TSVWG K. Chan Internet-Draft J. Babiarz Intended status: Informational Nortel Networks Expires: September 6, 2007 F. Baker Cisco Systems March 5, 2007 Aggregation of DiffServ Service Classes draft-ietf-tsvwg-diffserv-class-aggr-02 Status of this Memo By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes aware will be disclosed, in accordance with Section 6 of BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet- Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt. The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. This Internet-Draft will expire on September 6, 2007. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2007). Abstract In the core of a high capacity network, service differentiation is still needed to support applications' utilization of the network. Applications with similar traffic characteristics and performance requirements are mapped into diffserv service classes based on end- to-end behavior requirements of the applications as indicated by Diffserv Service Classes [5]. However, some network segments may be Chan, et al. Expires September 6, 2007 [Page 1] Internet-Draft Document March 2007 configured in such a way that a single forwarding treatment may satisfy the traffic characteristics and performance requirements of two or more service classes. In these cases, it may be desirable to aggregate two or more Diffserv Service Classes [5] into a single forwarding treatment. This document provides guidelines for the aggregation of Diffserv Service Classes [5] into forwarding treatments. Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.1. Requirements Notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3. Overview of Service Class Aggregation . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 4. Service Classes to Treatment Aggregate Mapping . . . . . . . . 6 4.1. Mapping Service Classes into Four Treatment Aggregates . . 6 4.1.1. Network Control Treatment Aggregate . . . . . . . . . 9 4.1.2. Real Time Treatment Aggregate . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 4.1.3. Assured Elastic Treatment Aggregate . . . . . . . . . 10 4.1.4. Elastic Treatment Aggregate . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 5. Using MPLS for Treatment Aggregates . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 5.1. Network Control Treatment Aggregate with E-LSP . . . . . . 14 5.2. Real Time Treatment Aggregate with E-LSP . . . . . . . . . 14 5.3. Assured Elastic Treatment Aggregate with E-LSP . . . . . . 14 5.4. Elastic Treatment Aggregate with E-LSP . . . . . . . . . . 14 5.5. Treatment Aggregates and L-LSP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 6. Treatment Aggregates and Inter-Provider Relationships . . . . 15 7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 8. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 9. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 10. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 10.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 10.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 19 Chan, et al. Expires September 6, 2007 [Page 2] Internet-Draft Document March 2007 1. Introduction In the core of a high capacity network, it is common for the network to be engineered in such a way that a major link, switch, or router can fail and the result will be a routed network that still meets ambient SLAs. The implication of this is that there is sufficient capacity on any given link such that all SLAs sold can be simultaneously supported at their respective maximum rates, and that this remains true after re-routing (either IP re-routing or MPLS protection-mode switching) has occurred. Over-provisioning is generally considered to meet the requirements of all traffic without further QoS treatment, and in the general case that is true in high capacity backbones. However, as the process of network convergence continues, and with the increasing speed of the access networks, certain services still have issues. Delay, jitter, and occasional loss are perfectly acceptable for elastic applications. However, sub-second surges that occur in the best- designed of networks [14] affect real-time applications. Moreover, DOS loads, worms, and network disruptions such as that of 11 September 2001 affect routing [15]. Our objective is to prevent disruption to routing (which in turn affects all services), and jitter-sensitive services that may be revenue-bearing. The document "Diffserv Service Classes" [5] defines the basic