Dear RIPE local-IR WG member, you chairperson has received (:-) the following request. Since this proposal is very much relevant to the local-ir WG I would appreciate your comments however short. Thank you Daniel ------- Forwarded Message Date: Wed, 26 May 1993 13:28:44 +0200 From: Daniel Karrenberg <Daniel.Karrenberg@ripe.net> To: RIPE WG Chairpeople <wg-chairs@ripe.net> cc: RIPE Chairpeople <chair@ripe.net> Subject: PRIDE Project As you know the current route server project will end in July this year. In order to contnue work on the routing registry I have put together the following project proposal called PRIDE which I will also put in the RIPE document store shortly. Already some national members of RARE have indicated their willingness to fund part of the project provided that the RARE technical committee agrees that the project is useful, which I am confident they will do. At the same time it is neccessary that the RIPE community discusses this and comes to a position on it. Since time is pressing I would appreciate comments from you personally and your working group no later than Monday June 7th. It would be ideal if the chairpersons of the WGs and the RIPE chair could agree by then that RIPE supports this proposal, which would give it added weight. Note that I regard the proposal text to be finished and I am reluctant to make drastic changes to this version. Clarifications and additions to make it clearer as well as small additions are of course welcome. Even more welcome are offers of contributions to the funding, however small. Daniel P R I D E Policy based Routing Implementation, Deployment in Europe A Project Proposal Daniel Karrenberg Manager RIPE NCC - 2 - The Need In todays Internet environment, policy based routing technology providing routing of traffic between different network operators is a key technology. While tools are available to apply routing policy they are not used in a coordinated way if used at all. In a general mesh topology applying policy without coordination and prior simulation of the consequences will eventually lead to an unmanageable situation. This potential problem has been noted in [1] and several of the references cited therein. As an immediate measure the GIX (Global Internet Exchange) has been proposed in [2] and a proposal for a GIX routing implementation has been made in [3]. It is noteworthy that the GIX only solves part of the problem: routing consistency and connectivity at the global level. In order for the Internet to cope with its current growth, the routing problem will also need to be solved at the regional and local levels. The "RS" project (1) has recognised this by spending significant resources on establishing consensus within RIPE on how routing policies are stored in the European routing registry[4]. Once registered the information can be used to ensure proper operation of the European part of the Internet. The project is making significant progress in this area. The routing registry and tools being developed are much more general than those used and proposed so far for use in the current Internet. It is expected that the architecture will eventually allow multiple major interconnect points as envisaged in [1]. _________________________ 1) "Implementation of a Route Server for policy based routing across the GIX", a joint RARE/RIPE project currently funded by SURFnet. - 3 - In order to promote the European routing registry and the associated technology two key ingredients are needed: Implementation A set of tools for use by local network operators needs to be developed. The "RS" project deals only with the tools needed by the route server itself. While some of these can be adapted there are not sufficient resources to properly produce tools for local network operators. These tools will enable them to use the routing policy stored in the routing registry to perform such tasks as check actual routing against policies defined, ensure consistency of policies set by different operators, and simulate the effects of policy changes. DEPloyment In order to be useful the routing registry and associated tools need to be deployed rapidly by all significant network operators in the European Internet. This means there is a big need for information and training of the network operator staff, coordination of deployment and support activities. If enough information and education pressure can be applied there is a good chance that the technology will be deployed outside Europe as well. First signs of this are already visible as the CIX (Commercial Internet eXchange) association has announced their intention to deploy a route server using the RIPE routing registry technology. The urgent need for these two ingredients motivates this project proposal and has suggested the name PRIDE: Policy based Routing Implementation and Development in Europe. - 4 - The Results The tangible results of the project will be the following. Implementation In the implementation area of the project, tools will be developed, documented and made publicly available for use by network operators. A complete list of those tools cannot be specified in advance since specific needs are likely to evolve during deployment. Flexibility to meet those needs and agree about priorities with the network operators is a key element to ensure acceptance and thus the success of the project. The tools are expected to include: prcheck A tool to check the consistency of routing policies stored in the routing registry. This tool will flag if two neighbouring network operators specify conflicting or inconsistent routing information