Old Dog Consulting A Unified Control Plane Dream or Pipedream? Adrian Farrel Old Dog Consulting IETF Routing Area Director

Page 2 © Copyright Old Dog Consulting 2010 Agenda History Where does it all come from? Objectives and Dreams Development Extensions and Divergence Success Stories Disappointments Why are we here? Why has GMPLS not taken over the world? Why are we here in Tokyo, now? Where are we going?

Page 3 © Copyright Old Dog Consulting 2010 MPLS is Established MPLS is 13 years old I have the T-shirt from MPLS2007 All (nearly all?) major service providers have MPLS in their core networks The majority is LDP or L3VPN MPLS-TE has limited, but successful deployment

Page 4 © Copyright Old Dog Consulting 2010 WDM and Automation As MPLS-TE was being developed Technical advances in WDM Deployment and research of WDM systems Management-based solutions becoming complex Proposals extend MPLS-TE to provide an automated control plane for WDM systems Multiprotocol Lambda Switching (MPλS) draft-awduche-mpls-te-optical-00.txt April 2000 Awduche, Rekhter, Drake, Coltun

Page 5 © Copyright Old Dog Consulting 2010 Generalisation If you can do it for packets and lambda Why not do it for all connection-oriented networks? Isn’t all circuit switching the same? CO-PS MPLS ATM Frame Relay Ethernet CO-CS Fibre Lambda TDM draft-ietf-mpls-generalized-signaling-00.txt October 2000 Multiple ideas, many authors

Page 6 © Copyright Old Dog Consulting 2010 Protocol Development MPLS-TE protocols had been developed already Routing Signalling Generalisation of these protocols to GMPLS Intent that GMPLS included all existing traffic engineered MPLS New protocols only where new needs LMP PCEP

Page 7 © Copyright Old Dog Consulting 2010 Two Protocols for Every Use OSPF and IS-IS RSVP-TE and CR-LDP LMP and Nortel’s own offering Lessons from history We do not need multiple solutions for the same problem Development cost is more than doubled Who pays? Interoperability is compromised Providers are “locked in” Deployment is complicated Additional or more expensive operations teams Company mergers, etc. become a nightmare “Wrong” decisions are made Consider regional standards that pick the “wrong” protocol Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveller… Robert Frost (The Road Not Taken – 1915) The IETF made decisions Only LMP was taken into the CCAMP working group RFC 3468 stopped work on CR-LDP OSPF and IS-IS too well deployed to make a choice

Page 8 © Copyright Old Dog Consulting 2010 And Did It Work…? Lots and lots of implementations This was around 2000 Everyone was building an optical switch Most implementations were for WDM Significant research Theoretical work to prove utility of control plane Experimental equipment and networks A lot of successful control plane interop testing GMPLS-enable equipments shipped

Page 9 © Copyright Old Dog Consulting 2010 Where are the Deployments? GMPLS deployments do exist WDM deployments tend to be small Metro add/drop GMPLS is a management tool Reduces the complexity of provisioning Single-touch connection set-up Network status information gathering Intelligence remains in the NMS (not in the network) Some significant long-haul networks Networks tend to be very stable GMPLS is just a provisioning tool SDH networks Many networks deployed Some are quite large GMPLS has not taken over the world

Page 10 © Copyright Old Dog Consulting 2010 And What Didn’t Work? Many issues conspired to slow GMPLS The bubble burst TDM deployments too established Retro-fitting GMPLS not attractive No pressure to migration packet networks from MPLS-TE to GMPLS PBB-TE didn’t take off But GMPLS did fulfil its technical promise

Page 11 © Copyright Old Dog Consulting 2010 Why Isn’t GMPLS Widely Deployed? The equipment was available The providers were looking at deployment But? There are a number of roadblocks Data plane interoperability Equipment cost Control channel interoperability Control plane interoperability Operational hurdles Network complexity

Page 12 © Copyright Old Dog Consulting 2010 Roadblocks 1: Data Plane Interop No point in a unified control plane if the data plane doesn’t interwork WDM systems Different choice of lambdas Different power levels Complex optical impairments Different encodings TDM SONET/SDH Different options and features 2.5G, 10G, 40G encoding and modulation Why? Uncoordinated development under time pressure Regional preferences It is not a benefit to the incumbent vendors to interoperate

Page 13 © Copyright Old Dog Consulting 2010 Roadblocks 2: Equipment Cost GMPLS is most effective in dynamic networks Dynamic networks need flexible, reconfigurable equipment Flexible equipment has been expensive For example, in a WDM network Best flexibility is achieved using OEO OEO has been the most expensive equipment For example, control plane handling Previous transport equipment Only needed lightweight CPU Only needed low bandwidth management channels Introduction of a control plane added cost

Page 14 © Copyright Old Dog Consulting 2010 Roadblocks 3: Control Channel Interop Mainly an issue in WDM systems How to adjacent WDM nodes communicate in the management and control planes? In the lab we use 10/100 Ethernet You can’t deploy that You could connect to an IP cloud Most WDM equipment has an Optical Supervisory Channel (OSC) There are no standards for the OSC It is not a benefit to the incumbent vendors to interoperate

Page 15 © Copyright Old Dog Consulting 2010 Roadblocks 4: Control Plane Interop The point of standards is to achieve interoperability Multiple conflicting standards do not help Why does “standards shopping” happen? Vendors want to add value Competitive edge is important Vendor-specific extensions tend to break interoperability They don’t need to Why should an incumbent vendor enable interop?