diffserv classes from the points of view of the application requiring specific end-to-end behaviors from the network. The service classes are differentiated based on the traffic-payload's tolerance to packet loss, delay, and delay variation (jitter). Different degrees of these criterions form the foundation for supporting the needs of real-time and elastic traffic. The "Diffserv Service Classes" [5] document also provides recommendations for the treatment method of these service classes. But, at some network segments of the end-to- end path, the number of levels of network treatment differentiation may be less than the number of service classes that the network segment needs to support. In such a situation, that network segment may use the same treatment to support more than one service class. In this document we provide guidelines on how multiple service classes may be aggregated into a forwarding treatment aggregate. With the IP traffic belonging to service classes, expressed using the DSCP, as described by "Diffserv Service Classes" [5]. Note that in a given domain, we may recommend that the supported service classes be aggregated into forwarding treatment aggregates; however, this does not mean all service classes need to be supported and hence not all forwarding treatment aggregates need to be supported. A domain may support fewer or greater number of forwarding treatment aggregates. Which service classes and which forwarding treatment aggregates are supported by a domain is up to the domain administration and may be Chan, et al. Expires September 6, 2007 [Page 3] Internet-Draft Document March 2007 influenced by business reasons. In this document, we've provided: o definitions for terminology we use in this document, o requirements for performing this aggregation, o an example of performing this aggregation over MPLS using E-LSP. The treatment aggregate recommendations are designed to aggregate the service classes [5] in such a manner as to protect real-time traffic and routing, on the assumption that real-time sessions are protected from each other by admission at the edge. An example of aggregation over MPLS networks using E-LSP, EXP Inferred PHB Scheduling Class (PSC) Label Switched Path (LSP), to realize the treatment aggregates is provided. Note that the MPLS E-LSP is just an example; this document does not exclude the use of other methods. This example only considers aggregation of IP traffic into E-LSP. The use of E-LSP by none-IP traffic is not discussed. 1.1. Requirements Notation The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [3]. 2. Terminology This document assumes the reader is familiar with the terms used in differentiated services. This document provides the definitions for new terms introduced by this document and referencing information for existing none differentiated services terms defined in existing RFCs. For new terms introduced by this document, we provide the definition here: o Treatment Aggregate. This term is used here to indicate the aggregate of DiffServ service classes. This is different from Behavior Aggregate and Traffic Aggregate because Treatment Aggregate is only concerned with the treatment of the aggregated traffic. It does not concern itself with how the aggregated traffic is marked, and hence does not put a restriction on the aggregated traffic having a single diffserv codepoint that have a single PHB. Chan, et al. Expires September 6, 2007 [Page 4] Internet-Draft Document March 2007 For terms from existing RFCs, we provide the reference to the appropriate section of the relevant RFC that contain the definition: o Real-Time and Elastic Applications and their traffic. Section 3.1 of RFC 1633 [6]. o Diffserv Service Class. Section 1.3 of RFC 4594 [5]. o MPLS E-LSP, EXP Inferred PHB Scheduling Class (PSC) Label Switched Path (LSP). Section 1.2 of RFC 3270 [8]. o MPLS L-LSP, Label Only Inferred PHB Scheduling Class (PSC) Label Switched Path (LSP). Section 1.3 of RFC 3270 [8]. 3. Overview of Service Class Aggregation In diffserv domains where less granular traffic treatment differentiation is provided, aggregation of the different service classes [5] may be required. These aggregations have the following requirements: 1. The end-to-end network performance characteristic required by the application must be supported. This performance characteristic is represented by the use of Diffserv Service Classes [5]. 2. The treatment aggregate must exhibit the strictest requirement of its member service classes. 