Subject: WG Review: Routing In Fat Trees (rift)
From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
To: "IETF-Announce" <[email-masked]>
Cc: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 05 Sep 2024 08:50:40 -0700
List-Id: "IETF announcement list. No discussions." <ietf-announce.ietf.org>

The Routing In Fat Trees (rift) WG in the Routing Area of the IETF is
undergoing rechartering. The IESG has not made any determination yet. The
following draft charter was submitted, and is provided for informational
purposes only. Please send your comments to the IESG mailing list
([email-masked]) by 2024-09-15.

Routing In Fat Trees (rift)
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Current status: Active WG

Chairs:
  Zhaohui Zhang <[email-masked]>
  Jeff Tantsura <[email-masked]>

Assigned Area Director:
  Jim Guichard <[email-masked]>

Routing Area Directors:
  John Scudder <[email-masked]>
  Jim Guichard <[email-masked]>
  Gunter Van de Velde <[email-masked]>

Mailing list:
  Address: [email-masked]
  To subscribe: https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/rift
  Archive: https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/rift

Group page: https://datatracker.ietf.org/group/rift/

Charter: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/charter-ietf-rift/

Data Centers have experienced substantial growth, commonly hosting tens of
thousands or more end points in a single network.  The unique characteristics
of data center networks driven by their topologies (both traditional and
emerging), traffic patterns, requirements for rapid restoration, and a need
for minimal human intervention, necessitates specialized routing solutions.
The adoption of Clos and Fat-Tree topologies has become prevalent in data
center networks, particularly in centralized architectures designed to
deliver computation and storage services efficiently.

The Routing in Fat Trees (RIFT) protocol has been developed to meet the
specific routing needs of Clos and Fat-Tree networks. RIFT employs a hybrid
approach, combining elements of both link-state and distance-vector routing
techniques, which can be colloquially described as 'link-state towards the
spine and distance vector towards the leaves. This approach is optimized for
networks characterized by regular topologies with a high degree of
connectivity, defined directionality, and large scale.

The RIFT Working Group has completed the base protocol specification
(draft-ietf-rift-rift-20). Building upon this foundation, the Working
Group will continue to develop standards-track specifications in the following
areas:

 - Key-Value Data Store: Development of a key-value data store to enhance
 RIFT protocol functionality. - Policy Guided Prefix: Specification of
 mechanisms to enable policy-guided prefix distribution. - Segment Routing:
 RIFT extensions to support Segment Routing, enhancing routing flexibility
 and scalability. - Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP) integration: Leveraging
 RIFT ZTP procedures as a management plane to carry attributes that enable
 the provisioning and instantiation of other protocols, including:
    - EVPN: Distribution of Ethernet VPN (EVPN) attributes, such as Virtual
    Network Identifiers (VNIs), Route Targets (RTs), and Route Distinguishers
    (RDs), as defined in RFC7342. - IS-IS: Distribution of Flood Reflection
    attributes, such as Flood Reflection Cluster IDs, and related IS-IS
    attributes, as defined in RFC9377.
 - Multicast: Extensions to RIFT to support the construction of multicast
 trees within the network. - Leaf Ring Topologies: Extensions to RIFT to
 facilitate the creation and management of leaf ring topologies. - Dragonfly
 Topologies: Extensions to RIFT to support the construction of Top-of-Fabric
 (ToF) ring topologies.

Additionally, the RIFT Working Group will explore the application and
extension of the RIFT protocol to address the evolving requirements of AI/ML
Data Center architectures.

The goal of the RIFT Working Group is to ensure that the RIFT protocol
evolves in a manner that meets the current and future needs of large-scale,
highly connected data center networks, with a focus on efficiency,
scalability, and ease of management.

Relationships with other Working Groups:
The RIFT Working Group will cooperate with other Working Groups as necessary.
Key interactions include (but are not limited to):

* SPRING WG: Close cooperation on RIFT protocol extensions, new requirements,
and operational considerations. * BESS WG: Cooperation on RIFT-based protocol
extensions for BGP-enabled services, new service transport requirements, and
functional considerations. * LSR WG: Cooperation on RIFT-based LSR
extensions, new RIFT-based attributes and encodings, and functional
considerations. * PIM WG: Cooperation on RIFT-based PIM extensions, new
RIFT-based attributes and encodings, and functional considerations. * BIER
WG: Cooperation on RIFT-based BIER protocol extensions, new RIFT-based
attributes and encodings, and functional considerations.

The chairs will ensure that Working Group Last Call (WGLC) and Adoption
notices are cross-posted to the relevant WGs.

Milestones:

  Dec 2024 - Submit RIFT Key-Value Data Store specification to IESG for
  publication

  Dec 2024 - Submit RIFT Auto-EVPN specification to IESG for publication

  Apr 2025 - Submit RIFT for ISIS flood reflection specification to IESG for
  publication

  Apr 2025 - Submit RIFT Segment Routing MPLS specification to IESG for
  publication

  Dec 2025 - Submit RIFT Multicast specification to IESG for publication