Internet Engineering Task Force

IP Flow Information Export (ipfix)

Last Modified: 2009-07-07

Additional information is available at tools.ietf.org/wg/ipfix

Chair(s):

Operations and Management Area Director(s):

Operations and Management Area Advisor:

Dan Romascanu <dromasca@avaya.com>

Mailing Lists:

General Discussion: ipfix@ietf.org
To Subscribe: http://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipfix
Archive: http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ipfix

Description of Working Group:

The IPFIX working group has specified the Information Model (to
describe IP flows) and the IPFIX protocol (to transfer IP flow data
from IPFIX exporters to collectors). Several implementers have already
built applications using the IPFIX protocol. As a result of a series
of IPFIX interoperability testing events the WG has produced
guidelines for IPFIX implementation and testing as well as
recommendations for handling special cases such as bidirectional flow
reporting and reducing redundancy in flow records.

Practical experiences with IPFIX implementations exposed new
requirements for the IPFIX protocol that so far have not been
addressed by the WG. The major current goal of the WG is developing
solutions that meet the new requirements without modifying the core
IPFIX protocol specifications.

1. The IPFIX WG has developed a MIB module for monitoring IPFIX
implementations. Means for configuring these devices have not been
standardized yet. The WG will develop an XML-based configuration data
model that can be used for configuring IPFIX devices and for storing,
modifying and managing IPFIX configurations parameter sets. This work
will be performed in close collaboration with the NETCONF WG.

2. There is a need for storing measured flow information and for
exchanging this information between different systems and
organizations. The WG will develop a common IPFIX file format for
storing flow data in order to facilitate interoperability and
reusability among a wide variety of flow storage, processing, and
analysis tools. It will be a flat-file format using binary encodings
that are based on the IPFIX message format.

3. When dealing with enterprise-specific information elements in IPFIX
flow records, it often occurs that the receiver of the record does not
know the definition of the information element. For processing such
information elements it would be desirable for the receiver to know at
least the data types of the enterprise-specific information elements.
The WG will develop an extension to IPFIX that provides means for the
encoding of IPFIX data type information within an IPFIX Message
stream.

4. Another requirement resulting from practical use of IPFIX is
reporting IPFIX template records and corresponding data records within
the same SCTP stream. The IPFIX WG will develop guidelines for this
use case.

5. First applications of IPFIX at large operator networks showed the
need for mediation of flow information, for example, for aggregating
huge amounts of flow data and for anomymization of flow information.
The IPFIX WG will investigate this issue and produce a problem
statement and a framework for IPFIX flow mediation.

6. The PSAMP WG has developed a protocol for reporting
observed packets. The PSAMP protocol is an extension of
the IPFIX protocol. The IPFIX WG will develop a MIB module
for monitoring PSAMP implementations. The new MIB module
will be an extension of the IPFIX MIB module.

Goals and Milestones:

Done		Submit Revised Internet-Draft on IP Flow Export Requirements
Done		Submit Internet-Draft on IP Flow Export Architecture
Done		Submit Internet-Draft on IP Flow Export Data Model
Done		Submit Internet-Draft on IPFIX Protocol Evaluation Report
Done		Submit Internet-Draft on IP Flow Export Applicability Statement
Done		Select IPFIX protocol, revise Architecture and Data Model drafts
Done		Submit IPFX-REQUIREMENTS to IESG for publication as Informational RFC
Done		Submit IPFIX Protocol Evaluation Report to IESG for publication as Informational RFC
Done		Submit IPFX-ARCHITECTURE to IESG for publication as Proposed Standard RFC
Done		Submit IPFX-INFO_MODEL to IESG for publication as Informational RFC
Done		Submit IPFX-APPLICABILITY to IESG for publication as Informational RFC
Done		Submit IPFX-PROTOCOL to IESG for publication as Proposed Standard RFC
Done		Publish Internet Draft on IPFIX Implementation Guidelines
Done		Publish Internet Draft on Reducing Redundancy in IPFIX data transfer
Done		Publish Internet Draft on Handling IPFIX Bidirectional Flows
Done		Publish Internet Draft on IPFIX Testing
Done		Publish Internet Draft on IPFIX MIB
Done		Submit IPFIX Implementation Guidelines draft to IESG for publication as Informational RFC
Done		Submit IPFIX Reducing Redundancy draft to IESG for publication as Informational RFC
Done		Submit IPFIX Testing draft to IESG for publication as Informational RFC
Done		Submit IPFIX Biflows draft to IESG for publication as Standards Track RFC
Done		Publish Internet draft on IPFIX Type Information Export
Done		Publish Internet draft on IPFIX File Format
Done		Publish Internet draft on IPFIX Configuration Data Model
Done		Publish Internet draft on Single SCTP Stream Reporting
Done		Submit File Format draft to IESG for publication as Standards track RFC
Done		Publish Internet draft on IPFIX Mediation Problem Statement
Done		Submit IPFIX MIB draft to IESG for publication as Standards track RFC
Done		Submit Type Export draft to IESG for publication as Standards track RFC
Done		Submit Single SCTP Stream draft to IESG for publication as Informational RFC
Jul 2009		Submit Mediation Problem Statement I-D to IESG for publication as Informational RFC
Sep 2009		Submit Configuration Data Model draft to IESG for publication as Standards track RFC
Sep 2009		Submit Mediation Framework I-D to IESG for publication as Informational RFC
Jan 2010		Submit final version of PSAMP MIB module

Internet-Drafts:

Definitions of Managed Objects for IP Flow Information Export (131272 bytes)
Specification of the IPFIX File Format (148897 bytes)
IPFIX Mediation: Problem Statement (57336 bytes)
IPFIX Mediation: Framework (59433 bytes)
IPFIX Export per SCTP Stream (49150 bytes)
Configuration Data Model for IPFIX and PSAMP (157790 bytes)

Request For Comments: