Network Working Group Seisho Yasukawa
IETF Internet Draft NTT
Expires: August 2005
Shankar Karuna
Sarveshwar Bandi
Motorola
Adrian Farrel
Old Dog Consulting
February 2005
BGP/MPLS IP Multicast VPNs
draft-yasukawa-l3vpn-p2mp-mcast-01.txt
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
This document describes a solution framework for IP Multicast
VPNs. It describes procedures for establishing optimal virtual
private IP multicast networks over a provider network. The simple
multicast tunnel operation mechanism within a core network provides
easy and flexible IP multicast VPN service operation for the
service provider. And because the solution can minimize PIM
neighbor maintenance over remote PEs, the solution enhances the
scalability performance of the multicast VPN service network. This
document also describes a P2MP TE LSP based multicast tunnel
mechanism which could enhance TE capability and reliability of IP
multicast VPNs.
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].
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Contents
1. Introduction .................................................. 04
2. Motivations ................................................... 04
2.1. Basic Motivations for IP multicast VPN operation ......... 04
2.2. Motivations for IP multicast VPN protocol design ......... 05
3. IP Multicast VPN Framework .................................... 07
3.1. Basic network model ...................................... 07
3.2. Proxy-Source/RP model .................................... 08
3.3. Proxy-Source/RP function ................................. 09
3.4. Auto-Discovery of VPN membership ......................... 10
3.5. Default MDT configuration ................................ 10
3.6 Exchanging IP multicast register information .............. 11
3.6.1. Source Activate (SA) SAFI ........................... 12
3.6.2. JOIN SAFI ........................................... 13
3.7 Default MDT operation ..................................... 13
3.8. Data MDT operation ....................................... 15
3.9. Inter-Site Scaling and Site Interdependencies ............ 17
3.10 Targeted JOIN SAFI transmission .......................... 18
3.11. Multi-Homing scenario ................................... 18
3.12 Inter-Provider Backbones ................................. 18
3.12.1 Option A ............................................ 19
3.12.2 Option B ............................................ 19
3.12.3 Option C ............................................ 19
3.13 Support for Other PIM Variants ........................... 19
3.13.1 PIM-SSM Support ..................................... 19
3.13.2 PIM-DM/PIM-BIDIR .................................... 20
3.14 Tunnel Applicability ..................................... 20
4. IANA Considerations ........................................... 20
5. Security Considerations ....................................... 20
6. Acknowledgements .............................................. 20
7. Intellectual Property Considerations .......................... 20
8. Normative References .......................................... 21
9. Informational References ...................................... 22
10. Authors' Addresses ........................................... 23
11. Full Copyright Statement ..................................... 23
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1. Introduction
This document describes a solution framework for IP Multicast
VPNs. It describes basic procedures for establishing optimal virtual
private IP multicast networks over a provider network by dividing a
customer's multicast network into multiple regions and setting
independent multicast distribution trees within each customer site
and interconnecting these independent trees by provider P2MP MPLS
tunnels. In this solution, each PE connected to a customer's site
acts as a proxy-source or a proxy-rendezvous point (RP) for the
multicast group and a default multicast tunnel is established from a
PE which accommodates a multicast source to multiple PEs which act as
proxy-source/RP for their receivers in the connected site.
As a result, the solution can construct IP multicast distribution
trees that have optimal topologies for IP multicast distribution and
avoid using multiple multicast and unicast distribution tunnels in
the service provider core during the customer's tree transition
phase. This simple multicast tunnel operation mechanism within a core
provides easy and flexible IP multicast VPN service operation for the
service provider. And, because the solution can terminate each
customer's Join/Prune message at PEs, the solution can minimize PIM
neighbor maintenance over remote PEs. This enhances the scalability
performance of multicast VPN service network. This document also
describes a P2MP TE LSP based multicast tunnel mechanism which could
enhance TE capability and reliability of IP multicast VPNs.
2. Motivations
2.1. Basic Motivations for IP multicast VPN operation
There are growing demands for providing IP multicast services on top
of a BGP/MPLS IP VPN [RFC2547bis] environment. Candidates for these
services are, for example, in-house video distribution/conference and
data synchronization/distribution between business system servers
which usually require strict QoS control and highly reliable network
conditions. Therefore it is highly desirable that a solution has the
capability to implement some QoS guarantee and protection mechanisms
in itself, or has capabilities to operate with conventional QoS
guarantee and protection mechanisms.
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Because IP multicast VPNs require full meshed multicast distribution
between multiple customer sites, and this operation usually requires
complicated multicast tree management within a provider core network,
it is also highly desirable that a solution provides the service
provider with several easy mechanisms to control and manage these IP
multicast distributions within the network.
