Benchmarking Terminology for Resource Reservation Capable Routers
RFC 4883

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Network Working Group                                           G. Feher
Request for Comments: 4883                                     K. Nemeth
Category: Informational                                          A. Korn
                                                                    BUTE
                                                             I. Cselenyi
                                                             TeliaSonera
                                                               July 2007

   Benchmarking Terminology for Resource Reservation Capable Routers

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 IETF Trust (2007).

Abstract

   The primary purpose of this document is to define terminology
   specific to the benchmarking of resource reservation signaling of
   Integrated Services (IntServ) IP routers.  These terms can be used in
   additional documents that define benchmarking methodologies for
   routers that support resource reservation or reporting formats for
   the benchmarking measurements.

Feher, et al.                Informational                      [Page 1]
RFC 4883       Benchmarking Terms for RR Capable Routers       July 2007

Table of Contents

   1. Introduction ....................................................2
   2. Existing Definitions ............................................3
   3. Definition of Terms .............................................4
      3.1. Traffic Flow Types .........................................4
           3.1.1. Data Flow ...........................................4
           3.1.2. Distinguished Data Flow .............................4
           3.1.3. Best-Effort Data Flow ...............................5
      3.2. Resource Reservation Protocol Basics .......................5
           3.2.1. QoS Session .........................................5
           3.2.2. Resource Reservation Protocol .......................6
           3.2.3. Resource Reservation Capable Router .................7
           3.2.4. Reservation State ...................................7
           3.2.5. Resource Reservation Protocol Orientation ...........8
      3.3. Router Load Factors ........................................9
           3.3.1. Best-Effort Traffic Load Factor .....................9
           3.3.2. Distinguished Traffic Load Factor ..................10
           3.3.3. Session Load Factor ................................11
           3.3.4. Signaling Intensity Load Factor ....................11
           3.3.5. Signaling Burst Load Factor ........................12
      3.4. Performance Metrics .......................................13
           3.4.1. Signaling Message Handling Time ....................13
           3.4.2. Distinguished Traffic Delay ........................14
           3.4.3. Best-effort Traffic Delay ..........................15
           3.4.4. Signaling Message Deficit ..........................15
           3.4.5. Session Maintenance Capacity .......................16
      3.5. Router Load Conditions and Scalability Limit ..............17
           3.5.1. Loss-Free Condition ................................17
           3.5.2. Lossy Condition ....................................18
           3.5.3. QoS Compliant Condition ............................19
           3.5.4. Not QoS Compliant Condition ........................20
           3.5.5. Scalability Limit ..................................20
   4. Security Considerations ........................................21
   5. Acknowledgements ...............................................21
   6. References .....................................................21
      6.1. Normative References ......................................21
      6.2. Informative References ....................................21

1.  Introduction

   Signaling-based resource reservation using the IntServ paradigm [4]
   is an important part of the different Quality of Service (QoS)
   provisioning approaches.  Therefore, network operators who are
   planning to deploy signaling-based resource reservation may want to
   examine the scalability limitations of reservation capable routers
   and the impact of signaling on their data forwarding performance.

Feher, et al.                Informational                      [Page 2]
RFC 4883       Benchmarking Terms for RR Capable Routers       July 2007

   An objective way of quantifying the scalability constraints of QoS
   signaling is to perform measurements on routers that are capable of
   IntServ-based resource reservation.  This document defines
   terminology for a specific set of tests that vendors or network
   operators can carry out to measure and report the signaling
   performance characteristics of router devices that support resource