Internet Engineering Task Force E. Haleplidis Internet-Draft O. Koufopavlou Intended status: Informational S. Denazis Expires: April 26, 2013 University of Patras October 23, 2012 Virtualization of the Forwarding Plane Devices with ForCES draft-haleplidis-forces-virtualization-01 Abstract Forwarding and Control Element Separation (ForCES) defines an architectural framework and associated protocols to standardize information exchange between the control plane and the forwarding plane in a ForCES Network Element (ForCES NE). RFC5812 has defined the ForCES Model provides a formal way to represent the capabilities, state, and configuration of forwarding elements within the context of the ForCES protocol, so that control elements (CEs) can control the FEs accordingly. More specifically, the model describes the logical functions that are present in an FE, what capabilities these functions support, and how these functions are or can be interconnected. The ForCES model provides the necessary abstractions to natively support virtualization of the forwarding plane. This documents describes a formal approach to model the necessary parameters required for defining and managing virtual network forwarding planes to create virtual network elements. 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 Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months 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 April 26, 2013. Copyright Notice Haleplidis, et al. Expires April 26, 2013 [Page 1] Internet-Draft ForCES Virtualization October 2012 Copyright (c) 2012 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. Terminology and Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.1. Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.2. Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3. Virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 4. Virtualization Base Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 4.1. Frame Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 4.2. Data Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 4.3. MetaData Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 5. Virtualization LFBs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 5.1. vFE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 5.1.1. Data Handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 5.1.2. Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 5.1.3. Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 5.1.4. Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 6. XML for Virtual LFB library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 7. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 8. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 9. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 10. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 10.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 10.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Haleplidis, et al. Expires April 26, 2013 [Page 2] Internet-Draft ForCES Virtualization October 2012 1. Terminology and Conventions 1.1. Requirements Language 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 [RFC2119]. 1.2. Definitions This document follows the terminology defined by the ForCES Model in [RFC5812]. The required definitions are repeated below for clarity. FE Model - The FE model is designed to model the logical processing functions of an FE. The FE model proposed in this document includes three components; the LFB modeling of individual Logical Functional Block (LFB model), the logical interconnection between LFBs (LFB topology), and the FE-level attributes, including FE capabilities. The FE model provides the basis to define the information elements exchanged between the CE and the FE in the ForCES protocol [RFC5810]. LFB (Logical Functional Block) Class (or type) - A template that represents a fine-grained, logically separable aspect of FE processing. Most LFBs relate to packet processing in the data path. LFB classes are the basic building blocks of the FE model. LFB Instance - As a packet flows through an FE along a data path, it flows through one or multiple LFB instances, where each LFB is an instance of a specific LFB class. Multiple instances of the same LFB class can be present in an FE's data path. Note that we often refer to LFBs without distinguishing between an LFB class and LFB instance when we believe the implied reference is obvious for the given context. LFB Model - The LFB model describes the content and structures in an LFB, plus the associated data definition. XML is used to provide a formal definition of the necessary structures for the modeling. Four types of information are defined in the LFB model. The core part of the LFB model is the LFB class definitions; the other three types of information define constructs associated with and used by the class definition. These are reusable data types, supported frame (packet) formats, and metadata. Element - Element is generally used in this document in accordance with the XML usage of the term. It refers