3. The treatment aggregate should only contain member service classes with similar traffic characteristic and performance requirements. 4. The notion of the individual end-to-end service classes must not be destroyed when aggregation is performed. Each domain along the end-to-end path may perform aggregation differently, based on the original end-to-end service classes. We recommend an easy way to accomplish this by not altering the DSCP used to indicate the end-to-end service class. But some administrative domains may require the use of their own marking; when this is needed, the original end-to-end service class indication must be restored upon exiting such administrative domains. 5. Each treatment aggregate has limited resources, hence traffic conditioning and/or admission control must be performed for each service class aggregated into the treatment aggregate. Chan, et al. Expires September 6, 2007 [Page 5] Internet-Draft Document March 2007 with the following suggestions: 1. The treatment aggregate and assigned resources may consider historical traffic patterns and the variability of these patterns. For example, a point-point service (e.g., pseudowire) may have a very predictable pattern, while a multipoint service (e.g., VPLS) may have a much less predictable pattern. Even the traffic patterns within the Internet may vary widely. 2. In addition to Diffserv, other controls are available to influence the traffic level offered to a particular traffic aggregate. These include adjustment of routing metrics, usage of MPLS-based traffic engineering techniques. This document only describes the aggregation of IP traffic based on the use of Diffserv Service Classes [5]. 4. Service Classes to Treatment Aggregate Mapping The service class and DSCP selection in "Diffserv Service Classes" [5] has been defined to allow, in many instances, mapping of two or possibly more service classes into a single forwarding treatment aggregate. Notice that there is a relationship/trade-off between link speed, queue depth, delay, and jitter. The degree of aggregation and hence the number of treatment aggregates will depend on whether the speed of the links and scheduler behavior, being used to implement the aggregation, can minimize the affects of mixing traffic with different packet sizes and transmit rates on queue depth. And their impacts on loss, delay, and jitter. A general rule-of-thumb is that higher link speeds allow for more aggregation/ smaller number of treatment aggregates. 4.1. Mapping Service Classes into Four Treatment Aggregates This section provides an example of mapping all the service classes defined in RFC 4594 [5] into four treatment aggregates. The use of four treatment aggregates assumes that the resources allocated to each treatment aggregate is sufficient to honor the required behavior of each service class [5] in each of the four treatment aggregates. We use the performance requirement (tolerance to loss, delay, and jitter) from the application/end-user as a guide on how to map the service classes into treatment aggregates. We have also used Section 3.1 of RFC 1633 [6] to provide us with guidance on the definition of Real-Time and Elastic applications. An overview of the mapping between service classes and the four treatment aggregates is provided by Figure 1, with the mapping being based on performance requirements. In Figure 1, the right side columns of "Service Chan, et al. Expires September 6, 2007 [Page 6] Internet-Draft Document March 2007 Class", "Tolerance to Loss/Delay/Jitter" are from Figure 2 of Diffserv Service Classes [5]. It is recommended that certain service classes be mapped into specific treatment aggregates. But this does not mean that all the service classes recommended for that treatment aggregate need to be supported. Hence, for a given domain, a treatment aggregate may contain only a subset of the service classes recommended in this document, they being the service classes supported by that domain. A domain's treatment of non-supported service classes should be based on the domain's local policy. This local policy may be influenced by its agreement with its customers. Such treatment may use the Elastic Treatment Aggregate, dropping the packets, or some other arrangements. Our example of four treatment aggregates is based on the basic differences in performance requirement from the application/end-user perspective. A domain may choose to support more or less treatment