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RFC 2676

QoS Routing Mechanisms and OSPF Extensions

Pages: 50
Experimental
Errata
Part 1 of 2 – Pages 1 to 22
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Network Working Group                                  G. Apostolopoulos
Request for Comments: 2676                                   D. Williams
Category: Experimental                                               IBM
                                                                S. Kamat
                                                                  Lucent
                                                               R. Guerin
                                                                   UPenn
                                                                 A. Orda
                                                                Technion
                                                           T. Przygienda
                                                           Siara Systems
                                                             August 1999


               QoS Routing Mechanisms and OSPF Extensions

Status of this Memo

   This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet
   community.  It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.
   Discussion and suggestions for improvement are requested.
   Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

This memo describes extensions to the OSPF [Moy98] protocol to support QoS routes. The focus of this document is on the algorithms used to compute QoS routes and on the necessary modifications to OSPF to support this function, e.g., the information needed, its format, how it is distributed, and how it is used by the QoS path selection process. Aspects related to how QoS routes are established and managed are also briefly discussed. The goal of this document is to identify a framework and possible approaches to allow deployment of QoS routing capabilities with the minimum possible impact to the existing routing infrastructure. In addition, experience from an implementation of the proposed extensions in the GateD environment [Con], along with performance measurements is presented.
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Table of Contents

1. Introduction 3 1.1. Overall Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.2. Simplifying Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2. Path Selection Information and Algorithms 7 2.1. Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.2. Advertisement of Link State Information . . . . . . . . . 8 2.3. Path Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 2.3.1. Path Computation Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . .11 3. OSPF Protocol Extensions 16 3.1. QoS -- Optional Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 3.2. Encoding Resources as Extended TOS . . . . . . . . . . .17 3.2.1. Encoding bandwidth resource . . . . . . . . . . .19 3.2.2. Encoding Delay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21 3.3. Packet Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21 3.4. Calculating the Inter-area Routes . . . . . . . . . . . .22 3.5. Open Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22 4. A Reference Implementation based on GateD 22 4.1. The Gate Daemon (GateD) Program . . . . . . . . . . . . .22 4.2. Implementing the QoS Extensions of OSPF . . . . . . . . .23 4.2.1. Design Objectives and Scope . . . . . . . . . . .23 4.2.2. Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24 4.3. Major Implementation Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25 4.4. Bandwidth and Processing Overhead of QoS Routing . . . .29 5. Security Considerations 32 A. Pseudocode for the BF Based Pre-Computation Algorithm 33 B. On-Demand Dijkstra Algorithm for QoS Path Computation 36 C. Precomputation Using Dijkstra Algorithm 39 D. Explicit Routing Support 43 Endnotes 45 References 46 Authors' Addresses 48 Full Copyright Statement 50
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1. Introduction

In this document, we describe a set of proposed additions to the OSPF routing protocol (these additions have been implemented on top of the GateD [Con] implementation of OSPF V2 [Moy98]) to support Quality- of-Service (QoS) routing in IP networks. Support for QoS routing can be viewed as consisting of three major components: 1. Obtain the information needed to compute QoS paths and select a path capable of meeting the QoS requirements of a given request, 2. Establish the path selected to accommodate a new request, 3. Maintain the path assigned for use by a given request. Although we touch upon aspects related to the last two components, the focus of this document is on the first one. In particular, we discuss the metrics required to support QoS, the extension to the OSPF link state advertisement mechanism to propagate updates of QoS metrics, and the modifications to the path selection to accommodate QoS requests. The goal of the extensions described in this document is to improve performance for QoS flows (likelihood to be routed on a path capable of providing the requested QoS), with minimal impact on the existing OSPF protocol and its current implementation. Given the inherent complexity of QoS routing, achieving this goal obviously implies trading-off "optimality" for "simplicity", but we believe this to be required in order to facilitate deployment of QoS routing capabilities. In addition to describing the proposed extensions to the OSPF protocol, this document also reports experimental data based on performance measurements of an implementation done on the GateD platform (see Section 4).

1.1. Overall Framework

We consider a network (1) that supports both best-effort packets and packets with QoS guarantees. The way in which the network resources are split between the two classes is irrelevant, except for the assumption that each QoS capable router in the network is able to dedicate some of its resources to satisfy the requirements of QoS packets. QoS capable routers are also assumed capable of identifying and advertising resources that remain available to new QoS flows. In addition, we limit ourselves to the case where all the routers involved support the QoS extensions described in this document, i.e., we do not consider the problem of establishing a route in a heterogeneous environment where some routers are QoS-capable and others are not. Furthermore, in this document, we focus on the case
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   of unicast flows, although many of the additions we define are
   applicable to multicast flows as well.

   We assume that a flow with QoS requirements specifies them in some
   fashion that is accessible to the routing protocol.  For example,
   this could correspond to the arrival of an RSVP [RZB+97] PATH
   message, whose TSpec is passed to routing together with the
   destination address.  After processing such a request, the routing
   protocol returns the path that it deems the most suitable given the
   flow's requirements.  Depending on the scope of the path selection
   process, this returned path could range from simply identifying the
   best next hop, i.e., a hop-by-hop path selection model, to specifying
   all intermediate nodes to the destination, i.e., an explicit route
   model.  The nature of the path being returned impacts the operation
   of the path selection algorithm as it translates into different
   requirements for constructing and returning the appropriate path
   information.  However, it does not affect the basic operation of the
   path selection algorithm (2).

