Internet Research Task Force                             J. Halpern, Ed.
Internet-Draft                                             July 12, 2008
Intended status: Informational
Expires: January 13, 2009


     A Taxonomy for New Routing and Addressing Architecture Designs
                   draft-halpern-rrg-taxonomy-01.txt

Status of this Memo

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Abstract

   The Routing Research Group is tasked to design a new routing
   architecture to meet the challenges of scalability in face of
   pervasive multi-homing and inter-domain traffic engineering.  A
   number of solutions have been proposed.  This draft describes a
   taxonomy for the design space.










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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Terminology  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   3.  New Math or New Naming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   4.  Divide and Conquer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     4.1.  What Mappings? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     4.2.  How Mapping? or Map Distribution?  . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   5.  Tunneling, Rewriting, or Separate Identification . . . . . . .  8
     5.1.  Tunneling  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     5.2.  Rewriting  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
     5.3.  Separate Identification  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   6.  Scoping  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   7.  Version Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   8.  Mobility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
   9.  Acknowledgments  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   10. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     10.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     10.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 15






























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1.  Introduction

   The Routing Research Group is tasked to recommend a new routing
   architecture to meet the challenges of scalability, multi-homing, and
   inter-domain traffic engineering.  With the approaching exhaustion of
   IPv4 address space, the discussion and some initial deployment of
   IPv6 has moved from the back burner to the front stage.  However, one
   of the major issues concerning IPv6 deployment is its potential
   impact on scalability of the already stressed routing system.

   A number of approaches to scaling the Internet's routing system have
   been submitted.  We expect this taxonomy to facilitate discussion of
   both existing and future proposals, to position each proposal in the
   design space, and to help evaluation of various design trade-offs in
   all the proposals.  In addition, in order to facilitate both this
   analysis and research group discussion, this document proposes a set
   of terminology and meanings for those terms.  While this document
   attempts to avoid redefining existing terms, the discussion space is
   very crowded, and many terms are already quite overloaded with
   meanings.

   It would be desirable to be able to decompose the solution space
   being explored into a set of orthogonal dimensions, each of which
   could be further decomposed.  And that is the structure this document
   attempts to overlay on the space.  However, the dimensions are not
   actually orthogonal, and the choices are not independent.  For
   example, the question of where certain kinds of lookups are done is
   not completely independent of the question of what kinds of lookups
   are needed.

   Following this introduction, the document has a section on
   terminology, providing at least the terms as they are used here, and
   one hopes also providing terms for more general discussion.
   Following that are a series of sections discussing separate
   dimensions along which to understand potential solutions to the
   problems under discussion.  These are not evaluation criteria, but
   rather ways in which solutions may differ.  The main portion of the
   document ends with a discussion of open issues.


2.  Terminology

   Core Aggregatable Address -- An address that can be used by routing
   and which can be included in a collective (i.e. aggregated)
   advertisement when used in Internet core routing.  For this purpose,
   core is an approximate term which can be thought of as the current
   default free zone in BGP.  Core Aggregatable Addresses are currently
   globally unique, although some proposals remove that property.  (Some



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   proposals treat the core as just another region.  There are also
   proposals where the core does not need to be aggregatable.  Better
   terminology is still sought.)

   Scoped Address -- An address that can be used by routing within some
   meaningful scope.  For most purposes, this scope is distinct from the
   core of the global Internet, although as mentioned under Core
   Aggregatable Address, some proposal treat the core as just another
   scope.  It is of course the case that a locally scoped address, even
   one with a very small routability scope, may be globally unique.

   [Editorial Digression: It is understood that even terms such as the
   above two are actually quite fuzzy.  For example, in a hypothetical
   environment where IPv6 is widely deployed, a globally unique ISP
   allocated IPv6 address is a Core Aggregatable address.  If that same
   IPv6 addresses are used only for routing within a site, then they are
   Scoped Addresses.  And in a more likely environment where for a long
   time IPv6 routing makes extensive use of tunnels, but has service
   providers that route IPv6 addresses and behave like an Internet Core,
   it is not clear which term would be appropriate to describe an IPv6
   address used to direct delivery of a packet.]

