VPN+ provides a layered architecture and the set of technologies in different layers to provide enhanced VPN services. It is based on existing VPN and Traffic Engineering (TE) technologies with necessary extensions to meet the emerging and stringent service requirement such as 5G. Network slicing is one typical use case of VPN+.
Tutorial
1. Network Slicing Standards and Solutions [EN]
Publication URL: PDF - Network Slicing Standards and Solutions 2022
2. IPv6 Network Slicing Introduction [EN]
Publication URL: PDF - IPv6 Network Slicing in MPLS Congress 2023
Publication URL: PDF - VPN+ Enable Network Slicing in MPLS Congress 2021
Publication URL: PDF - SRv6 based Network Slicing in MPLS Congress 2019
3. IPv6+ Network Slicing Interview Video [CN]
Publication URL: Why do we need IP network slicing?
Publication URL: The realization of IP network slices
Publication URL: The future of IP network slicing
4. IPv6+ Network Slicing Ebook [CN]
Publication URL: IPv6+ ebook: Network Slicing (CN)
5. IPv6+ Network Slicing Ebook [EN]
Publication URL: IPv6+ ebook: Network Slicing (EN)
IETF
0. IETF Network Slice
Framework for IETF Network Slices
Publication URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-teas-ietf-network-slices
Introduction:
This document describes network slicing in the context of networks built from IETF technologies. It defines the term “IETF Network Slice” and establishes the general principles of network slicing in the IETF context.
The document discusses the general framework for requesting and operating IETF Network Slices, the characteristics of an IETF Network Slice, the necessary system components and interfaces, and how abstract requests can be mapped to more specific technologies. The document also discusses related considerations with monitoring and security.
Scalability Considerations for Network Resource Partition
Publication URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-teas-nrp-scalability
Introduction:
A Network Resource Partition is a set of network resources that are allocated from the underlay network to carry a specific set of network traffic and meet the required SLOs and SLEs. One or multiple IETF network slice services can be mapped to one network resource partition.
With the demand for IETF network slice services increases, scalability would become an important factor for the large scale deployment of IETF network slices. Although the scalability of IETF network slices can be improved by mapping a group of IETF network slices to one network resource partition, there are concerns about the scalability of network resource partitions. This document describes the scalability considerations about network resource partition in the network control plane and data plane, and some optimization mechanisms are proposed.
1. VPN+ Framework
A Framework for Enhanced VPN
Publication URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-teas-enhanced-vpn
Introduction:
This document describes the framework for Enhanced VPN services. The purpose of enhanced VPNs is to support the needs of new applications, particularly applications that are associated with 5G services, by utilizing an approach that is based on existing VPN and Traffic Engineering (TE) technologies and adds characteristics that specific services require over and above traditional VPNs.
2. Network Slice Data Plane
Introducing Resource Awareness to SR Segments
Publication URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-spring-resource-aware-segments
Introduction:
This document describes the mechanism to associate network resource attributes to Segment Routing Identifiers (SIDs). Such SIDs are referred to as resource-aware SIDs in this document. The resource-aware SIDs retain their original forwarding semantics, but with the additional semantics to identify the set of network resources available for the packet processing action. The resource-aware SIDs can therefore be used to build SR paths or virtual networks with a set of reserved network resources. The proposed mechanism is applicable to both segment routing with MPLS data plane (SR-MPLS) and segment routing with IPv6 data plane (SRv6).
Segment Routing Extensions for Enhanced VPN
Publication URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-spring-sr-for-enhanced-vpn
Introduction:
Segment Routing (SR) leverages the source routing paradigm. A node steers a packet through an ordered list of instructions, called “segments”. A segment can represent topological or service based instructions. A segment can further be associated with a set of network resources used for executing the instruction. Such a segment is called resource-aware segment.
Resource-aware Segment Identifiers (SIDs) may be used to build SR paths with a set of reserved network resources. In addition, a group of resource-aware SIDs may be used to build SR based virtual underlay networks, which has customized network topology and resource attributes required by one or a group of customers and/or services. Such virtual networks are the SR instantiations of Virtual Transport Networks (VTNs).