   For simplicity and also because it is the model currently supported
   in the implementation (see Section 4 for details), in the rest of
   this document we focus on the hop-by-hop path selection model.  The
   additional modifications required to support an explicit routing
   model are discussed in appendix D, but are peripheral to the main
   focus of this document which concentrates on the specific extensions
   to the OPSF protocol to support computation of QoS routes.

   In addition to the problem of selecting a QoS path and possibly
   reserving the corresponding resources, one should note that the
   successful delivery of QoS guarantees requires that the packets of
   the associated "QoS flow" be forwarded on the selected path.  This
   typically requires the installation of corresponding forwarding state
   in the router.  For example, with RSVP [RZB+97] flows a classifier
   entry is created based on the filter specs contained in the RESV
   message.  In the case of a Differentiated Service [KNB98] setting,
   the classifier entry may be based on the destination address (or
   prefix) and the corresponding value of the DS byte.  The mechanisms
   described in this document are at the control path level and are,
   therefore, independent of data path mechanisms such as the packet
   classification method used.  Nevertheless, it is important to notice
   that consistent delivery of QoS guarantees implies stability of the
   data path.  In particular, while it is possible that after a path is
   first selected, network conditions change and result in the
   appearance of "better" paths, such changes should be prevented from
   unnecessarily affecting existing paths.  In particular, switching
   over to a new (and better) path should be limited to specific
   conditions, e.g., when the initial selection turns out to be
   inadequate or extremely "expensive".  This aspect is beyond the scope
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   of QoS routing and belongs to the realm of path management, which is
   outside the main focus of this document.  However, because of its
   potentially significant impact on the usefulness of QoS routing, we
   briefly outline a possible approach to path management.

   Avoiding unnecessary changes to QoS paths requires that state
   information be maintained for each QoS path after it has been
   selected.  This state information is used to track the validity of
   the path, i.e., is the current path adequate or should QoS routing be
   queried again to generate a new and potentially better path.  We say
   that a path is "pinned" when its state specifies that QoS routing
   need not be queried anew, while a path is considered "un-pinned"
   otherwise.  The main issue is then to define how, when, and where
   path pinning and un-pinning is to take place, and this will typically
   depend on the mechanism used to request QoS routes.  For example,
   when the RSVP protocol is the mechanism being used, it is desirable
   that path management be kept as synergetic as possible with the
   existing RSVP state management.  In other words, pinning and un-
   pinning of paths should be coordinated with RSVP soft states, and
   structured so as to require minimal changes to RSVP processing rules.
   A broad RSVP-routing interface that enables this is described in
   [GKR97].  Use of such an interface in the context of reserving
   resources along an explicit path with RSVP is discussed in [GLG+97].
   Details of path management and a means for avoiding loops in case of
   hop-by-hop path setup can be found in [GKH97], and are not addressed
   further in this document.

1.2. Simplifying Assumptions

In order to achieve our goal of minimizing impact to the existing protocol and implementation, we impose certain restrictions on the range of extensions we initially consider to support QoS. The first restriction is on the type of additional (QoS) metrics that will be added to Link State Advertisements (LSAs) for the purpose of distributing metrics updates. Specifically, the extensions to LSAs that we initially consider, include only available bandwidth and delay. In addition, path selection is itself limited to considering only bandwidth requirements. In particular, the path selection algorithm selects paths capable of satisfying the bandwidth requirement of flows, while at the same time trying to minimize the amount of network resources that need to be allocated, i.e., minimize the number of hops used. This focus on bandwidth is adequate in most instances, and meant to keep initial complexity at an acceptable level. However, it does not fully capture the complete range of potential QoS requirements. For example, a delay-sensitive flow of an interactive application could be put on a path using a satellite link, if that link provided a
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   direct path and had plenty of unused bandwidth.  This would clearly
   be an undesirable choice.  Our approach to preventing such poor
   choices, is to assign delay-sensitive flows to a "policy" that would
   eliminate from the network all links with high propagation delay,
   e.g., satellite links, before invoking the path selection algorithm.
   In general, multiple policies could be used to capture different
   requirements, each presenting to the path selection algorithm a
   correspondingly pruned network topology, on which the same algorithm
   would be used to generate an appropriate path.  Alternatively,
   different algorithms could be used depending on the QoS requirements
   expressed by an incoming request.  Such extensions are beyond the
   scope of this document, which limits itself to describing the case of
   a single metric, bandwidth.  However, it is worth pointing out that a
   simple extension to the path selection algorithm proposed in this
   document allows us to directly account for delay, under certain
   conditions, when rate-based schedulers are employed, as in the
   Guaranteed Service proposal [SPG97]; details can be found in [GOW97].

   Another important aspect to ensure that introducing support for QoS
   routing has the minimal possible impact, is to develop a solution
   that has the smallest possible computing overhead.  Additional
   computations are unavoidable, but it is desirable to keep the
   computational cost of QoS routing at a level comparable to that of
   traditional routing algorithms.  One possible approach to achieve
   this goal, is to allow pre-computation of QoS routes.  This is the
   method that was chosen for the implementation of the QoS extensions
   to OSPF and is, therefore, the one described in detail in this
   document.  Alternative approaches are briefly reviewed in appendices.
   However, it should be noted that although several alternative path
   selection algorithms are possible, the same algorithm should be used
   consistently within a given routing domain.  This requirement may be
   relaxed when explicit routing is used, as the responsibility for
   selecting a QoS path lies with a single entity, the origin of the
   request, which then ensures consistency even if each router uses a
   different path selection algorithm.  Nevertheless, the use of a
   common path selection algorithm within an AS is recommended, if not
   necessary, for proper operation.

