245 research outputs found
Segment Routing: a Comprehensive Survey of Research Activities, Standardization Efforts and Implementation Results
Fixed and mobile telecom operators, enterprise network operators and cloud
providers strive to face the challenging demands coming from the evolution of
IP networks (e.g. huge bandwidth requirements, integration of billions of
devices and millions of services in the cloud). Proposed in the early 2010s,
Segment Routing (SR) architecture helps face these challenging demands, and it
is currently being adopted and deployed. SR architecture is based on the
concept of source routing and has interesting scalability properties, as it
dramatically reduces the amount of state information to be configured in the
core nodes to support complex services. SR architecture was first implemented
with the MPLS dataplane and then, quite recently, with the IPv6 dataplane
(SRv6). IPv6 SR architecture (SRv6) has been extended from the simple steering
of packets across nodes to a general network programming approach, making it
very suitable for use cases such as Service Function Chaining and Network
Function Virtualization. In this paper we present a tutorial and a
comprehensive survey on SR technology, analyzing standardization efforts,
patents, research activities and implementation results. We start with an
introduction on the motivations for Segment Routing and an overview of its
evolution and standardization. Then, we provide a tutorial on Segment Routing
technology, with a focus on the novel SRv6 solution. We discuss the
standardization efforts and the patents providing details on the most important
documents and mentioning other ongoing activities. We then thoroughly analyze
research activities according to a taxonomy. We have identified 8 main
categories during our analysis of the current state of play: Monitoring,
Traffic Engineering, Failure Recovery, Centrally Controlled Architectures, Path
Encoding, Network Programming, Performance Evaluation and Miscellaneous...Comment: SUBMITTED TO IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SURVEYS & TUTORIAL
SDN Architecture and Southbound APIs for IPv6 Segment Routing Enabled Wide Area Networks
The SRv6 architecture (Segment Routing based on IPv6 data plane) is a
promising solution to support services like Traffic Engineering, Service
Function Chaining and Virtual Private Networks in IPv6 backbones and
datacenters. The SRv6 architecture has interesting scalability properties as it
reduces the amount of state information that needs to be configured in the
nodes to support the network services. In this paper, we describe the
advantages of complementing the SRv6 technology with an SDN based approach in
backbone networks. We discuss the architecture of a SRv6 enabled network based
on Linux nodes. In addition, we present the design and implementation of the
Southbound API between the SDN controller and the SRv6 device. We have defined
a data-model and four different implementations of the API, respectively based
on gRPC, REST, NETCONF and remote Command Line Interface (CLI). Since it is
important to support both the development and testing aspects we have realized
an Intent based emulation system to build realistic and reproducible
experiments. This collection of tools automate most of the configuration
aspects relieving the experimenter from a significant effort. Finally, we have
realized an evaluation of some performance aspects of our architecture and of
the different variants of the Southbound APIs and we have analyzed the effects
of the configuration updates in the SRv6 enabled nodes
Network service chaining using segment routing in multi-layer networks
Network service chaining, originally conceived in the network function virtualization (NFV) framework for software defined networks (SDN), is becoming an attractive solution for enabling service differentiation enforcement to microflows generated by data centers, 5G fronthaul and Internet of Things (IoT) cloud/fog nodes, and traversing a metro-core network. However, the current IP/MPLS-over optical multi-layer network is practically unable to provide such service chain enforcement. First, MPLS granularity prevents microflows from being conveyed in dedicated paths. Second, service configuration for a huge number of selected flows with different requirements is prone to scalability concerns, even considering the deployment of a SDN network. In this paper, effective service chaining enforcement along traffic engineered (TE) paths is proposed using segment routing and extended traffic steering mechanisms for mapping micro-flows. The proposed control architecture is based on an extended SDN controller encompassing a stateful path computation element (PCE) handling microflow computation and placement supporting service chains, whereas segment routing allows automatic service enforcement without the need for continuous configuration of the service node. The proposed solution is experimentally evaluated in segment routing over an elastic optical network (EON) network testbed with a deep packet inspection service supporting dynamic and automatic flow enforcement using Border Gateway Protocol with Flow Specification (BGP Flowspec) and OpenFlow protocols as alternative traffic steering enablers. Scalability of flow computation, placement, and steering are also evaluated showing the effectiveness of the proposed solution
PMSR - Poor Man's Segment Routing, a minimalistic approach to Segment Routing and a Traffic Engineering use case
The current specification of the Segment Routing (SR) architecture requires
enhancements to the intra-domain routing protocols (e.g. OSPF and IS-IS) so
that the nodes can advertise the Segment Identifiers (SIDs). We propose a
simpler solution called PMSR (Poor Man's Segment Routing), that does not
require any enhancement to routing protocol. We compare the procedures of PMSR
with traditional SR, showing that PMSR can reduce the operation and management
complexity. We analyze the set of use cases in the current SR drafts and we
claim that PMSR can support the large majority of them. Thanks to the drastic
simplification of the Control Plane, we have been able to develop an Open
Source prototype of PMSR. In the second part of the paper, we consider a
Traffic Engineering use case, starting from a traditional flow assignment
optimization problem which allocates hop-by-hop paths to flows. We propose a SR
path assignment algorithm and prove that it is optimal with respect to the
number of segments allocated to a flow.Comment: September 2015 - Paper accepted to the Mini-conference track of NOMS
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