[nvo3] Update on encapsulation design team

["Bocci, Matthew (Nokia - GB)" <[e-mail]>]

WG,

We would like to give you an update on the process in the WG for progressing the issue of a data plane encapsulation. The chairs and Alia believe that the best way forward is to progress a single encapsulation format that addresses the technical concerns raised on the list in the recent discussions. This would address the clear overall consensus of the Berlin meeting and list for a single encapsulation.

The strategy should be to take one of the three existing encapsulations and enhance it to address these concerns. This would become the standards track output of the WG. The existing three drafts (GENEVE, GUE and VXLAN-GPE) should be forwarded to the IESG as informational after the standards track draft specifying the single encapsulation. This provides an opportunity for those encapsulations to be documented and maintained.

The single encapsulation should be viewed as one that the WG and industry can converge around for the future.

We have created a design team to progress work on a single encapsulation that can form the basis or work going forward. The design team members are: Michael Schmidt, Uri Elzur, Ilango Ganga, Erik Nordmark, Rajeev Manur, Prankaj Garg. Many thanks to these individuals for their help.

Please see below for a draft charter for the design team. Please review the charter and send comments to the list by 2nd November 2016.

Regards,

Matthew and Sam


====
NVO3 Encapsulation Design team 2016

Problem Statement
The NVO3 WG charter states that it may produce requirements for network virtualization data planes based on encapsulation of virtual network traffic over an IP-based underlay data plane. Such requirements should consider OAM and security. Based on these requirements the WG will select, extend, and/or develop one or more data plane encapsulation format(s).

This has led to drafts describing three encapsulations being adopted by the working group:
- draft-ietf-nvo3-geneve-03
- draft-ietf-nvo3-gue-04
- draft-ietf-nvo3-vxlan-gpe-02

Discussion on the list and in face-to-face meetings has identified a number of technical problems with each of these encapsulations. Furthermore, there was clear consensus at the IETF meeting in Berlin that it is undesirable for the working group to progress more than one data plane encapsulation. Although consensus could not be reached on the list, the overall consensus was for a single encapsulation (RFC2418, Section 3.3). Nonetheless there has been resistance to converging on a single encapsulation format, although doing so would provide the best benefit to the industry.

Design Team Goals
The design team should take one of the proposed encapsulations and enhance it to address the technical concerns. Backwards compatibility with the chosen encapsulation and the simple evolution of deployed networks as well as applicability to all locations in the NVO3 architecture are goals. The DT should specifically avoid a design that is burdensome on hardware implementations, but should allow future extensibility. The chosen design should also operate well with ICMP and in ECMP environments. If further extensibility is required, then it should be done in such a manner that it does not require the consent of an entity outside of the IETF.

Timeline
The design team should produce a first draft describing the proposal by end of January 2017. Target adoption by the WG by March 2017 IETF.