   A last aspect of concern regarding the introduction of QoS routing,
   is to control the overhead associated with the additional link state
   updates caused by more frequent changes to link metrics.  The goal is
   to minimize the amount of additional update traffic without adversely
   affecting the performance of path selection.  In Section 2.2, we
   present a brief discussion of various alternatives that trade
   accuracy of link state information for protocol overhead.  Potential
   enhancements to the path selection algorithm, which seek to
   (directly) account for the inaccuracies in link metrics, are
   described in [GOW97], while a comprehensive treatment of the subject
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   can be found in [LO98, GO99].  In Section 4, we also describe the
   design choices made in a reference implementation, to allow future
   extensions and experimentation with different link state update
   mechanisms.

   The rest of this document is structured as follows.  In Section 2, we
   describe the general design choices and mechanisms we rely on to
   support QoS request.  This includes details on the path selection
   metrics, link state update extensions, and the path selection
   algorithm itself.  Section 3 focuses on the specific extensions that
   the OSPF protocol requires, while Section 4 describes their
   implementation in the GateD platform and also presents some
   experimental results.  Section 5 briefly addresses security issues
   that the proposed schemes may raise.  Finally, several appendices
   provide additional material of interest, e.g., alternative path
   selection algorithms and support for explicit routes, but somewhat
   outside the main focus of this document.

2. Path Selection Information and Algorithms

This section reviews the basic building blocks of QoS path selection, namely the metrics on the which the routing algorithm operates, the mechanisms used to propagate updates for these metrics, and finally the path selection algorithm itself.

2.1. Metrics

The process of selecting a path that can satisfy the QoS requirements of a new flow relies on both the knowledge of the flow's requirements and characteristics, and information about the availability of resources in the network. In addition, for purposes of efficiency, it is also important for the algorithm to account for the amount of resources the network has to allocate to support a new flow. In general, the network prefers to select the "cheapest" path among all paths suitable for a new flow, and it may even decide not to accept a new flow for which a feasible path exists, if the cost of the path is deemed too high. Accounting for these aspects involves several metrics on which the path selection process is based. They include: - Link available bandwidth: As mentioned earlier, we currently assume that most QoS requirements are derivable from a rate- related quantity, termed "bandwidth." We further assume that associated with each link is a maximal bandwidth value, e.g., the link physical bandwidth or some fraction thereof that has been set aside for QoS flows. Since for a link to be capable of accepting a new flow with given bandwidth requirements, at least that much bandwidth must be still available on the link, the relevant link metric is, therefore, the (current) amount of available (i.e.,
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      unallocated) bandwidth.  Changes in this metric need to be
      advertised as part of extended LSAs, so that accurate information
      is available to the path selection algorithm.

   -  Link propagation delay:  This quantity is meant to identify high
      latency links, e.g., satellite links, which may be unsuitable for
      real-time requests.  This quantity also needs to be advertised as
      part of extended LSAs, although timely dissemination of this
      information is not critical as this parameter is unlikely to
      change (significantly) over time.  As mentioned earlier, link
      propagation delay can be used to decide on the pruning of specific
      links, when selecting a path for a delay sensitive request; also,
      it can be used to support a related extension, as described in
      [GOW97].

   -  Hop-count:  This quantity is used as a measure of the path cost to
      the network.  A path with a smaller number of hops (that can
      support a requested connection) is typically preferable, since it
      consumes fewer network resources.  As a result, the path selection
      algorithm will attempt to find the minimum hop path capable of
      satisfying the requirements of a given request.  Note that
      contrary to bandwidth and propagation delay, hop count is a metric
      that does not affect LSAs, and it is only used implicitly as part
      of the path selection algorithm.

2.2. Advertisement of Link State Information

The new link metrics identified in the previous section need to be advertised across the network, so that each router can compute accurate and consistent QoS routes. It is assumed that each router maintains an updated database of the network topology, including the current state (available bandwidth and propagation delay) of each link. As mentioned before, the distribution of link state (metrics) information is based on extending OSPF mechanisms. The detailed format of those extensions is described in Section 3, but in addition to how link state information is distributed, another important aspect is when such distribution is to take place. One option is to mandate periodic updates, where the period of updates is determined based on a tolerable corresponding load on the network and the routers. The main disadvantage of such an approach is that major changes in the bandwidth available on a link could remain unknown for a full period and, therefore, result in many incorrect routing decisions. Ideally, routers should have the most current view of the bandwidth available on all links in the network, so that they can make the most accurate decision of which path to select. Unfortunately, this then calls for very frequent updates, e.g., each time the available bandwidth of a link changes, which is
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   neither scalable nor practical.  In general, there is a trade-off
   between the protocol overhead of frequent updates and the accuracy of
   the network state information that the path selection algorithm
   depends on.  We outline next a few possible link state update
   policies, which strike a practical compromise.

