Network Service Chaining Problem Statement
draft-quinn-nsc-problem-statement-01

Network Working Group                                           P. Quinn
Internet-Draft                                               J. Guichard
Intended status: Informational                                  S. Kumar
Expires: January 14, 2014                            Cisco Systems, Inc.
                                                              A. Chauhan
                                                                  Citrix
                                                              N. Leymann
                                                        Deutsche Telekom
                                                            M. Boucadair
                                                            C. Jacquenet
                                                          France Telecom
                                                                M. Smith
                                                                N. Yadav
                                                        Insieme Networks
                                                               T. Nadeau
                                                                 K. Gray
                                                        Juniper Networks
                                                            B. McConnell
                                                               Rackspace
                                                           July 13, 2013

               Network Service Chaining Problem Statement
                draft-quinn-nsc-problem-statement-01.txt

Abstract

   This document provides an overview of the issues associated with the
   deployment of network services functions (such as firewalls, load
   balancers) in large-scale environments.  The term service chaining is
   used to describe the deployment of such services, and the ability of
   a network operator to specify an ordered list of services that should
   be applied to a deterministic set of traffic flows.  Such service
   chains require integration of service policy alongside the deployment
   of applications, while allowing for the optimal utilization of
   network resources.

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
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   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months

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   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 January 14, 2014.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2013 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
     1.1.  Definition of Terms  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   2.  Problem Areas  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
   3.  Service Function Chaining for Adding Network Services  . . . .  9
   4.  Related IETF Work  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   5.  Summary  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   6.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   7.  Acknowledgments  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
   8.  References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     8.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     8.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

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1.  Introduction

   New data center (DC) networks, mobile networks, Internet cloud
   architectures and existing networks require more flexible deployment
   models that are able to support many different forms of applications
   and related network services.  Network services include but are not
   limited to, traditional services such as firewalls and server load
   balancers, as well as applications and features that operate on
   network data.  Additionally, these services must be delivered in the
   context of multi-tenancy where each individual tenant is an isolated
   user group attached to a common data center.  These isolated tenants
   may require unique capabilities with the ability to tailor service
   characteristics on a per-tenant basis that should not affect other
   contexts.  Similarly, in other deployments, service feature
   deployments might be associated with subscribers (e.g. activated at
   the GI interface), or within the scope of a VPN offering.

   The current network service deployment models are relatively static
   in that they are bound to relatively fixed topology as well as
   relatively static resources.  At present, these models are not easily
   manipulated (i.e.: moved, created or destroyed) even when virtualized
   elements are deployed.  This poses a problem in highly elastic
   service environments that require relatively rapid creation,
   destruction or movement of real or virtual services or network
   elements.  Additionally, the transition to virtual platforms requires
   an agile service insertion model that supports elastic and very
   granular service delivery, and post-facto modification; supports the
   movement of service functions and application workloads in the
   existing network, all the while retaining the network and service
   policies and the ability to easily bind service policy to granular
   information such as per-subscriber state.

   This document outlines the problems encountered with existing service
   deployment models for service chaining, as well as the problems of
   service chain creation/deletion, policy selection integration with
   service chains, and policy enforcement within the network
   infrastructure.

1.1.  Definition of Terms

   Classification:  Locally instantiated policy and customer/network/
      service profile matching of traffic flows for identification of
      appropriate outbound forwarding actions.

   Network Overlay:  Logical network built on top of existing network
      (the underlay).  Packets are encapsulated or tunneled to create
      the overlay network topology.

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   Service Chain:  A service chain defines the services required
      (e.g.FW), and their order (service1 --> service2) that must be
      applied to packets and/or frames.

   Service Function:  A L4-L7 service function (NAT, FW, DPI, IDS,
      application based packet treatment), application, compute
      resource, storage, or content used singularly or in collaboration
      with other service functions to enable a service offered by a
      network operator.

   Service Node:  Physical or virtual element providing one or more
      service functions.

   Network Service:  An externally visible service offered by a network
      operator; a service may consist of a single service function or a
      composite built from several service functions executed in one or
      more pre-determined sequences and delivered by one or more service
      nodes.

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2.  Problem Areas

   The following points describe aspects of existing service deployment
   that are problematic, and are being addressed by the network service
   chaining effort.

   1.   Topological Dependencies: Network service deployments are often
        coupled to the physical network topology creating constraints on
        service delivery and potentially inhibiting the network operator
        from optimally utilizing service resources.  This limits scale,
        capacity, and redundancy across network resources.

        These topologies serve only to "insert" the service function
        (i.e. ensure that traffic traverse a service function); they are
        not required from a native packet delivery perspective.  For
        example, firewalls often require an "in" and "out" layer-2
        segment and adding a new firewall requires changing the topology
        (i.e. adding new L2 segments).

        As more service functions are required - often with strict
        ordering - topology changes are needed before and after each
        service function resulting in complex network changes and device
        configuration.  In such topologies, all traffic, whether a
        service function needs to be applied or not, often passes
        through the same strict order.