2.2. Motivations for IP multicast VPN protocol design
The basic function of an IP multicast VPN is to enable a multicast
source which exists in a customer site to send IP multicast traffic
privately over the provider core network to multicast receivers that
exist in different customer sites.
To enable this private IP multicast transmission, several solutions
have been proposed. Within the proposals, the most significant
solution is [MCAST-VPN] which introduces the Multicast Domain (MD)
mechanism to interconnect each customer's IP multicast networks over
the provider network to enable IP multicast distribution between the
sites. An MD is essentially a set of MVRFs associated with interfaces
that can send multicast traffic to each other and is equivalent to
a multi-access interface from the standpoint of a PIM customer
instance. Therefore, in this MD model, a provider wide customer IP
multicast network is formed over an MD which transparently exchanges
customer's IP multicast control messages between PEs which form IP
multicast adjacencies between them. This means that when the customer
network runs the PIM protocol, PIM adjacencies are formed between
MVRFs at the PEs and periodic PIM Join/Prune messages and Hello
messages are transmitted between them.
This features introduces some scalability concerns for the service
provider when they operate IP multicast VPNs because today's
conventional L3VPNs accommodate a lot of large scale VPNs and it is
easily assumed that a majority of these VPNs will introduce IP
multicast VPN services in the near future. This would require a huge
amount of PIM adjacencies to be maintained over the provider core
network and this would reduce the VPN's network performance and
increase the difficulties of managing the network.
A further MVPN proposal [MVPN-RAGGARWA] addresses three scalability
concerns for this conventional [MCAST-VPN] solution as fundamental
issues to be resolved. The first addressed concern is the overhead of
PIM neighbor adjacencies. The second concern is the overhead of
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periodic PIM Join/Prune messages, and the last concern is the amount
of state in the SP core. It is highly desirable for any solution to
address these concerns.
Another concern which is not yet addressed is suboptimal IP multicast
distribution which could easily occur in an IP multicast VPN
environment. Most customers want to operate their own private IP
multicast networks over multiple customer sites which are usually
widely separated from each other over the provider network, and it is
easily assumed that the customer runs PIM [PIM-SM] with only a very
limited number of RPs in sites which may be located remotely from the
site which a multicast source belongs to. In this case, during shared
tree distribution, multicast packets must first be sent to the RP's
site and then must to be sent back to receivers' sites even in the
case where some receivers belong to the same site as the source. This
kind of multiple transmission over the provider network is suboptimal
and wastes network resource. Moreover some receivers would suffer
severe transmission delays and some multicast application would not
tolerate this.
In addition to these undesirable conditions, a customer's IP
multicast distribution pattern changes drastically when the
distribution tree is transferred from a shared tree to a source
specific tree. This would also cause drastic changes in the multicast
distribution pattern in the provider core and would introduce
unstable conditions for the operation of the core network and
consequently for the VPNs. There is no mechanism for a service
provider to limit this kind of undesirable condition and to control
the multicast distribution pattern. Therefore it is highly desirable
for a solution to address these concerns. It is desirable for a
solution to provide the service provider with mechanisms which can
avoid this kind of suboptimal IP multicast distribution within their
core networks and which can allow control of multicast distribution
within their core networks by eliminating the necessity of using and
changing multiple multicast tunnels and by providing a minimum number
of stable multicast tunnels which are easily managed by the service
provider.
Because some IP multicast VPN applications require bandwidth
guarantees, delay-constrained multicast distribution paths, and
highly reliable paths, it is desirable for a solution to have
capabilities to setup a bandwidth guaranteed multicast distribution
path, to explicitly control routes of the distribution path, and to
accommodate global and fast local repair mechanisms.
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3. IP Multicast VPN Framework
3.1. Basic network model
This document utilizes the same network model as BGP/IP MPLS VPNs
[RFC2547bis] for realizing IP multicast VPNs. A provider configures
whether a particular VPN is multicast-enabled or not. All the PEs
that contain customer sites belonging to the same VPN with multicast
enabled on them will be connected using a "Multicast Distribution
Tree (MDT)" in the provider's backbone.
As deployed in BGP/IP MPLS VPNs [RFC2547bis] and [MCAST-VPN], each CE
router is a multicast routing adjacency of a PE router, but CE
routers at different sites do NOT become multicast routing
adjacencies of each other.
Unlike the [MCAST-VPN] model, this document proposes the use of BGP
for both discovering IP multicast VPN membership and exchanging IP
multicast routing information in a given IP multicast VPN.