   The basic idea is to trigger link state advertisements only when
   there is a significant change in the value of metrics since the last
   advertisement.  The notion of significance of a change can be based
   on an "absolute" scale or a "relative" one.  An absolute scale means
   partitioning the range of values that a metric can take into
   equivalence classes and triggering an update whenever the metric
   changes sufficiently to cross a class boundary (3).  A relative
   scale, on the other hand, triggers updates when the percentage change
   in the metric value exceeds a predefined threshold.  Independent of
   whether a relative or an absolute change trigger mechanism is used, a
   periodic trigger constraint can also be added.  This constraint can
   be in the form of a hold-down timer, which is used to force a minimum
   spacing between consecutive updates.  Alternatively, a transmit timer
   can also be used to ensure the transmission of an update after a
   certain time has expired.  Such a feature can be useful if link state
   updates advertising bandwidth changes are sent unreliably.  The
   current protocol extensions described in Section 3 as well as the
   implementation of Section 4 do not consider such an option as metric
   updates are sent using the standard, and reliable, OSPF flooding
   mechanism.  However, this is clearly an extension worth considering
   as it can help lower substantially the protocol overhead associated
   with metrics updates.

   In both the relative and absolute change approaches, the metric value
   advertised in an LSA can be either the actual or a quantized value.
   Advertising the actual metric value is more accurate and, therefore,
   preferable when metrics are frequently updated.  On the other hand,
   when updates are less frequent, e.g., because of a low sensitivity
   trigger or the use of hold-down timers, advertising quantized values
   can be of benefit.  This is because it can help increase the number
   of equal cost paths and, therefore, improve robustness to metrics
   inaccuracies.  In general, there is a broad space of possible trade-
   offs between accuracy and overhead and selecting an appropriate
   design point is difficult and depends on many parameters (see
   [AGKT98] for a more detailed discussion of these issues).  As a
   result, in order to help acquire a better understanding of these
   issues, the implementation described in Section 4 supports a range of
   options that allow exploration of the available design space.  In
   addition, Section 4 also reports experimental data on the traffic
   load and processing overhead generated by links state updates for
   different configurations.
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2.3. Path Selection

There are two major aspects to computing paths for QoS requests. The first is the actual path selection algorithm itself, i.e., which metrics and criteria it relies on. The second is when the algorithm is actually invoked. The topology on which the algorithm is run is, as with the standard OSPF path selection, a directed graph where vertices (4) consist of routers and networks (transit vertices) as well as stub networks (non-transit vertices). When computing a path, stub networks are added as a post-processing step, which is essentially similar to what is done with the current OSPF routing protocol. The optimization criteria used by the path selection are reflected in the costs associated with each interface in the topology and how those costs are accounted for in the algorithm itself. As mentioned before, the cost of a path is a function of both its hop count and the amount of available bandwidth. As a result, each interface has associated with it a metric, which corresponds to the amount of bandwidth that remains available on this interface. This metric is combined with hop count information to provide a cost value, whose goal is to pick a path with the minimum possible number of hops among those that can support the requested bandwidth. When several such paths are available, the preference is for the path whose available bandwidth (i.e., the smallest value on any of the links in the path) is maximal. The rationale for the above rule is the following: we focus on feasible paths (as accounted by the available bandwidth metric) that consume a minimal amount of network resources (as accounted by the hop-count metric); and the rule for selecting among these paths is meant to balance load as well as maximize the likelihood that the required bandwidth is indeed available. It should be noted that standard routing algorithms are typically single objective optimizations, i.e., they may minimize the hop- count, or maximize the path bandwidth, but not both. Double objective path optimization is a more complex task, and, in general, it is an intractable problem [GJ79]. Nevertheless, because of the specific nature of the two objectives being optimized (bandwidth and hop count), the complexity of the above algorithm is competitive with even that of standard single-objective algorithms. For readers interested in a thorough treatment of the topic, with insights into the connection between the different algorithms, linear algebra and modification of metrics, [Car79] is recommended. Before proceeding with a more detailed description of the path selection algorithm itself, we briefly review the available options when it comes to deciding when to invoke the algorithm. The two main options are: 1) to perform on-demand computations, that is, trigger
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   a computation for each new request, and 2) to use some form of pre-
   computation.  The on-demand case involves no additional issues in
   terms of when computations should be triggered, but running the path
   selection algorithm for each new request can be computationally
   expensive (see [AT98] for a discussion on this issue).  On the other
   hand, pre-computing paths amortizes the computational cost over
   multiple requests, but each computation instance is usually more
   expensive than in the on-demand case (paths are computed to all
   destinations and for all possible bandwidth requests rather than for
   a single destination and a given bandwidth request).  Furthermore,
   depending on how often paths are recomputed, the accuracy of the
   selected paths may be lower.  In this document, we primarily focus on
   the case of pre-computed paths, which is also the only method
   currently supported in the reference implementation described in
   Section 4.  In this case, clearly, an important issue is when such
   pre-computation should take place.  The two main options we consider
   are periodic pre-computations and pre-computations after a given (N)
   number of updates have been received.  The former has the benefit of
   ensuring a strict bound on the computational load associated with
   pre-computations, while the latter can provide for a more responsive
   solution (5).  Section 4 provides some experimental results comparing
   the performance and cost of periodic pre-computations for different
   period values.