        A common example is web servers using a server load balancer as
        the default gateway.  When the web service responds to non-load
        balanced traffic (e.g. administrative or backup operations) all
        traffic from the server must traverse the load balancer forcing
        network administrators to create complex routing schemes or
        create additional interfaces to provide an alternate topology.

   2.   Configuration complexity: A direct consequence of topological
        dependencies is the complexity of the entire configuration,
        specifically in deploying service chains.  Simple actions such
        as changing the order of the service functions in a service
        chain require changes to the topology.  Changes to the topology
        are avoided by the network operator once installed, configured
        and deployed in production environments fearing misconfiguration
        and downtime.  All of this leads to very static service delivery
        models.  Furthermore, the speed at which these topological
        changes can be made is not rapid or dynamic enough as it often
        requires manual intervention, or use of slow provisioning
        systems.

        The service itself can contribute to complexity: it may require
        an intricate combination of very different capabilities,

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        regardless of the underlying topology.  QoS-based, resilient VPN
        service offerings are a typical example of such complexity.

   3.   Constrained High Availability: An effect of topological
        dependency is constrained service function high availability.
        Worse, when modified, inadvertent non-high availability can
        result.

        Since traffic reaches services based on network topology,
        alternate, or redundant service functions must be placed in the
        same topology as the primary service.

   4.   Consistent Ordering of Service Functions: Service functions are
        typically independent; service function_1 (SF1)...service
        function_n (SFn) are unrelated and there is no notion at the
        service layer that SF1 occurs before SF2.  However, to an
        administrator many service functions have a strict ordering that
        must be in place, yet the administrator has no consistent way to
        impose and verify the ordering of the functions that used to
        deliver a given service.

   5.   Service Chain Construction: Service chains today are most
        typically built through manual configuration processes.  These
        are slow and error prone.  With the advent of newer service
        deployment models the control / management planes will provide
        not only connectivity state, but will also be increasingly
        utilized for the formation of services.  Such a control /
        management plane could be centrally controlled and managed, or
        be distributed between a subset of end-systems.

   6.   Application of Service Policy: Service functions rely on
        topology information such as VLANs or packet (re) classification
        to determine service policy selection, i.e. the service function
        specific action taken.  Topology information is increasingly
        less viable due to scaling, tenancy and complexity reasons.  The
        topological information is often stale, providing the operator
        with inaccurate placement that can result in suboptimal resource
        utilization.  Per-service function packet classification is
        inefficient and prone to errors, duplicating functionality
        across services.  Furthermore packet classification is often too
        coarse lacking the ability to determine class of traffic with
        enough detail.

   7.   Transport Dependence: Services can and will be deployed in
        networks with a range of transports, including under and
        overlays.  The coupling of services to topology requires
        services to support many transports or for a transport gateway
        function to be present.

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   8.   Elastic Service Delivery: Given the current state of the art for
        adding/removing services largely centers around VLANs and
        routing changes, rapid changes to the service layer can be hard
        to realize due to the risk and complexity of such changes.

   9.   Traffic Selection Criteria: Traffic selection is coarse, that
        is, all traffic on a particular segment traverse service
        functions whether the traffic requires service enforcement or
        not.  This lack of traffic selection is largely due to the
        topological nature of service deployment since the forwarding
        topology dictates how (and what) data traverses service
        function(s).  In some deployments, more granular traffic
        selection is achieved using policy routing or access control
        filtering.  This results in operationally complex configurations
        and is still relatively inflexible.

   10.  Limited End-to-End Service Visibility: Troubleshooting service
        related issues is a complex process that involve network and
        service expertise.  This is especially the case when service
        chains span multiple DCs, or across administrative boundaries
        such as externally consumable service chain components.

   11.  Per-Service (re)Classification: Classification occurs at each
        service, independent from previously applied service functions.
        These unrelated classification events consume resources per
        service.  More importantly, the classification functionality
        often differs per service and services cannot leverage the
        results from other deployed network or service.

   12.  Symmetric Traffic Flows: Service chains may be unidirectional or
        bidirectional; unidirectional is one where traffic is passed
        through a set of service functions in one forwarding direction
        only.  Bidirectional is one where traffic is passed through a
        set of service functions in both forwarding directions.
        Existing service deployment models provide a static approach to
        realizing forward and reverse service chain association most
        often requiring complex configuration of each network device
        throughout the forwarding path.

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3.  Service Function Chaining for Adding Network Services

   Service chaining provides a framework to address the aforementioned
   problems associated with service deployments:

   1.  Service Overlay: Service chaining utilizes a service specific
       overlay that creates the service topology: the overlay creates a
       path between service nodes.  The service overlay is independent
       of the network topology and allows operators to use whatever
       overlay or underlay they prefer and to locate service functions
       in the network as needed.  Within the service topology, services
       can be viewed as resources for consumption and an arbitrary
       topology constructed to connect those resources in a required
       order.  Furthermore, additional service instances, for redundancy
       or load distribution, can be added or removed to the service
       topology as required.  Lastly, the service overlay can provide
       service specific information needed for troubleshooting service-
       related issues.

