 2008,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5120>.

   [TS23501]  "3GPP TS23.501", 2016,
              <https://portal.3gpp.org/desktopmodules/Specifications/
              SpecificationDetails.aspx?specificationId=3144>.

Authors' Addresses

   Jie Dong
   Huawei Technologies
   Huawei Campus, No. 156 Beiqing Road
   Beijing
   100095
   China
   Email: jie.dong@huawei.com


   Zhenbin Li
   Huawei Technologies
   Huawei Campus, No. 156 Beiqing Road
   Beijing
   100095
   China
   Email: lizhenbin@huawei.com


   Liyan Gong
   China Mobile
   No. 32 Xuanwumenxi Ave., Xicheng District
   Beijing
   China
   Email: gongliyan@chinamobile.com


   Guangming Yang
   China Telecom
   No.109 West Zhongshan Ave., Tianhe District
   Guangzhou
   China
   Email: yangguangm@chinatelecom.cn







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   James N Guichard
   Futurewei Technologies
   2330 Central Express Way
   Santa Clara,
   United States of America
   Email: james.n.guichard@futurewei.com


   Gyan Mishra
   Verizon Inc.
   Email: gyan.s.mishra@verizon.com


   Fengwei Qin
   China Mobile
   No. 32 Xuanwumenxi Ave., Xicheng District
   Beijing
   China
   Email: qinfengwei@chinamobile.com


   Tarek Saad
   Juniper Networks
   Email: tsaad@juniper.net


   Vishnu Pavan Beeram
   Juniper Networks
   Email: vbeeram@juniper.net






















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