As for the membership discovery, all the PE routers advertise their
IP multicast VPN membership to other PE routers using BGP so that
each PE router in the network has a complete view of the IP multicast
VPN membership of the other PE routers.
After this information exchange, the Default MDT for a Multicast
Domain is constructed automatically. Note that this Default MDT
construction occurs when the PEs in the domain come up and advertise
their membership of a multicast enabled VPN, and the construction
does not depend on the existence of multicast traffic in the domain.
One further difference is that the MDTs are usually created by P2MP
TE LSPs by running a P2MP TE signaling protocol in the
backbone. Therefore, it may not be necessary to run IP multicast
routing protocols in the core to support IP multicast VPNs (dependent
on how the P2MP TE trees are managed).
As for multicast routing information exchange, this document proposes
BGP to carry the information. Therefore, being different from the
[MCAST-VPN] model, the customer's IP multicast instances of a
particular VPN running on the PE do not form routing adjacencies
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with each other. This means that the customer's IP multicast control
packets are always terminated at PEs and independent multicast
domains are formed within each customer site which is a member of the
IP multicast VPN. In this model, the customer's IP multicast control
messages, such as PIM Join/Prune messages, are converted to BGP
messages and these messages are exchanged between PEs so that IP
multicast routing can be enabled between each independent IP
multicast domains.
This preserves two important features of BGP/IP MPLS VPNs
[RFC2547bis]; "Separation of controlling and forwarding plane in the
provider core" and "Distribution of customer's routing information
via provider's routing facility". These are very important
preservations for the SP to preserve its network management model
while allowing it to control/engineer the customer's data traffic and
control traffic over the network.
Multicast data packets from within a VPN are received from a CE
router by an ingress PE router, the ingress PE then encapsulates the
mutlicast packets and forwards them along the Default MDT to all the
PE routers connected to sites of the given VPN. Every PE router
attached to a site of the given VPN thus receives all multicast
packets from within that VPN. If a particular PE router is not on the
path to any receiver of that multicast group, the PE simply discards
that packet.
In the same way as [MCAST-VPN], this document proposes to set up Data
MDTs to accommodate a large amount of traffic being sent to a
particular multicast group but where that group does not have
receivers at all the VPN sites.
3.2. Proxy-Source/RP model
Section 2.2 of [RFC3446] describes the need to run multiple RPs in
the scenarios where the topological location of RP, Source and
receivers are unpredictable. This document proposes a solution along
similar lines.
This document proposes that all PEs which are members of a given VPN
act as proxy Source/RPs for a given IP multicast group.
Approving all the PEs to be a proxy Source/RP for the group, each
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customer site can form an independent IP multicast tree within the
site regardless of multicast tree formations in other sites.
To accomplish this model, a PE that is either directly connected to
the multicast source in the VPN or connected via a CE MUST act as a
proxy-RP for the receivers in the same site when the customer network
runs PIM-SM protocol in the VPN.
If a customer wants to run the RP within his network, in such a case
the customer can configure one RP on each of his sites and can use an
anycast-RP and MSDP based mechanism [RFC3446]. This solution can be
extended to support such an approach and is presently out of scope of
this document.
A PE that is either directly connected to an RP in the VPN or
connected via a CE MUST act as a Source/RP for the receivers in the
same site, and a PE that is either directly connected to multicast
receivers for that multicast group or connected via a CE MUST act as
a Source/RP for the receivers in the same site.
A P2MP TE LSP or a MP2MP TE LSP which is described in a later section
is established from an ingress PE to multiple egress PEs to form a
default MDT. The setup of default MDT is triggered after the VPN
membership auto-discovery phase.
Therefore, each egress PE which acts as a proxy-Source/RP can always
receive IP multicast data traffic via this LSP tunnel.
A P2MP TE LSP is established from an ingress PE to egress PEs which
are interested in receiving the multicast data dynamically to form a
data MDT. The ingress PE sets up and modifies a data MDT dynamically
by receiving BGP messages which convey egress PEs interests for
joining/leaving the VPN membership. Therefore, each egress PE which
acts as a proxy-Source/RP can receive IP multicast data traffic via
this LSP tunnel on demand.
3.3. Proxy-Source/RP function
To make each PE interconnected to a customer site act as a proxy-RP,
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this document assumes that some RP discovery mechanisms, such as
static configuration or Bootstrap Router, indicates all of the PIM
router existing in the connected customer site to perform the same
group-to-RP (PE) mapping. This ensures that all the PIM router in the
customers site utilize the PE as RP.
The PE which act as RP and interconnected to IP multicast source must
handle PIM register message operations, including decapsulation and
sending source specific join message and PIM register stop message
and must convert PIM register message to IP multicast source active
information.