   Communicating Entity Identifier -- A bit string used to identify an
   entity participating in the Internet.  In the traditional IPv4 and
   IPv6 Internet, the IP address is used as both the address for the
   packet forwarding system, and the Communicating Entity Identifier.
   There is an additional important distinction in the intended use of
   this term, as compared with current IP addressing.  IP addresses name
   interfaces.  When communicating with a host, to the degree that the
   address is used to identify the communicating entity, it also
   constrains the physical interface over which that communication takes
   places.  Thus, it is frequently said that an IP address names an
   interface.  Communicating Entity Identifier names the communicating
   entity, not just a specific interface of the entity.

   Pure Entity Identifier -- A string (typically, but not always binary)
   used to identify an entity participating in the Internet in a way
   that is completely insensitive to the connectivity of that entity to
   the Internet.  Note that some routing systems may use such strings
   for packet forwarding.  The determination of whether it is a Pure
   Entity Identifier is not related to how other systems track or map
   the identifier.  This terms is introduced largely to distinguish from
   a Scoped Identifier.  It is also introduced to avoid the free
   standing term Identifier since, like Address, the term has been used
   by different folks to mean different things.

   Scoped Entity Identifier -- A string (typically but not always
   binary) used to identify an entity participating in the Internet.  A



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   Scoped Identifier is assigned by a connected region of the Internet,
   and typically must change if the entity leaves that scope.  A scoped
   identifier may or may not change when the entity moves or the
   Internet connectivity changes within the scope that has assigned the
   identifier.

   It should be noted that whether an identifier is Scoped or Pure is a
   property of the assignment / definition process of the identifier as
   defined by the system.  So a Pure Entity Identifier may be used by
   routing / packet forwarding in some scope as an address.  It may well
   be in fact a scoped address for forwarding purposes.  But if the
   definition of the bit string is such that it does not change when the
   entity is moved to a different scope on the Internet, then the
   identifier is a Pure Entity Identifier.  Similarly, if the system
   defines a Communicating Entity Identifier as being assigned by the
   scope, then it is a Scoped Entity Identifier even if the system
   permits (and some scopes choose) the use of globally unique arbitrary
   bits strings as identifiers, since when the Entity moves it has to
   get an identifier appropriate to the scope it moves into.

   Routing Locator -- the bit string used by the routing system in the
   Internet core to deliver a packet across that core.  In most of the
   proposals under discussion, this is a Core Aggregatable Address.  In
   some approaches that have been suggested in the past, this may not be
   aggregatable, or may be a flow identifier, or even something more
   exotic.


3.  New Math or New Naming

   One question that can be asked about a proposal is how much change
   does it make to the basics of routing as it is practiced today.  The
   choices conceptually range from leaving the system alone through
   choices such as Nimrod, or alternatively through geographic or AS
   based ideas, and then to ideas that take a very different
   mathematical approach to the routing and forwarding system.

   Most of the proposals under discussion in the Routing Research Group
   take as a premise that the ISP based routing system can (may not have
   to, but is permitted to) remain operating the way it is today.  This
   can be viewed as being based on a conclusion that the current
   approach is good enough, or on a view that deployability requires
   leaving some parts of the system fixed, or likely other motivations.
   These proposals generally rely on splitting the packet destination
   naming problem (and, of course, source naming) into two parts.  One
   part, often called the identifier space, is used to anchor the
   communication session.  The other part is some form of address that
   is used to actually deliver the packets.  By stretching the notion of



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   mapping (to allow for a wide range of places that mapping may occur)
   we can refer to all of these solutions as mapping based solutions.

   There are some proposals which attempt to address the dynamics and
   aggregatability of the routing system by basing it on values, carried
   in packets, which have somewhat better behaviors than current IP
   addresses.  Such ideas include geographic based addressing and AS
   based addressing.