to an XML tagged part of an XML document. For a precise definition, please see the full set of XML specifications from the W3C. This term is included in Haleplidis, et al. Expires April 26, 2013 [Page 3] Internet-Draft ForCES Virtualization October 2012 this list for completeness because the ForCES formal model uses XML. Attribute - Attribute is used in the ForCES formal modeling in accordance with standard XML usage of the term, i.e., to provide attribute information included in an XML tag. LFB Metadata - Metadata is used to communicate per-packet state from one LFB to another, but is not sent across the network. The FE model defines how such metadata is identified, produced, and consumed by the LFBs, but not how the per-packet state is implemented within actual hardware. Metadata is sent between the FE and the CE on redirect packets. ForCES Component - A ForCES Component is a well-defined, uniquely identifiable and addressable ForCES model building block. A component has a 32-bit ID, name, type, and an optional synopsis description. These are often referred to simply as components. LFB Component - An LFB component is a ForCES component that defines the Operational parameters of the LFBs that must be visible to the CEs. LFB Class Library - The LFB class library is a set of LFB classes that has been identified as the most common functions found in most FEs and hence should be defined first by the ForCES Working Group. Haleplidis, et al. Expires April 26, 2013 [Page 4] Internet-Draft ForCES Virtualization October 2012 2. Introduction Forwarding plane virtualization is one key ingerdient in creating a fully virtualized environment for data centers. One of the main requirements for virtualizing the forwarding plane is to create a complete set of abstractions that can be mapped to the physical devices. The ForCES Model [RFC5812] is such and abstraction as it presents a formal way to describe the Forwarding Plane's datapath with Logical Function Blocks (LFBs) using XML. This documents describes a formal approach to model the necessary parameters required for defining and managing a virtual network forwarding plane. Control Elements virtual or physical can be associated with ForCES protocol to the virtual FEs and create a virtual network element. Haleplidis, et al. Expires April 26, 2013 [Page 5] Internet-Draft ForCES Virtualization October 2012 3. Virtualization LFBs are abstraction of the forwarding plane therefore they can be also used as abstractions of the virtual forwarding plane as well. How a device is exactly virtualized is out of scope of this document and is considered implementation specific. However an example is shown in Figure 1 where disctinct and isolated topologies of LFB instances inside an FE can be virtualiza a physical FE. +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | +---------------------------------------------------------+ | | | +----+ +----------+ +-----+ +-----+ +----+ | | ---|--->|Port|--->|Classifier|--->|Meter|--->|Queue|--->|Port|---|--> | | |In.1| |Instance 1| |In.1 | |In.1 | |In.2| | | | | +----+ +----------+ +-----+ +-----+ +----+ | | | +---------------------------------------------------------+ | | Virtual FE 1 | | | | +---------------------------------------------------------+ | | | +----+ +----------+ +-----+ +----+ | | ---|--->|Port|--->|Classifier|-------------->|Queue|--->|Port|---|--> | | |In.3| |Instance 2| |In.2 | |In.4| | | | | +----+ +----------+ +-----+ +----+ | | | +---------------------------------------------------------+ | | Virtual FE 2 | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ Physical FE Figure 1: Isolated LFB instances This document focuses on the definition of an LFB that will allow a CE to deploy and manage virtual FEs. In this approach we try to define parameters of a Virtual Network Element Manager (VNEM), what is commonly called a hypervisor therefore treating it as an FE, in order to be managed by a virtual management software, in this case a CE. The VNEM in the ForCES model can be a joined Control Element Manager and a Forwarding Element Manager which defines which CEs or vCEs connect to which FEs or vFEs. What is required therefore of this document is a way to define resource allocation to a vFE and the topology of the FE or vFEs. This document introduces a new LFB, called vFE which contains the following details for one tenant of the network: Haleplidis, et al. Expires April 26, 2013 [Page 6] Internet-Draft ForCES Virtualization October 2012 1. TenantID 2. FEs and resource allocation per FE. 3. FETopology It is expected that there is one instance of the vFE LFB per tenant. +-----------------+ | Virtual Network | | Management (CE) | +-----------------+ /\ | ForCES | Protocol \/ +----+ CE/CEM +-----------------+ | CE | <-------> | | +----+ Interface | | | Virtual | +----+ CE/CEM | Network Element | | CE | <-------> | Manager (FE) | +----+ Interface | | /\ +-----------------+ | /\ /\ | ForCES | FE/FEM | | Protocol | Interface | | \/ \/ | +----+ +----+ +------------->| FE | | FE | +----+ +----+ Figure 2: Virtual Network Elements The Virtual Network Management is able to describe and instantiate FE topologies and assign CEs to control them. The CEs will be able to be configured via the CE/CEM interface and the FEs by the FE/FEM interface Haleplidis, et al. Expires April 26, 2013 [Page 7] Internet-Draft ForCES Virtualization October 2012 4. Virtualization Base Types 4.1. Frame Types No frame types has been defined in this library. 