[mpls] Re: New Version Notification for draft-li-mpls-mna-entropy-03.txt

[Tony Li <[e-mail]>]

Loa,

AFAICT, what you call ‘legacy style hashing’ was never endorsed by an RFC.  As it was never endorsed, it cannot be deprecated.

For hashing to be effective, there must be variability in the label stack.  Historically, that has meant that EL/ELI was in use and that
hashing the stack was done to extract the entropy.

In that light, your categorization really should be only two items: EL/ELI and MNA.

Tony


> On Sep 3, 2024, at 2:18 AM, Loa Andersson - loa at pi.nu <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Adrian,
> 
> It seem to me that Stewart talks about three ways of doing entropy
> 
>   - legacy style hashing
>   - EL/ELI
>   - MNA
> 
> So having three ways of doing "the same thing" is more complicated than
> having two.
> 
> Having two ways of doing the same thing is more complicated that having
> just one.
> 
> Would you agree to deprecate "legacy style hashing"? Understanding
> "deprecate" as not including it in new implementations and not deploying
> it in new networks.
> 
> /Loa
> 
> Den 02/09/2024 kl. 16:20, skrev Adrian Farrel:
>> 
>> I think there is an “if” here. If MNA is standardised and if other MN actions become common in usage, then including the entropy marker in the MNA would be an efficient approach saving one LSE (the ELI) as the cost of the LSE-A and LSE-B are already covered by the other uses of MNA.
>> 
>> This **is** a benefit, but possibly not earth-shattering. But, so far, we have no consensus on any MN actions.
>> 
>> The SPL used as the ELI (7) is unlikely to be deprecated and released back for reassignment any time soon as it’s use is in the field. So that can’t be counted as a benefit.
>> 
>> The other benefit (that I can see, and which is noted in the document) is the reduction in complexity caused by having only one construct, not two, to process.
>> 
>> There are three choices that can be made by the ingress when there are legacy routers on the path:
>> 
>> 1. Decide that the legacy nodes shall not have access to entropy –
>>    use MNA
>> 2. Decide that all nodes shall have access to entropy through EL/ELI
>>    – new implementations must continue to support EL/ELI, but never
>>    see MNA and EL/ELI at the same time
>> 3. Decide that all nodes shall have access to entropy through a mix
>>    of EL/ELI and MNA – implementations find entropy where they may
>> 
>> I believe that the document attempts to cover the case of legacy routers on the path.
>> 
>>  * It notes that EL/ELI is deployed and likely to persist.
>>  * It recommends not using EL/ELI and MNA in the same packet (but
>>    does not prohibit it).
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> 
>> Adrian
>> 
>> *From:*Stewart Bryant <[e-mail]>
>> *Sent:* 02 September 2024 08:15
>> *To:* Tony Li <[e-mail]>
>> *Cc:* mpls <[e-mail]>
>> *Subject:* [mpls] Re: Fwd: New Version Notification for draft-li-mpls-mna-entropy-03.txt
>> 
>> Hi Tony
>> 
>> I am struggling to see whether this has a sufficient advantage over the existing EL/ELI mechanism to justify us recommending it existence.
>> 
>> It is obvious that this can be done, and it saves an LSE, but is that sufficient justification for the complexity introduced by having two mechanisms that of necessity need to co-exist?
>> 
>> We also need to understand what happens in a legacy routers that are looking for EL/ELI and older routers that just hash the stack. I think they just provide less (no?) entropy.
>> 
>> I imagine this ends with routers needing to parse for both types of entropy which is not a great position to be in.
>> 
>> Best regards
>> 
>> Stewart
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>    On 30 Aug 2024, at 5:26 PM, Tony Li <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> 
>>    [WG chair hat: off]
>> 
>>    Hi,
>> 
>>    This update addresses comments from Adrian Farrel as part of the
>>    WG adoption process.
>> 
>>    Comments and corrections are most welcome.
>> 
>>    Thanks,
>> 
>>    Tony
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>        Begin forwarded message:
>> 
>>        *From: *"internet-drafts at ietf.org"
>>        <[e-mail]>
>> 
>>        *Subject: New Version Notification for
>>        draft-li-mpls-mna-entropy-03.txt*
>> 
>>        *Date: *August 30, 2024 at 9:24:05 AM PDT
>> 
>>        *To: *"John Drake" <[e-mail]>, "Tony Li"
>>        <[e-mail]>
>> 
>>        *Reply-To: *[e-mail]
>> 
>>        A new version of Internet-Draft
>>        draft-li-mpls-mna-entropy-03.txt has been
>>        successfully submitted by Tony Li and posted to the
>>        IETF repository.
>> 
>>        Name:     draft-li-mpls-mna-entropy
>>        Revision: 03
>>        Title:    MPLS Network Action for Entropy
>>        Date:     2024-08-28
>>        Group:    Individual Submission
>>        Pages:    5
>>        URL:
>>        https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-li-mpls-mna-entropy-03.txt
>>        Status:
>>        https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-li-mpls-mna-entropy/
>>        HTMLized:
>>        https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-li-mpls-mna-entropy
>>        Diff:
>>        https://author-tools.ietf.org/iddiff?url2=draft-li-mpls-mna-entropy-03
>> 
>>        Abstract:
>> 
>>          Load balancing is a powerful tool for engineering traffic
>>        across a
>>          network and has been successfully used in MPLS as described
>>        in RFC
>>          6790, "The Use of Entropy Labels in MPLS Forwarding".  With the
>>          emergence of MPLS Network Actions (MNA), there is signficant
>>        benefit
>>          in being able to invoke the same load balancing capabilities
>>        within
>>          the more general MNA infrastructure.
>> 
>>          This document describes a network action for entropy to be
>>        used in
>>          conjunction with "MPLS Network Action (MNA) Sub-Stack Solution".
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>        The IETF Secretariat
>> 
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> 
> -- 
> Loa Andersson
> Senior MPLS Expert
> Bronze Dragon Consulting
> [e-mail]
> [e-mail]
>