   There are also theoretical approaches such as compact routing [ed
   note, ROLF?] which take a very different approach to routing,
   addressing, and packet forwarding.  In theory, these approaches could
   have highly scalable table sizes while allowing arbitrary bit strings
   as the names used in packets for destinations.


4.  Divide and Conquer

   As was discussed above, most of the solution under discussion attempt
   to address the systemic routing problems by a divide and conquer
   approach focused on splitting communication entity identification
   from the bit strings that are used to forward packets.  These
   forwarding bit strings are called Routing Locators, or RLOCs, in one
   of the proposals on the table, and that seems a clear term for that
   function.

   Looking at the string used for identifying communicating entities,
   there seem to be four sorts of approaches to this.

   o  Identification by name;

   o  Identification by globally unique location insensitive bit string;

   o  Identification by globally unique location sensitive bit string;

   o  Identification by purely local identifiers;

   Of these, the first would be exemplified by using a DNS name as an
   identifier.  Such approaches tend to avoid shipping the identifier in
   most packets.  For example, the DNS name or a string derived from it
   might be shipped in the first application / transport packet, to
   create end-to-end state, and only shipped thereafter in packets that
   modify that state.

   The second category of splitting is exemplified by solutions such as
   GSE, where entities are identified by globally unique bit strings.
   These IDs are what the terminology section of this document calls
   Pure Entity Identifiers.



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   The third category is similar to the second.  It differs in that the
   bit string used for communicating entity identification is assigned
   by a connected region of the Internet (typically a site.)  This
   simplifies the process of assigning identifiers within the region,
   since the regional authority can perform the assignment.  To some
   degree, it also simplifies the potential optimization of using the
   communication identifier for local packet delivery.

   The fourth category basically treats the Internet as a collection of
   regions, with completely different naming in each region.  An example
   of such an approach would be a system which required a description of
   the path from the source communication domain to the destination
   communication domain in order to establish communication.  The author
   does not believe any such approaches are under discussion in the
   research group, but it is included here to try to help complete the
   taxonomy.

4.1.  What Mappings?

   In order to utilize these various forms of splitting of the problem,
   it is necessary for some devices to be able to determine the correct
   bit strings to use.  There are several mappings which may apply.  Not
   all of these mappings are needed by all of the solutions:

   o  Mapping from the application handle (e.g.  DNS name) to a
      communication entity identifier;

   o  Mapping from the application handle (e.g.  DNS name) to a routing
      locator;

   o  Mapping from a communication entity identifier to an RLOC;

   o  Mapping from an RLOC to a communicating entity identifier;

   In fact, some of these mappings are not merely unnecessary, but are
   meaningless for some of the solutions under discussion.

4.2.  How Mapping? or Map Distribution?

   In the above description, we focused on the placement of the function
   to update the information in a packet.  A closely related question is
   how enough information is made available to perform this operation.
   As discussed below, some solution approaches are designed to avoid
   needing this operation since it can be a source of complexity.  There
   are two basic approaches to such distribution, and several hybrids.

   One approach which has significant simplicity is a pure full push
   solution.  Simply distribute the entire table of mappings to all the



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   places that could possibly need it.  This means that whenever
   information is needed, it is available.  Conversely, this may need to
   distribute a lot of information to a lot of places, which introduces
   scale questions that must be resolved if this kind of approach is to
   be adopted.

   The pure alternative to that approach is have each piece of
   information stored in a distributed database, and anyone who needs a
   mapping consults the database to get the needed information.  DNS is
   a classic example of such a database.  LISP-CONS proposes such a
   database, with information distribution for the purpose of steering
   the information extraction.  This family of solutions are often
   called pull based solutions, as devices only get the information when
   they need it.  Even the purest pull solution actually makes use of
   caching to reduce the need to request the same information
   repeatedly.  One question with pull based approaches is what latency
   penalty is incurred to allow the pull to occur.  Clearly, when a
   lookup is needed, traversing such a system takes some noticeable
   amount of time.  Conversely, this lookup is only needed when the
   first packet for a destination identifier is being handled by a
   mapper.  Subsequent packets, within a reasonable time period, even
   from distinct sources, will get the benefit of the caching to get
   effective mapping.  Making it more likely that one will get this sort
   of cache hit is one of the drivers for using scoped identifiers.  If
   someone needs to communicate with a host in a site, it is frequently
   likely that communication will occur with other hosts in the same
   site.

