[bess] Re: [Idr] Working Group Last Call on draft-ietf-bess-ebgp-dmz

[[e-mail]]

Hi folks,



> For this point, I'll ask that the DMZ authors respond to the provenance of the use case.  

 

As it was pointed on the mic during multiple IETF meetings [1] [2], the “min BW” use case is already implemented using the link bandwidth community with no requirement of introducing a new community.

 

There are documentations available showing the behavior ([3]). In [3], we have:

“Router D (198.51.100.0)’s link-capacity of 20Gb is less than the aggregate link capacity of 30Gb so Router C only advertises 20Gb to Router D.

…

Unlike Router D, Router E receives the total link bandwidth of 30Gb. This is because Router E’s peering link capacity is 40Gb, so the advertised link-bandwidth of 30Gb is not subject to capping.”

 

 

On the other hand, Cisco IOS XR also supports mathematical functions based on local link BW and learned remote BW. This is a superset of the capabilities (“min”) defined in the other draft and these capabilities were driven by customer requests.

 

route-policy SET_LBW

  set effective-bandwidth install value function ( received-bandwidth * link-bandwidth )

  set effective-bandwidth install value / 1250000

end-policy

!

 

 

As the ebgp-dmz draft is the WG document carrying the existing deployments of the BGP LBW community, it had to be updated with all what the existing implementation support. As the initial editor of the draft moved to another company, it took some time to update the document (version 4 was the last update from original editor => December 2023). Again, updates are just reflecting existing deployments of the link bandwidth community as stated multiple times and presented during IETF meetings.

 

 

[1] Minutes from IETF 123

“7. Fully Adaptive Routing Ethernet using BGP

10:38 (10 mins) draft-xu-idr-fare-03 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-xu-idr-fare/03/>  [Xiaohu Xu]

*	Stephane Litkowski: we should not introduce a new BGP extended
community to do this; some assumptions on other work may have been
true but aren't anymore, we have all the tools now with the existing
attributes. There are implementations based on existing attributes.
Concern what will happen if we have multiple ways to encode the same
thing. We have a community container for bandwidth, What's encoded
is really up to local behavior, cf. accumulation in the bess-DMZ
draft. It is fine to define it as a new use case, but not a new
standard.
*	Tobias Fiebig: +1 to previous comment, also very IPv4 centric,
really need to consider IPv6.”

 

[2] Minutes/recording from IETF125 at around 39:45 

 

[3]  <https://mirror.wide-net.org/pub/b/BGP_UCMP.pdf> https://mirror.wide-net.org/pub/b/BGP_UCMP.pdf

 

 

 

Hope it clarifies,

 

Brgds,

 

Stephane

 

 

 

From: Tiger Xu <[e-mail]> 
Sent: Saturday, June 13, 2026 6:22 AM
To: Jeffrey Haas <[e-mail]>; Gunter Van de Velde <[e-mail]>; [e-mail]
Cc: BESS <[e-mail]>; idr@ietf. org <[e-mail]>
Subject: 答复: [Idr] Working Group Last Call on draft-ietf-bess-ebgp-dmz

 

Hi Jeff,

 

I apologize for missing your email. Please see my response inline with [Tiger].

 

发件人: Jeffrey Haas <[e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]> >
日期: 星期三, 2026年5月27日 20:56
收件人: Tiger Xu <[e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]> >, Gunter Van de Velde <[e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]> >, [e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]>  <[e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]> >
抄送: BESS <[e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]> >, idr@ietf. org <[e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]> >
主题: Re: [Idr] Working Group Last Call on draft-ietf-bess-ebgp-dmz

Tiger,

Some of these questions are impacting progression of the DMZ draft.  Would
you please respond:

On Wed, May 06, 2026 at 10:02:01AM -0400, Jeffrey Haas wrote:
> [Speaking as an IDR chair and the shepherd for the DMZ document in this response]
> 
> > Fourth, the new use cases and associated technical approaches introduced in draft-ietf-bess-ebgp-dmz -07 (published 20 July 2025) were already fully and explicitly documented in draft-xu-idr-fare -00 (released 1 July 2024).
> 
> There are certainly overlaps in the problem space between the DMZ and FARE documents. draft-xu-idr-fare-00 was issued on January 2025.  The DMZ draft had been getting work done on it over several years with refining use cases.  Is there a specific use case you are referring to here?  If so, please clarify what section in the document you're discussing.

