Strategies for internet route control: past, present and future

Uno de los problemas más complejos en redes de computadores es el de proporcionar garantías de calidad y confiabilidad a las comunicaciones de datos entre entidades que se encuentran en dominios distintos. Esto se debe a un amplio conjunto de razones -- las cuales serán analizadas en detalle en esta tesis -- pero de manera muy breve podemos destacar: i) la limitada flexibilidad que presenta el modelo actual de encaminamiento inter-dominio en materia de ingeniería de tráfico; ii) la naturaleza distribuida y potencialmente antagónica de las políticas de encaminamiento, las cuales son administradas individualmente y sin coordinación por cada dominio en Internet; y iii) las carencias del protocolo de encaminamiento inter-dominio utilizado en Internet, denominado BGP (Border Gateway Protocol).El objetivo de esta tesis, es precisamente el estudio y propuesta de soluciones que permitan mejorar drásticamente la calidad y confiabilidad de las comunicaciones de datos en redes conformadas por múltiples dominios.Una de las principales herramientas para lograr este fin, es tomar el control de las decisiones de encaminamiento y las posibles acciones de ingeniería de tráfico llevadas a cabo en cada dominio. Por este motivo, esta tesis explora distintas estrategias de como controlar en forma precisa y eficiente, tanto el encaminamiento como las decisiones de ingeniería de tráfico en Internet. En la actualidad este control reside principalmente en BGP, el cual como indicamos anteriormente, es uno de los principales responsables de las limitantes existentes. El paso natural sería reemplazar a BGP, pero su despliegue actual y su reconocida operatividad en muchos otros aspectos, resultan claros indicadores de que su sustitución (ó su posible evolución) será probablemente gradual. En este escenario, esta tesis propone analizar y contribuir con nuevas estrategias en materia de control de encaminamiento e ingeniería de tráfico inter-dominio en tres marcos temporales distintos: i) en la actualidad en redes IP; ii) en un futuro cercano en redes IP/MPLS (MultiProtocol Label Switching); y iii) a largo plazo en redes ópticas, modelando así una evolución progresiva y realista, facilitando el reemplazo gradual de BGP.Más concretamente, este trabajo analiza y contribuye mediante: - La propuesta de estrategias incrementales basadas en el Control Inteligente de Rutas (Intelligent Route Control, IRC) para redes IP en la actualidad. Las estrategias propuestas en este caso son de carácter incremental en el sentido de que interaccionan con BGP, solucionando varias de las carencias que éste presenta sin llegar a proponer aún su reemplazo. - La propuesta de estrategias concurrentes basadas en extender el concepto del PCE (Path Computation Element) proveniente del IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) para redes IP/MPLS en un futuro cercano. Las estrategias propuestas en este caso son de carácter concurrente en el sentido de que no interaccionan con BGP y pueden ser desplegadas en forma paralela. En este caso, BGP continúa controlando el encaminamiento y las acciones de ingeniería de tráfico inter-dominio del tráfico IP, pero el control del tráfico IP/MPLS se efectúa en forma independiente de BGP mediante los PCEs.