aggregates. For example, only supporting three treatment aggregates, and with mapping any network control traffic into the Assured Elastic treatment aggregate. This is a choice the administrative domain has. Chan, et al. Expires September 6, 2007 [Page 7] Internet-Draft Document March 2007 --------------------------------------------------------------------- |Treatment | Tolerance to ||Service Class | Tolerance to | |Aggregate | Loss |Delay |Jitter|| | Loss |Delay |Jitter| |==========+======+======+======++===============+======+======+======| | Network | Low | Low | Yes || Network | Low | Low | Yes | | Control | | | || Control | | | | |==========+======+======+======++===============+======+======+======| | Real | Very | Very | Very || Telephony | VLow | VLow | VLow | | Time | Low | Low | Low ||---------------+------+------+------| | | | | || Signaling | Low | Low | Yes | | | | | ||---------------+------+------+------| | | | | || Multimedia |Low - | Very | Low | | | | | || Conferencing |Medium| Low | | | | | | ||---------------+------+------+------| | | | | || Real-time | Low | Very | Low | | | | | || Interactive | | Low | | | | | | ||---------------+------+------+------| | | | | || Broadcast | Very |Medium| Low | | | | | || Video | Low | | | |==========+======+======+======++===============+======+======+======| | Assured | Low |Low - | Yes || Multimedia |Low - |Medium| Yes | | Elastic | |Medium| || Streaming |Medium| | | | | | | ||---------------+------+------+------| | | | | || Low Latency | Low |Low - | Yes | | | | | || Data | |Medium| | | | | | ||---------------+------+------+------| | | | | || OAM | Low |Medium| Yes | | | | | ||---------------+------+------+------| | | | | ||High Throughput| Low |Medium| Yes | | | | | || Data | |- High| | |==========+======+======+======++===============+======+======+======| | Elastic | Not Specified || Standard | Not Specified | | | | | ||---------------+------+------+------| | | | | || Low Priority | High | High | Yes | | | | | || Data | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------- Figure 1: Treatment Aggregate and Service Class Performance Requirements As we are recommending to preserve the notion of the individual end- to-end service classes, we also recommend that the original DSCP field marking not be changed when treatment aggregates are used. Instead, classifiers that select packets based on the contents of the DSCP field should be used to direct packets from the member DiffServ Service Classes into the queue that handles each of the treatment aggregates, without remarking the DSCP field of the packets. This is summarized in Figure 2, which shows the behavior each Treatment Chan, et al. Expires September 6, 2007 [Page 8] Internet-Draft Document March 2007 Aggregate should have, and the DSCP field marking of the packets that should be classified into each of the treatment aggregates. ------------------------------------------------------------ |Treatment |Treatment || DSCP | |Aggregate |Aggregate || | | |Behavior || | |==========+==========++=====================================| | Network | CS || CS6 | | Control |(RFC 2474)|| | |==========+==========++=====================================| | Real | EF || EF, CS5, AF41, AF42, AF43, CS4, CS3 | | Time |(RFC 3246)|| | |==========+==========++=====================================| | Assured | AF || CS2, AF31, AF21, AF11 | | Elastic |(RFC 2597)||-------------------------------------| | | || AF32, AF22, AF12 | | | ||-------------------------------------| | | || AF33, AF23, AF13 | |==========+==========++=====================================| | Elastic | Default || Default, (CS0) | | |(RFC 2474)||-------------------------------------| | | || CS1 | ------------------------------------------------------------ Figure 2: Treatment Aggregate Behavior 4.1.1. Network Control Treatment Aggregate The Network Control Treatment Aggregate aggregates all service classes that are functionally necessary for the survival of a network during a DOS attack or other high traffic load interval. The theory is that whatever else is true, the network must protect itself. This includes the traffic that "Diffserv Service Classes" [5] characterizes as being included in the Network Control Service Class. The DSCPs of the original service class remain an important consideration and should be preserved during aggregation. Traffic in the Network Control treatment aggregate should be carried in a common queue or class with a PHB as described in RFC 2474 [4] section 4.2.2.2. This treatment aggregate should have a lower probability of packet loss, bearing a relatively deep target mean queue depth (min- threshold if RED is being used). 