Skip to main content

A Core MPLS IP VPN Architecture
draft-muthukrishnan-mpls-corevpn-arch-03

The information below is for an old version of the document that is already published as an RFC.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 2917.
Authors Andrew G. Malis , Karthik Muthukrishnan
Last updated 2013-03-02 (Latest revision 2000-06-22)
RFC stream Legacy stream
Intended RFC status Informational
Formats
Stream Legacy state (None)
Consensus boilerplate Unknown
RFC Editor Note (None)
IESG IESG state Became RFC 2917 (Informational)
Telechat date (None)
Responsible AD (None)
Send notices to (None)
draft-muthukrishnan-mpls-corevpn-arch-03
Internet Engineering Task Force                   Karthik Muthukrishnan
INTERNET-DRAFT                                    Andrew Malis
Expires December 22, 2000                          Lucent Technologies
<draft-muthukrishnan-mpls-corevpn-arch-03.txt>    June 22, 2000

                    A Core MPLS IP VPN Architecture

1. Status of this Memo

   This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with
   all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups.  Note that
   other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-
   Drafts.

   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 draft is not a product of any working group and was written and
   presented to the IETF well before the formation of any working group
   related to Core VPNs.

   The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at
   http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt

   The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
   http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html.

2. Acronyms

      ARP     Address Resolution Protocol
      CE      Customer Edge router
      LSP     Label Switched Path
      PNA     Private Network Administrator
      SLA     Service Level Agreement
      SP      Service Provider
      SPED    Service Provider Edge Device
      SPNA    SP Network Administrator
      VMA     VPN Multicast Address
      VPNID   VPN Identifier
      VR      Virtual Router
      VRC     Virtual Router Console

Muthukrishnan, Malis   Expires December 22, 2000                [Page 1]
INTERNET-DRAFT                 Core VPNs                   June 22, 2000

3. Abstract

   This draft presents an approach for building core VPN services in a
   service provider's MPLS backbone.  This approach uses MPLS running in
   the backbone to provide premium services in addition to best effort
   services. The central vision is for the service provider to provide a
   virtual router service to their customers. The keystones of this
   architecture are ease of configuration, user security, network
   security, dynamic neighbor discovery, scaling and the use of existing
   routing protocols as they exist today without any modifications.

4. Introduction

   This draft describes an approach for building IP VPN services out of
   the backbone of the SP's network. Broadly speaking, two possible
   approaches present themselves: the overlay model and the virtual
   router approach. The overlay model is based on overloading some
   semantic(s) of existing routing protocols to carry reachability
   information.  In this document, we focus on the virtual router
   service.

   The approach presented here does not depend on any modifications of
   any existing routing protocols. Neighbor discovery is aided by the
   use of  an emulated LAN and is achieved by the use of ARP. This draft
   makes a concerted effort to draw the line between the SP and the PNA:
   the SP owns and manages layer 1 and layer 2 services while layer 3
   services belong to and are manageable by the PNA. By the provisioning
   of fully logically independent routing domains, the PNA has been
   given the flexibility to use private and unregistered addresses. Due
   to the use of private LSPs and the use of VPNID encapsulation using
   label stacks over shared LSPs, data security is not an issue.

   The approach espoused in this draft differs from that described in
   RFC 2547 [Rosen1] in that no specific routing protocol has been
   overloaded to carry VPN routes.  RFC 2547 specifies a way to modify
   BGP to carry VPN unicast routes across the SP's backbone. To carry
   multicast routes, further architectural work will be necessary.

5. Virtual Routers

   A virtual router is a collection of threads, either static or
   dynamic, in a routing device, that provides routing and forwarding
   services much like physical routers. A virtual router need not be a
   separate operating system process (although it could be); it simply
   has to provide the illusion that a dedicated router is available to
   satisfy the needs of the network(s) to which it is connected. A
   virtual router, like its physical counterpart, is an element in a
   routing domain. The other routers in this domain could be physical or

Muthukrishnan, Malis   Expires December 22, 2000                [Page 2]
INTERNET-DRAFT                 Core VPNs                   June 22, 2000

   virtual routers themselves. Given that the virtual router connects to
   a specific (logically discrete) routing domain and that a physical
   router can support multiple virtual routers, it follows that a
   physical router supports multiple (logically discreet) routing
   domains.