- La propuesta de estrategias que reemplazan completamente a BGP basadas en la incorporación de un nuevo agente de control, al cual denominamos IDRA (Inter-Domain Routing Agent). Estos agentes proporcionan un plano de control dedicado, físicamente independiente del plano de datos, y con gran capacidad computacional para las futuras redes ópticas multi-dominio.Los resultados expuestos aquí validan la efectividad de las estrategias propuestas, las cuales mejoran significativamente tanto la concepción como la performance de las actuales soluciones en el área de Control Inteligente de Rutas, del esperado PCE en un futuro cercano, y de las propuestas existentes para extender BGP al área de redes ópticas.One of the most complex problems in computer networks is how to provide guaranteed performance and reliability to the communications carried out between nodes located in different domains. This is due to several reasons -- which will be analyzed in detail in this thesis -- but in brief, this is mostly due to: i) the limited capabilities of the current inter-domain routing model in terms of Traffic Engineering (TE); ii) the distributed and potentially conflicting nature of policy-based routing, where routing policies are managed independently and without coordination among domains; and iii) the clear limitations of the inter-domain routing protocol, namely, the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). The goal of this thesis is precisely to study and propose solutions allowing to drastically improve the performance and reliability of inter-domain communications. One of the most important tools to achieve this goal, is to control the routing and TE decisions performed by routing domains. Therefore, this thesis explores different strategies on how to control such decisions in a highly efficient and accurate way. At present, this control mostly resides in BGP, but as mentioned above, BGP is in fact one of the main causes of the existing limitations. The natural next-step would be to replace BGP, but the large installed base at present together with its recognized effectiveness in other aspects, are clear indicators that its replacement (or its possible evolution) will probably be gradually put into practice.In this framework, this thesis proposes to to study and contribute with novel strategies to control the routing and TE decisions of domains in three different time frames: i) at present in IP multi-domain networks; ii) in the near-future in IP/MPLS (MultiProtocol Label Switching) multi- domain networks; and iii) in the future optical Internet, modeling in this way a realistic and progressive evolution, facilitating the gradual replacement of BGP.More specifically, the contributions in this thesis can be summarized as follows. - We start by proposing incremental strategies based on Intelligent Route Control (IRC) solutions for IP networks. The strategies proposed in this case are incremental in the sense that they interact with BGP, and tackle several of its well-known limitations. - Then, we propose a set of concurrent route control strategies for MPLS networks, based on broadening the concept of the Path Computation Element (PCE) coming from the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force). Our strategies are concurrent in the sense that they do not interact directly with BGP, and they can be deployed in parallel. In this case, BGP still controlls the routing and TE actions concerning regular IP-based traffic, but not how IP/MPLS paths are routed and controlled. These are handled independently by the PCEs.- We end with the proposal of a set of route control strategies for multi-domain optical networks, where BGP has been completely replaced. These strategies are supported by the introduction of a new route control element, which we named Inter-Domain Routing Agent (IDRA). These IDRAs provide a dedicated control plane, i.e., physically independent from the data plane, and with high computational capacity for future optical networks.The results obtained validate the effectiveness of the strategies proposed here, and confirm that our proposals significantly improve both the conception and performance of the current IRC solutions, the expected PCE in the near-future, as well as the existing proposals about the optical extension of BGP.Postprint (published version