4.1.2. Real Time Treatment Aggregate The Real Time Treatment Aggregate aggregates all real-time (inelastic) service classes. The theory is that real-time traffic is Chan, et al. Expires September 6, 2007 [Page 9] Internet-Draft Document March 2007 admitted under some model and controlled by a SLA managed at the edge of the network prior to aggregation. As such, there is a predictable and enforceable upper bound on the traffic that can enter such a queue, and to provide predictable variation in delay it must be protected from bursts of elastic traffic. The predictability of traffic level may be based upon admission control for a well known community of interest (e.g., a point-point service) and/or based upon historical measurements. This treatment aggregate may include the following service classes from the Diffserv Service Classes [5], in addition to other locally defined classes: Telephony, Signaling, Multimedia Conferencing, Real- time Interactive, Broadcast Video. Traffic in each service class that is going to be aggregated into the treatment aggregate should be conditioned prior to aggregation. It is recommended that per service class admission control procedures be used followed by per service class policing so that any individual service class does not generate more than what it is allowed. Furthermore, additional admission control and policing may be used on the sum of all service classes aggregated. The DSCPs of the original service classes remain an important consideration and should be preserved during aggregation. Traffic bearing these DSCPs is carried in a common queue or class with a PHB as described in RFC 3246 [11] and RFC 3247 [12]. 4.1.3. Assured Elastic Treatment Aggregate The Assured Elastic Treatment Aggregate aggregates all elastic traffic that uses the Assured Forwarding model as described in RFC 2597 [10]. The premise of such a service is that a SLA is negotiated which includes a "committed rate" and the ability to exceed that rate (and perhaps a second "excess rate") in exchange for a higher probability of loss using AQM [9] or ECN flagging [13] for the portion of traffic deemed to be in excess. This treatment aggregate may include the following service classes from the Diffserv Service Classes [5], in addition to other locally defined classes: Multimedia Streaming, Low Latency Data, OAM, High Throughput Data. The DSCP values belonging to the AF PHB group and class selector of the original service classes remain an important consideration and should be preserved during aggregation. This treatment aggregate should maintain the AF PHB group marking of the original packet. For example, AF3x marked packets should remain AF3x marked within this treatment aggregate. In addition, the class selector DSCP value Chan, et al. Expires September 6, 2007 [Page 10] Internet-Draft Document March 2007 should not be changed. Traffic bearing these DSCPs is carried in a common queue or class with a PHB as described in RFC 2597 [10]. In effect, appropriate target rate thresholds have been applied at the edge, dividing traffic into AFn1 (committed, for any value of n), AFn2, and AFn3 (excess). The service should be engineered so that AFn1 and CS2 marked packet flows have sufficient bandwidth in the network to provide high assurance of delivery. Since the traffic is elastic and responds dynamically to packet loss, Active Queue Management [9] should be used primarily to reduce the forwarding rate to the minimum assured rate at congestion points. The probability of loss of AFn1 and CS2 traffic must not exceed the probability of loss of AFn2 traffic, which in turn must not exceed the probability of loss of AFn3 traffic. If RED [9] is used as an AQM algorithm, the min-threshold specifies a target queue depth for each of AFn1+CS2, AFn2, AFn3, and the max- threshold specifies the queue depth above which all traffic with such a DSCP is dropped or ECN marked. Thus, in this Treatment Aggregate, the following inequalities should hold in queue configurations: o min-threshold AFn3 < max-threshold AFn3 o max-threshold AFn3 <= min-threshold AFn2 o min-threshold AFn2 < max-threshold AFn2 o max-threshold AFn2 <= min-threshold AFn1+CS2 o min-threshold AFn1+CS2 < max-threshold AFn1+CS2 o max-threshold AFn1+CS2 <= memory assigned to the queue Note: This configuration tends to drop AFn3 traffic before AFn2 and AFn2 before AFn1 and CS2. Many other AQM algorithms exist and are used; they should be configured to achieve a similar result. 