The PE which acts as RP and is interconnected to multicast receivers
must terminate PIM Join/Prune messages and convert this information
to IP multicast registration information.
3.4. Auto-Discovery of VPN membership
This document assumes MDT SAFI [MDT-SAFI] to discover VPN
membership. In this model, a MDT group-address is defined per
Multicast Domain and all the PEs that are configured with MVRFs
belonging to same IP multicast VPN discover each other thorough this
SAFI.
3.5. Default MDT configuration
After VPN membership discovery, each PE which is a member of an IP
multicast VPN will trigger the formation of a P2MP tree towards every
other PE that has Multicast VRFs for the same Multicast Domain. The
P2MP TE LSPs [P2MP-RSVP] are established by assigning a MDT
group-address to the P2MP ID of the SESSION object, and assigning the
initiator PE's address to the Tunnel Sender Address of the
SENDER_TEMPLATE object. The destination PEs are designated as leaves
of the P2MP tree and are encoded as recipients in P2P Sub-LSP
Objects.
In order for each PE to forward received IP multicat data packets to
the appropriate MVRF, each PE which is a member of the IP multicast
VPN MUST associate the P2MP TE LSPs with a proper MVRF by assigned
P2MP Labels. These associations are configured when a PE assigns P2MP
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Labels to the P2MP TE LSPs. Therefore, in this model, PHP operation
MUST be strictly prohibited.
A MP2MP TE LSP can be also utilized for establishing a Default
MDT. With the help of Route Reflector functionality in MP-BGP the
PE's interested in this Multicast Domain are learnt at the node that
runs as the Route reflector and these PE's are configured as leaves
for P2MP TE LSP with the route reflector node as root.
After an RP has set up a P2MP TE LSP to the leaves, the leaves setup
a P2P TE LSPs to the RP. In this way, a MP2MP TE LSP is established
between PEs which are members of the Multicast Domain. This MP2MP
based Default MDT configuration mechanism is useful but it is out of
scope of this document. The detailed mechanism and procedure will be
defined in the another [MP2MP-TE-MPLS] document.
3.6 Exchanging IP multicast register information
This documents proposes exchanging two kinds of IP multicast register
information between PEs via BGP.
A new Subsequent-Address Family called Source Activate (SA) SAFI is
newly defined to announce the activation of a particular customer's
IP multicast data stream. This SAFI is used by a PE which is either
directly connected to an IP multicast source or connected via a CE to
inform other PEs located in different sites that a particular
customer's (S,G) IP multicast data stream has become active and this
active IP multicast data can be accessed via this announcing
PE. Therefore, a PE which is either directly connected to an IP
multicast source or connected via a CE and acts as proxy RP and sends
this information via BGP after it confirms establishment of a source
specific IP multicast tree between the Designated Router and itself
by sending a Register-Stop message and receiving a Null-Register
Message.
Another Subsequent-Address Family called JOIN SAFI is also newly
defined to announce the interest of a particular PE to join and prune
a particular customer's IP multicast data stream. This SAFI is used
by PEs which are either directly connected to IP multicast receivers
or connected via CEs to inform a PE which is either directly
connected to an IP multicast source or connected via a CE that they
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are interested in receiving a particular customer's (S,G) IP
multicast data stream by announcing JOIN SAFI information. Therefore
PEs which are either directly connected to IP multicast receivers or
connected via CEs and which act as proxy-Source/RPs send this
information via BGP after they have received SA information and have
confirmed that IP multicast receivers in their site are also
interested in receiving/leaving this IP multicast data stream by
receiving customer Join/Prune message.
3.6.1. Source Activate (SA) SAFI
This SAFI is used to announce to all the other PEs about a particular
customer (S,G) data stream becoming active.
SA SAFI:
+------------------------------+
| |
| RD (8 octets) |
+------------------------------+
| PE's IPv4 address |
| (4 octets) |
+------------------------------+
| Provider's Group-address |
| (4 octets) |
+------------------------------+
| Customer's Source-address |
| (4 octets) |
+------------------------------+
| Customer's Group-address |
| (4 octets) |
+------------------------------+
PE's IPv4 address: IP address of the PE that has detected a multicast
source in the customer network.
Provider's Group-address: The PE assigns a multicast group address
from an address range that is independent of the customer multicast
group addresses. This multicast group address is used by the PE's
that have interested receivers to be able to associate a Data MDT
associated with data stream corresponding to Customer's
Source-address and Customer's Group-address
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Customer's Source-address: Address of customer's multicast source.
