Export of Network Resource Partition (NRP) Information in IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX) ZTE
Nanjing China liu.yao71@zte.com.cn
Operations and Management Area OPSAWG Working Group IPFIX Network Slice This document introduces new IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX) Information Elements to identify the Network Resource Partition (NRP) that the network slice traffic is related with.
Introduction The definition of the IETF Network Slice and the general principles of network slicing in the IETF context are specified in . As described in , an IETF Network Slice enables connectivity between a set of Service Demarcation Points (SDPs) with specific Service Level Objectives (SLOs) and Service Level Expectations (SLEs) over a common underlay network. To meet the connectivity and performance requirements, network slice services needs to be mapped to a Network Resource Partition (NRP). An NRP is a collection of resources (bufferage, queuing, scheduling, etc.) in the underlay network. As introduced in , each NRP can be idenified using a unique NRP-ID in control plane and management plane. And the NRP-ID may also be encapsulated in data packet to guide the NRP-specific packet forwarding. This document defines new IPFIX Information Elements within the "IPFIX Information Elements" registry to identify the Network Resource Partition (NRP) that the network slice traffic is related with.
Terminology The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.
New IPFIX Information Element This section defines and describes the new IPFIX IE.
  • Name: nrpIdentifier
  • ElementID: TBD1
  • Description: The NRP ID as defined in .
  • Abstract Data Type: unsigned32
  • Data Type Semantics: identifier
Usecases A typical usecase scenario is to monitoring the network slice traffic that is forwarded based on NRP specific resource-aware segments that operate over SR-MPLS or SRv6 dataplanes. By looking at the SID itself, it is not always clear as to which NRP it belongs. Another usecase is the monitoring of the network slice traffic whose NRP-ID is encapsulated in data packet to determine the Network Resource Partition Per Hop Behavior. By using nrpIdentifier(TBD1), and some counters information, it is possible to answer the following questions (amongst others):
  • How many packets are forwarded or dropped?
  • If dropped, for which reasons?
  • Which NRP is the traffic related with?
IANA Considerations This document requests IANA to add a new IE to the "IPFIX Information Elements" registry available at .
Security Considerations There exists no significant extra security considerations regarding the allocation of these new IPFIX IEs compared to .
References Normative References Informative References IANA, "IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX) Entities"