   It is also practical to use a range of hybrid solutions.  Approaches
   like APT and Ivip use a push based solution to deliver the full
   information to a subset of all devices, such that every device that
   needs to perform the mapping has and knows of a nearby device that
   has the information.  This kind of hybrid reduces the scale of the
   information distribution, while keeping the latency for the mapping
   function significantly smaller than a pure pull would be likely to
   need.  The question of how much gain this provides depends upon the
   likelihood of cache hits and misses in the actual edge device, as
   discussed above.


5.  Tunneling, Rewriting, or Separate Identification

   In order to ensure that the routing system scales and stabilizes
   better, without utilizing new mathematical approaches to that system,
   the solutions under discussion all try to ensure that the address as
   seen by the routing system in the core of the network is a core
   aggregatable address.  This enables the routing system to utilize the
   aggregation properties it was designed for in an effective manner.



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   There are a range of ways that this is achieved in different
   proposals.

5.1.  Tunneling

   One common approach is tunneling.  This involves taking the existing
   packet with the existing information (which appears as addressing
   information to the packet forwarding system) and modifying the packet
   by adding new destination (and usually source) addressing
   information, while preserving the original information.

   One aspect of tunnels and tunneling or encapsulation is the question
   of whether the two ends of the tunnels have shared state.  In many
   VPN solutions that use tunnels, the two ends of explicit shared state
   to enable cryptographic protections of various kinds.  On the other
   hand, in some tunneling mechanisms used with IPv6 overlays, there is
   no need for such shared state.  Either there is no need for shared
   information, or anything needed is carried in the packet.  It has
   been suggested that if a tunnel is not using shared state than it is
   just encapsulation, and should be called encapsulation.  The
   tunneling solutions under consideration for routing scaling all avoid
   pairwise shared state for the tunnels, as that helps many aspects of
   the solution.  It is for further discussion whether these approaches
   should be referred to as encapsulation-based approaches rather than
   tunneling approaches.  In this document, the two terms are used
   interchangeably, according to which term fits the specific context
   better.

   The most common mechanism for this is to add a new IP header, and
   possibly an intermediate informational header.  The intermediate
   header allows for additional information which can affect the far end
   behavior.  The use of an encapsulating IP header also allows for a
   different outer header version and inner header version, increasing
   the versatility of this approach.

   Other alternative tunneling mechanisms have been suggested, such as
   using a new IP option field to carry the old header information.
   There are three properties that appear relevant for the taxonomy that
   distinguish tunneling from other approaches.

   o  The technique is applied to all data packets.  Additional
      techniques may be used, but this strategy centers on using
      tunneling for almost all data packets.  [Editors note: If
      tunneling is done such that intra-site packets are not tunneled,
      we still consider this to apply.  Possibly the description should
      say "all inter-site packets?"  But that seems too specific.]





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   o  The technique makes the data packets larger

   o  The technique preserves the original addressing information.  This
      is generally used so that the communicating entities see the same
      addresses or identifiers.  Some tunneling systems introduce an
      exception to this property for backwards compatibility.

   Tunneling generally requires that the device performing the
   encapsulation be able to perform the mapping from the identifier to
   the Core Aggregatable Address to be used in the outer, encapsulating,
   header.  Tunneling can be used in conjunction with any of the
   described placements of the mapping logic, including in the host, as
   long as the mapping device is performing the encapsulation.
   Tunneling can be used with any version of IP, or even mixed versions.

5.2.  Rewriting

   Tunneling is not the only strategy to ensure that the packet carries
   Core Aggregatable Addressing information when it is used in the
   Internet core.  Another strategy which still relies on mapping
   between identifiers and Core Aggregataeble Addresses is to rewrite
   the addressing in place.