Customer's Group-address : Address of customer's multicast group
address.
3.6.2. JOIN SAFI
This SAFI will be used by a PE when it desires to receive data for
a particular customer (S,G) data stream.
JOIN SAFI:
+------------------------------+
| |
| RD (8 octets) |
+------------------------------+
| PE's IPv4 address |
| (4 octets) |
+------------------------------+
| Customer's Source-address |
| (4 octets) |
+------------------------------+
| Customer's Group-address |
| (4 octets) |
+------------------------------+
PE's IPv4 address: IP address of the PE that has interested
receivers.
Customer's Source-address: Address of customer's multicast source.
Customer's Group-address : Address of customer's multicast group
address.
3.7 Default MDT operation
This section describes how the proposed solution enables IP multicast
VPN operation using a Default MDT assuming a VPN customer runs the
PIM-SM protocol within their network.
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To establish a Default MDT, MVRFs are first configured on every PE
which is a member of a given IP multicast VPN. A unique group address
and RD are assigned to that Multicast Domain. After this
configuration, each that PE belongs to that Multicast Domain
announces its VPN membership to other PEs by BGP using MDT-SAFI.
After this auto-discovery of VPN membership, each PE initiates the
formation of a P2MP TE LSP by assigning the group address to that
LSP. A P2MP TE LSP is established from the initiator PE to other PEs
which are also members of this Multicast Domain. During the P2MP TE
LSP establishment each PE that is also egress of the LSP and a member
of that Multicast Domain configures an association between P2MP TE
LSPs which constitute Default MDT and MVRF for that Multicast Domain
by relating assigned MPLS labels to the MVRF. The egress PE uses the
group address announced by the PE, which is the root for this P2MP TE
LSP, in the MDT-SAFI message [MDT-SAFI].
Note that as described in the previous section, a MP2MP TE LSP could
be utilized to establish the Default MDT. But MP2MP TE MPLS is out of
scope of this document and its detailed mechanism and procedure will
be addressed in another document.
Because in this mechanism, each PE that is member of the Multicast
Domain must act as a proxy-RP for that multicast groups. Therefore,
all PIM router within a customer's site must be configured by some
mechanism to treat a connected PE as its RP and to perform same
group-to-proxy-RP mapping. Examples of these mechanism are static
configuration and Bootstrap Router mechanism [PIM-BSR] described in
the previous section.
Consider the situation where an IP multicast source starts IP
multicast distribution. The Designated Router (DR) encapsulates IP
multicast data packets and sends these packets as PIM register
messages to a PE which now act as proxy-RP for that customer's
site. Receiving PIM register messages, the PE sends a source specific
Join message to the DR to form a source specific multicast tree
between the PE and the DR. The PE simultaneously starts announcing to
other PEs the activation of a multicast group via BGP using the SA
SAFI. The PE sends a Register stop message to the DR after it starts
receiving multicast Data on the source specific tree.
When receivers in another customer site want to Join a given
multicast distribution, then the receivers send Join (*,G) messages
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to their RP to form a shared multicast distribution tree. Note that a
PE which is either directly connected to the receivers or connected
via a CE now acts as proxy-RP for the receivers. Therefore a shared
multicast distribution tree is formed from proxy-RP (PE) to multiple
receivers in a customer's site. And because this PE knows that
corresponding multicast data is already activated, the PE sends its
IP multicast registry information via BGP using JOIN SAFI. This
information is flooded to all the PEs. As a result, an ingress PE
which is either directly connected to the IP multicast source or
connected via a CE configures its MVRF to start forwarding received
IP multicast data packets to a P2MP TE LSP which comprises the
Default MDT. In this way, IP multicast data packets are MPLS
encapsulated at an ingress proxy-RP (PE) and are tunneled via the
P2MP TE LSP to all the egress proxy-Source/RPs (PEs) and these IP
multicast data packets are decapsulated at the egress PEs and IP
multicast data packets are transmitted to IP multicast receivers in
the site if a shared tree is already formed by multicast receivers
who are interested in receiving these IP multicast flows.
When receivers in the customer's site want to switch multicast
distribution trees from a shared tree to a source specific tree, the
receivers send source specific Join (S,G) message to source node. In
this case, a source node is located in another site and therefore
this message is always transmitted to the PE which now acts as the
proxy-RP for that multicast group. Receiving this source specific
Join message, the PE changes IP multicast distribution to the source
specific tree because the PE starts acting as proxy-Source from that
point of time. Note that this multicast tree switch over does not
cause any additional JOIN SAFI transmission by the PE because the PE
can already receive IP multicast data and can act as proxy- Source
without changing the multicast distribution operation over the
provider core network. In this way, each customer's IP multicast
domain switches IP multicast tree from shared tee to source specific
tree independently without affecting the multicast distribution
within a provider core network and another customer's sites.
