A new IETF working group has been proposed in the Routing Area. The IESG has not made any determination as yet. The following Description was submitted, and is provided for informational purposes only: Forwarding and Control Element Separation (forces) -------------------------------------------------- Current Status: Proposed Working Group Description of Working Group: The emergence of off-the-shelf network processor devices that implement the fast path or forwarding plane in network devices such as routers, along with the appearance of a new generation of third party signaling, routing, and other router control plane software, has created the need for standard mechanisms to allow these components to be combined into functional wholes. ForCES aims to define a framework and associated mechanisms for standardizing the exchange of information between the logically separate functionality of the control plane, including entities such as routing protocols, admission control, and signaling, and the forwarding plane, where per-packet activities such as packet forwarding, queuing, and header editing occur. By defining a set of standard mechanisms for control and forwarding separation, ForCES will enable rapid innovation in both the control and forwarding planes. A standard separation mechanism allows the control and forwarding planes to innovate in parallel while maintaining interoperability. The products of this working group will be: o A set of requirements for mechanisms to logically separate the control and data forwarding planes of an IP network element (NE) o An applicability statement for the ForCES model and protocol o Informational RFCs as necessary documenting current approaches to the functional model and controlled objects therein o A description of the functional model of a Forwarding Element o A formal definition of the controlled objects in the functional model of a forwarding element. This includes IP forwarding, IntServ and DiffServ QoS. An existing specification language shall be used for this task. o Specification of IP-based protocol for transport of the controlled objects. ForCES will re-use existing L4 protocols (e.g. UDP, TCP, SCTP) for transport purposes. The main focus area of the working group will be control and forwarding separation for IP forwarding devices where the control and forwarding elements are in close (same room/small number of hops) or very close (same box/one hop) proximity. Other scenarios will be considered but at not the main focus of the work. The functional model of the forwarding element will include QoS (DiffServ and IntServ) capabilities of modern networking devices such as routers. In order to minimize the effort to integrate forwarding elements and control elements, a mechanism for auto discovery and capability information exchange will form an integral part of the standardized interface. ForCES will coordinate with other standards bodies and working groups as appropriate. Examples of such bodies include IETF/GSMP, IETF/Megaco, the Network Processing Forum (NPF), the Multiservice Switching Forum (MSF), IEEE P1520, and SoftSwitch. ForCES will review relevant protocol efforts such as GSMP and Megaco and will extend or reuse them if appropriate. If protocol reuse is accepted as satisfactory for fulfilling the ForCES requirements then ForCES may recharter to adopt specific deliverables around the selected protocol.