This document describes a suggested use of resource-aware SIDs to build SR based VTNs.
IPv6 Extensions for Enhanced VPN
Publication URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-6man-enhanced-vpn-vtn-id
Introduction:
A Virtual Transport Network (VTN) is a virtual underlay network which consists of a set of dedicated or shared network resources allocated from the physical underlay network, and is associated with a customized logical network topology. VPN+ services can be delivered by mapping one or a group of overlay VPNs to the appropriate VTNs as the virtual underlay. In packet forwarding, some fields in the data packet needs to be used to identify the VTN the packet belongs to, so that the VTN-specific processing can be performed on each node the packet traverses.
This document proposes a new Hop-by-Hop option of IPv6 extension header to carry the VTN Resource ID, which is used to identify the set of network resources allocated to a VTN for packet processing. The procedure for processing the VTN option is also specified. This provides a data plane encapsulation for scalable VTN and VPN+ service.
3. Network Slice Control Plane
IGP Extensions for Scalable SR based Enhanced VPN
Publication URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-dong-lsr-sr-enhanced-vpn
Introduction:
This document specifies the IGP mechanisms with necessary extensions to advertise the associated topology and resource attributes for scalable Segment Routing (SR) based VTNs. Each VTN can have a customized topology and a set of network resources allocated from the physical network. Multiple VTNs may shared the same topology, and multiple VTNs may share the same set of network resources on some network segments. A group of resource-aware SIDs are allocated for each VTN. This allows flexible combination of the network topology and network resource attributes to build a relatively large number of VTNs with a small number of logical topologies. The proposed mechanism is applicable to both Segment Routing with MPLS data plane (SR-MPLS) and segment routing with IPv6 data plane (SRv6). This document also describes the mechanisms of using dedicated VTN-ID in the data plane instead of the per-VTN resource-aware SIDs to further reduce the control plane overhead.
BGP-LS Extensions for SR based Enhanced VPN
Publication URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-dong-idr-bgpls-sr-enhanced-vpn
Introduction:
This document specifies the BGP-LS mechanisms with necessary extensions to advertise the information of Segment Routing (SR) based VTNs. The proposed mechanism is applicable to both segment routing with MPLS data plane (SR-MPLS) and segment routing with IPv6 data plane (SRv6).
Using IGP Flex-Algo for SR based VTN
Publication URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-zhu-lsr-isis-sr-vtn-flexalgo
Introduction:
This document describes a simplified mechanism to build the SR based VTNs using SR Flex-Algo with minor extensions to IGP L2 bundle.
BGP-LS with Flex-Algo for SR based VTN
Publication URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-zhu-idr-bgpls-sr-vtn-flexalgo
Introduction:
This document describes a simplified mechanism to distribute the information of SR based VTNs using BGP-LS with Flex-Algo.
Using Multi-Topology for SR based VTN
Publication URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-lsr-isis-sr-vtn-mt
Introduction:
This document describes a simplified mechanism to build the SR based VTNs using IGP multi-topology together with other well-defined IS-IS extensions.
BGP-LS with Multi-Topology for SR based VTN
Publication URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-idr-bgpls-sr-vtn-mt
Introduction:
This document describes a simplified mechanism to distribute the information of SR based VTNs using BGP-LS with Multi-Topology.
BGP SR Policy Extensions For NRP
Publication URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-idr-sr-policy-nrp
Introduction:
Segment Routing (SR) Policy is a set of candidate paths, each consisting of one or more segment lists and the associated information. The header of a packet steered in an SR Policy is augmented with an ordered list of segments associated with that SR Policy. A Network Resource Partition (NRP) is a collection of network resources allocated in the network which can be used to support one or a group of IETF network slice services. In networks where there are multiple NRPs, an SR Policy may be associated with a particular NRP. The association between SR Policy and NRP needs to be specified, so that for service traffic which is steered into the SR Policy, the header of the packets can be augmented with the information associated with the NRP. An SR Policy candidate path can be distributed using BGP SR Policy. This document defines the extensions to BGP SR policy to specify the NRP which the SR Policy candidate path is associated with.