   From the user (VPN customer) standpoint, it is imperative that the
   virtual router be as equivalent to a physical router as possible. In
   other words, with very minor and very few exceptions, the virtual
   router should appear for all purposes (configuration, management,
   monitoring and troubleshooting) like a dedicated physical router. The
   main motivation behind this requirement is to avoid upgrading or re-
   configuring the large installed base of routers and to avoid
   retraining of network administrators.

   The aspects of a router that a virtual router needs to emulate are:

   1. Configuration of any combination of routing protocols

   2. Monitoring of the network

   3. Troubleshooting.

   Every VPN has a logically independent routing domain. This enhances
   the SP's ability to offer a fully flexible virtual router service
   that can fully serve the SP's customer without requiring physical
   per-VPN routers. This means that the SP's "hardware" investments,
   namely routers and links between them, can be re-used by multiple
   customers.

6. Objectives

   1. Easy, scalable configuration of VPN endpoints in the service
   provider network. At most, one piece of configuration should be
   necessary when a CE is added.

   2. No use of SP resources that are globally unique and hard to get
   such as IP addresses and subnets.

   3. Dynamic discovery of VRs (Virtual Routers) in the SP's cloud. This
   is an optional, but extremely valuable "keep it simple" goal.

   4. Virtual Routers should be fully configurable and monitorable by
   the VPN network administrator. This provides the PNA with the
   flexibility to either configure the VPN themselves or outsource
   configuration tasks to the SP.

   5. Quality of data forwarding should be configurable on a VPN-by-VPN

Muthukrishnan, Malis   Expires December 22, 2000                [Page 3]
INTERNET-DRAFT                 Core VPNs                   June 22, 2000

   basis.  This should translate to continuous (but perhaps discrete)
   grades of service.  Some examples include best effort, dedicated
   bandwidth, QOS, and policy based forwarding services.

   6. Differentiated services should be configurable on a VPN-by-VPN
   basis, perhaps based on LSPs set up for exclusive use for forwarding
   data traffic in the VPN.

   7. Security of internet routers extended to virtual routers. This
   means that the virtual router's data forwarding and routing functions
   should be as secure as a dedicated, private physical router. There
   should be no unintended leak of information (user data and
   reachability information) from one routing domain to another.

   8. Specific routing protocols should not be mandated between virtual
   routers. This is critical to ensuring the VPN customer can setup the
   network and policies as the customer sees fit. For example, some
   protocols are strong in filtering, while others are strong in traffic
   engineering. The VPN customer might want to exploit both to achieve
   "best of breed" network quality.

   9. No special extensions to existing routing protocols such as BGP,
   RIP, OSPF, ISIS etc. This is critical to allowing the future addition
   of other services such as NHRP and multicast. In addition, as
   advances and addenda are made to existing protocols (such as traffic
   engineering extensions to ISIS and OSPF), they can be easily
   incorporated into the VPN implementation.

7. Architectural Requirements

   The service provider network must run some form of multicast routing
   to all nodes that will have VPN connections and to nodes that must
   forward multicast datagrams for virtual router discovery. A specific
   multicast routing protocol is not mandated. An SP may run MOSPF or
   DVMRP or any other protocol.

8. Architectural Outline

   1. Every VPN is assigned a VPNID which is unique within the SP's
   network.  This identifier unambiguously identifies the VPN with which
   a packet or connection is associated. The VPNID of zero is reserved;
   it is associated with and represents the public internet. It is
   recommended, but not required that these VPN identifiers will be
   compliant with RFC 2685 [Fox].

   2. The VPN service is offered in the form of a Virtual Router
   service.  These VRs reside in the SPED and are as such confined to
   the edge of the SP's cloud. The VRs will use the SP's network for

Muthukrishnan, Malis   Expires December 22, 2000                [Page 4]
INTERNET-DRAFT                 Core VPNs                   June 22, 2000

   data and control packet forwarding but are otherwise invisible
   outside the SPEDs.

