A Lower Effort Per-Domain Behavior (PDB) for Differentiated Services
RFC 3662
Document | Type |
RFC - Informational
(December 2003; No errata)
Obsoleted by RFC 8622
|
|
---|---|---|---|
Authors | Klaus Wehrle , Kathleen Nichols , Roland Bless | ||
Last updated | 2015-10-14 | ||
Stream | ISE | ||
Formats | plain text html pdf htmlized bibtex | ||
Stream | ISE state | (None) | |
Consensus Boilerplate | Unknown | ||
Document shepherd | No shepherd assigned | ||
IESG | IESG state | RFC 3662 (Informational) | |
Telechat date | |||
Responsible AD | Jon Peterson | ||
Send notices to | (None) |
Network Working Group R. Bless Request for Comments: 3662 Univ. of Karlsruhe Category: Informational K. Nichols Consultant K. Wehrle Univ. of Tuebingen/ICSI December 2003 A Lower Effort Per-Domain Behavior (PDB) for Differentiated Services Status of this Memo This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). All Rights Reserved. Abstract This document proposes a differentiated services per-domain behavior (PDB) whose traffic may be "starved" (although starvation is not strictly required) in a properly functioning network. This is in contrast to the Internet's "best-effort" or "normal Internet traffic" model, where prolonged starvation indicates network problems. In this sense, the proposed PDB's traffic is forwarded with a "lower" priority than the normal "best-effort" Internet traffic, thus the PDB is called "Lower Effort" (LE). Use of this PDB permits a network operator to strictly limit the effect of its traffic on "best- effort"/"normal" or all other Internet traffic. This document gives some example uses, but does not propose constraining the PDB's use to any particular type of traffic. 1. Description of the Lower Effort PDB This document proposes a differentiated services per-domain behavior [RFC3086] called "Lower Effort" (LE) which is intended for traffic of sufficiently low value (where "value" may be interpreted in any useful way by the network operator), in which all other traffic takes precedence over LE traffic in consumption of network link bandwidth. One possible interpretation of "low value" traffic is its low priority in time, which does not necessarily imply that it is generally of minor importance. From this viewpoint, it can be Bless, et al. Informational [Page 1] RFC 3662 Lower Effort PDB December 2003 considered as a network equivalent to a background priority for processes in an operating system. There may or may not be memory (buffer) resources allocated for this type of traffic. Some networks carry traffic for which delivery is considered optional; that is, packets of this type of traffic ought to consume network resources only when no other traffic is present. Alternatively, the effect of this type of traffic on all other network traffic is strictly limited. This is distinct from "best- effort" (BE) traffic since the network makes no commitment to deliver LE packets. In contrast, BE traffic receives an implied "good faith" commitment of at least some available network resources. This document proposes a Lower Effort Differentiated Services per-domain behavior (LE PDB) [RFC3086] for handling this "optional" traffic in a differentiated services domain. There is no intrinsic reason to limit the applicability of the LE PDB to any particular application or type of traffic. It is intended as an additional tool for administrators in engineering networks. Note: where not otherwise defined, terminology used in this document is defined as in [RFC2474]. 2. Applicability A Lower Effort (LE) PDB is for sending extremely non-critical traffic across a DS domain or DS region. There should be an expectation that packets of the LE PDB may be delayed or dropped when other traffic is present. Use of the LE PDB might assist a network operator in moving certain kinds of traffic or users to off-peak times. Alternatively, or in addition, packets can be designated for the LE PDB when the goal is to protect all other packet traffic from competition with the LE aggregate, while not completely banning LE traffic from the network. An LE PDB should not be used for a customer's "normal internet" traffic, nor should packets be "downgraded" to the LE PDB for use as a substitute for dropping packets that ought to simply be dropped as unauthorized. The LE PDB is expected to be applicable to networks that have some unused capacity at some times of day. This is a PDB that allows networks to protect themselves from selected types of traffic rather than giving a selected traffic aggregate preferential treatment. Moreover, it may also exploit all unused resources from other PDBs. Bless, et al. Informational [Page 2] RFC 3662 Lower Effort PDB December 2003Show full document text