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Directory Assisted TRILL Encapsulation
draft-ietf-trill-directory-assisted-encap-01

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 8380.
Authors Linda Dunbar , Donald E. Eastlake 3rd , Radia Perlman , Igor Gashinsky
Last updated 2015-10-14 (Latest revision 2015-10-12)
Replaces draft-dunbar-trill-directory-assisted-encap
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Document shepherd Susan Hares
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draft-ietf-trill-directory-assisted-encap-01
TRILL working group                                           L. Dunbar
Internet Draft                                              D. Eastlake
Intended status: Standard Track                                  Huawei
Expires: April 2016                                       Radia Perlman
                                                                  Intel
                                                           I. Gashinsky
                                                                  Yahoo
                                                       October 12, 2015

              Directory Assisted TRILL Encapsulation
         draft-ietf-trill-directory-assisted-encap-01.txt

Status of this Memo

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

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with
   the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. This document may
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on April 12, 2016.

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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 publication of this document. Please review these
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   Components extracted from this document must include
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   warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License.

Abstract

   This draft describes how data center network can benefit from
   non-RBridge nodes performing TRILL encapsulation with
   assistance from directory service.

Table of Contents

     1. Introduction....................................... 3
     2. Conventions used in this document.................. 3
     3. Directory Assistance to Non-RBridge................ 4
     4. Source Nickname in Frames Encapsulated by Non-
     RBridge Nodes......................................... 7
     5. Benefits of Non-RBridge encapsulating TRILL header. 7
      5.1. Avoid Nickname Exhaustion Issue................. 7
      5.2. Reduce MAC Tables for switches on Bridged LANs.. 8
     6. Conclusion and Recommendation...................... 9
     7. Manageability Considerations....................... 9
     8. Security Considerations............................ 9
     9. IANA Considerations................................ 9
     10. References....................................... 10
      10.1. Normative References.......................... 10
      10.2. Informative References........................ 10
     11. Acknowledgments.................................. 10

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1. Introduction

   This draft describes how data center networks can benefit from
   non-RBridge nodes performing TRILL encapsulation with
   assistance from directory service.

   [RFC7067] describes the framework for RBridge edge to get
   MAC&VLAN<->RBridgeEdge mapping from a directory service in
   data center environments instead of flooding unknown DAs
   across TRILL domain. If it has the needed directory
   information, any node, even a non-RBridge node, can perform
   the TRILL encapsulation. This draft is to describe the
   benefits and a scheme for non-RBridge nodes performing TRILL
   encapsulation.

2. Conventions used in this document

   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].

   In this document, these words will appear with that
   interpretation only when in ALL CAPS. Lower case uses of
   these words are not to be interpreted as carrying RFC-
   2119 significance.

   AF       Appointed Forwarder RBridge port [RFC6439]

   Bridge:   IEEE 802.1Q compliant device. In this draft, Bridge
            is used interchangeably with Layer 2 switch.

   DA:                  Destination Address

   DC:       Data Center

   EoR:     End of Row switches in data center. Also known as
            Aggregation switches in some data centers

   Host:    Application running on a physical server or a
            virtual machine. A host usually has at least one IP
            address and at least one MAC address.

   SA:                  Source Address

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   ToR:     Top of Rack Switch in data center. It is also known
            as access switches in some data centers.

   TRILL-EN: TRILL Encapsulating node. It is a node that only
            performs the TRILL encapsulation but doesn't
            participate in RBridge's IS-IS routing.

   VM:                  Virtual Machines

3. Directory Assistance to Non-RBridge

   With directory assistance [RFC7067], a non-RBridge can be
   informed if a packet needs to be forwarded across the RBridge
   domain and the corresponding egress RBridge. Suppose the
   RBridge domain boundary starts at network switches (not
   virtual switches embedded on servers), a directory can assist
   Virtual Switches embedded on servers to encapsulate with a
   proper TRILL header by providing the nickname of the egress
   RBridge edge to which the destination is attached. The other
   information needed to encapsulate can be either learned by
   listening to TRILL Hellos, which will indicate the MAC address
   and nickname of appropriate edge RBridges, or by
   configuration.

   If a destination is not attached to other RBridge edge nodes
   based on the directory [RFC7067], the non-RBridge node can
   forward the data frames natively, i.e. not encapsulating any
   TRILL header.

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          \              +-------+         +------+ TRILL Domain/
           \           +/------+ |       +/-----+ |            /
            \          | Aggr11| + ----- |AggrN1| +           /
             \         +---+---+/        +------+/           /
              \         /     \            /      \         /
               \       /       \          /        \       /
                \   +---+    +---+      +---+     +---+   /
                 \- |T11|... |T1x|      |T21| ..  |T2y|---
                    +---+    +---+      +---+     +---+
                      |        |          |         |
                    +-|-+    +-|-+      +-|-+     +-|-+
                    |   |... | V |      | V | ..  | V |<- vSwitch
                    +---+    +---+      +---+     +---+
                    |   |... | V |      | V | ..  | V |
                    +---+    +---+      +---+     +---+
                    |   |... | V |      | V | ..  | V |
                    +---+    +---+      +---+     +---+
     Figure 1 TRILL domain in typical Data Center Network

   When a TRILL encapsulated data packet reaches the ingress
   RBridge, the ingress RBridge simply forwards the pre-
   encapsulated packet to the RBridge that is specified by the
   egress nickname field of the TRILL header of the data frame.
   When the ingress RBridge receives a native Ethernet frame, it
   handles it as usual and may drop it if it has complete directory
   information indicating that the target is not attached to the TRILL
   campus.