4.1.4. Elastic Treatment Aggregate The Elastic Treatment Aggregate aggregates all remaining elastic traffic. The premise of such a service is that there is no intrinsic SLA differentiation of traffic, but that AQM [9] or ECN flagging [13] is appropriate for such traffic. This treatment aggregate may include the following service classes from the Diffserv Service Classes [5], in addition to other locally defined classes: Standard, Low Priority Data. The DSCPs of the original service classes remain an important Chan, et al. Expires September 6, 2007 [Page 11] Internet-Draft Document March 2007 consideration and should be preserved during aggregation. Traffic bearing these DSCPs is carried in a common queue or class with a PHB as described in RFC 2474 [4] section 4.1: A Default PHB. The AQM thresholds for Elastic traffic MAY be separately set, so that Low Priority Data traffic is dropped before Standard traffic, but this is not a requirement. 5. Using MPLS for Treatment Aggregates RFC 2983 on DiffServ and Tunnels [7] and RFC 3270 on MPLS Support of DiffServ [8] provide a very good background on this topic. This document provides an example of using the E-LSP, EXP Inferred PHB Scheduled Class (PSC) Label Switched Path (LSP), defined by MPLS Support of DiffServ [8] for realizing the Treatment Aggregates. When Treatment Aggregates are represented in MPLS using EXP Inferred PSC LSP, we recommend the following usage of the MPLS EXP field for Treatment Aggregates. Chan, et al. Expires September 6, 2007 [Page 12] Internet-Draft Document March 2007 ------------------------------------------- |Treatment || MPLS || DSCP | DSCP | |Aggregate || EXP || name | value | |==========++======++=========|=============| | Network || 110 || CS6 | 110000 | | Control || || | | |==========++======++=========|=============| | Real || 100 || EF | 101110 | | Time || ||---------|-------------| | || || CS5 | 101000 | | || ||---------|-------------| | || ||AF41,AF42|100010,100100| | || || AF43 | 100110 | | || ||---------|-------------| | || || CS4 | 100000 | | || ||---------|-------------| | || || CS3 | 011000 | |==========++======++=========|=============| | Assured || 010* || CS2 | 010000 | | Elastic || || AF31 | 011010 | | || || AF21 | 010010 | | || || AF11 | 001010 | | ||------||---------|-------------| | || 011* || AF32 | 011100 | | || || AF22 | 010100 | | || || AF12 | 001100 | | || || AF33 | 011110 | | || || AF23 | 010110 | | || || AF13 | 001110 | |==========++======++=========|=============| | Elastic || 000* || Default | 000000 | | || || (CS0) | | | ||------||---------|-------------| | || 001* || CS1 | 001000 | ------------------------------------------- Figure 3: Treatment Aggregate and MPLS EXP Field Usage Notes *: For Assured Elastic (and Elastic) Treatment Aggregate, the usage of 010 or 011 (000 or 001) as EXP field value depends on the drop probability. Packets in the LSP with EXP field of 011 (001) have a higher probability of being dropped than packets with an EXP field of 010 (000). The above table indicates the recommended usage of EXP fields for Treatment Aggregates. Because many deployments of MPLS are on a per domain basis, each domain has total control of its EXP usage and each domain may use a different EXP field allocation for the domain's Chan, et al. Expires September 6, 2007 [Page 13] Internet-Draft Document March 2007 supported Treatment Aggregates. 5.1. Network Control Treatment Aggregate with E-LSP The usage of E-LSP for Network Control Treatment Aggregate needs to adhere to the recommendations indicated in section 4.1.1 of this document and section 3.2 of "Diffserv Service Classes" [5]. Reinforcing these recommendations, there should be no drop precedence associated with the MPLS PSC used for Network Control Treatment Aggregate because dropping of Network Control Treatment Aggregate traffic should be prevented. 5.2. Real Time Treatment Aggregate with E-LSP In addition to the recommendations provided in section 4.1.2 of this document and in member service classes' sections of "Diffserv Service Classes" [5], we want to indicate that Real Time Treatment Aggregate traffic should not be dropped, as some of the applications whose traffic is carried in the Real Time Treatment Aggregate do not react well to dropped packets. As indicated in section 4.1.2 of this document, admission control should be performed on each Service Class contributing to the Real Time Treatment Aggregate to prevent packet loss due to insufficient resources allocated to Real Time Treatment Aggregate. Further, admission control and policing may also be applied on the sum of all traffic aggregated into this treatment aggregate. 