4.2. Data Types TBD 4.3. MetaData Types No metadata types have been defined in this library. Haleplidis, et al. Expires April 26, 2013 [Page 8] Internet-Draft ForCES Virtualization October 2012 5. Virtualization LFBs 5.1. vFE The vFE LFB holds information regarding a tenant in a virtual network device 5.1.1. Data Handling The vFE LFB does not handle any data. It is similar to the core LFBs, FEObject and FEProtocolObject. It is expected to be one vFE LFB per tenant. 5.1.2. Components The following components have been defined for this FE: 1. FETopology - The Topology of the FEs. From a FE, To an FE, via port and the link allocation between them. 2. FEs - The FEs supported by this vFE 3. CEs - The CEs, master and backup to control the FEs. 4. TenantID - The tenant ID for this vFE. 5.1.3. Capabilities The following two capabilities have been defined: 1. ModifiableFETopology - Whether the FE topology is modifiable. 2. SupportedFEs - The FEs that are supported by this topology. 5.1.4. Events This LFB has no events specified. Haleplidis, et al. Expires April 26, 2013 [Page 9] Internet-Draft ForCES Virtualization October 2012 6. XML for Virtual LFB library PercentageType A datatype that defines a percentage uchar FEAdjacencyLimitType Describing the Adjacent FE NeighborLFB FE ID for that FE uint32 ViaPorts the ports on which we can connect string SupportedFEType Table entry for supported FEs FEName The name of a supported FE string Haleplidis, et al. Expires April 26, 2013 [Page 10] Internet-Draft ForCES Virtualization October 2012 FEID The id of a supported FE uint32 CanOccurAfters List of FEs that this FE class can follow FEAdjacencyLimitType CanOccurBefores List of FEs that this FE class can follow FEAdjacencyLimitType FELinkTYpe Link between two FEs FromFEID FE source uint32 ToFEID FE destination uint32 ViaPorts The interfaces on which the FEs connect string Haleplidis, et al. Expires April 26, 2013 [Page 11] Internet-Draft ForCES Virtualization October 2012 LinkAllocation Percentage of allowed Link usage PercentageType FEType An FE inside a virtual forwarding element topology FEID ID of the FE uint32 ResourceAllocation Resource Allocation for this FE Storage Storage allocation of this FE PercentageType Memory Memory allocation of this FE PercentageType Compuutation Computation allocation of this FE PercentageType Bandwidth Bandwidth allocation of this FE Haleplidis, et al. Expires April 26, 2013 [Page 12] Internet-Draft ForCES Virtualization October 2012 PercentageType vFE Core LFB:FE Object 1.0 FETopology The table of known topologies FELinkTYpe FEs table of FEs FEType CEs table of CEs CEID The CEID uint32 CEType Master or backup uchar Master This CE is the master Haleplidis, et al. Expires April 26, 2013 [Page 13] Internet-Draft ForCES Virtualization October 2012 Backup This CE is a backup TenantID The tenant ID of this virtual topology of FEs uint32 ModifiableFETopology Whether Modifiable FE topology is supported boolean SupportedFEs List of all supported FEs uint32 Figure 3: Parallel LFB library Haleplidis, et al. Expires April 26, 2013 [Page 14] Internet-Draft ForCES Virtualization October 2012 7. Acknowledgements TBD Haleplidis, et al. Expires April 26, 2013 [Page 15] Internet-Draft ForCES Virtualization October 2012 8. IANA Considerations This memo includes no request to IANA. Haleplidis, et al. Expires April 26, 2013 [Page 16] Internet-Draft ForCES Virtualization October 2012 9. Security Considerations Haleplidis, et al. Expires April 26, 2013 [Page 17] Internet-Draft ForCES Virtualization October 2012 10. References 10.1. Normative References [RFC5810] Doria, A., Hadi Salim, J., Haas, R., Khosravi, H., Wang, W., Dong, L., Gopal, R., and J. Halpern, "Forwarding and Control Element Separation (ForCES) Protocol Specification", RFC 5810, March 2010. [RFC5812] Halpern, J. and J. Hadi Salim, "Forwarding and Control Element Separation (ForCES) Forwarding Element Model", RFC 5812, March 2010. 10.2. Informative References [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. Haleplidis, et al. Expires April 26, 2013 [Page 18] Internet-Draft ForCES Virtualization October 2012 Authors' Addresses Evangelos Haleplidis University of Patras Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Patras, 26500 Greece Email: ehalep@ece.upatras.gr Odysseas Koufopavlou University of Patras Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Patras, 26500 Greece Email: odysseas@ece.upatras.gr Spyros Denazis University of Patras Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Patras, 26500 Greece Email: sdena@upatras.gr Haleplidis, et al. Expires April 26, 2013 [Page 19]