2.3.1. Path Computation Algorithm

This section describes a path selection algorithm, which for a given network topology and link metrics (available bandwidth), pre-computes all possible QoS paths, while maintaining a reasonably low computational complexity. Specifically, the algorithm pre-computes for any destination a minimum hop count path with maximum bandwidth, and has a computational complexity comparable to that of a standard Bellman-Ford shortest path algorithm. The Bellman-Ford (BF) shortest path algorithm is adapted to compute paths of maximum available bandwidth for all hop counts. It is a property of the BF algorithm that, at its h-th iteration, it identifies the optimal (in our context: maximal bandwidth) path between the source and each destination, among paths of at most h hops. In other words, the cost of a path is a function of its available bandwidth, i.e., the smallest available bandwidth on all links of the path, and finding a minimum cost path amounts to finding a maximum bandwidth path. However, because the BF algorithm progresses by increasing hop count, it essentially provides for free the hop count of a path as a second optimization criteria. Specifically, at the kth (hop count) iteration of the algorithm, the maximum bandwidth available to all destinations on a path of no more than k hops is recorded (together with the corresponding routing
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   information).  After the algorithm terminates, this information
   provides for all destinations and bandwidth requirements, the path
   with the smallest possible number of hops and sufficient bandwidth to
   accommodate the new request.  Furthermore, this path is also the one
   with the maximal available bandwidth among all the feasible paths
   with at most these many hops.  This is because for any hop count, the
   algorithm always selects the one with maximum available bandwidth.

   We now proceed with a more detailed description of the algorithm and
   the data structure used to record routing information, i.e., the QoS
   routing table that gets built as the algorithm progresses (the
   pseudo-code for the algorithm can be found in Appendix A).  As
   mentioned before, the algorithm operates on a directed graph
   consisting only of transit vertices (routers and networks), with
   stub-networks subsequently added to the path(s) generated by the
   algorithm.  The metric associated with each edge in the graph is the
   bandwidth available on the corresponding interface.  Let us denote by
   b(n;m) the available bandwidth on the link from node n to m.  The
   vertex corresponding to the router where the algorithm is being run,
   i.e., the computing router, is denoted as the "source node" for the
   purpose of path selection.  The algorithm proceeds to pre-compute
   paths from this source node to all possible destination networks and
   for all possible bandwidth values.  At each (hop count) iteration,
   intermediate results are recorded in a QoS routing table, which has
   the following structure:

The QoS routing table:

   -  a KxH matrix, where K is the number of destinations (vertices in
      the graph) and H is the maximal allowed (or possible) number of
      hops for a path.

   -  The (n;h) entry is built during the hth iteration (hop count
      value) of the algorithm, and consists of two fields:

         *  bw:  the maximum available bandwidth, on a path of at most h
            hops between the source node (router) and destination node
            n;

         *  neighbor:  this is the routing information associated with
            the h (or less) hops path to destination node n, whose
            available bandwidth is bw.  In the context of hop-by-hop
            path selection (6), the neighbor information is simply the
            identity of the node adjacent to the source node on that
            path.  As a rule, the "neighbor" node must be a router and
            not a network, the only exception being the case where the
            network is the destination node (and the selected path is
            the single edge interconnecting the source to it).
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   Next, we provide additional details on the operation of the algorithm
   and how the entries in the routing table are updated as the algorithm
   proceeds.  For simplicity, we first describe the simpler case where
   all edges count as "hops," and later explain how zero-hop edges are
   handled.  Zero-hop edges arise in the case of transit networks
   vertices, where only one of the two incoming and outgoing edges
   should be counted in the hop count computation, as they both
   correspond to the same physical hop.  Accounting for this aspect
   requires distinguishing between network and router nodes, and the
   steps involved are detailed later in this section as well as in the
   pseudo-code of Appendix A.

   When the algorithm is invoked, the routing table is first initialized
   with all bw fields set to 0 and neighbor fields cleared.  Next, the
   entries in the first column (which corresponds to one-hop paths) of
   the neighbors of the computing router are modified in the following
   way:  the bw field is set to the value of the available bandwidth on
   the direct edge from the source.  The neighbor field is set to the
   identity of the neighbor of the computing router, i.e., the next
   router on the selected path.

   Afterwards, the algorithm iterates for at most H iterations
   (considering the above initial iteration as the first).  The value of
   H could be implicit, i.e., the diameter of the network or, in order
   to better control the worst case complexity, it can be set explicitly
   thereby limiting path lengths to at most H hops.  In the latter case,
   H must be assigned a value larger than the length of the minimum
   hop-count path to any node in the graph.

   At iteration h, we first copy column h-1  into column h.  In
   addition, the algorithm keeps a list of nodes that changed their bw
   value in the previous iteration, i.e., during the (h-1)-th iteration.
   The algorithm then looks at each link (n;m) where n is a node whose
   bw value changed in the previous iteration, and checks the maximal
   available bandwidth on an (at most) h-hop path to node m whose final
   hop is that link.  This amounts to taking the minimum between the bw
   field in entry (n;h-1) and the link metric value b(n;m) kept in the
   topology database.  If this value is higher than the present value of
   the bw field in entry (m;h), then a better (larger bw value) path has
   been found for destination m and with at most h hops.  The bw field
   of entry (m;h) is then updated to reflect this new value.  In the
   case of hop-by-hop routing, the neighbor field of entry (m;h) is set
   to the same value as in entry (n;h-1).  This records the identity of
   the first hop (next hop from the source) on the best path identified
   thus far for destination m and with h (or less) hops.
Top   ToC   RFC2676 - Page 14
   As mentioned earlier, extending the above algorithm to handle zero-
   hop edges is needed due to the possible use of multi-access networks,
   e.g., T/R, E/N, etc., to interconnect routers.  Such entities are
   also represented by means of a vertex in the OSPF topology, but a
   network connecting two routers should clearly be considered as a
   single hop path rather than a two hop path.  For example, consider
   three routers A, B, and C connected over an Ethernet network N, which
   the OSPF topology represents as in Figure 1.