exchanges with each other and also detect global inconsistencies where possible. prpath Extract all (AS-)paths between two networks which are allowed by routing policy from the routing registry. prconn Display the connectivity a given network has according to current policies. This will of course also be able to find the set of networks a given network can not reach. prtraceroute A version of the existing traceroute tool which will be able to display whether a route in use is allowed by policy and where deviations from policy occur. The range of implementable routing policies is currently limited by the destination based routing and forwarding technology. There are efforts underway to enable forwarding decisions based on the source of packets as well as the destination. The routing registry and tools will need to both follow and influence developments of destination based routing and forwarding in IPv4 as well as next generation IP. - 5 - Deployment This is the key part of the project. Without widespread deployment of the routing registry at least in Europe the results of the "RS" project and the Implementation part of the PRIDE project will be academically interesting but not much more. The result of this part of the project is thus widespread deployment of the routing registry and associated tools as possible. The tangible results will be: - instruction and training material about the routing registry as such and the way routing policies need to be expressed for registration - delivery of the information and training to key communities in Europe - coordination of the actual deployment of the tools and especially the registration of routing policies in the routing registry - general presentation material about the routing registry - delivery of the presentation material to key communities worldwide The delivery of training and coordination and deployment will consume the bulk of the project resources. It should be noted however that the proposed resources are not sufficient for a general support or help desk function. This would need significantly more resources. Because we believe network operators will invest here in their own interest we propose to focus on targeting information and training well and to provide coordination only. The RIPE community will then form the network for mutual support as it has done successfully in the past. - 6 - The Partners In order to realise the goals of this project, close cooperation with as many service providers as possible will be necessary. European service providers are already following and influencing the developments closely through RIPE. Both the amount of input received during the design of the routing registry and the rate at which information is being registered show this works well. Worldwide contacts with groups involved in similar developments are also already established via RIPE, IEPG and IETF. The close coordination of all parties deploying route servers on the GIX and the recent announcement by the CIX association of their intention to use the RIPE routing registry technology are good examples of this. The project will exploit these already existing channels and be open to new ways of reaching the service providers in particular. All service providers will have equal access to the tools, the routing registry itself and the information and training materials. - 7 - The Resources The resources needed for the PRIDE project are estimated as follows: - 2 senior engineering staff for 12 months representing 24 FTE months. These will need renumeration equivalent to senior network engineer levels including overheads. The estimated cost of this is 84kECU. - The deployment part will necessitate significant travel for delivery of the information and training. The estimated travel cost is 20kECU. - Professional document design for the materials is desirable. It is difficult to estimate the cost for this at this point but 10kECU should be sufficient. - Computing resources. Minimally a personal WS and some storage capacity. 10kECU will be sufficient. - 1/3 of senior technical management for 12 months. Technical management of the current RS project is provided by the RIPE NCC. This withdraws resources from NCC core activities which need to be replaced. Estimated cost of this is 20kECU. The total project cost for 12 months is thus estimated at 84+20+10+10+20 = 144kECU. The above resource levels are purely for the work specified and do not include formal project management and formal (non-technical) reporting. After completion of the project and successful deployment of the routing registry, a level of maintenance effort will be needed for the tools and the routing registry. This should be a structural activity much like the current RIPE NCC core activities. In order to start up quickly the implementation part can be started first as a sub-project with one engineer. It should be noted however that without the deployment effort following, this will have only a very limited effect. - 8 - References [1] T. Kalin: "Global Network Interconnect", Amsterdam, 8 Jan. 93, EC(92)093v3 [2] G.Almes, P.Ford, P.Lothberg: "Proposal for Global Internet Connectivity", IEPG Working Document, June 1992 [3] Tony Bates, Daniel Karrenberg, Peter Lothberg, Bernhard Stockman, Marten Terpstra: "Internet Routing In a Multi Provider, Multi Path Open Environment", Document RIPE- 82, March 1993 [4] Tony Bates, Jean-Michel Jouanigot, Daniel Karrenberg, Peter Lothberg, Marten Terpstra: "Representation of IP Routing Policies in the RIPE Database", Document ripe- 81, March 1993 ------- End of Forwarded Message