   In this environment with complete directory information, the
   ingress RBridge doesn't flood or forward the received data
   frames when the DA in the Ethernet data frames is unknown.

   When all attached nodes to ingress RBridge can pre-encapsulate
   TRILL header for traffic across the TRILL domain, the ingress
   RBridge don't need to encapsulate any native Ethernet frames
   to the TRILL domain. The attached nodes can be connected to
   multiple edge RBridges by having multiple ports or by an bridged LAN.
   Under this environment, there is no need to designate AF ports
   and all RBridge edge ports connected to one bridged LAN can
   receive and forward pre-encapsulated traffic, which can
   greatly improve the overall network utilization.

   Note: [RFC6325] Section 4.6.2 Bullet 8 specifies that an
   RBridge port can be configured to accept TRILL encapsulated
   frames from a neighbor that is not an RBridge.

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   When a TRILL frame arrives at an RBridge whose nickname
   matches with the destination nickname in the TRILL header of
   the frame, the processing is exactly same as normal, i.e. the
   RBridge decapsulates the received TRILL frame and forwards the
   decapsulated frame to the target attached to its edge ports.
   When the DA of the decapsulated Ethernet frame is not in the
   egress RBridge's local MAC attachment tables, the egress
   RBridge floods the decapsulated frame to all attached links in
   the frame's VLAN, or drops the frame (if the egress RBridge is
   configured with the policy).

   We call a node that only performs the TRILL encapsulation but
   doesn't participate in RBridge's IS-IS routing a TRILL
   Encapsulating node (TRILL-EN). The TRILL Encapsulating Node
   can get the MAC&VLAN<->RBridgeEdge mapping table pulled from
   directory servers [RFC7067].

   Editor's note: RFC7067 has defined Push and Pull model for
   edge nodes to get directory mapping information. While Pull
   Model is relative simple for TRILL-EN to implement, Pushing
   requires some reliable flooding mechanism, like the one used
   by IS-IS, between the edge RBridge and the TRILL encapsulating
   node. Something like an extension to ES-IS might be needed.

   Upon receiving a native Ethernet frame, the TRILL-EN checks
   the MAC&VLAN<->RBridgeEdge mapping table, and perform the
   corresponding TRILL encapsulation if the entry is found in the
   mapping table. If the destination address and VLAN of the
   received Ethernet frame doesn't exist in the mapping table and
   no positive reply from pulling request to a directory, the
   Ethernet frame is dropped or forwarded in native form to an edge
   RBridge.

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       +------------+--------+---------+---------+--+-------+---+
       |OuterEtherHd|TRILL HD| InnerDA | InnerSA |..|Payload|FCS|
       +------------+--------+---------+---------+--+-------+---+
               ^
               |             |<Inner Ether Header>  |
               |
               |
               |      +-------+  TRILL    +------+
               |      |  R1   |-----------|  R2  |  Decapsulate
               |      +---+---+  domain   +------+  TRILL header
               |          |                   |
               +----------|                   |
                          |                   |
                       +-----+             +-----+
      Non-RBridge node:|T12  |             | T22 |
      Encapsulate TRILL+-----+             +-----+
      Header for data
      Frames to traverse
      TRILL domain.
              Figure 2  Data frames from TRILL-EN

4. Source Nickname in Frames Encapsulated by Non-RBridge
   Nodes

   The TRILL header includes a Source RBridge's Nickname
   (ingress) and Destination RBridge's Nickname (egress). When a
   TRILL header is added by TRILL-EN, the Ingress RBridge edge
   node's nickname is used in the source address field.

5. Benefits of Non-RBridge encapsulating TRILL header

5.1. Avoid Nickname Exhaustion Issue

   For a large Data Center with hundreds of thousands of
   virtualized servers, setting the TRILL boundary at the
   servers' virtual switches will create a TRILL domain with
   hundreds of thousands of RBridge nodes, which has issues of
   TRILL Nicknames exhaustion and challenges to IS-IS. On the
   other hand, setting TRILL boundary at aggregation switches that
   have many virtualized servers attached can limit the number of
   RBridge nodes in a TRILL domain, but introduce the issues of
   very large MAC&VLAN<->RBridgeEdge mapping table to be

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   maintained by RBridge edge nodes and the necessity of
   enforcing AF ports.

   Allowing Non-RBridge nodes to pre-encapsulate data frames with
   TRILL header makes it possible to have a TRILL domain with a
   reasonable number of RBridge nodes in a large data center. All
   the TRILL-ENs attached to one RBridge are represented by one
   TRILL nickname, which can avoid the Nickname exhaustion
   problem.