                           A----N----B
                                |
                                |
                                C



                        Figure 1: Zero-Hop Edges


   In the example of Figure 1, although there are directed edges in both
   directions, an edge from the network to any of the three routers must
   have zero "cost", so that it is not counted twice.  It should be
   noted that when considering such environments in the context of QoS
   routing, it is assumed that some entity is responsible for
   determining the "available bandwidth" on the network, e.g., a subnet
   bandwidth manager.  The specification and operation of such an entity
   is beyond the scope of this document.

   Accommodating zero-hop edges in the context of the path selection
   algorithm described above is done as follows:  At each iteration h
   (starting with the first), whenever an entry (m;h) is modified, it is
   checked whether there are zero-cost edges (m;k) emerging from node m.
   This is the case when m is a transit network.  In that case, we
   attempt to further improve the entry of node k within the current
   iteration, i.e., entry (k;h) (rather than entry (k;h+1)), since the
   edge (m;k) should not count as an additional hop.  As with the
   regular operation of the algorithm, this amounts to taking the
   minimum between the bw field in entry (m;h) and the link metric value
   b(m;k) kept in the topology database (7).  If this value is higher
   than the present value of the bw field in entry (k;h), then the bw
   field of entry (k;h) is updated to this new value.  In the case of
   hop-by-hop routing, the neighbor field of entry (k;h) is set, as
   usual, to the same value as in entry (m;h) (which is also the value
   in entry (n;h-1)).
Top   ToC   RFC2676 - Page 15
   Note that while for simplicity of the exposition, the issue of equal
   cost, i.e., same hop count and available bandwidth, is not detailed
   in the above description, it can be easily supported.  It only
   requires that the neighbor field be expanded to record the list of
   next (previous) hops, when multiple equal cost paths are present.

Addition of Stub Networks

   As was mentioned earlier, the path selection algorithm is run on a
   graph whose vertices consist only of routers and transit networks and
   not stub networks.  This is intended to keep the computational
   complexity as low as possible as stub networks can be added
   relatively easily through a post-processing step.  This second
   processing step is similar to the one used in the current OSPF
   routing table calculation [Moy98], with some differences to account
   for the QoS nature of routes.

   Specifically, after the QoS routing table has been constructed, all
   the router vertices are again considered.  For each router, stub
   networks whose links appear in the router's link advertisements will
   be processed to determine QoS routes available to them.  The QoS
   routing information for a stub network is similar to that of routers
   and transit networks and consists of an extension to the QoS routing
   table in the form of an additional row.  The columns in that new row
   again correspond to paths of different hop counts, and contain both
   bandwidth and next hop information.  We also assume that an available
   bandwidth value has been advertised for the stub network.  As before,
   how this value is determined is beyond the scope of this document.
   The QoS routes for a stub network S are constructed as follows:

   Each entry in the row corresponding to stub network S has its bw(s)
   field initialized to zero and its neighbor set to null.  When a stub
   network S is found in the link advertisement of router V, the value
   bw(S,h) in the hth column of the row corresponding to stub network S
   is updated as follows:

      bw(S,h) = max ( bw(S,h) ; min ( bw(V,h) , b(V,S) ) ),

   where bw(V,h) is the bandwidth value of the corresponding column for
   the QoS routing table row associated with router V, i.e., the
   bandwidth available on an h hop path to V, and b(V,S) is the
   advertised available bandwidth on the link from V to S.  The above
   expression essentially states that the bandwidth of a h hop path to
   stub network S is updated using a path through router V, only if the
   minimum of the bandwidth of the h hop path to V and the bandwidth on
   the link between V and S is larger than the current value.
Top   ToC   RFC2676 - Page 16
   Update of the neighbor field proceeds similarly whenever the
   bandwidth of a path through V is found to be larger than or equal to
   the current value.  If it is larger, then the neighbor field of V in
   the corresponding column replaces the current neighbor field of S.
   If it is equal, then the neighbor field of V in the corresponding
   column is concatenated with the existing field for S, i.e., the
   current set of neighbors for V is added to the current set of
   neighbors for S.

Extracting Forwarding Information from Routing Table

   When the QoS paths are precomputed, the forwarding information for a
   flow with given destination and bandwidth requirement needs to be
   extracted from the routing table.  The case of hop-by-hop routing is
   simpler than that of explicit routing.  This is because, only the
   next hop needs to be returned instead of an explicit route.

   Specifically, assume a new request to destination, say, d, and with
   bandwidth requirements B.  The index of the destination vertex
   identifies the row in the QoS routing table that needs to be checked
   to generate a path.  Assuming that the QoS routing table was
   constructed using the Bellman-Ford algorithm presented later in this
   section, the search then proceeds by increasing index (hop) count
   until an entry is found, say at hop count or column index of h, with
   a value of the bw field which is equal to or larger than B.  This
   entry points to the initial information identifying the selected
   path.

