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Virtual Subnet: A BGP/MPLS IP VPN-based Subnet Extension Solution
draft-ietf-bess-virtual-subnet-02

The information below is for an old version of the document.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 7814.
Authors Xiaohu Xu , Robert Raszuk , Christian Jacquenet , Truman Boyes , Brendan Fee
Last updated 2015-10-27 (Latest revision 2015-10-11)
Replaces draft-ietf-l3vpn-virtual-subnet
RFC stream Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
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Reviews
Additional resources Mailing list discussion
Stream WG state Submitted to IESG for Publication
Document shepherd Martin Vigoureux
Shepherd write-up Show Last changed 2015-10-13
IESG IESG state Became RFC 7814 (Informational)
Consensus boilerplate Unknown
Telechat date (None)
Responsible AD Alvaro Retana
Send notices to aretana@cisco.com
draft-ietf-bess-virtual-subnet-02
Network Working Group                                              X. Xu
Internet-Draft                                                    Huawei
Intended status: Informational                                 R. Raszuk
Expires: April 13, 2016                                    Mirantis Inc.
                                                            C. Jacquenet
                                                                  Orange
                                                                T. Boyes
                                                            Bloomberg LP
                                                                  B. Fee
                                                        Extreme Networks
                                                        October 11, 2015

   Virtual Subnet: A BGP/MPLS IP VPN-based Subnet Extension Solution
                   draft-ietf-bess-virtual-subnet-02

Abstract

   This document describes a BGP/MPLS IP VPN-based subnet extension
   solution referred to as Virtual Subnet, which can be used for
   building Layer3 network virtualization overlays within and/or between
   data centers.

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 April 13, 2016.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2015 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

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   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
     1.1.  Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   3.  Solution Description  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.1.  Unicast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
       3.1.1.  Intra-subnet Unicast  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
       3.1.2.  Inter-subnet Unicast  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     3.2.  Multicast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     3.3.  CE Host Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     3.4.  ARP/ND Proxy  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     3.5.  CE Host Mobility  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     3.6.  Forwarding Table Scalability on Data Center Switches  . .  10
     3.7.  ARP/ND Cache Table Scalability on Default Gateways  . . .  10
     3.8.  ARP/ND and Unknown Uncast Flood Avoidance . . . . . . . .  10
     3.9.  Path Optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   4.  Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     4.1.  Non-support of Non-IP Traffic . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     4.2.  Non-support of IP Broadcast and Link-local Multicast  . .  11
     4.3.  TTL and Traceroute  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   5.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
   6.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
   7.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
   8.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
     8.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
     8.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13

1.  Introduction

   For business continuity purpose, Virtual Machine (VM) migration
   across data centers is commonly used in those situations such as data
   center maintenance, data center migration, data center consolidation,
   data center expansion, and data center disaster avoidance.  It's
   generally admitted that IP renumbering of servers (i.e., VMs) after
   the migration is usually complex and costly at the risk of extending
   the business downtime during the process of migration.  To allow the
   migration of a VM from one data center to another without IP
   renumbering, the subnet on which the VM resides needs to be extended
   across these data centers.

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   To achieve subnet extension across multiple Infrastructure-as-
   a-Service (IaaS) cloud data centers in a scalable way, the following
   requirements and challenges must be considered:

   a.  VPN Instance Space Scalability: In a modern cloud data center
       environment, thousands or even tens of thousands of tenants could
       be hosted over a shared network infrastructure.  For security and
       performance isolation purposes, these tenants need to be isolated
       from one another.

   b.  Forwarding Table Scalability: With the development of server
       virtualization technologies, it's not uncommon for a single cloud
       data center to contain millions of VMs.  This number already
       implies a big challenge on the forwarding table scalability of
       data center switches.  Provided multiple data centers of such
       scale were interconnected at layer2, this challenge would become
       even worse.

