Provider Provisioned Virtual Private Networks (ppvpn)

Last Modified: 2003-06-04

Chair(s):

Rick Wilder <rick@rhwilder.net>
Loa Andersson <loa@pi.se>

Sub-IP Area Director(s):

Bert Wijnen <bwijnen@lucent.com>
Alex Zinin <zinin@psg.com>

Sub-IP Area Advisor:

Alex Zinin <zinin@psg.com>

Technical Advisor(s):

Thomas Narten <narten@us.ibm.com>

Mailing Lists:

General Discussion: ppvpn@nortelnetworks.com
To Subscribe: lyris@nortelnetworks.com
In Body: (UN)SUBSCRIBE ppvpn in message body
Archive: http://standards.nortelnetworks.com/ppvpn/index.htm

Description of Working Group:

This working group is responsible for defining and specifying a limited
number of sets of solutions for supporting provider-provisioned virtual
private networks (PPVPNs). The work effort will include the development
of a framework document, a service requirements document and several
individual technical  approach documents that group technologies
together to specify specific VPN service offerings. The framework will
define the common components and pieces that are needed to build and
deploy a PPVPN. Deployment scenarios will include provider-managed VPN
components located on customer premises.

The service requirement document will detail the requirements
individual PPVPN approaches must satisfy from a Service Provider (SP)
perspective.  Particular attention will be placed on SP requirements
for security, privacy, scalability and manageability considering such
factors as Service Provider's projections for number, complexity, and
rate of change of customer VPNs over the next several years. The
working group will make specific efforts to solicit this information
from SPs. The service requirements document is not intended to define
the requirements that all approaches must satisfy.  Rather, it is
intended to become a "checklist" of requirements, not all of which
will necessarily be required in all deployment scenarios. A goal of
the requirements document is to provide a consistent way to evaluate
and document how well each individual approach satisfies the
individual requirements.

The effort will produce a small number of approaches that are based
on collections of individual technologies that already exist (see
below for specifics). The goal is to foster interoperability among
implementations of a specific approach. Standardization of specific
approaches will be gauged on (I)SP support.  Note that it is not a
goal of this WG to develop new protocols or extend existing
ones. Rather, the purpose is to document and identify gaps and
shortcomings in individual approaches with regards to the
requirements. In the case that specific work items are identified,
such work will be done in an appropriate WG.  Taking on specific
protocol work items in this WG will require rechartering.

The working group is expected to consider at least three specific
approaches including BGP-VPNs (e.g. RFC 2547), virtual routers and
port-based VPNs (i.e., where the SP provides a Layer 2 interface,
such as Frame Relay or ATM, to the VPN customer, while using IP-based
mechanisms in the provider infrastructure to improve scalability and
configurability over traditional L2 networks).  Multiple approaches
are being developed as each approach has particular characteristics
and differing scope of applicability.

The working group will consider inter-AS (SP) VPN interconnects so
that VPNs are able to span multiple ASs (SPs).

Each technical approach document will include an evaluation of how
well it meets the requirements defined in the requirements
document. In addition, technical approach documents will address
scalability and manageability issues as well as their operational
aspects. Individual approach documents will also analyze the threat
and security aspects of PPVPNs and include appropriate
mandatory-to-implement technologies and management mechanisms to
ensure adequate security and privacy of user data in a VPN
environment. This analysis will include cryptographic security from
customer site to customer site using IPSEC.

An applicability statement will be developed for each approach that
describes the environments in which the approaches are suitable for
deployment, including analysis of scaling impact of the approach on
SPs and threat analysis.

Coordination with the IETF PWE3 and ITU-T efforts will be ensured.

Goals and Milestones:

Done  Begin discussion of the framework and the service requirement documents. Identify a limited set of candidate approaches. Build appropriate design teams.
Done  Formulate a plan and begin approaching SPs for input on scaling and other requirements
Done  Begin discussion (based on submitted IDs) on candidate approaches against the different service requirements.
Done  Begin discussion of applicability statements.
Done  Submit the layer 3 requirement and the layer 3 framework documents to the IESG for consideration as Informational RFCs.
Mar 03  Begin submission of the candidate L3 approaches and related applicability statements to IESG publication
Apr 03  Submit the layer 2 requirement and the layer 2 framework documents to the IESG for consideration as Informational RFCs.
Jun 03  Begin submission of the candidate L2 approaches and related applicability statements to IESG for publication
Nov 03  Charter update or WG disband

No Current Internet-Drafts

No Request For Comments

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