3.8. Data MDT operation
This document proposes to setup Data MDTs in addition to a Default
MDT when IP multicast transmission over a Default MDT is judged as
inefficient. The difference from conventional approaches [MCAST-VPN]
[MVPN-RAGGARWA] is this document assumes that Data MDTs are
constructed by [P2MP-RSVP]. Therefore, this proposal can construct
QoS guaranteed and highly reliable Data MDTs which would be better
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for a particular class of IP multicast traffic.
This section describes how the proposed solution enables IP multicast
VPN operation using the Data MDT assuming a VPN customer runs the
PIM-SM protocol within their network. In this document, we assume two
kinds of Data MDT construction model; Static configuration model and
Traffic driven model.
In the static configuration model, we assume that IP multicast flows
which are transmitted by Data MDTs are pre-defined and mutually
agreed by the SP and its customers. This means that multicast group
addresses assigned for IP multicast flows which use Data MDT are
pre-defined and configured on each PE's MVRF. Therefore an ingress PE
which is registered by this multicast group address can setup, modify
and tear-down an appropriate P2MP TE LSP on demand. When several
downstream PEs which act as proxy-RP for interconnected customer
sites detect the existence of receivers which are interested in
joining a particular multicast distribution by receiving Join
messages, then the PEs report their interest to join the group by BGP
using the JOIN SAFI. After receiving these reports, an ingress PE
establishes a P2MP TE LSP to the egress leaves which have reported
interest. After this operation, when a new PE uses the BGP JOIN SAFI
to report to the ingress PE its interest to join the the group, the
ingress PE initiates Grafting and expands the P2MP TE LSP to reach
that new PE. When an existing PE detects that no more receivers are
connected to a customer's site by receiving Prune messages, the PE
withdraws the corresponding IP multicast registration by using BGP
withdraw message specifying the corresponding JOIN SAFI.
Then the ingress PE initiates Pruning and cuts out the unnecessary
leaf from the P2MP TE LSP. In this way, this proposal can setup,
modify and tear-down Data MDT on demand basis.
In the traffic driven model, an ingress PE monitors incoming IP
multicast data packets and when it detects some data flow exceeds a
pre-determined threshold, then the ingress PE immediately establishes
a new P2MP TE LSP to reach the receivers' PEs because the ingress PE
recognizes which PEs are interested in joining this group via
BGP. After establishment, the ingress PE switches corresponding IP
multicast data packets from the Default MDT to the Data MDT. In this
way, Data MDT based IP multicast transmission is performed on demand
in this model. After this Data MDT establishment, this model follows
exactly the same operations as the static configuration model when
the Data MDT is modified.
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In order to associate the Data MDT with the appropriate MVRF, the
egress PEs utilize the PE Group-address announced by the PE (which is
the root of the P2MP TE LSP) via the SA SAFI.
3.9. Inter-Site Scaling and Site Interdependencies
As described in section 3.8, customer sites may be members of the
same multicast VPN yet operate in near independence. That is, each
site has its own RP and may choose to use a source-specific tree
based at the PE, or a shared distribution tree. This choice is
private to each customer site, and is not communicated to other sites
(nor would it provide any useful information if it were
communicated).
Clearly, also, the number of leaves downstream of an egress PE does
not affect the way in which the traffic is managed at upstream
nodes. That is, neither the source site nor the MPLS P2MP TE LSP in
the SP's network are in any way different if there is one or one
hundred receivers at a customer site downstream of an egress PE. The
PE represents a fixed point in the multicast tree that must receive
data and is an egress of the MPLS P2MP TE LSP.
For this reason, there is no requirement for the routing protocols to
report each receiver across the SP network to the ingress site when
the receivers are added to or removed from the multicast group. All
that is required is that the egress PE reports (using the BGP JOIN
SAFI) when the first receiver joins the group so that it becomes a
leaf on the MPLS P2MP TE LSP, and indicates when the last receiver at
the site leaves the multicast group so that the PE can be pruned from
the MPLS P2MP TE LSP. In order to make this optimization each PE must
count the number of receivers at its site, but since it is acting as
a proxy-source/RP this is easy for it to do. Such an optimization
substantially reduces the amount of MP-BGP traffic caused by the VPN
multicast group and is RECOMMENDED for all implementations.