   c.  ARP/ND Cache Table Scalability: [RFC6820] notes that the Address
       Resolution Protocol (ARP)/Neighbor Discovery (ND) cache tables
       maintained on default gateways within cloud data centers can
       raise scalability issues.  Therefore, it's very useful if the
       ARP/ND cache table size could be prevented from growing by
       multiples as the number of data centers to be connected
       increases.

   d.  ARP/ND and Unknown Unicast Flooding: It's well-known that the
       flooding of ARP/ND broadcast/multicast and unknown unicast
       traffic within large Layer2 networks would affect the performance
       of networks and hosts.  As multiple data centers with each
       containing millions of VMs are interconnected at layer2, the
       impact of flooding as mentioned above would become even worse.
       As such, it becomes increasingly important to avoid the flooding
       of ARP/ND broadcast/multicast and unknown unicast traffic across
       data centers.

   e.  Path Optimization: A subnet usually indicates a location in the
       network.  However, when a subnet has been extended across
       multiple geographically dispersed data center locations, the
       location semantics of such subnet is not retained any longer.  As
       a result, the traffic from a cloud user (i.e., a VPN user) which
       is destined for a given server located at one data center
       location of such extended subnet may arrive at another data
       center location firstly according to the subnet route, and then
       be forwarded to the location where the service is actually
       located.  This suboptimal routing would obviously result in an
       unnecessary consumption of the bandwidth resource between data
       centers.  Furthermore, in the case where the traditional VPLS

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       technology [RFC4761] [RFC4762] is used for data center
       interconnect and default gateways of different data center
       locations are configured within the same virtual router
       redundancy group, the returning traffic from that server to the
       cloud user may be forwarded at layer2 to a default gateway
       located at one of the remote data center premises, rather than
       the one placed at the local data center location.  This
       suboptimal routing would also unnecessarily consume the bandwidth
       resource between data centers

   This document describes a BGP/MPLS IP VPN-based subnet extension
   solution referred to as Virtual Subnet, which can be used for data
   center interconnection while addressing all of the requirements and
   challenges as mentioned above.  Here the BGP/MPLS IP VPN means both
   BGP/MPLS IPv4 VPN [RFC4364] and BGP/MPLS IPv6 VPN [RFC4659].  In
   addition, since Virtual Subnet is mainly built on proven technologies
   such as BGP/MPLS IP VPN and ARP/ND proxy [RFC0925][RFC1027][RFC4389],
   those service providers offering IaaS public cloud services could
   rely upon their existing BGP/MPLS IP VPN infrastructures and their
   corresponding experiences to realize data center interconnection.

   Although Virtual Subnet is described in this document as an approach
   for data center interconnection, it actually could be used within
   data centers as well.

   Note that the approach described in this document is not intended to
   achieve an exact emulation of L2 connectivity and therefore it can
   only support a restricted L2 connectivity service model with
   limitations declared in Section 4.  As for the discussion about in
   which environment this service model should be suitable, it's outside
   the scope of this document.

1.1.  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].

2.  Terminology

   This memo makes use of the terms defined in [RFC4364].

3.  Solution Description

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3.1.  Unicast

3.1.1.  Intra-subnet Unicast

                           +--------------------+
    +------------------+   |                    |   +------------------+
    |VPN_A:192.0.2.1/24|   |                    |   |VPN_A:192.0.2.1/24|
    |              \   |   |                    |   |  /               |
    |    +------+   \ ++---+-+                +-+---++/   +------+     |
    |    |Host A+-----+ PE-1 |                | PE-2 +----+Host B|     |
    |    +------+\    ++-+-+-+                +-+-+-++   /+------+     |
    |     192.0.2.2/24 | | |                    | | |  192.0.2.3/24    |
    |                  | | |                    | | |                  |
    |     DC West      | | |  IP/MPLS Backbone  | | |     DC East      |
    +------------------+ | |                    | | +------------------+
                         | +--------------------+ |
                         |                        |
VRF_A :                  V                VRF_A : V
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
|   Prefix   | Nexthop |Protocol|      |   Prefix   | Nexthop |Protocol|
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
|192.0.2.1/32|127.0.0.1| Direct |      |192.0.2.1/32|127.0.0.1| Direct |
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
|192.0.2.2/32|192.0.2.2| Direct |      |192.0.2.2/32|   PE-1  |  IBGP  |
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
|192.0.2.3/32|   PE-2  |  IBGP  |      |192.0.2.3/32|192.0.2.3| Direct |
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
|192.0.2.0/24|192.0.2.1| Direct |      |192.0.2.0/24|192.0.2.1| Direct |
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
                   Figure 1: Intra-subnet Unicast Example