   3. The "size" of the VR contracted to the VPN in a given SPED is
   expressed by the quantity of IP resources such as routing interfaces,
   route filters, routing entries etc. This is entirely under the
   control of the SP and provides the fine granularity that the SP
   requires to offer virtually infinite grades of VR service on a per-
   SPED level. [Example:  one SPED may be the aggregating point (say
   headquarters of the corporation) for a given VPN and a number of
   other SPEDs may be access points (branch offices). In this case, the
   SPED connected to the headquarters may be contracted to provide a
   large VR while the SPEDs connected to the branch offices may house
   small, perhaps stub VRs]. This provision also allows the SP to design
   the network with an end goal of distributing the load among the
   routers in the network.

   4. One indicator of the VPN size is the number of SPEDs in the SP's
   network that have connections to CPE routers in that VPN.  In this
   respect, a VPN with many sites that need to be connected is a "large"
   VPN whereas one with a few sites is a "small" VPN. Also, it is
   conceivable that a VPN grows or shrinks in size over time. VPNs may
   even merge due to corporate mergers, acquisitions and partnering
   agreements. These changes are easy to accommodate in this
   architecture, as globally unique IP resources do not have to be
   dedicated or assigned to VPNs. The number of SPEDs is not limited by
   any artificial configuration limits.

   5. The SP owns and manages Layer 1 and Layer 2 entities. To be
   specific, the SP controls physical switches or routers, physical
   links, logical layer 2 connections (such as DLCI in Frame Relay and
   VPI/VCI in ATM) and LSPs (and their assignment to specific VPNs). In
   the context of VPNs, it is the SP's responsibility to contract and
   assign layer 2 entities to specific VPNs.

   6. Layer 3 entities belong to and are manageable by the PNA. Examples
   of these entities include IP interfaces, choice of dynamic routing
   protocols or static routes, and routing interfaces. Note that
   although Layer 3 configuration logically falls under the PNA's area
   of responsibility, it is not necessary for the PNA to execute it. It
   is quite viable for the PNA to outsource the IP administration of the
   virtual routers to the Service Provider.  Regardless of who assumes
   responsibility for configuration and monitoring, this approach
   provides a full routing domain view to the PNA and empowers the PNA
   to design the network to achieve intranet, extranet and traffic
   engineering goals.

   7. The VPNs can be managed as if physical routers rather than VRs

Muthukrishnan, Malis   Expires December 22, 2000                [Page 5]
INTERNET-DRAFT                 Core VPNs                   June 22, 2000

   were deployed.  Therefore, management may be performed using SNMP or
   other similar methods or directly at the VR console (VRC).

   8. Industry-standard troubleshooting tools such as 'ping,'
   'traceroute,' in a routing domain domain comprised exclusively of
   dedicated physical routers.  Therefore, monitoring and
   troubleshooting may be performed using SNMP or similar methods, but
   may also include the use of these standard tools. Again, the VRC may
   be used for these purposes just like any physical router.

   9. Since the VRC is visible to the user, router specific security
   checks need to be put in place to make sure the VPN user is allowed
   access to Layer 3 resources in that VPN only and is disallowed from
   accessing physical resources in the router.  Most routers achieve
   this through the use of database views.

   10. The VRC is available to the SP as well. If configuration and
   monitoring has been outsourced to the SP, the SP may use the VRC to
   accomplish these tasks as if it were the PNA.

   11.  The VRs in the SPEDs form the VPN in the SP's network. Together,
   they represent a virtual routing domain. They dynamically discover
   each other by utilizing an emulated LAN resident in the SP's network.

   Each VPN in the SP's network is assigned one and only one multicast
   address. This address is chosen from the administratively scoped
   range (239.192/14) [Meyer] and the only requirement is that the
   multicast address can be uniquely mapped to a specific VPN. This is
   easily automated by routers by the use of a simple function to
   unambiguously map a VPNid to the multicast address.  Subscription to
   this multicast address allows a VR to discover and be discovered by
   other VRs. It is important to note that the multicast address does
   not have to be configured.