BGP Flowspec for IETF Network Slice Traffic Steering
Publication URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-idr-flowspec-network-slice-ts
Introduction:
BGP Flowspec can be used to distribute the matching criteria and the forwarding actions to be preformed on network slice service traffic. The existing Flowspec components can be reused for the matching of network slice services flows at the edge of an NRP. New components and traffic action may need to be defined for steering network slice service flows into the corresponding NRP. This document defines the extensions to BGP Flowspec for IETF network slice traffic steering (NS-TS).
BGP SPF for NRP
Publication URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-dong-lsvr-bgp-spf-nrp
A VTN is a virtual underlay network which has customized network topology and a set of dedicated or shared network resources. Network Resource Partition (NRP) refers to a set of network resources that are available to carry traffic and meet the SLOs and SLEs. Multiple NRPs can be created in a network to provide different Virtual Transport Networks (VTN) to meet the requirements of different services or different service groups. In the context of network slicing, a VTN can be instantiated as a Network Resource Partition (NRP).
As the number of NRP increases, there can be scalability concerns about using Interial Gateway Protocols (IGP) to distribute the NRP information in the network. In networks where BGP Shortest Path First (SPF) can used as the underlay routing mechanism to distribute the link-state information among network nodes, the information of NRPs needs to be distributed along with the basic network information. This document specifies the BGP SPF mechanisms with necessary extensions to distribute the NRP information and perform NRP-specific path computation.
PCEP Extensions for NRP
Publication URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-dong-pce-pcep-nrp
This document specifies the extensions to PCE communication Protocol (PCEP) to carry NRP information in the PCEP messages. The extensions in this document can be used in the basic PCE computation, the stateful PCE and the PCE-initiated LSP mechanisms to indicate path computation, path status report and path initialization within a specific NRP.
4. Network Slice Management Plane
IETF Network Slice Service YANG Model
Publication URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-teas-ietf-network-slice-nbi-yang
Introduction:
This document provides a YANG data model for the IETF Network Slice NBI (Northbound Interface). The model can be used by a higher level system which is the IETF Network Slice consumer of an IETF Network Slice Controller (NSC) to request, configure, and manage the components of an IETF Network Slice.
NRP YANG Module
Publication URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-wd-teas-nrp-yang
Introduction:
This document defines a YANG data model of Network Resource Partition (NRP) for the NRP management operation. The model can be used for the realization of IETF Network Slice Services.
5. 5G End-to-End Network Slicing
IETF Network Slice Application in 3GPP 5G End-to-End Network Slice
Publication URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-teas-5g-network-slice-application
Introduction:
Network Slicing is one of the core features in 5G, which provides different network service as independent logical networks. To provide 5G network slices service, an end-to-end network slice needs to consists of 3 major types of network segments: Radio Access Network (RAN), Mobile Core Network (CN) and Transport Network (TN). This document describes the application of IETF network slice in providing 5G end-to-end network slices, including the network slice identification mapping, network slice parameter mapping and 5G IETF Network Slice NBI.
6. Composite Network Slices
Realization of Composite IETF Network Slices
Publication URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-li-teas-composite-network-slices
Introduction:
Network slicing can be used to meet the connectivity and performance requirement of different applications or customers in a shared network. An IETF network slice may be used for 5G or other network scenarios. In the context of 5G, a 5G end-to-end network slice consists of three different types of network technology segments: Radio Access Network (RAN), Transport Network (TN) and Core Network (CN). The transport segments of the 5G end-to-end network slice can be provided using IETF network slices. In some scenarios, IETF network slices may span multiple network domains, and IETF network slices may be composed hierarchically, which means a network slice may itself be further sliced.
This document first describes the possible use cases of composite IETF network slices, then it provides considerations about the realization of composite IETF network slices. For the interaction between IETF network slices with 5G network slices, the identifiers of the 5G network slices may be introduced into IETF networks. For the multi-domain IETF network slices, the Inter-Domain Network Resource Partition Identifier (Inter-domain NRP ID) is introduced. For the hierarchical IETF network slices, the structure of the NRP ID is discussed. These network slice-related identifiers may be used in the data plane, control plane and management plane of the network for the instantiation and management of composite IETF network slices. This document also describes the management considerations of composite network slices.