   As shown in Figure 1, two CE hosts (i.e., Hosts A and B) belonging to
   the same subnet (i.e., 192.0.2.0/24) are located at different data
   centers (i.e., DC West and DC East) respectively.  PE routers (i.e.,
   PE-1 and PE-2) which are used for interconnecting these two data
   centers create host routes for their own local CE hosts respectively
   and then advertise them via the BGP/MPLS IP VPN signaling.
   Meanwhile, ARP proxy is enabled on VRF attachment circuits of these
   PE routers.

   Now assume host A sends an ARP request for host B before
   communicating with host B.  Upon receiving the ARP request, PE-1
   acting as an ARP proxy returns its own MAC address as a response.
   Host A then sends IP packets for host B to PE-1.  PE-1 tunnels such
   packets towards PE-2 which in turn forwards them to host B.  Thus,
   hosts A and B can communicate with each other as if they were located
   within the same subnet.

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3.1.2.  Inter-subnet Unicast

                           +--------------------+
    +------------------+   |                    |   +------------------+
    |VPN_A:192.0.2.1/24|   |                    |   |VPN_A:192.0.2.1/24|
    |              \   |   |                    |   |  /               |
    |  +------+     \ ++---+-+                +-+---++/     +------+   |
    |  |Host A+-------+ PE-1 |                | PE-2 +-+----+Host B|   |
    |  +------+\      ++-+-+-+                +-+-+-++ |   /+------+   |
    |   192.0.2.2/24   | | |                    | | |  | 192.0.2.3/24  |
    |   GW=192.0.2.4   | | |                    | | |  | GW=192.0.2.4  |
    |                  | | |                    | | |  |    +------+   |
    |                  | | |                    | | |  +----+  GW  +-- |
    |                  | | |                    | | |      /+------+   |
    |                  | | |                    | | |    192.0.2.4/24  |
    |                  | | |                    | | |                  |
    |     DC West      | | |  IP/MPLS Backbone  | | |      DC East     |
    +------------------+ | |                    | | +------------------+
                        | +--------------------+ |
                        |                        |
VRF_A :                 V                VRF_A : V
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
|   Prefix   | Nexthop |Protocol|      |   Prefix   | Nexthop |Protocol|
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
|192.0.2.1/32|127.0.0.1| Direct |      |192.0.2.1/32|127.0.0.1| Direct |
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
|192.0.2.2/32|192.0.2.2| Direct |      |192.0.2.2/32|  PE-1   |  IBGP  |
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
|192.0.2.3/32|   PE-2  |  IBGP  |      |192.0.2.3/32|192.0.2.3| Direct |
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
|192.0.2.4/32|   PE-2  |  IBGP  |      |192.0.2.4/32|192.0.2.4| Direct |
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
|192.0.2.0/24|192.0.2.1| Direct |      |192.0.2.0/24|192.0.2.1| Direct |
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
| 0.0.0.0/0  |   PE-2  |  IBGP  |      | 0.0.0.0/0  |192.0.2.4| Static |
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
                   Figure 2: Inter-subnet Unicast Example (1)

   As shown in Figure 2, only one data center (i.e., DC East) is
   deployed with a default gateway (i.e., GW).  PE-2 which is connected
   to GW would either be configured with or learn from GW a default
   route with next-hop being pointed to GW.  Meanwhile, this route is
   distributed to other PE routers (i.e., PE-1) as per normal [RFC4364]
   operation.  Assume host A sends an ARP request for its default
   gateway (i.e., 192.0.2.4) prior to communicating with a destination
   host outside of its subnet.  Upon receiving this ARP request, PE-1
   acting as an ARP proxy returns its own MAC address as a response.
   Host A then sends a packet for Host B to PE-1.  PE-1 tunnels such

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   packet towards PE-2 according to the default route learnt from PE-2,
   which in turn forwards that packet to GW.