   12. Data forwarding may be done in one of several ways:

      1. An LSP with best-effort characteristics that all VPNS can use.

      2. An LSP dedicated to a VPN and traffic engineered by the VPN
      customer.

      3. A private LSP with differentiated characteristics.

      4. Policy based forwarding on a dedicated L2 Virtual Circuit

   The choice of the preferred method is negotiable between the SP and
   the VPN customer, perhaps constituting part of the SLA between them.
   This allows the SP to offer different grades of service to different

Muthukrishnan, Malis   Expires December 22, 2000                [Page 6]
INTERNET-DRAFT                 Core VPNs                   June 22, 2000

   VPN customers.

   Of course, hop-by-hop forwarding is also available to forward routing
   packets and to forward user data packets during periods of LSP
   establishment and failure.

   13. This approach does not mandate that separate operating system
   tasks for each of the routing protocols be run for each VR that the
   SPED houses. Specific implementations may be tailored to the
   particular SPED in use. Maintaining separate routing databases and
   forwarding tables, one per VR, is one way to get the highest
   performance for a given SPED.

9. Scalable Configuration

   A typical VPN is expected to have 100s to 1000s of endpoints within
   the SP cloud.  Therefore, configuration should scale (at most)
   linearly with the number of end points. To be specific, the
   administrator should have to add a couple of configuration items when
   a new customer site joins the set of VRs constituting a specific VPN.
   Anything worse will make this task too daunting for the service
   provider.  In this architecture, all that the service provider needs
   to allocate and configure is the ingress/egress physical link (e.g.
   Frame Relay DLCI or ATM VPI/VCI) and the virtual connection between
   the VR and the emulated LAN.

10. Dynamic Neighbor Discovery

   The VRs in a given VPN reside in a number of SPEDs in the network.
   These VRs need to learn about each other and be connected.

   One way to do this is to require the manual configuration of
   neighbors.  As an example, when a new site is added to a VPN, this
   would require the configuration of all the other VRs as neighbors.
   This is obviously not scalable from a configuration and network
   resource standpoint.

   The need then arises to allow these VRs to dynamically discover each
   other.  Neighbor discovery is facilitated by providing each VPN with
   a limited emulated LAN. This emulated LAN is used in several ways:

   1. Address resolution uses this LAN to resolve next-hop (private) IP
   addresses associated with the other VRs.

   2. Routing protocols such as RIP and OSPF use this limited emulated
   LAN for neighbor discovery and to send routing updates.

   The per-VPN LAN is emulated using an IP multicast address.  In the

Muthukrishnan, Malis   Expires December 22, 2000                [Page 7]
INTERNET-DRAFT                 Core VPNs                   June 22, 2000

   interest of conserving public address space and because this
   multicast address needs to be visible only in the SP network space,
   we would use an address from the Organizationally scoped multicast
   addresses (239.192/14) as described in [Meyer]. Each VPN is allocated
   an address from this range.  To completely eliminate configuration in
   this regard, this address is computed from the VPNID.

10. VPN IP Domain Configuration

                                151.0.0.1
                                ################
                               #              #
                              #  ROUTER 'A'  #
                             #              #
                            ################
                                 #       #
                                #         #
                               #           #
                              #             #
                         #############    ###############
                        #           #    #             #
                       # ROUTER 'B'#    # ROUTER 'C'  #
                      #           #    #             #
                     #           #    #             #
                    #############    ###############
                    152.0.0.2         153.0.0.3

                   Figure 1 'Physical Routing Domain'

   The physical domain in the SP's network is shown in the above figure.
   In this network, physical routers A, B and C are connected together.
   Each of the routers has a 'public' IP address assigned to it. These
   addresses uniquely identify each of the routers in the SP's network.