Note that an egress PE that makes this optimization may further
protect itself against flapping membership of a multicast group. In
the case where the membership may frequently vary between no
receivers and some receivers an egress PE MAY choose to remain as a
leaf of the MPLS P2MP TE LSP for some period of time (controllable by
the operator) even when it has no downstream receivers for the
multicast traffic. If a local timer expires before any new receivers
join the group, the PE should use MP-BGP to report that it no longer
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wishes to receive data for the multicast group, and this will result
in it being pruned from the MPLS P2MP TE LSP tree. Any traffic
received by a PE for a multicast group for which it has no downstream
receivers SHOULD be discarded.
3.10 Targeted JOIN SAFI transmission
The advertisement of multicast JOIN-SAFI information in response to
a SA-SAFI, as per standard BGP procedures, will be advertised to all
the PEs which act as RPs. The JOIN-SAFI is used only by the PE which
generated the SA-SAFI and would be dropped on other PEs. Therefore it
is highly desirable to avoid sending the BGP JOIN-SAFI messages to
PEs which do not require to receive it.
This document proposes a BGP filtering mechanism termed Multicast
distribution filtering (MDF) that would help to restrict the
advertisement of the JOIN-SAFI to only the PE which advertised the
SA-SAFI. Multicast distribution filters will be created dynamically
on the downstream PE at the time of receiving the SA-SAFI message.
When the downstream PE attempts to respond with a JOIN-SAFI, MDF
filter restricts the distribution of the JOIN-SAFI message so that it
is sent only to the PE from which SA-SAFI was received.
The MDF BGP mechanism will be detailed in a later revision of this
document.
3.11. Multi-Homing scenario
The proposed solution provides a very effective fail over mechanism
in the case where the multicast source/receivers are connected to
multiple PEs. The PEs which are connected to the customer network
announce themselves as the RPs via the bootstrap mechanism. When
one of the PE fails the alternate PE becomes RP for this multicast
domain and this PE can readily takeover as it is already connected
via the default MDT.
Anycast-RP mechanism can also be used to provide RP redundnacy.
3.12 Inter-Provider Backbones
The solution described in this document can be easily extended to
Inter-AS operations in line with the model described in 2547bis.
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3.12.1 Option A
In VRF-to-VRF connections at the AS border routers (Option A), the
PEs associate a sub-interface with a VRF, and use PIM to exchange
unlabeled control/Data multicast information with each other. An ASBR
PE router, will send a PIM Register message to its EBGP peer on the
connected sub-interface on detecting a multicast source (either by
receiving a SA-SAFI message from its IBGP peer, or by receiving a
register message). The rest of the operations do not need any
modifications and are same the as explained in earlier sections of
this document for single AS operations.
3.12.2 Option B
In the case of option B, the ASBR PE router exchanges MDT-SAFI,
JOIN-SAFI and SA-SAFI messages with its MP-EBGP peers just as it does
with its MP-IBGP peers. In the case of MP-EBGP peer, the MDT-SAFI
will carry a label. The PE, when forwarding across AS boundaries,
encapsulates the multicast data with the label that the downstream PE
advertised in the MDT-SAFI. The downstream PE will use this label to
map the data to a VRF. After identifying the VRF, the downstream PE
can perform the operations as described previously in the draft.
The detailed procedures and modification required to the BGP message
will be described in later version of this document.
3.12.3 Option C
In the case of option C, MP-EBGP multihop peering is established for
the PEs. The PEs will attempt to form P2MP LSPs across AS boundaries.
3.13 Support for Other PIM Variants
3.13.1 PIM-SSM Support
PIM-SSM can be supported using the procedures described in this draft
with a slight change to the sequence of JOIN-SAFI and SA-SAFI BGP
messages. In the case of PIM-SSM, the PIM routers connected to the
multicast source will not send PIM register messages to the RP (PE)
for multicast data being sent to group addresses that fall in the
PIM-SSM range. Thus it is not possible for the PE to send SA-SAFI
messages for these multicast streams. In such cases, when the
downstream PE router receives PIM Join(S,G) from the CE router, it
will directly generate JOIN-SAFI message to the upstream PE router,
without waiting for the SA-SAFI message.
When an upstream PE router receives a JOIN-SAFI message for a
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customer multicast group address in the PIM-SSM range, it will
trigger PIM Join(S,G) towards the source of multicast data. The
SA-SAFI message is triggered by the upstream PE on detecting the
multicast data flow. The provider group address advertised in the
SA-SAFI message will be used by the downstream PE to map multicast
data sent on the data tunnel to the right VPN.
3.13.2 PIM-DM/PIM-BIDIR
The support for these PIM variants will be detailed in future
revisions of this document.