                           +--------------------+
    +------------------+   |                    |   +------------------+
    |VPN_A:192.0.2.1/24|   |                    |   |VPN_A:192.0.2.1/24|
    |              \   |   |                    |   |  /               |
    |  +------+     \ ++---+-+                +-+---++/     +------+   |
    |  |Host A+----+--+ PE-1 |                | PE-2 +-+----+Host B|   |
    |  +------+\   |  ++-+-+-+                +-+-+-++ |   /+------+   |
    |  192.0.2.2/24 |  | | |                    | | |  | 192.0.2.3/24  |
    |  GW=192.0.2.4 |  | | |                    | | |  | GW=192.0.2.4  |
    |  +------+    |   | | |                    | | |  |    +------+   |
    |--+ GW-1 +----+   | | |                    | | |  +----+ GW-2 +-- |
    |  +------+\       | | |                    | | |      /+------+   |
    |  192.0.2.4/24    | | |                    | | |    192.0.2.4/24  |
    |                  | | |                    | | |                  |
    |     DC West      | | |  IP/MPLS Backbone  | | |      DC East     |
    +------------------+ | |                    | | +------------------+
                        | +--------------------+ |
                        |                        |
VRF_A :                 V                VRF_A : V
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
|   Prefix   | Nexthop |Protocol|      |   Prefix   | Nexthop |Protocol|
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
|192.0.2.1/32|127.0.0.1| Direct |      |192.0.2.1/32|127.0.0.1| Direct |
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
|192.0.2.2/32|192.0.2.2| Direct |      |192.0.2.2/32|  PE-1   |  IBGP  |
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
|192.0.2.3/32|   PE-2  |  IBGP  |      |192.0.2.3/32|192.0.2.3| Direct |
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
|192.0.2.4/32|192.0.2.4| Direct |      |192.0.2.4/32|192.0.2.4| Direct |
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
|192.0.2.0/24|192.0.2.1| Direct |      |192.0.2.0/24|192.0.2.1| Direct |
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
| 0.0.0.0/0  |192.0.2.4| Static |      | 0.0.0.0/0  |192.0.2.4| Static |
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
                   Figure 3: Inter-subnet Unicast Example (2)

   As shown in Figure 3, in the case where each data center is deployed
   with a default gateway, CE hosts will get ARP responses directly from
   their local default gateways, rather than from their local PE routers
   when sending ARP requests for their default gateways.

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                                  +------+
                           +------+ PE-3 +------+
    +------------------+   |      +------+      |   +------------------+
    |VPN_A:192.0.2.1/24|   |                    |   |VPN_A:192.0.2.1/24|
    |              \   |   |                    |   |  /               |
    |  +------+     \ ++---+-+                +-+---++/     +------+   |
    |  |Host A+-------+ PE-1 |                | PE-2 +------+Host B|   |
    |  +------+\      ++-+-+-+                +-+-+-++     /+------+   |
    |  192.0.2.2/24    | | |                    | | |    192.0.2.3/24  |
    |  GW=192.0.2.1    | | |                    | | |    GW=192.0.2.1  |
    |                  | | |                    | | |                  |
    |     DC West      | | |  IP/MPLS Backbone  | | |      DC East     |
    +------------------+ | |                    | | +------------------+
                         | +--------------------+ |
                         |                        |
VRF_A :                  V                VRF_A : V
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
|   Prefix   | Nexthop |Protocol|      |   Prefix   | Nexthop |Protocol|
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
|192.0.2.1/32|127.0.0.1| Direct |      |192.0.2.1/32|127.0.0.1| Direct |
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
|192.0.2.2/32|192.0.2.2| Direct |      |192.0.2.2/32|  PE-1   |  IBGP  |
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
|192.0.2.3/32|   PE-2  |  IBGP  |      |192.0.2.3/32|192.0.2.3| Direct |
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
|192.0.2.0/24|192.0.2.1| Direct |      |192.0.2.0/24|192.0.2.1| Direct |
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
| 0.0.0.0/0  |   PE-3  |  IBGP  |      | 0.0.0.0/0  |   PE-3  |  IBGP  |
+------------+---------+--------+      +------------+---------+--------+
                   Figure 4: Inter-subnet Unicast Example (3)