   2.  Generic Service Control Plane (GSCP): GSCP provides information
       about the available services on a network.  The information
       provided by the control plane includes service network location
       (for topology creation), service type (e.g. firewall, load
       balancer, etc.) and, optionally, administrative information about
       the services such as load, capacity and operating status.  GSCP
       allows for the formulation of service chains and disseminates the
       service chains to the network.

   3.  Service Classification: Classification is used to select which
       traffic enters a service overlay.  The granularity of the
       classification varies based on device capabilities, customer
       requirements, and service functionality.  Initial classification
       is used to start the service chain.  Subsequent classification
       can be used within a given service chain to alter the sequence of
       services applied.  Symmetric classification ensures that forward
       and reverse chains are in place.

   4.  Dataplane Metadata: Dataplane metadata provides the ability to
       exchange information between the network and services, services
       and services and services and the network.  Metadata can include
       the result of antecedent classification, information from
       external sources or forwarding related data.  For example,
       services utilize metadata, as required, for localized policy
       decision.

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4.  Related IETF Work

   The following subsections discuss related IETF work and are provided
   for reference.  This section is not exhaustive, rather it provides an
   overview of the various initiatives and how they relate to network
   service chaining.

   1.  L3VPN[L3VPN]: The L3VPN working group is responsible for
       defining, specifying and extending BGP/MPLS IP VPNs solutions.
       Although BGP/MPLS IP VPNs can be used as transport for service
       chaining deployments, the service chaining WG focuses on the
       service specific protocols, not the general case of VPNs.
       Furthermore, BGP/MPLS IP VPNs do not address the requirements for
       service chaining.

   2.  LISP[LISP]: LISP provides locator and ID separation.  LISP can be
       used as an L3 overlay to transport service chaining data but does
       not address the specific service chaining problems highlighted in
       this document.

   3.  NVO3[NVO3]: The NVO3 working group is chartered with creation of
       problem statement and requirements documents for multi-tenant
       network overlays.  NVO3 WG does not address service chaining
       protocols.

   4.  ALTO[ALTO]: The Application Layer Traffic Optimization Working
       Group is chartered to provide topological information at a higher
       abstraction layer, which can be based upon network policy, and
       with application-relevant services located in it.  The mechanism
       for ALTO obtaining the topology can vary and policy can apply to
       what is provided or abstracted.  This work could be leveraged and
       extended to address the need for services discovery.

   5.  I2RS[I2RS]: The Interface to the Routing System Working Group is
       chartered to investigate the rapid programming of a device's
       routing system, as well as the service of a generalized, multi-
       layered network topology.  This work could be leveraged and
       extended to address some of the needs for service chaining in the
       topology and device programming areas.

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5.  Summary

   This document highlights problems associated with network service
   deployment today and identifies several key areas that will be
   addressed by the service chaining working group.  Furthermore, this
   document identifies four components that are the basis for serice
   chaining.  These components will form the areas of focus for the
   working group.

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6.  Security Considerations

   Security considerations are not addressed in this problem statement
   only document.  Given the scope of service chaining, and the
   implications on data and control planes, security considerations are
   clearly important and will be addressed in the specific protocol and
   deployment documents created by the service chaining working group.

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7.  Acknowledgments

   The authors would like to thank David Ward, Rex Fernando and Jim
   French for their contributions.

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8.  References

8.1.  Normative References

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

8.2.  Informative References

   [ALTO]     "Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (alto)",
              <http://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/alto/>.

   [I2RS]     "Interface to the Routing System (i2rs)",
              <http://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/i2rs/>.

   [L3VPN]    "Layer 3 Virtual Private Networks (l3vpn)",
              <http://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/l3vpn/>.

   [LISP]     "Locator/ID Separation Protocol (lisp)",
              <http://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/lisp/>.

   [NVO3]     "Network Virtualization Overlays (nvo3)",
              <http://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/nvo3/>.

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Authors' Addresses

   Paul Quinn
   Cisco Systems, Inc.

   Email: paulq@cisco.com

   Jim Guichard
   Cisco Systems, Inc.

   Email: jguichar@cisco.com

   Surendra Kumar
   Cisco Systems, Inc.

   Email: smkumar@cisco.com

   Abhishek Chauhan
   Citrix

   Email: Abhishek.Chauhan@citrix.com

   Nic Leymann
   Deutsche Telekom

   Email: n.leymann@telekom.de

   Mohamed Boucadair
   France Telecom

   Email: mohamed.boucadair@orange.com

   Christian Jacquenet
   France Telecom

   Email: christian.jacquenet@orange.com

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   Michael Smith
   Insieme Networks

   Email: michsmit@insiemenetworks.com

   Navindra Yadav
   Insieme Networks

   Email: nyadav@insiemenetworks.com

   Thomas Nadeau
   Juniper Networks

   Email: tnadeau@juniper.net

   Ken Gray
   Juniper Networks

   Email: kgray@juniper.net

   Brad McConnell
   Rackspace

   Email: bmcconne@rackspace.com

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