   At its simplest, this would seem to be a description of NAT.  While
   NAT tends to reverse this (rewriting source address on entry to the
   Internet core and rewriting destination address on exit from the
   Internet core) it does match that description.  And NAT with its many
   problems is not going to solve the issues at hand.

   However, if the identifying information can be preserved through the
   NAT, without encapsulation, something effective can be achieved.  An
   example of this is the use of IPv6, where some or all of the upper 8
   bytes of the IPv6 address field are rewritten, based on
   identification information carried in the lower 8 bytes.  This has
   the property that the size of the packet is not affected by the
   process.

   Like Tunneling, rewriting approaches can be used with any placement
   of the mapping function.  When used with mapping in the host, it may
   be difficult to distinguish between this sort of approach and a
   Separate Identification approach, except in terms of the semantic
   description.  To date, this sort of rewriting is only envisioned for
   use with IPv6.

5.3.  Separate Identification

   For systems designed to be deployed in hosts, there is another class
   of approach.  This approach separates out the mapping, and sometimes



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   even eliminates it entirely.  The first distinguishing property of
   these approaches is that most of the data packets do not carry
   identifiers on the wire, even in their originating or destination
   scopes.  Instead, the packets carry suitable Core Aggregatable
   Addresses.

   The oversimplified form of this solution family would be to simply
   declare, as IPv6 initially attempted, that all IP addresses used in
   packets shall be Core Aggregatable.  And to stop there as if that
   solved the problem.  That is clearly insufficient.

   Other approaches rely on establishing paired state in the
   communicating entities so as to enable multiple Core Aggregatable
   Addresses to be used on individual data packets.  Suitable updating
   packets are used to allow for changes in the set, and provide
   suitable security.  Some of these solutions use an explicit
   identifier, while others use the first Core Aggregatable Address used
   as the hook for anchoring a given communication.  It has also been
   suggested to use the original DNS name as the identifier, carrying a
   reference to it in certain packets where necessary.  This does assume
   that all hosts get DNS names.  Hybrid approaches where packets carry
   extra connection information, but not necessarily full identification
   in additional headers, driven from the host, make the boundary
   between these approaches and tunneling more difficult to determine.
   One complication with these approaches is ensuring that they can work
   with TCP, SCTP, UDP, and DCCP, as it is not the routing systems job
   to determine what transport protocol the applications utilize.

   One advantage of this sort of Separate Identification is that by
   leveraging extant host information gathering (DNS lookups, for
   example) or by using existing information as the communications
   anchor, the system can avoid the need for custom distribution
   techniques to handle the mapping information.

   To avoid confusion, there is one other kind of separate
   identification that should be mentioned, as it is intended that the
   above candidates NOT be so broad as to include solutions that require
   state establishment in the network.  For example, a solution which
   established MPLS LSPs from each source to each destination host would
   clearly be establishing network state.  Even solutions which required
   the communication initiator to establish and maintain state in remote
   edge devices should probably be considered part of some other space
   of active state maintenance solutions.  Requirements to ensure state
   in ones own border devices, in order to meet communications control
   requirements, may well fit within the category of Separate
   Identification.

   Typically, Separate Identification techniques expect (some may not



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   require) a degree of visibility into the routing connectivity.  This
   may be provided purely be a set of prefix announcements.  It may be
   augmented by observations and probes of traffic behavior.  It may
   also make use of suggested protocols to allow the routing system to
   provide state and policy hints to the hosts to assist the host
   processing.


6.  Scoping

   One of the aspects that makes discussion of these solutions
   complicated is the uses of scoping.  There are two separate but
   related notions.

   Address Scoping is the scoping of address information as used for
   packet forwarding (i.e. traditional routing.)  Routing has always
   tried to keep local information about reachability local, so as to
   ensure aggregatability.  Success in this endeavor has varied.  The
   approaches discussed here aim to ensure that addresses used in the
   global or Core Internet scope are highly aggregatable.  In
   conjunction with that, many of the solutions discussed here use
   different addresses for delivery of packets within a site.  These
   addresses are usually globally unique, but are not usable for packet
   forwarding outside of a site.  Frequently, this involves using the
   Communicating Entity Identifier as the address for local delivery.
   While one could use other addresses, such solutions would likely
   incur additional mapping for little additional value and have not
   been explored to date.