   Alternatively, as shown in Figure 4, PE routers themselves could be
   directly configured as default gateways of their locally connected CE
   hosts as long as these PE routers have routes for outside networks.

3.2.  Multicast

   To support IP multicast between CE hosts of the same virtual subnet,
   MVPN technologies [RFC6513] could be directly used without any
   change.  For example, PE routers attached to a given VPN join a
   default provider multicast distribution tree which is dedicated for
   that VPN.  Ingress PE routers, upon receiving multicast packets from
   their local CE hosts, forward them towards remote PE routers through
   the corresponding default provider multicast distribution tree.

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3.3.  CE Host Discovery

   PE routers SHOULD be able to discover their local CE hosts and keep
   the list of these hosts up to date in a timely manner so as to ensure
   the availability and accuracy of the corresponding host routes
   originated from them.  PE routers could accomplish local CE host
   discovery by some traditional host discovery mechanisms using ARP or
   ND protocols.  Furthermore, Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) or
   VSI Discovery and Configuration Protocol (VDP), or even interaction
   with the data center orchestration system could also be considered as
   a means to dynamically discover local CE hosts

3.4.  ARP/ND Proxy

   Acting as an ARP or ND proxies, a PE routers SHOULD only respond to
   an ARP request or Neighbor Solicitation (NS) message for a target
   host when it has a best route for that target host in the associated
   VRF and the outgoing interface of that best route is different from
   the one over which the ARP request or NS message is received.  In the
   scenario where a given VPN site (i.e., a data center) is multi-homed
   to more than one PE router via an Ethernet switch or an Ethernet
   network, Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) [RFC5798] is
   usually enabled on these PE routers.  In this case, only the PE
   router being elected as the VRRP Master is allowed to perform the
   ARP/ND proxy function.

3.5.  CE Host Mobility

   During the VM migration process, the PE router to which the moving VM
   is now attached would create a host route for that CE host upon
   receiving a notification message of VM attachment (e.g., a gratuitous
   ARP or unsolicited NA message).  The PE router to which the moving VM
   was previously attached would withdraw the corresponding host route
   when receiving a notification message of VM detachment (e.g., a VDP
   message about VM detachment).  Meanwhile, the latter PE router could
   optionally broadcast a gratuitous ARP or send an unsolicited NA
   message on behalf of that CE host with source MAC address being one
   of its own.  In this way, the ARP/ND entry of this CE host that moved
   and which has been cached on any local CE host would be updated
   accordingly.  In the case where there is no explicit VM detachment
   notification mechanism, the PE router could also use the following
   trick to determine the VM detachment event: upon learning a route
   update for a local CE host from a remote PE router for the first
   time, the PE router could immediately check whether that local CE
   host is still attached to it by some means (e.g., ARP/ND PING and/or
   ICMP PING).  It is important to ensure that the same MAC and IP are
   associated to the default gateway active in each data center, as the
   VM would most likely continue to send packets to the same default

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   gateway address after migrated from one data center to another.  One
   possible way to achieve this goal is to configure the same VRRP group
   on each location so as to ensure the default gateway active in each
   data center share the same virtual MAC and virtual IP addresses.

3.6.  Forwarding Table Scalability on Data Center Switches

   In a VS environment, the MAC learning domain associated with a given
   virtual subnet which has been extended across multiple data centers
   is partitioned into segments and each segment is confined within a
   single data center.  Therefore data center switches only need to
   learn local MAC addresses, rather than learning both local and remote
   MAC addresses.