   If the path computation algorithm stores multiple equal cost paths,
   then some degree of load balancing can be achieved at the time of
   path selection.  A next hop from the list of equivalent next hops can
   be chosen in a round robin manner, or randomly with a probability
   that is weighted by the actual available bandwidth on the local
   interface.  The latter is the method used in the implementation
   described in Section 4.

   The case of explicit routing is discussed in Appendix D.

3. OSPF Protocol Extensions

As stated earlier, one of our goals is to limit the additions to the existing OSPF V2 protocol, while still providing the required level of support for QoS based routing. To this end, all of the existing OSPF mechanisms, data structures, advertisements, and data formats remain in place. The purpose of this section of the document is to describe the extensions to the OSPF protocol needed to support QoS as outlined in the previous sections.
Top   ToC   RFC2676 - Page 17

3.1. QoS -- Optional Capabilities

The OSPF Options field is present in OSPF Hello packets, Database Description packets and all LSAs. The Options field enables OSPF routers to support (or not support) optional capabilities, and to communicate their capability level to other OSPF routers. Through this mechanism, routers of differing capabilities can be mixed within an OSPF routing domain. Currently, the OSPF standard [Moy98] specifies the following 5 bits in the options octet: +-----------------------------------------------+ | * | * | DC | EA | N/P | MC | E | * | +-----------------------------------------------+ Note that the least significant bit (`T' bit) that was used to indicate TOS routing capability in the older OSPF specification [Moy94] has been removed. However, for backward compatibility with previous versions of the OSPF specification, TOS-specific information can be included in router-LSAs, summary-LSAs and AS-external-LSAs. We propose to reclaim the `T' bit as an indicator of router's QoS routing capability and refer to it as the `Q' bit. In fact, QoS capability can be viewed as an extension of the TOS-capabilities and QoS routing as a form of TOS-based routing. A router sets this bit in its hello packets to indicate that it is capable of supporting such routing. When this bit is set in a router or summary links link state advertisement, it means that there are QoS fields to process in the packet. When this bit is set in a network link state advertisement it means that the network described in the advertisement is QoS capable. We need to be careful in this approach so as to avoid confusing any old style (i.e., RFC 1583 based) TOS routing implementations. The TOS metric encoding rules of QoS fields introduced further in this section will show how this is achieved. Additionally, unlike the RFC 1583 specification that unadvertised TOS metrics be treated to have same cost as TOS 0, for the purpose of computing QOS routes, unadvertised TOS metrics (on a hop) indicate lack of connectivity for the specific TOS metrics (for that hop).

3.2. Encoding Resources as Extended TOS

Introduction of QoS should ideally not influence the compatibility with existing OSPFv2 routers. To achieve this goal, necessary extensions in packet formats must be defined in a way that either is understood by OSPFv2 routers, ignored, or in the worst case "gracefully" misinterpreted. Encoding of QoS metrics in the TOS field which fortunately enough is longer in OSPF packets than
Top   ToC   RFC2676 - Page 18
   officially defined in [Alm92], allows us to mimic the new facility as
   extended TOS capability.  OSPFv2 routers will either disregard these
   definitions or consider those unspecified.  Specific precautions are
   taken to prevent careless OSPF implementations from influencing
   traditional TOS routers (if any) when misinterpreting the QoS
   extensions.

   For QoS resources, 32 combinations are available through the use of
   the fifth bit in TOS fields contained in different LSAs.  Since
   [Alm92] defines TOS as being four bits long, this definition never
   conflicts with existing values.  Additionally, to prevent naive
   implementations that do not take all bits of the TOS field in OSPF
   packets into considerations, the definitions of the `QoS encodings'
   is aligned in their semantics with the TOS encoding.  Only bandwidth
   and delay are specified as of today and their values map onto
   `maximize throughput' and `minimize delay' if the most significant
   bit is not taken into account.  Accordingly, link reliability and
   jitter could be defined later if necessary.

        OSPF encoding   RFC 1349 TOS values
        ___________________________________________
        0               0000 normal service
        2               0001 minimize monetary cost
        4               0010 maximize reliability
        6               0011
        8               0100 maximize throughput
        10              0101
        12              0110
        14              0111
        16              1000 minimize delay
        18              1001
        20              1010
        22              1011
        24              1100
        26              1101
        28              1110
        30              1111
Top   ToC   RFC2676 - Page 19
        OSPF encoding   `QoS encoding values'

        -------------------------------------------
        32             10000
        34             10001
        36             10010
        38             10011
        40             10100 bandwidth
        42             10101
        44             10110
        46             10111
        48             11000 delay
        50             11001
        52             11010
        54             11011
        56             11100
        58             11101
        60             11110
        62             11111

        Representing TOS and QoS in OSPF.

