Benchmarking Methodology for In-Service Software Upgrade (ISSU)
RFC 7654

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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                          S. Banks
Request for Comments: 7654                                VSS Monitoring
Category: Informational                                      F. Calabria
ISSN: 2070-1721                                            Cisco Systems
                                                              G. Czirjak
                                                               R. Machat
                                                        Juniper Networks
                                                            October 2015

    Benchmarking Methodology for In-Service Software Upgrade (ISSU)

Abstract

   Modern forwarding devices attempt to minimize any control- and data-
   plane disruptions while performing planned software changes by
   implementing a technique commonly known as In-Service Software
   Upgrade (ISSU).  This document specifies a set of common
   methodologies and procedures designed to characterize the overall
   behavior of a Device Under Test (DUT), subject to an ISSU event.

Status of This Memo

   This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
   published for informational purposes.

   This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
   (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has
   received public review and has been approved for publication by the
   Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Not all documents
   approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
   Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741.

   Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
   and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
   http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7654.

Banks, et al.                 Informational                     [Page 1]
RFC 7654              Benchmarking Software Upgrade         October 2015

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2015 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1. Introduction ....................................................3
   2. Conventions Used in This Document ...............................4
   3. Generic ISSU Process, Phased Approach ...........................4
      3.1. Software Download ..........................................5
      3.2. Software Staging ...........................................6
      3.3. Upgrade Run ................................................6
      3.4. Upgrade Acceptance .........................................7
   4. Test Methodology ................................................7
      4.1. Test Topology ..............................................7
      4.2. Load Model .................................................8
   5. ISSU Test Methodology ...........................................9
      5.1. Pre-ISSU Recommended Verifications .........................9
      5.2. Software Staging ...........................................9
      5.3. Upgrade Run ...............................................10
      5.4. Post-ISSU Verification ....................................11
      5.5. ISSU under Negative Stimuli ...............................12
   6. ISSU Abort and Rollback ........................................12
   7. Final Report: Data Presentation and Analysis ...................13
      7.1. Data Collection Considerations ............................14
   8. Security Considerations ........................................15
   9. References .....................................................15
      9.1. Normative References ......................................15
      9.2. Informative References ....................................16
   Acknowledgments ...................................................16
   Authors' Addresses ................................................16

Banks, et al.                 Informational                     [Page 2]
RFC 7654              Benchmarking Software Upgrade         October 2015

1.  Introduction

   As required by most Service Provider (SP) network operators, ISSU
   functionality has been implemented by modern forwarding devices to
   upgrade or downgrade from one software version to another with a goal
   of eliminating the downtime of the router and/or the outage of
   service.  However, it is noted that while most operators desire
   complete elimination of downtime, minimization of downtime and