3.14 Tunnel Applicability
This solution does not place any restrictions on the technology used
to establish MDTs over the provider core network. Possible
technologies include RSVP-TE P2MP LSP tunnels [P2MP-SIG], PIM-based
tunnels, or GRE and IP-in-IP multicast tunnels.
4. IANA Considerations
[TBD]
5. Security Considerations
Since this document is based on [RFC2547bis] and [P2MP-RSVP], the
security considerations involving those drafts apply here as well.
6. Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Antu Chatterjee and Masaaki TAKAGI for their
suggestions and contributions to this draft
7. Intellectual Property Considerations
The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any
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Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to
pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in
this document or the extent to which any license under such rights
might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has
made any independent effort to identify any such rights. Information
on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be
found in BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any
assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an
attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of
such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this
specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at
http://www.ietf.org/ipr.
The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any
copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary
rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement
this standard. Please address the information to the IETF at
ietf-ipr@ietf.org.
8. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC3667] Bradner, S., "IETF Rights in Contributions", BCP 78,
RFC 3667, February 2004.
[RFC3668] Bradner, S., Ed., "Intellectual Property Rights in IETF
Technology", BCP 79, RFC 3668, February 2004.
[RFC2547bis] Rosen, E., et. al. "BGP/MPLS VPNs",
draft-ietf-l3vpn-rfc2547bis, work in progress
[PIM-SM] B. Fenner, M. Handley, H. Holbrook, I. Kouvelas,
"Protocol Independent Multicast - Sparse Mode (PIM-SM):
Protocol Specification (Revised)",
draft-ietf-pim-sm-v2-new-08.txt, work in progress.
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9. Informational References
[RFC3446] D. Kim, D. Meyer, H. Kilmer, D. Farinacci,
"Anycast Rendevous Point (RP) mechanism using Protocol
Independent Multicast (PIM) and Multicast Source
Discovery Protocol (MSDP)", January 2003
[RFC2434] Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an
IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP: 26, RFC 2434,
October 1998.
[RFC3209] Awduche, D., Berger, L., Gan, D., Li, T., Srinivasan, V.,
and G. Swallow, "RSVP-TE: Extensions to RSVP for LSP
Tunnels", RFC 3209, December 2001.
[RFC3552] Rescorla E. and B. Korver, "Guidelines for Writing RFC
Text on Security Considerations", BCP: 72, RFC 3552,
July 2003.
[P2MP-REQ] S. Yasukawa, et. al., "Requirements for Point to
Multipoint Traffic Engineered MPLS LSPs",
draft-ietf-mpls-p2mp-requirement, work in progress.
[P2MP-RSVP] R. Aggarwal, et. al., "Extensions to RSVP-TE for Point to
Multipoint TE LSPs", draft-raggarwa-mpls-rsvp-te-p2mp,
work in progress.
[MDT-SAFI] Nalawade and Sreekantiah, "MDT SAFI",
draft-nalawade-idr-mdt-safi-00.txt, February 2004
[MCAST-VPN] Y. Cai, E. Rosen, I. Wijnands, "Multicast in BGP/MPLS
IP VPNs", <draft-rosen-vpn-mcast-07.txt>, May 2004.
[MVPN-RAGGARWA] R. Aggarwal, "Multicast in BGP/MPLS VPNs and VPLS",
<draft-raggarwa-l3vpn-mvpn-vpls-mcast-00.txt>,
February, 2004.
[MP2MP-TE-MPLS] Work in progress
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[PIM-BSR] N.Bhaskar, A Gall and Stig Venaas,
"BootStrap Router(BSR) Mechanism for PIM",
<draft-ietf-pim-sm-bsr-04.txt>, July 2004.
10. Authors' Addresses
Seisho Yasukawa
NTT Corporation
9-11, Midori-Cho 3-Chome
Musashino-Shi, Tokyo 180-8585,
Japan
Phone: +81 422 59 4769
Email: yasukawa.seisho@lab.ntt.co.jp
Shankar Karuna
Motorola
Vanenburg IT park, Madhapur,
Hyderabad, India
Email: kshankar@motorola.com
Sarveshwar Bandi
Motorola
Vanenburg IT park, Madhapur,
Hyderabad, India
Email: sarvesh@motorola.com
Adrian Farrel
Old Dog Consulting
EMail: adrian@olddog.co.uk
11. Full Copyright Statement
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004). This document is subject
to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP 78, and
except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights.
This document and the information contained herein are provided on an
"AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS
Yasukawa, Karuna, Bandi and Farrel. [Page 23]
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OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET
ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE
INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Yasukawa, Karuna, Bandi and Farrel. [Page 24]