5.3. Assured Elastic Treatment Aggregate with E-LSP EXP field markings of 010 and 011 are used for the Assured Elastic Treatment Aggregate. The two encodings are used to provide two levels of drop precedence indications, with 010 encoded traffic having a lower probability of being dropped than 011 encoded traffic. This provides for the mapping of CS2, AF31, AF21, and AF11 into EXP 010; and AF32, AF22, AF12 and AF33, AF23, AF13 into EXP 011. If the domain chooses to support only one drop precedence for this treatment aggregate, we recommend the use of 010 for EXP field marking. 5.4. Elastic Treatment Aggregate with E-LSP EXP field markings of 000 and 001 are used for the Elastic Treatment Aggregate. The two encodings are used to provide two levels of drop precedence indications, with 000 encoded traffic having a lower probability of being dropped than 001 encoded traffic. This provides for the mapping of Default/CS0 into 000; and CS1 into 001. Notice that with this mapping, during congestion, CS1 marked traffic may be starved. If the domain chooses to support only one drop precedence for this treatment aggregate, we recommend the use of 000 for EXP Chan, et al. Expires September 6, 2007 [Page 14] Internet-Draft Document March 2007 field marking. 5.5. Treatment Aggregates and L-LSP Because L-LSP (Label Only Inferred PSC LSP) supports a single PSC per LSP, the support of each Treatment Aggregate is on a per LSP basis. This document does not further specify any additional recommendation (beyond what has been indicated in section 4 of this document) for Treatment Aggregate to L-LSP mapping, leaving this to each individual MPLS domain administrations. 6. Treatment Aggregates and Inter-Provider Relationships When Treatment Aggregates are used at provider boundaries, we recommend that the Inter-Provider Relationship be based on Diffserv Service Classes [5]. This allows the admission control into each Treatment Aggregate of a provider domain to be based on the admission control of traffic into the supported Service Classes, as indicated by the discussion in section 4 of this document. If the Inter-Provider Relationship needs to be based on Treatment Aggregates specified by this document, then the exact Treatment Aggregate content and representation must be agreed to by the peering providers. Some additional work on Inter-Provider Relationships is provided by Inter-provider QoS [16], where details on supporting realtime services between service providers are discussed. Some related work in ITU-T provided by Appendix VI of Y.1541 [17] may also help with inter-provider relationships, especially with international providers. 7. Security Considerations This document discusses the policy of using Differentiated Services and its service classes. If implemented as described, it should require that the network do nothing that the network has not already allowed. If that is the case, no new security issues should arise from the use of such a policy. It is possible for the policy to be applied incorrectly, or for a wrong policy to be applied in the network for the defined aggregation. In that case, a policy issue exists that the network must detect, assess, and deal with. This is a known security issue in any network dependent on policy-directed behavior. Chan, et al. Expires September 6, 2007 [Page 15] Internet-Draft Document March 2007 A well known flaw appears when bandwidth is reserved or enabled for a service (for example, voice transport) and another service or an attacking traffic stream uses it. This possibility is inherent in DiffServ technology, which depends on appropriate packet markings. When bandwidth reservation or a priority queuing system is used in a vulnerable network, the use of authentication and flow admission is recommended. To the best of the authors' knowledge, there is no known technical way to respond to or act upon a data stream that has been admitted for service but that it is not intended for authenticated use. 8. IANA Considerations This document does not request any IANA considerations. 