Page 16 © Copyright Old Dog Consulting 2010 Roadblocks 5: Operational Hurdles Transport network operation is well established Transport operators are conservative Risk-averse Demand stability Huge investments already made Extensive management systems Education and training A control plane is a big hurdle

Page 17 © Copyright Old Dog Consulting 2010 Roadblocks 6: Network Complexity GMPLS is intended to simplify the network Why do people think it makes it more complex? A very rich function set Core GMPLS includes many features that are “advanced functions” in traditional networks A very advanced toolkit We are engineers – we like to build things It is easy to apply GMPLS to some very complex problems Vendors need to understand and sell simplicity Service Providers have to learn to prioritise their requirements

Page 18 © Copyright Old Dog Consulting 2010 So, Why Are We Here?

Page 19 © Copyright Old Dog Consulting 2010 The Prospects Are Still Good! Plenty of other reasons to be here Interworking between network “islands” Continuation of the Ethernet project Optical Transport Networks (OTN) Advances in WDM Green Networking Integrated networking (IP-over-Optical) MPLS Transport Profile

Page 20 © Copyright Old Dog Consulting 2010 Network Interworking When there are vendor islands Still want end-to-end automation Need “service interface” (UNI) Need glue between networks (E-NNI) ITU-T ASON architecture makes these clear MEF calls specifically for a UNI Huge benefit in a standard protocol solution at these interfaces ITU-T solutions (PNNI, CR-LDP, RSVP-TE) OIF solutions (RSVP-TE) GMPLS We need a solution We don’t need five solutions! If GMPLS is also used at (some) I-NNI then choose GMPLS All the RFCs exist for immediate deployment for ASON I-Ds to support MEF UNI are about to become RFCs

Page 21 © Copyright Old Dog Consulting 2010 Ethernet TE is Not Dead The scope of PBB-TE is not as large as predicted Campus-style deployments are still likely Core backbone usage to link routers Not used to build a fully-meshed core Network diameter and complexity is not huge Somewhat complicated resource sharing required Planned reduction in forwarding table size GMPLS offers automated and simplified management I-D is about to become and RFC

Page 22 © Copyright Old Dog Consulting 2010 OTN G.709 is not new Sub-lambda technology Recent major advances in technology New revision of G.709 (version 3) Support for 1.25Gbps and 2.5Gbps ODU-flex More flexible and attractive Considerably interest in implementation and deployment RFC 4328 Support for G.709 version 1 New work in CCAMP Re-assess label format Support all resizing and advanced features

Page 23 © Copyright Old Dog Consulting 2010 WDM Resurgence Continued increase in bandwidth demand Introduction of lower-priced components PICs make OEO more affordable Introduction of smaller all-optical cross- connects 2x2 and 4x4 matrices Makes phased deployment of PXCs realistic ROADMs GMPLS building blocks all in place Next steps are impairment-aware routing First stages almost complete in CCAMP and PCE

Page 24 © Copyright Old Dog Consulting 2010 Green Networking A very real demand to reduce energy use Requirements are not limited to equipment It is important to route traffic to Use most power-efficient path Make best use of existing paths Increases the pressure for advanced TE Needs to be dynamic Needs sophisticated path computations Most effective when integrated across layers

Page 25 © Copyright Old Dog Consulting 2010 Integrated IP-Optical This is the sixth year of iPOP Are we wasting our time? Maybe operators really don’t want this Too dynamic Too hard to operate Too complex to deploy Many attractions Flexible equipment deployment Flexible re-grooming consolidated operations Facilitated by many innovations High capacity, tuneable, interfaces on routers (lambda, OTN…) OTN flexibility Plug-and-play integrated devices Advanced planning software and PCE Integrated GMPLS control plane

Page 26 © Copyright Old Dog Consulting 2010 MPLS-TP Transport-grade MPLS OAM Bidirectional Protection and restoration Optional, high-grade, TE control plane Work in the IETF with ITU-T cooperation Control plane will use GMPLS Equipment interoperability is a MUST Questions: Will a control plane be used, or just management? Will GMPLS be adopted in MPLS-TE networks?

Page 27 © Copyright Old Dog Consulting 2010 Where Next? A rocky road, but… We have a very rich control plane toolset The future is in your hands We have all of the building blocks New work is either very specific or very minor We have the experimental evidence The vendors have a marketing story The providers see the benefits Get on with it! Issue the RFQs Build and ship the products Deploy the networks

Page 28 © Copyright Old Dog Consulting 2010 Questions