Re: [vnfpool] VNFPool BoF Minutes

[Zongning <[e-mail]>]

Hi, Dan, Dave, and all.

Thank you for posting the BoF notes. We are now working on new revision of I-Ds and charter, in order to resolve most issues recorded in the notes.

BTW, if you have plan to write more drafts, please consider starting now. :-)

-Ning

> -----Original Message-----
> From: King, Daniel [mailto:[e-mail]]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2014 11:50 PM
> To: [e-mail]
> Cc: Melinda Shore; Zongning
> Subject: VNFPool BoF Minutes
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> Please find the VNF Pool BoF Minutes below. If you have any clarifications or
> updates please let me know.
> 
> Br, Dan.
> 
> ===================================
> 
> VNFPool BoF Draft Agenda, IETF 89th, London.
> Viscount, Tuesday Morning Session I, 0900-1130 GMT, March 4, 2014.
> 
> 09:00 Admin (Chairs, 5 minutes)
> No Agenda changes.
> 
> 09:05 Introduction & Purpose of the BoF (Chairs, 5 minutes)
> 
> 09:10 Problem Space (35 minutes)
>         1) Problem Statement (Melinda, 15 minutes)
> 
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-zong-vnfpool-problem-statement/
> 
> Comments at microphone, discussion points and actions:
> 
> - Clarification that the work should not overlap within IETF or anywhere else.
> 
> - [Chairs]: VNF Pool effort is mostly concerned with solving unique problems in
> IETF.
> 
> - Request to see if any business discussion for reliability function has been
> conducted.
> 
> - [Chairs]: Effort concerned with reliability that has been identified by service
> providers and customers highlighting their problems (in use cases).
> 
> - Suggested that performance monitoring should also be considered, in context
> of performance degradation and VNF Pool switching.
> 
> Question: Why not Hardware devices?  [Chairs]: VNF Pool is applicable to
> hardware but for now the context is virtual network devices.
> 
> - Request to make sure charter reflects problem statement, and vice versa.
> 
> - Security of state sharing is a concern.  The security section of the problem
> statement, but you do not look at security state. Bob suggested that security
> between VNFs, when state sharing, should also be considered. [Bob
> Moskowitz]
> 
> - Maybe some requirements from the Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) work.
> 
> - Request to look at existing IETF protocols for configuration of devices and DNS
> (OPS-NM AD: Benoit Claise).
> 
> Action: Synch Problem Statement with Charter text
> 
> Action: Coordination with SFC to agree on scope and perceived overlap would
> be helpful.
> 
> Action: Security must be investigated for security of solution, and security of
> state passing in the VNF Pool.
> 
> Action: Clarify business case(s) in summary of use cases.
> 
>         2) Q & A (all, 20 m minutes)
> 
> 09:50 Use Cases (50 minutes)
> 
>         1) Generic Use Case (Michiaki, 5 minutes)
>         https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-xia-vnfpool-use-cases/
> 
>         2) vEPC Use Case (Marco, 10 minutes)
>         https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-king-vnfpool-mobile-use-
>         case/
> 
> Comments at microphone, discussion points and actions:
> 
> - Software/Virtualization resilience is a reasonable requirement.
> 
> - Some participants felt that it was unclear if we are discussing a VM Pool or
> VNF Pool. The Chairs clarified that this was not VM pooling.
> 
> - [Kireeti Kompella]: Is it then groups of virtual functions and multiple pools?
> 
> - Suggestion that the work should deal with hardware and not just virtualised
> Network Functions (vNF).
> 
> - Observation that SFC charter does not mention virtualisation.
> 
> - A number of factors exist in vEPC that may be unique for providing reliance in
> a virtualised environment.
> 
> - State management may be required, but in some cases it may be acceptable
> to simply recover.
> 
> - Consideration of the role of VNF Pool Manager.
> 
> - A need to mindful of not over reaching on requirements, is synchronization of
> state feasible and is it reasonable to expect state sharing between vendor
> implementations.
> 
> - Dave Dysan:  The recovery of virtual components is beneficial.  The VNF can
> be a connected set of VMs. You can utilize a set of work from the Reliable
> Server pooling (RSerPool)
> 
> - Thomas Nordmark: The link between virtual network functions and the
> synchronized pool is not clear in this presentation, and it seems to be different
> from the previous definition of pools and pool manager.
> 
> - Daniel King: The uses were developed in isolation, and additional
> synchronization of terminology needs to occur.
> 
> Action: Synch terminology across VNF Pool I-Ds, including Use Case documents.
> 
> Action: Continue to develop Use Case I-Ds to help identify if State
> Synchronization is a reasonable requirement, and what is the scope of the
> required state synchronization.
> 
>         3) Load Balancing (Andy, 5 minutes)
> 
> Comments at microphone, discussion points and actions:
> 
> - Suggestion that if SFC is correctly implemented then this [the load
> balancing scaling issue] should not be applicable.    (Eric Nordmark and
> Jim Beecher)
> 
> - Service graph and pooling are separate things, how the virtual network
> function is pooled should be abstracted away from SFC.  (Kireeti
> Kompella)
> 
> - Assertion that SFC can provide the required solution.
> 
> - State Sharing interacts with the service graph.  Where these functions touch,
> it will be important to keep the functions separate in the interaction.  [Erik
> Nordmark]
> 
> - Request to help clarify this [load balancing] problem to help with WG
> assignment (VNF Pool, SFC, or other).
> 
> - VNF Pool is building on ETSI NFV architecture and does not describe the
> internal architecture of a VNF.
> 
> - SFC is a special case of service graph and is not addressing what we [VNF Pool]
> is investigating.
> 
> - Request to look at the scaling of the solutions (Thomas Narten)
> 
> - Constantine: The Unify European project is investigating functions like the VNF