   Separately, there is the question of the scope of the identifiers
   used for the communicating entities.  The scope of a Communicating
   Entity Identifier is the scope (or range of places in or attached to
   the Internet) where the entity can use that identifier.  Some
   solutions, such as GSE, HIP, or Ivip, use identifiers that can be
   used anywhere in the Internet.  The identifiers does not change, even
   if the entity moves.  Other solution use identifiers which are tied
   to an administrative or routing scope.  This allows the routing
   system to somewhat more easily identify its local entities, and to
   forward packets using the identifier to those local entities.  It
   also tends to mean that entities which share core Internet
   reachability will be in an aggregatable block of identifiers,
   potentially making caching of mapping information more effective.


7.  Version Requirements

   Different approaches under consideration make different assumptions
   about what versions of the undcerlying communciations protocols are



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   in use by hosts, sites, and the Internet Core.  This conceptually
   includes both the quesiton of IPv4 versus IPv6 and the question of
   other kinds of modificaitons to host stacks or various routers.  Some
   of this comes up in terms of the earlier discussion of where
   functions are placed.  It is probably the case that in a pure
   architectural sense it would be better if these considerations were
   kept out of a taxonomky of the architectural work.  But as the topics
   come up repeatedly, and seem to affect the view of solutions very
   strongly, it is mentioned here.

   Some of the proposals under consideration are designed to apply to
   almost any underlying Internet Protocol.  In particular, there is a
   large class of interesting proposals (mostly in the mapping and
   encapsulation family) which work equally well for IPv4 and IPv6.

   Some of the solutions under discussion assume that at least some
   portions of the infrastructure are using IPv6.  Those solutions make
   use of the larger address size from IPv6 to enable modes of operation
   that can not be fit into an existing IPv4 address.  Obviously, and
   such solution must deal with the reality that communication with and
   over the existing IPv4 network is an essential practical requirement.

   As mentioned, while most solutions assume that the current version of
   host software can be used, some itneresting proposals require some
   degree of host modification.  For example, proposals which move the
   identification of communicating parties to or above the transport
   protocol obvious will require new versions of host software.


8.  Mobility

   One issue that comes up is whether the improvements to the routing
   system can or should help deal with mobile devices or mobile
   networks.  There is an argument that given that mobility will become
   more important, and more widespread, it is important to address
   mobility in the core design of the routing system.  Conversely, given
   that mobility occurs over a range of time a topology scales, with a
   range of needs, there is an argument that it should be addressed by a
   range of techniques (potentially including locally mobility
   management, hierarchical mobility management, and a variety of
   tunneling and VPN tools.)

   It does seem that some of the solutions under discussion offer tools
   that can help the mobility situation.  If globally scoped identifiers
   are used for communicating entities, those identifiers can serve as a
   reference to be used by mobility solutions.  For mobile networks,
   potentially including mapping information aggregator in the set of
   things that move may allow more effective global reachability



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   information, depending upon the approaches.  In general, to date, the
   routing research group has viewed benefits to mobility as a nice
   result, but not a driver in the architectural process.


9.  Acknowledgments

   This draft owes significant debt to the earlier draft done by Lixia
   Zhang and Scott Brim [ZBTaxonomy] that began to address this
   question.


10.  References

10.1.  Normative References

10.2.  Informative References

   [ZBTaxonomy]
              Zhang, L. and S. Brim, "A Taxonomy for New Routing and
              Addressing Architecture Designs", work in progress,
               draft-rrg-taxonomy-00.txt, March 2008.


Author's Address

   Joel M. Halpern (editor)
   P. O. Box 6049
   Leesburg, VA  20178
   US

   Email: jmh@joelhalpern.com



















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