3.2.1. Encoding bandwidth resource

Given the fact that the actual metric field in OSPF packets only provides 16 bits to encode the value used and that links supporting bandwidth ranging into Gbits/s are becoming reality, linear representation of the available resource metric is not feasible. The solution is exponential encoding using appropriately chosen implicit base value and number bits for encoding mantissa and the exponent. Detailed considerations leading to the solution described are not presented here but can be found in [Prz95]. Given a base of 8, the 3 most significant bits should be reserved for the exponent part and the remaining 13 for the mantissa. This allows a simple comparison for two numbers encoded in this form, which is often useful during implementation. The following table shows bandwidth ranges covered when using different exponents and the granularity of possible reservations.
Top   ToC   RFC2676 - Page 20
        exponent
        value x         range (2^13-1)*8^x      step 8^x
        -------------------------------------------------
        0               8,191                   1
        1               65,528                  8
        2               524,224                 64
        3               4,193,792               512
        4               33,550,336              4,096
        5               268,402,688             32,768
        6               2,147,221,504           262,144
        7               17,177,772,032          2,097,152

          Ranges of Exponent Values for 13 bits,
               base 8 Encoding, in Bytes/s

   The bandwidth encoding rule may be summarized as: "represent
   available bandwidth in 16 bit field as a 3 bit exponent (with assumed
   base of 8) followed by a 13 bit mantissa as shown below and advertise
   2's complement of the above representation."

        0       8       16
        |       |       |
        -----------------
       |EXP| MANT        |
        -----------------

   Thus, the above encoding advertises a numeric value that is

      2^16 -1 -(exponential encoding of the available bandwidth):

   This has the property of advertising a higher numeric value for lower
   available bandwidth, a notion that is consistent with that of cost.

   Although it may seem slightly pedantic to insist on the property that
   less bandwidth is expressed higher values, it has, besides
   consistency, a robustness aspect in it.  A router with a poor OSPF
   implementation could misuse or misunderstand bandwidth metric as
   normal administrative cost provided to it and compute spanning trees
   with a "normal" Dijkstra.  The effect of a heavily congested link
   advertising numerically very low cost could be disastrous in such a
   scenario.  It would raise the link's attractiveness for future
   traffic instead of lowering it.  Evidence that such considerations
   are not speculative, but similar scenarios have been encountered, can
   be found in [Tan89].
Top   ToC   RFC2676 - Page 21
   Concluding with an example, assume a link with bandwidth of 8 Gbits/s
   = 1024^3 Bytes/s, its encoding would consist of an exponent value of
   6 since 1024^3= 4,096*8^6, which would then have a granularity of 8^6
   or approx. 260 kBytes/s.  The associated binary representation would
   then be %(110) 0 1000 0000 0000% or 53,248 (8).  The bandwidth cost
   (advertised value) of this link when it is idle, is then the 2's
   complement of the above binary representation, i.e., %(001) 1 0111
   1111 1111% which corresponds to a decimal value of (2^16 - 1) -
   53,248 = 12,287.  Assuming now a current reservation level of 6;400
   Mbits/s = 200 * 1024^2, there remains 1;600 Mbits/s of available
   bandwidth on the link.  The encoding of this available bandwidth of
   1'600 Mbits/s is 6,400 * 8^5, which corresponds to a granularity of
   8^5 or approx. 30 kBytes/s, and has a binary representation of %(101)
   1 1001 0000 0000% or decimal value of 47,360.  The advertised cost of
   the link with this load level, is then %(010) 0 0110 1111 1111%, or
   (2^16-1) -47,360 = 18,175.

   Note that the cost function behaves as it should, i.e., the less
   bandwidth is available on a link, the higher the cost and the less
   attractive the link becomes.  Furthermore, the targeted property of
   better granularity for links with less bandwidth available is also
   achieved.  It should, however, be pointed out that the numbers given
   in the above examples match exactly the resolution of the proposed
   encoding, which is of course not always the case in practice.  This
   leaves open the question of how to encode available bandwidth values
   when they do not exactly match the encoding.  The standard practice
   is to round it to the closest number.  Because we are ultimately
   interested in the cost value for which it may be better to be
   pessimistic than optimistic, we choose to round costs up and,
   therefore, bandwidth down.

3.2.2. Encoding Delay

Delay is encoded in microseconds using the same exponential method as described for bandwidth except that the base is defined to be 4 instead of 8. Therefore, the maximum delay that can be expressed is (2^13-1) *4^7 i.e., approx. 134 seconds.

3.3. Packet Formats

Given the extended TOS notation to account for QoS metrics, no changes in packet formats are necessary except for the (re)introduction of T-bit as the Q-bit in the options field. Routers not understanding the Q-bit should either not consider the QoS metrics distributed or consider those as `unknown' TOS.
Top   ToC   RFC2676 - Page 22
   To support QoS, there are additions to two Link State Advertisements,
   the Router Links Advertisement and the Summary Links Advertisement.
   As stated above, a router identifies itself as supporting QoS by
   setting the Q-bit in the options field of the Link State Header.
   When a router that supports QoS receives either the Router Links or
   Summary Links Advertisement, it should parse the QoS metrics encoded
   in the received Advertisement.

3.4. Calculating the Inter-area Routes

This document proposes a very limited use of OSPF areas, that is, it is assumed that summary links advertisements exist for all networks in the area. This document does not discuss the problem of providing support for area address ranges and QoS metric aggregation. This is left for further studies.

3.5. Open Issues

Support for AS External Links, Virtual Links, and incremental updates for summary link advertisements are not addressed in this document and are left for further study. For Virtual Links that do exist, it is assumed for path selection that these links are non-QoS capable even if the router advertises QoS capability. Also, as stated earlier, this document does not address the issue of non-QoS routers within a QoS domain.


(page 22 continued on part 2)

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