Muthukrishnan, Malis   Expires December 22, 2000                [Page 8]
INTERNET-DRAFT                 Core VPNs                   June 22, 2000

            172.150.0/18                                172.150.128/18
    -----------------------             ---------------------------|
                |                                       |          |
                |                                       |      172.150.128.1
                |               ROUTER 'A' (151.0.0.1)  |       |---------|
                |               #############           |       |Parts DB |
                |           ---#-----------#            |       /---------/
                |    OSPF   | #           #     ISIS    |      /----------/
                ------------|#  VR - A   #|--------------
                            #-------|---#-|
                           #############10.0.1/24
                |----|------------#-#---------------|-----|
                     |10.0.0.2/24#   #              |10.0.0.3/24
              |------|-------|  #     #    ---------|-------|
              |  ###############       #   |############### |
              | #  VR - B    |#         #  #    VR - C   #  |
              |#-------------# ROUTER 'B'##|------------#----
   (152.0.0.2)###############            ############### (153.0.0.3)
         -------------------------       ROUTER 'C' |   Extranet
               172.150.64/18                        V
                                                 Vendors

                   Figure 2 'Virtual Routing Domain'

   Each Virtual Router is configurable by the PNA as though it were a
   private physical router. Of course, the SP limits the resources that
   this Virtual Router may consume on a SPED-by-SPED basis. Each VPN has
   a number of physical connections (to CPE routers) and a number of
   logical connections (to the emulated LAN). Each connection is IP-
   capable and can be configured to utilize any combination of the
   standard routing protocols and routing policies to achieve specific
   corporate network goals.

   To illustrate, in Figure 1, 3 VRs reside on 3 SPEDs in VPN 1. Router
   'A' houses VR-A, router 'B' houses VR-B and router 'C' houses VR-C.
   VR-C and VR-B have a physical connection to CPE equipment, while VR-A
   has 2 physical connections. Each of the VRs has a fully IP-capable
   logical connection to the emulated LAN.  VR-A has the (physical)
   connections to the headquarters of the company and runs OSPF over
   those connections. Therefore, it can route packets to 172.150.0/18
   and 172.150.128/18. VR-B runs RIP in the branch office (over the
   physical connection) and uses RIP (over the logical connection) to
   export 172.150.64/18 to VR-A. VR-A advertises a default route to VR-B
   over the logical connection.  Vendors use VR-C as the extranet
   connection to connect to the parts database at 172.150.128.1. Hence,
   VR-C advertises a default route to VR-A over the logical connection.
   VR-A exports only 175.150.128.1 to VR-C. This keeps the rest of the
   corporate network from a security problem.

Muthukrishnan, Malis   Expires December 22, 2000                [Page 9]
INTERNET-DRAFT                 Core VPNs                   June 22, 2000

   The network administrator will configure the following:

   1. OSPF connections to the 172.150.0/18 and 172.150.128/18  network
   in VR-A.

   2. RIP connections to VR-B and VR-C on VR-A.

   3. Route policies on VR-A to advertise only the default route to VR-
   B.

   4. Route policies on VR-A to advertise only 172.159.128.1 to VR-C.

   5. RIP on VR-B to VR-A.

   6. RIP on VR-C to advertise a default route to VR-A.

11. Neighbor Discovery Example

   In Figure #1, the SPED that houses VR-A (SPED-A) uses a public
   address of 150.0.0.1/24, SPED-B uses 150.0.0.2/24 and SPED-C uses
   150.0.0.3/24.  As noted, the connection between the VRs is via an
   emulated LAN.  For interface addresses on the emulated LAN
   connection, VR-A uses 10.0.0.1/24, VR-B uses 10.0.0.2/24 and VR-C
   uses 10.0.0.3/24.

   Let's take the case of VR-A sending a packet to VR-B. To get VR-B's
   address (SPED-B's address), VR-A sends an ARP request packet with the
   address of VR-B (10.0.0.2) as the logical address. The source logical
   address is 10.0.0.1 and the hardware address is 151.0.0.1. This ARP
   request is encapsulated in this VPN's multicast address and sent out.
   SPED B and SPED-C receive a copy of the packet.  SPED-B recognizes
   10.0.0.2 in the context of VPN 1 and responds with 152.0.0.2 as the
   "hardware" address. This response is sent to the VPN multicast
   address to promote the use of promiscuous ARP and the resulting
   decrease in network traffic.

   Manual configuration would be necessary if neighbor discovery were
   not used. In this example, VR-A would be configured with a static ARP
   entry for VR-B's logical address (10.0.0.1) with the "hardware"
   address set to 152.0.0.2.