[TIger] *draft-xu-idr-fare-00* ( <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-xu-idr-fare-00> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-xu-idr-fare-00) published in July 2024, introduces the concept of path bandwidth usage. In contrast, *draft-ietf-bess-ebgp-dmz-08*, published in October 2025, introduces path bandwidth usage for the first time as well, specifically in Section 1 and Section 4.2. See the following quoted text from DMZ-08:

 

“...The example above shows that the BGP link bandwidth extended community may not be limited to carry only a "link" bandwidth value. In our example, the value 30Gbps advertised by R3 represents an aggregated path bandwidth.”  —quoted from section 1 of DMZ-08

 

“...BGP may have to consider a combination of the local link and remote bandwidth when computing the weights for weighted load-balancing. Any function of the two may be used like for instance a "minimum" function that was highlighted in  <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-bess-ebgp-dmz-08#intro> Section 1. “ —quoted from section 4.2 of DMZ-08

 

For more details, see   <https://author-tools.ietf.org/iddiff?url1=draft-ietf-bess-ebgp-dmz-07&url2=draft-ietf-bess-ebgp-dmz-08&difftype=--hwdiff> https://author-tools.ietf.org/iddiff?url1=draft-ietf-bess-ebgp-dmz-07&url2=draft-ietf-bess-ebgp-dmz-08&difftype=--hwdiff)

> Also, is there a concern that there is work covered in that overlapping portion of the documents that have undisclosed IPR considerations?  Or, is this more a matter that the DMZ document appropriated a use case without attribution to its contributors?

The above impacts both attribution and IPR.

 

[Tiger] Both. I will ask my legal colleague to submit the IPR disclose. 

> > Further detailed analysis is presented below. IMHO, the IETF, as a leading global standards-setting body, ought not to endorse or tolerate such non-compliant community practices. Allowing such precedent would undermine the IETF’s reputation for impartiality and erode its ecosystem of original technical innovation.
> 
> I'll address the technical points below, but what "non-compliant community practices" are you referring to?  Please be explicit.

Would you clarify what non-compliant practices you're discussing?

 

[Tiger] Non-compliant community practices involve copying ideas from other drafts and then competing with those drafts. If the IETF tolerates such practices, it would force more authors to resort to IPR to defend their intellectual efforts. That would be a dilemma for the IETF community.

> > 2. Issues and solutions introduced in version -08
> > Version -08 adds:
> > “In addition, as illustrated in the previous sections, BGP may have to consider a combination of the local link and remote bandwidth when computing the weights for weighted load‑balancing. Any function of the two may be used like for instance a ‘minimum’ function … The weight of each path may then be based on either: only the remote bandwidth, only the local link bandwidth, or a function of both.”
> > This introduces the minimum function (choosing the smaller value between the link bandwidth and the path bandwidth of the received route). The draft also acknowledges for the first time the necessity of path bandwidth:
> > “In our example, the value 30Gbps advertised by R3 represents an aggregated path bandwidth.”
> > Again, both the minimum function and the concept of path bandwidth were already described in draft-xu-idr-fare version -00.
> 
> For this point, I'll ask that the DMZ authors respond to the provenance of the use case.  I'd also suggest to the BESS chairs and AD to halt progression of the document until that point is settled.  Minimally, if there's an issue of attribution, that should be addressed.

[Tiger]  Fully agree.





Best regards,

Tiger

> Further, I ask again on this point where there is undisclosed IPR that you consider an issue for this use case?

Would you clarify if there's undisclosed IPR considerations?

-- Jeff