9. Acknowledgements This document has benefited from discussions with numerous people, especially Shane Amante, Brian Carpenter, and Dave McDysan. It has also benefited from detailed reviews by David Black and Marvin Krym. 10. References 10.1. Normative References [1] Postel, J., "Internet Protocol", STD 5, RFC 791, September 1981. [2] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996. [3] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. [4] Nichols, K., Blake, S., Baker, F., and D. Black, "Definition of the Differentiated Services Field (DS Field) in the IPv4 and IPv6 Headers", RFC 2474, December 1998. [5] Babiarz, J., Chan, K., and F. Baker, "Configuration Guidelines for DiffServ Service Classes", RFC 4594, August 2006. [6] Braden, B., Clark, D., and S. Shenker, "Integrated Services in the Internet Architecture: an Overview", RFC 1633, June 1994. [7] Black, D., "Differentiated Services and Tunnels", RFC 2983, Chan, et al. Expires September 6, 2007 [Page 16] Internet-Draft Document March 2007 October 2000. [8] Le Faucheur, F., Wu, L., Davie, B., Davari, S., Vaananen, P., Krishnan, R., Cheval, P., and J. Heinanen, "Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) Support of Differentiated Services", RFC 3270, May 2002. [9] Braden, B., Clark, D., Crowcroft, J., Davie, B., Deering, S., Estrin, D., Floyd, S., Jacobson, V., Minshall, G., Partridge, C., Peterson, L., Ramakrishnan, K., Shenker, S., Wroclawski, J., and L. Zhang, "Recommendations on Queue Management and Congestion Avoidance in the Internet", RFC 2309, April 1998. [10] Heinanen, J., Baker, F., Weiss, W., and J. Wroclawski, "Assured Forwarding PHB Group", RFC 2597, June 1999. [11] Davie, B., Charny, A., Bennet, J., Benson, K., Le Boudec, J., Courtney, W., Davari, S., Firoiu, V., and D. Stiliadis, "An Expedited Forwarding PHB (Per-Hop Behavior)", RFC 3246, March 2002. [12] Charny, A., Bennet, J., Benson, K., Boudec, J., Chiu, A., Courtney, W., Davari, S., Firoiu, V., Kalmanek, C., and K. Ramakrishnan, "Supplemental Information for the New Definition of the EF PHB (Expedited Forwarding Per-Hop Behavior)", RFC 3247, March 2002. [13] Ramakrishnan, K., Floyd, S., and D. Black, "The Addition of Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) to IP", RFC 3168, September 2001. 10.2. Informative References [14] Choi, B., Moon, S., Zhang, Z., Papagiannaki, K., and C. Diot, "Analysis of Point-To-Point Packet Delay in an Operational Network", INFOCOMM 2004, March 2004, . [15] Ogielski, A. and J. Cowie, "Internet Routing Behavior on 9/11", March 2002, . [16] MIT Communications Futures Program, "Inter-provider Quality of Service", November 2006, < http://cfp.mit.edu/resources/papers/Interprovider QoS MIT_CFP_WP_9_14_06.pdf>. [17] International Telecommunications Union, "Network performance Chan, et al. Expires September 6, 2007 [Page 17] Internet-Draft Document March 2007 objectives for IP-based services", February 2006. Authors' Addresses Kwok Ho Chan Nortel Networks 600 Technology Park Drive Billerica, MA 01821 US Phone: +1-978-288-8175 Fax: +1-978-288-8700 Email: khchan@nortel.com Jozef Z. Babiarz Nortel Networks 3500 Carling Avenue Ottawa, Ont. K2H 8E9 Canada Phone: +1-613-763-6098 Fax: +1-613-768-2231 Email: babiarz@nortel.com Fred Baker Cisco Systems 1121 Via Del Rey Santa Barbara, CA 93117 US Phone: +1-408-526-4257 Fax: +1-413-473-2403 Email: fred@cisco.com Chan, et al. Expires September 6, 2007 [Page 18] Internet-Draft Document March 2007 Full Copyright Statement Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2007). This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights. This document and the information contained herein are provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY, THE IETF TRUST AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Intellectual Property The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in this document or the extent to which any license under such rights might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has made any independent effort to identify any such rights. Information on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be found in BCP 78 and BCP 79. Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at http://www.ietf.org/ipr. The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement this standard. Please address the information to the IETF at ietf-ipr@ietf.org. Acknowledgment Funding for the RFC Editor function is provided by the IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA). Chan, et al. Expires September 6, 2007 [Page 19]