12. Forwarding

   As mentioned in the architectural outline, data forwarding may be
   done in one of several ways. In all techniques except the Hop-by-Hop
   technique for forwarding routing/control packets, the actual method
   is configurable. At the high end, policy based forwarding for quick
   service and at the other end best effort forwarding using public LSP

Muthukrishnan, Malis   Expires December 22, 2000               [Page 10]
INTERNET-DRAFT                 Core VPNs                   June 22, 2000

   is used. The order of forwarding preference is as follows:

   1. Policy based forwarding.

   2. Optionally configured private LSP.

   3. Best-effort public LSP.

12.1  Private LSP

   This LSP is optionally configured on a per-VPN basis. This LSP is
   usually associated with non-zero bandwidth reservation and/or a
   specific differentiated service or QOS class. If this LSP is
   available, it is used for user data and for VPN private control data
   forwarding.

12.2 Best Effort Public LSP

   VPN data packets are forwarded using this LSP if a private LSP with
   specified bandwidth and/or QOS characteristics is either not
   configured or not presently available. The LSP used is the one
   destined for the egress router in VPN 0. The VPNID in the shim header
   is used to de-multiplex data packets from various VPNs at the egress
   router.

13.  Differentiated Services

   Configuring private LSPs for VPNs allows the SP to offer
   differentiated services to paying customers. These private LSPs could
   be associated with any available L2 QOS class or Diff-Serv
   codepoints. In a VPN, multiple private LSPs with different service
   classes could be configured with flow profiles for sorting the
   packets among the LSPs. This feature, together with the ability to
   size the virtual routers, allows the SP to offer truly differentiated
   services to the VPN customer.

14.  Security Considerations

14.1  Routing Security

   The use of standard routing protocols such as OSPF and BGP in their
   unmodified form means that all the encryption and security methods
   (such as MD5 authentication of neighbors) are fully available in VRs.
   Making sure that routes are not accidentally leaked from one VPN to
   another is an implementation issue. One way to achieve this is to
   maintain separate routing and forwarding databases.

Muthukrishnan, Malis   Expires December 22, 2000               [Page 11]
INTERNET-DRAFT                 Core VPNs                   June 22, 2000

14.2  Data Security

   This allows the SP to assure the VPN customer that data packets in
   one VPN never have the opportunity to wander into another. From a
   routing standpoint, this could be achieved by maintaining separate
   routing databases for each virtual router. From a data forwarding
   standpoint, the use of label stacks in the case of shared LSPs
   [Rosen2] [Callon] or the use of private LSPs guarantees data privacy.
   Packet filters may also be configured to help ease the problem.

14.3  Configuration Security

   Virtual routers appear as physical routers to the PNA. This means
   that they may be configured by the PNA to achieve connectivity
   between offices of a corporation. Obviously, the SP has to guarantee
   that the PNA and the PNA's designees are the only ones who have
   access to the VRs on the SPEDs the private network has connections
   to. Since the virtual router console is functionally equivalent to a
   physical router, all of the authentication methods available on a
   physical console such as password, RADIUS, etc. are available to the
   PNA.

14.4 Physical Network Security

   When a PNA logs in to a SPED to configure or monitor the VPN, the PNA
   is logged into the VR for the VPN. The PNA has only layer 3
   configuration and monitoring privileges for the VR. Specifically, the
   PNA has no configuration privileges for the physical network. This
   provides the guarantee to the SP that a VPN administrator will not be
   able to inadvertently or otherwise adversely affect the SP's network.

15.  Virtual Router Monitoring

   All of the router monitoring features available on a physical router
   are available on the virtual router. This includes utilities such as
   "ping" and "traceroute". In addition, the ability to display private
   routing tables, link state databases, etc. are available.

16. Performance Considerations

   For the purposes of discussing performance and scaling issues,
   today's routers can be split into two planes: the routing (control)
   plane and the forwarding plane.