5.2. Reduce MAC Tables for switches on Bridged LANs

   When hosts in a VLAN (or subnet) span across multiple RBridge
   edge nodes and each RBridge edge has multiple VLANs enabled,
   the switches on the bridged LANs attached to the RBridge edge
   are exposed to all MAC addresses among all the VLANs enabled.

   For example, for an Access switch with 40 physical servers
   attached, where each server has 100 VMs, there are 4000 hosts
   under the Access Switch. If indeed hosts/VMs can be moved
   anywhere, the worst case for the Access Switch is when all
   those 4000 VMs belong to different VLANs, i.e. the access
   switch has 4000 VLANs enabled. If each VLAN has 200 hosts,
   this access switch's MAC table potentially has 200*4000 =
   800,000 entries.

   If the virtual switches on servers pre-encapsulate the data
   frames destined for hosts attached to other RBridge Edge
   nodes, the outer MAC DA of those TRILL encapsulated data
   frames will be the MAC address of the local RBridge edge, i.e.
   the ingress RBridge. Therefore, the switches on the local
   bridged LAN don't need to keep the MAC entries for remote
   hosts attached to other edge RBridges.

   But the traffic from nodes attached to other RBridges is
   decapsulated and has the true source and destination MACs. To
   prevent local bridges from learning remote hosts' MACs and
   adding to their MAC tables, one simple way is to disable this
   data plane learning on local bridges. The local bridges can be
   pre-configured with MAC addresses of local hosts with the
   assistance of a directory. The local bridges can always send
   frames with unknown Destination to the ingress RBridge. In an
   environment where a large number of VMs are instantiated in
   one server, the number of remote MAC addresses could be very
   large. If it is not feasible to disable learning and pre-
   configure MAC tables for local bridges, one effective method
   to minimize local bridges' MAC table size is to use the

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   server's MAC address to hide MAC addresses of the attached
   VMs. I.e. the server acting as an edge node using its own MAC
   address in the Source Address field of the packets originated
   from a host (or VM) embedded. When the Ethernet frame arrives
   at the target edge node (the server), the target edge node can
   send the packet to the corresponding destination host based on
   the packet's IP address. Very often, the target edge node
   communicates with the embedded VMs via a layer 2 virtual
   switch. Under this case, the target edge node can construct
   the proper Ethernet header with the assistance from directory.
   The information from directory includes the proper host IP to
   MAC mapping information.

6. Conclusion and Recommendation

   When directory information is available, nodes outside the
   TRILL domain can encapsulate data frames destined for nodes
   attached to remote RBridges. The non-RBridge encapsulation
   approach is especially useful when there are a large number of
   servers in a data center equipped with hypervisor-based
   virtual switches.  It is relatively easy for virtual switches,
   which are usually software based, to get directory assistance
   and perform network address encapsulation.

7. Manageability Considerations

   It requires directory assistance to make it possible for a
   non-TRILL node to pre-encapsulate packets destined towards
   remote RBridges.

8. Security Considerations

   Pull Directory queries and responses are transmitted as
   RBridge-to-RBridge or native RBridge Channel messages. Such
   messages can besecured as specified in [ChannelTunnel].

   For general TRILL security considerations, see [RFC6325].

9. IANA Considerations

   This document requires no IANA actions. RFC Editor:
   Please remove this section before publication.

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10. References

     10.1. Normative References

   [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to
             Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
             March 1997.

   [RFC6325] Perlman, et, al, "Routing Bridges (RBridges):
             Base Protocol Specification", RFC6325, July
             2011

    [RFC6439]  Perlman, R., Eastlake, D., Li, Y., Banerjee,
             A., and F. Hu, "Routing Bridges (RBridges):
             Appointed Forwarders", RFC 6439, November 2011.

     10.2. Informative References

   [RFC7067] Dunbar, et, al "Directory Assistance Problem
             and High-Level Design Proposal", RFC7067, Nov,
             2013.

   [ChannelTunnel] - D. Eastlake, Y. Li, "TRILL: RBridge
             Channel Tunnel Protocol", draft-eastlake-trill-
             channel-tunnel, work in progress.

11. Acknowledgments

   This document was prepared using 2-Word-
   v2.0.template.dot.

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Authors' Addresses

   Linda Dunbar
   Huawei Technologies
   5340 Legacy Drive, Suite 175
   Plano, TX 75024, USA
   Phone: (469) 277 5840
   Email: linda.dunbar@huawei.com

   Donald Eastlake
   Huawei Technologies
   155 Beaver Street
   Milford, MA 01757 USA
   Phone: 1-508-333-2270
   Email: d3e3e3@gmail.com

   Radia Perlman
   Intel Labs
   2200 Mission College Blvd.
   Santa Clara, CA 95054-1549 USA
   Phone: 1-408-765-8080
   Email: Radia@alum.mit.edu

   Igor Gashinsky
   Yahoo
   45 West 18th Street 6th floor
   New York, NY 10011
   Email: igor@yahoo-inc.com

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