Optical Multi-Domain Routing

Optical networks provide a clear opportunity to redesign the multi-domain routing paradigm. This paper reviews the current limitations in multi-domain routing as well as some of the research lines in the optical area.Postprint (published version

Optical Multi-Domain Routing

Optical networks provide a clear opportunity to redesign the multi-domain routing paradigm. This paper reviews the current limitations in multi-domain routing as well as some of the research lines in the optical area.Postprint (published version

Inter-domain Routing in Optical Networks with Wavelength Converters

With the increasing deployment of wavelengthdivision multiplexing (WDM) optical networks, the need for advanced lightpath provisioning algorithms and protocols in a multi-domain setting is becoming evident. In order to increase efficiency by relaxing the wavelength continuity constraint in WDM optical networks, wavelength converters are often placed at certain nodes in the network. In this paper, we study the efficiency of using converters in a multi-domain setting. We have made simple but important modifications to existing optical inter-domain routing protocols in order to utilize the power of wavelength converters and have tested their performance. These modifications can be seamlessly integrated into these protocols (i.e., without changing their algorithmic aspects) to significantly reduce their blocking ratio. We also show that there is a clear performance difference among the considered protocols.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author’s final draft

SECURE AND FULLY TRANSPARENT ROAMING FOR LONG RANGE

Roaming with Long Range wide-area network (LoRaWAN) requires connections to home Network Servers (hNS), serving Network Servers (sNS) and forwarding Network Servers (fNS) across LoRa domains. Today, this entails a tedious manual process for generating the keys, certificates and configuration files to connect these servers on a peer-to-peer basis. This means that manual configurations grow quadratically with the number of LoRa networks involved. In addition, today there is no way to enable roaming across LoRa networks dynamically (i.e., not if these pre-configurations among the visited and the home/serving LoRa networks aren\u27t in place). Accordingly, presented herein are techniques to scale LoRaWAN roaming linearly, while not only automating the entire roaming process, but also allowing the acceptance of dynamic roaming requests. Opposite to conventional arrangements, such as roaming hubs, where roaming partners need to adhere to the hub\u27s rules for packet routing, service levels and trust, the techniques presented herein act transparently to the servers, keeping routing and data exchanges under the control of each peer

NESTED MULTI-LEVEL CONTEXT RESOLVER

Team members working on a project need to constantly pull, read, process, merge, and create information across different tools and applications when collaborating on the project. Team members face complex and time-consuming challenges to stay up to date and focus on the context that matters to them. Techniques described herein provide for automated extraction of the context that matters to each worker involved in an upcoming event (e.g., prior to a customer meeting, a sprint review, a project milestone review, etc.) by using a nested multi-level context extraction and resolution technique

COLLECTING POWER CONSUMPTION METRICS FROM OPERATIONALLY INACCESSIBLE NETWORKS

Operational traffic, such as management plane traffic carrying power consumption metrics from a device in the field, is often inaccessible to a device’s vendor. Techniques are presented herein that support a novel mechanism for encoding power consumption metrics in standard communication protocols such as, for example, domain name system (DNS) requests. Aspects of the presented techniques ensure the atomicity of self-contained messages, as well as the confidentiality and integrity of the metrics that are sent to the corresponding vendors. Further aspects of the presented techniques support selectable levels of anonymity during the exporting of the above-described metrics. For example, selectable Terms and Conditions may not only allow administrators to choose among different levels of anonymity, but also facilitate frictionless operations and automatic configuration during the activation of a license

Insights on the Internet routing scalability issues

In recent years, the size and dynamics of the global routing table have increased rapidly along with an increase in the number of edge networks. The relation between edge network quantity and routing table size/dynamics reveals a major limitation in the current architecture. In this paper we introduce the two problematics target as the main cause for the Internet scalability issue. Subsequently, we describe the different proposals that address the scalability problem. We group them in three categories: Separation, Elimination and GeographicPostprint (published version

Methodology definition for reliable network experimentation

©2013 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes,creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.As researchers in the networking area keep adopting experimental network testing as a valid mechanism to develop, validate, and improve their research, it becomes more apparent that an overall framework supporting and assisting during the experimentation process is necessary. Particularly, this assistance is relevant in processes such as experiment preparation, or results validation. As a consequence, the goal, and thus the contribution, of this paper is twofold, on the one hand we propose a novel set of guidelines which establish the set of requirements any testbed for network experimentation should follow. On the other hand, as the other relevant contribution of this work, we propose a mechanism for generating meta-data information on the experiments that ease the publication of the obtained datasets. Finally, as a usecase, we present a particular implementation of this framework which we deploy in a real scenario to prove the capabilities of the proposed testing procedure.This work was partially funded by Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under contract TEC2009-07041, and the Catalan Government under contract 2009 SGR1508.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

A New Parametric Regenerator Allocation Scheme taking into account Inaccurate Physical Information

Regenerator allocation consists on selecting which of the already installed regenerators in a translucent network may be used according to the dynamic traffic requests in order to maximize the quality of the optical signal while minimizing the opaqueness of the network. A recent study has shown that the performance of the regenerator allocation techniques strongly depends on the accuracy of the physical-layer information. The reason of this physical inaccuracy is the drift suffered by the physical-layer parameters during the operation of the optical network. In these conditions, the performance of the Impairment Aware-Routing and Wavelength Assignment (IA-RWA) process might drop sharply when allocating regenerators inappropriately. In this paper, we propose new regenerator allocation schemes taking into account the inherent and unavoidable inaccuracy in the physical-layer informationPostprint (published version