   In looking at the routing plane, most modern-day routing protocols
   use some form of optimized calculation methodologies to calculate the
   shortest path(s) to end stations. For instance, OSPF and ISIS use the
   Djikstra algorithm while BGP uses the "Decision Process". These

Muthukrishnan, Malis   Expires December 22, 2000               [Page 12]
INTERNET-DRAFT                 Core VPNs                   June 22, 2000

   algorithms are based on parsing the routing database and computing
   the best paths to end stations. The performance characteristics of
   any of these algorithms is based on either topological
   characteristics (ISIS and OSPF) or the number of ASs in the path to
   the destinations (BGP). But it is important to note that the overhead
   in setting up and beginning these calculations is very little for
   most any modern day router. This is because, although we refer to
   routing calculation input as "databases", these are memory resident
   data structures.

   Therefore, the following conclusions can be drawn:

   1. Beginning a routing calculation for a routing domain is nothing
   more than setting up some registers to point to the right database
   objects.

   2. Based on 1, the performance of a given algorithm is not
   significantly worsened by the overhead required to set it up.

   3. Based on 2, it follows that, when a number of routing calculations
   for a number of virtual routers has to be performed by a physical
   router, the complexity of the resulting routing calculation is
   nothing more than the sum of the complexities of the routing
   calculations of the individual virtual routers.

   4. Based on 3, it follows that whether an overlay model is used or a
   virtual routing model is employed, the performance characteristics of
   a router are dependent purely on its hardware capabilities and the
   choice of data structures and algorithms.

   To illustrate, let's say a physical router houses N VPNs, all running
   some routing protocol say RP. Let's also suppose that the average
   performance of RP's routing calculation algorithm is  f(X,Y) where x
   and y are parameters that determine performance of the algorithm for
   that routing protocol. As an example, for Djikstra algorithm users
   such as OSPF, X could be the number of nodes in the area while Y
   could be the number of links. The performance of an arbitrary VPN n
   is f (Xn, Yn). The performance of the (physical) router is the sum of
   f(Xi, Yi) for all values of i in 0 <= i <= N. This conclusion is
   independent of the chosen VPN approach (virtual router or overlay
   model).

   In the usual case, the forwarding plane has two inputs: the
   forwarding table and the packet header. The main performance
   parameter is the lookup algorithm. The very best performance one can
   get for a IP routing table lookup is by organizing the table as some
   form of a tree and use binary search methods to do the actual lookup.
   The performance of this algorithm is O(log n).

Muthukrishnan, Malis   Expires December 22, 2000               [Page 13]
INTERNET-DRAFT                 Core VPNs                   June 22, 2000

   Hence, as long as the virtual routers' routing tables are distinct
   from each other, the lookup cost is constant for finding the routing
   table and O(log n) to find the entry. This is no worse or different
   from any router and no different from a router that employs overlay
   techniques to deliver VPN services. However, when the overlay router
   utilizes integration of multiple VPNs' routing tables, the
   performance is O(log m*n) where 'm' is the number of VPNs that the
   routing table holds routes for.

17. Acknowledgements

   The authors wish to thank Dave Ryan, Lucent Technologies for his
   invaluable in-depth review of this version of the draft.

18.  References

   [Callon] Callon R., et al, "A framework for Multiprotocol Label
       Switching", draft-ietf-mpls-framework-05.txt.

   [Fox] Fox B., et al, "Virtual Private Networks Identifier", RFC 2685.

   [Meyer] Meyer D., "Administratively Scoped IP Multicast", RFC 2365.

   [Rosen1] Rosen E., et al, "BGP/MPLS VPNs", RFC 2547.

   [Rosen2] Rosen E., et al, "Multiprotocol Label Switching
       Architecture", draft-ietf-mpls-arch-06.txt.

19. Authors' addresses

   Karthik Muthukrishnan
   Lucent Technologies
   1 Robbins Road
   Phone: (978) 952-1368
   Westford, MA 01886
   Email: mkarthik@lucent.com

   Andrew Malis
   Lucent Technologies
   1 Robbins Road
   Westford, MA 01886
   Phone: (978)-952-7414
   Email: amalis@lucent.com

Muthukrishnan, Malis   Expires December 22, 2000               [Page 14]