Encapsulation of End-to-End IETF Network Slice Information in IPv6
Publication URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-li-6man-e2e-ietf-network-slicing
Introduction:
In order to facilitate the mapping between network slices in different network segments and network domains, it is beneficial to carry the identifiers of the 5G end-to-end network slice, the multi-domain IETF network slice together with the intra-domain network slice identifier in the data packet.
This document defines the mechanism of encapsulating the end-to-end network slice related information in IPv6 data plane.
Segment Routing based Solution for Hierarchical IETF Network Slices
Publication URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-gong-teas-hierarchical-slice-solution
Introduction:
This document describes a Segment Routing based solution for two-level hierarchical IETF network slices. Level-1 network slice is realized by associating Flex-Algo with dedicated sub-interfaces, and level-2 network slice is realized by using SR Policy with additional NRP-ID on data plane.
Segment Routing for End-to-End IETF Network Slicing
Publication URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-li-spring-sr-e2e-ietf-network-slicing
Introduction:
When segment routing (SR) is used to build a multi-domain IETF network slice, information of the local network slices in each domain can be specified using special SR binding segments called VTN binding segments (VTN BSID). The multi-domain IETF network slice can be specified using a list of VTN BSIDs in the packet, each of which can be used by the corresponding domain edge nodes to steer the traffic of end-to-end IETF network slice into the specific VTN in the local domain.
This document describes the functionality of VTN binding segment and its instantiation in SR-MPLS and SRv6.
8. Other Network Slicing related IETF Work
IETF Network Slice Deployment Status and Considerations
Publication URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ma-teas-ietf-network-slice-deployment
Introduction:
Network Slicing is considered as an important approach to provide different services and customers with the required network connectivity, network resources and performance characteristics over a shared network. Operators have started the deployment of network slices in their networks for different purposes. This document introduces several deployment cases of IETF network slices in operator networks. Some considerations collected from these IETF network slice deployments are also provided.
Building blocks for Slicing in Segment Routing Network
Publication URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ali-spring-network-slicing-building-blocks
Introduction:
This document describes how to build network slice using the Segment Routing based technology. It explains how the building blocks specified for the Segment Routing can be used for this purpose.
Stateless and Scalable Network Slice Identification for SRv6
Publication URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-filsfils-spring-srv6-stateless-slice-id
Introduction:
This document defines a stateless and scalable solution to achieve network slicing with SRv6.
Realizing Network Slices in IP/MPLS Networks
Publication URL: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-teas-ns-ip-mpls
Introduction:
Realizing network slices may require the Service Provider to have the ability to partition a physical network into multiple logical networks of varying sizes, structures, and functions so that each slice can be dedicated to specific services or customers. Multiple network slices can be realized on the same network while ensuring slice elasticity in terms of network resource allocation. This document describes a scalable solution to realize network slicing in IP/MPLS networks by supporting multiple services on top of a single physical network by relying on compliant domains and nodes to provide forwarding treatment (scheduling, drop policy, resource usage) on to packets that carry identifiers that indicate the slicing service that is to be applied to the packets.
CCSA
1. Technical requirement of VPN+ for supporting IP network slicing
Introduction:
This is the standard project in CCSA which defines the VPN+ framework and SR based VPN+ technology and procedure.
2. Technical Specification on Controller North Bound Interface of IP Network Slicing
Introduction:
This is the standard project in CCSA which defines the controller’s NBI interface of IP network slicing.
3. 5G network slicing Technical requirements for end-to-end interworking based on IP bearer network
Introduction:
This is the standard project in CCSA which defines the end-to-end interworking between network slices in IP bearer network and 5G RAN and Core Networks.
4. The overall framework and technical requirements of Network Slice Based on IP Network
Introduction:
This is the standard project in CCSA which defines the framework and technical requirements of IP based network slices.
5. Technical Requirements for IP Network Slicing Function Supported by Router
Introduction:
This is the standard project in CCSA which defines the technical requirements for IP network slicing function supported by routers.