3.7.  ARP/ND Cache Table Scalability on Default Gateways

   When default gateway functions are implemented on PE routers as shown
   in Figure 4, the ARP/ND cache table on each PE router only needs to
   contain ARP/ND entries of local CE hosts As a result, the ARP/ND
   cache table size would not grow as the number of data centers to be
   connected increases.

3.8.  ARP/ND and Unknown Uncast Flood Avoidance

   In VS, the flooding domain associated with a given virtual subnet
   that has been extended across multiple data centers, is partitioned
   into segments and each segment is confined within a single data
   center.  Therefore, the performance impact on networks and servers
   imposed by the flooding of ARP/ND broadcast/multicast and unknown
   unicast traffic is alleviated.

3.9.  Path Optimization

   Take the scenario shown in Figure 4 as an example, to optimize the
   forwarding path for the traffic between cloud users and cloud data
   centers, PE routers located at cloud data centers (i.e., PE-1 and PE-
   2), which are also acting as default gateways, propagate host routes
   for their own local CE hosts respectively to remote PE routers which
   are attached to cloud user sites (i.e., PE-3).  As such, the traffic
   from cloud user sites to a given server on the virtual subnet which
   has been extended across data centers would be forwarded directly to
   the data center location where that server resides, since the traffic
   is now forwarded according to the host route for that server, rather
   than the subnet route.  Furthermore, for the traffic coming from
   cloud data centers and forwarded to cloud user sites, each PE router
   acting as a default gateway would forward the traffic according to
   the best-match route in the corresponding VRF.  As a result, the

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   traffic from data centers to cloud user sites is forwarded along an
   optimal path as well.

4.  Limitations

4.1.  Non-support of Non-IP Traffic

   Although most traffic within and across data centers is IP traffic,
   there may still be a few legacy clustering applications which rely on
   non-IP communications (e.g., heartbeat messages between cluster
   nodes).  Since Virtual Subnet is strictly based on L3 forwarding,
   those non-IP communications cannot be supported in the Virtual Subnet
   solution.  In order to support those few non-IP traffic (if present)
   in the environment where the Virtual Subnet solution has been
   deployed, the approach following the idea of "route all IP traffic,
   bridge non-IP traffic" could be considered.  That's to say, all IP
   traffic including both intra-subnet and inter-subnet would be
   processed by the Virtual Subnet process, while the non-IP traffic
   would be resorted to a particular Layer2 VPN approach.  Such unified
   L2/L3 VPN approach requires ingress PE routers to classify the
   traffic received from CE hosts before distributing them to the
   corresponding L2 or L3 VPN forwarding processes.  Note that more and
   more cluster vendors are offering clustering applications based on
   Layer 3 interconnection.

4.2.  Non-support of IP Broadcast and Link-local Multicast

   As illustrated before, intra-subnet traffic is forwarded at Layer3 in
   the Virtual Subnet solution.  Therefore, IP broadcast and link-local
   multicast traffic cannot be supported by the Virtual Subnet solution.
   In order to support the IP broadcast and link-local multicast traffic
   in the environment where the Virtual Subnet solution has been
   deployed, the unified L2/L3 overlay approach as described in
   Section 4.1 could be considered as well.  That's to say, the IP
   broadcast and link-local multicast would be resorted to the L2VPN
   forwarding process while the routable IP traffic would be processed
   by the Virtual Subnet process.