> Pool.
> 
> Action: Describe and document requirements for the load balancing scenario in
> a use case I-D.
> 
> Action: Investigate comment that SFC can provide the required solution
> for load balancing described in the presentation.
> 
> Action: If the SFC + VNF Pool are required to solve the load balancing problem,
> determine where the points of interaction with SFC are and develop clean
> interfaces so that SFC and VNF Pool remain separate entities.
> 
> Action: Look at scaling of VNF Solution.
> 
>         3) vCDN Use Case (Pedro, 10 minutes)
>         https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-aranda-vnfpool-cdn-use-case/
> 
> Comments at microphone, discussion points and actions:
> 
> - Echo from other operator that CDN is a useful use case for operators.
> 
> - Important to note that policy applies to resource management. A gap analysis
> and I-D might also be needed.
> 
> Action: Investigate resilience resource policy requirements.
> 
>         4) Resource Pool Use Case (Sue, 10 minutes)
>         https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-hares-vnf-pool-use-case/
> 
> - Suggestion that a recent paper submitted to the SDN RG list might help
> highlight existing/new requirements.
>         5) Q & A (all, 10 minutes)
> 
> 10:35 Related Works (15 minutes)
>         1) RSerPool Applicability (Thomas, 10 minutes)
> 
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-dreibholz-vnfpool-rserpool-applic/
> 
> Comments at microphone, discussion points and actions:
> 
> - Suggestion that the RSerPool work should have been presented first (Dave
> Dysan)
> 
> - If used, the RSerPool work is Experimental (Status) so would have to be
> published as Standards Track.
> 
> - RSerPool work was shutdown years ago, but it represents an opportunity to
> restart and develop as needed.
> 
> - [NTT person): Would there be multiple network functions operating as VNF
> Pools?
> 
> - Suggestion that SCTP is used but MSCTP might be an alternative (Randall
> Stewart, Jabber)
> 
> - Are the assumptions previous used in the development of RSerPool still valid?
> 
> - System architecture should have inherent redundancy, the [RSerPool authors]
> should analyse the impact of RSerPool.
> 
> - A number of future research is documented in RSerPool Next Generation I-D.
> 
> - RSerPool will require 64 bit capability.
> 
> 10:50 Charter Discussion (30 minutes)
> 
>         1) Charter (Chairs, 5 minutes)
>         http://www.ietf.org/mail-
>         archive/web/vnfpool/current/msg00224.html
> 
> Comments at microphone, discussion points and actions:
> 
> - Some discussion already on scope of protection for both internal and external
> functions.  Some discussion on time dimension in the scope of protection.
> Also the protection may also be participating in a larger protection scheme.
> 
> - What is the server application that is being examined?  Does it need
> reliability of pools?
> 
> - [Jamal Salim]: The VNF pool application is describing high availability that
> MPLS and GMPLS utilize.  ForCES has High availability based on Forces running
> over a control.  Based on the ForCES experience, it is important to know are
> these functions highly available or not?
> 
> - [unknown]: Do we have flow stitching?
> 
> - Not total agreement that work should be independent of SFC.
> 
> - Current fate sharing, load balancing, pool function are not fit for purpose.
> These are problems that need to be worked on.
> 
> - UNIFY is a European Research project investigating the problem space, some
> shared findings/discussion may be beneficial.
> 
> - It would be valuable to coordinate within a VNFPool. If you extend it to
> inter-pools, it becomes "orchestration".
> 
> - Observation that a pool of NFs, in a virtual FW you have higher failure rate.
> 
> - Hardwire based solutions have built in redundancy, network function resiliency,
> and the drafts (problem or use cases) do not state how to use this.
> 
> - Scepticism that flow forwarding  state synchronisation can be achieved. Also
> do operators really require this capability?
> 
> - Question: What is in-scope versus out-of-scope?  Do we handle service state
> recovery?
> 
> - The service state recovery is beyond the scope of SFC.
> 
> - [Jim Beecher] Service availability is not in scope.
> 
> - [Eric Nordmark}: Are there people that can help us with fate sharing within
> the NFV Pool functions?
> 
> - [George (from Greece)]: In the virtual clusters fate sharing, load balancing and
> pool functions are not yet working.
> 
> - Linda Dunbar: What happens if one instance fails which is not a routing
> instance?
> 
> - Thomas Narten: Sceptical whether IETF has the expertise to examine the
> state synchronization issue.  IETF does not have large amounts of firewall
> vendors.
> 
> - [Sue Hares]: Today's access devices all contain first level firewalls so all access
> devices have now installed firewalls. The more common firewall is this firewall
> within the access device.
> 
> Action: We need a common understanding between VNF POOL and SFC as to
> scope of work.
> 
> Action: Determine scope of protection for internal and external functions.
> 
> Action: Consider what applications (or class of applications) might utilize VNF
> Pool.
> 
> Action: Clarify the architecture aspect of VNFPOOL, what is in scope,
> and what is out of scope.
> 
> Action: Definition of a VNF, is there a VNF, SFC VNF and ETSI VNF? Where is
> overlap, can we agree definitions.
> 
> Action: Operators need to discuss if FW state synchronisation, or indeed other
> NF state synchronisation, is actually required.
> 
> Action: Examine how the need for high availability impacts the VNF Pool design
> and
> 
> Action: Examine failures scenarios if one instance fails.
> 
> Action: Examine existing solutions to determine if some existing IETF protocol
> or design fits most of the parameters.  This is the concept of re-use rather
> than reinvent due to NIH (not-invented here).
> 
>         2) Open Discussion (all, 25 minutes)
> 
> 11:20 Wrap-up (Chairs, 10 minutes)
> 
> 11:30 End