Copyright © 2005 Juniper Networks, Inc. 1 Schedulable deterministic end-to-end pipes Some thought on Control plane … Jean-Marc Uze, TNC’06 workshop on “Service Oriented Optical Networks”, Catania, May 13, 2006

2 Copyright © 2005 Juniper Networks, Inc. Discussions on “control plane” signaling lambda GMPLS(s) GRID middleware AAA VPNs Multiple control plane layers Multiple fields (expertise) Philosophical (Politics) services

3 Copyright © 2005 Juniper Networks, Inc. Agenda  Mid 90s - Common control plane motivations  Towards a common control plane – early attempts  From early attempts to Tag Switching to MPLS  late 1990s: From MPLS to GMPLS  Multiple control plane layers  Conclusion

4 Copyright © 2005 Juniper Networks, Inc. Mid 90s: Common control plane motivations  The problem: price/performance of routers  Solution: use ATM switches instead of routers  Control Plane initial choice: The overlay Model ATM Core as an IP subnetwork Full mesh of PVCs among router Two separate (very different) control planes

5 Copyright © 2005 Juniper Networks, Inc. Overlay - Lessons learned  What’s wrong with the overlay model ? How to handle (redundant) functionality? How to support routing peering hierarchy (needed for scalability) among the routers connected to an ATM network ? ATMARP, MARS, NHRP, LEC, LES, LECS, BUS, etc… trying to bring the two together. Either fairly complex, or broken, or both…  Use of the overlay model requires careful considerations of interactions between control planes Enabling the same functionality at multiple layers of network may produce quite a few surprises What is the proper layer of network for a particular functionality ?  Large scale overlay does not fit well with the IP control plane (due to the large number of IP routing adjacencies)

6 Copyright © 2005 Juniper Networks, Inc. Towards a common control plane – early attempts  Problem: Can both routers and ATM switches be controlled by a common control plane ? - Yes  Solution: Extend IP control plane to control ATM switches - common control plane that spans both routers and ATM switches CSR by Toshiba and IP switching by Ipsilon Key Features: IP based control plane, Forwarding state (VCI/VPI) at the granularity of individual TCP flows or host source/destination pairs Short-lived flows forwarded using control plane resources, Long-lived flows forwarded using data plane resources (ATM data plane) Control plane creates/maintains forwarding state (ATM VCI/VPI) in response to data plane traffic  BUT Unscalability of forwarding granularity to TCP flows or host source/destination for large scale Internet. Data-driven establishment of forwarding state creates interference with the control plane

7 Copyright © 2005 Juniper Networks, Inc. new same as before From early attempts to Tag Switching to MPLS - MPLS main ideas  Separate forwarding information (label) from the content of IP header  IP based control plane (OSPF, ISIS, BGP, RSVP, etc…)  Multiple link-specific realizations of the label swapping forwarding paradigm Label swapping is for routers too (not just for ATM switches)  Forwarding Equivalence Classes (FECs): Groups of packets forwarded over the same Label Switched Path (LSP) As a packet enters an MPLS network, it is assigned a label based on its Forwarding Equivalence Class (FEC) as determined at the edge of the MPLS network Wide range of forwarding granularities due to the flexibility of forming Forwarding Equivalence Classes (FECs)  Forwarding hierarchy via label stacking  Control traffic driven creation of forwarding state

8 Copyright © 2005 Juniper Networks, Inc. From MPLS to GMPLS  Justification for ATM switches to interconnect routers faded away  But OXCs and TDM cross-connects arrived, and without a standard-based control plane  “G” in GMPLS stands for “generalized” Many commonalities with MPLS What is generalized: label, constraints, separation of control and data plane (out-of-band control plane)  GMPLS is not a superset of MPLS  GMPLS is a proper superset of MPLS Constraint based routing (MPLS TE)

9 Copyright © 2005 Juniper Networks, Inc. GMPLS – what is new for packet-based LSPs ?  Bidirectional LSPs  Unnumbered links  Link bundling  LSP hierarchy (forwarding adjacencies) Improves control and data plane scalability Regions based on “colors”, routing areas, ASs  Multi-region LSP (multi-area, multi-AS)  GMPLS – technology push vs market pull High demand of bandwidth: Dot-com bubble burst revealed the mismatch between the assumptions about bandwidth demand and the reality Recently started to gain more market attention, due to the continuous growth of bandwidth demand. Was a bit ahead of its time at the time of creation – its time seems to have come now

10 Copyright © 2005 Juniper Networks, Inc. GMPLS – lessons learned  Generalization is a very powerful concept !!!  Try to build solutions to new problems by generalizing the existing solutions, rather than develop new solutions By focusing on what is common By generalizing the existing concepts/models/mechanisms  If new solutions have to be developed, try to avoid point solutions – design new solutions with the generalization in mind

11 Copyright © 2005 Juniper Networks, Inc. Potential implementation with IETF inter-domain GMPLS TE NREN 1 NREN 1 NREN 2 NREN 2 NREN 3 NREN 3 R1 R2 A12 A21 A22 A23 A24 A31 A32 Inter-AS TE-LSP R1-R2 : bw = 100m, CT = IP Premium ASBR-Path: A21-A31-R2 Path Bw= 100 CT = IP Premium Path A11 Resv Policing  GMPLS TE is originally intra-domain (RSVP-TE with routing IGP TE extensions)  Inter-domain GMPLS TE extends signaling and routing protocols to set-up an LSP across multiple providers  Need for proper policing and filtering of RSVP-TE messages at NREN boundaries Filter/modify QoS parameters  Need for scheduling  In this example the Path Computation is performed per domain (route expansion) Need for Provider-chain selection based on NRENs business relationship R1-A21 Path comp A 21-A31 Path comp A 31-R2 Path comp What is missing ?

12 Copyright © 2005 Juniper Networks, Inc. Towards a new layer to handle business relationships Transport Network Network Management Potentially a Higher Layer Middleware (e.g. GRID) Transport Network Network Management Business Layer Business Layer QoS? Reliability? Security?

13 Copyright © 2005 Juniper Networks, Inc. Conclusion  R&E community implements what prefigures future Internet networks Opportunity: contribute to standardization bodies on this new business or service layer (e.g. IPsphere Forum). Please join the TNC session 6c on Wednesday, on “Networks on Networks - Grids”) Do not build technology that will be used just by a private “club” (there could be several clubs) Try to solve all on-demand services issue, not only optical services  Carriers are not completely different from R&E networks Key difference: profitability Key commonalities: Need for dynamic end-to-end services across multiples network, triggered by application Need of COTS equipment and standards. The difference is how this technology is implemented (use cases, fast, scale, operations etc.)

Thanks !!! And thanks Yakov Rekhter for his testimony, thoughts and vision on MPLS