4.3.  TTL and Traceroute

   As illustrated before, intra-subnet traffic is forwarded at Layer3 in
   the Virtual Subnet context.  Since it doesn't require any change to
   the TTL handling mechanism of the BGP/MPLS IP VPN, when doing a
   traceroute operation on one CE host for another CE host (assuming
   that these two hosts are within the same subnet but are attached to
   different sites), the traceroute output would reflect the fact that
   these two hosts belonging to the same subnet are actually connected
   via an virtual subnet emulated by ARP proxy, rather than a normal

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   LAN.  In addition, for any other applications which generate intra-
   subnet traffic with TTL set to 1, these applications may not be
   workable in the Virtual Subnet context, unless special TTL processing
   for such case has been implemented (e.g., if the source and
   destination addresses of a packet whose TTL is set to 1 belong to the
   same extended subnet, neither ingress nor egress PE routers SHOULD
   decrement the TTL of such packet.  Furthermore, the TTL of such
   packet SHOULD NOT be copied into the TTL of the transport tunnel and
   vice versa).

5.  Acknowledgements

   Thanks to Susan Hares, Yongbing Fan, Dino Farinacci, Himanshu Shah,
   Nabil Bitar, Giles Heron, Ronald Bonica, Monique Morrow, Rajiv Asati,
   Eric Osborne, Thomas Morin, Martin Vigoureux, Pedro Roque Marque, Joe
   Touch and Wim Henderickx for their valuable comments and suggestions
   on this document.  Thanks to Loa Andersson for his WG LC review on
   this document.

6.  IANA Considerations

   There is no requirement for any IANA action.

7.  Security Considerations

   This document doesn't introduce additional security risk to BGP/MPLS
   IP VPN, nor does it provide any additional security feature for BGP/
   MPLS IP VPN.

8.  References

8.1.  Normative References

   [RFC0925]  Postel, J., "Multi-LAN address resolution", RFC 925,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC0925, October 1984,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc925>.

   [RFC1027]  Carl-Mitchell, S. and J. Quarterman, "Using ARP to
              implement transparent subnet gateways", RFC 1027,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC1027, October 1987,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1027>.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

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   [RFC4364]  Rosen, E. and Y. Rekhter, "BGP/MPLS IP Virtual Private
              Networks (VPNs)", RFC 4364, DOI 10.17487/RFC4364, February
              2006, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4364>.

   [RFC4389]  Thaler, D., Talwar, M., and C. Patel, "Neighbor Discovery
              Proxies (ND Proxy)", RFC 4389, DOI 10.17487/RFC4389, April
              2006, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4389>.

   [RFC4659]  De Clercq, J., Ooms, D., Carugi, M., and F. Le Faucheur,
              "BGP-MPLS IP Virtual Private Network (VPN) Extension for
              IPv6 VPN", RFC 4659, DOI 10.17487/RFC4659, September 2006,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4659>.

   [RFC4761]  Kompella, K., Ed. and Y. Rekhter, Ed., "Virtual Private
              LAN Service (VPLS) Using BGP for Auto-Discovery and
              Signaling", RFC 4761, DOI 10.17487/RFC4761, January 2007,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4761>.

   [RFC4762]  Lasserre, M., Ed. and V. Kompella, Ed., "Virtual Private
              LAN Service (VPLS) Using Label Distribution Protocol (LDP)
              Signaling", RFC 4762, DOI 10.17487/RFC4762, January 2007,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4762>.

   [RFC5798]  Nadas, S., Ed., "Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP)
              Version 3 for IPv4 and IPv6", RFC 5798,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5798, March 2010,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5798>.

   [RFC6513]  Rosen, E., Ed. and R. Aggarwal, Ed., "Multicast in MPLS/
              BGP IP VPNs", RFC 6513, DOI 10.17487/RFC6513, February
              2012, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6513>.

8.2.  Informative References

   [RFC6820]  Narten, T., Karir, M., and I. Foo, "Address Resolution
              Problems in Large Data Center Networks", RFC 6820,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6820, January 2013,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6820>.

Authors' Addresses

   Xiaohu Xu
   Huawei

   Email: xuxiaohu@huawei.com

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   Robert Raszuk
   Mirantis Inc.

   Email: robert@raszuk.net

   Christian Jacquenet
   Orange

   Email: christian.jacquenet@orange.com

   Truman Boyes
   Bloomberg LP

   Email: tboyes@bloomberg.net

   Brendan Fee
   Extreme Networks

   Email: bfee@extremenetworks.com

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