Hi Anoop,

I agree a clarification could definitely help! As far as the implementations 
go, I don't know whether it would be appropriate to name them but I can vouch 
for at least one (and multiple others claim interoperability with that) that 
has been around for a decade, if not more, and does have millions of network 
nodes deployed (including instances of 25k+ in single networks) although 
primarily in L3 space so far. The mechanism (NVA co-resident with every NVE) is 
an integral part of the same although it also uses the other mechanism (NVA-NVE 
not co-resident) and allows for a centralised model as well. The last one 
obviously doesn't scale as well though unless you use a brute force means of 
having to keep increasing the capacity of the central authority/NVA.

Cheers,
Manish

From: Anoop Ghanwani <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Date: Friday, 29 August 2014 10:38 AM
To: Benson Schliesser <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Cc: Manish Kumar <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, Osama Zia 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, Thomas Nadeau 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, 
"[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, 
Sharon Barkai <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Subject: Re: [nvo3] Second Draft Charter Update for Discussion

>>>
To elaborate: In a logically centralized NVA architecture, we could envision 
multiple interfaces including NVE-NVA, intra-NVA (clustering), and inter-NVA 
(federation). In a fully distributed control plane, however, we might imagine 
having only a single NVE-to-NVE control interface.
>>>

I think it would be worthwhile to add these sentences (or some version of them) 
to the charter to clarify what is meant by a logically centralized (vs 
distributed) NVA architecture.  I had expressed a similar concern earlier and 
it's only now become clear to me what a distributed control plane architecture 
is.  I don't think we can have an NVE-to-NVE control plane...what you probably 
mean by that is that the NVA function is co-resident with every NVE.  I am not 
aware of any implementation that does that, so I can see why it makes sense for 
the WG to exclude that from the charter.

Anoop

On Thu, Aug 28, 2014 at 9:09 PM, Benson Schliesser 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hi, Manish. Your question about centralized vs distributed control planes is 
actually very important, and something that I’ve discussed offline quite a bit. 
So let me see if I can answer it here, for your benefit as well as the rest of 
the WG.

I think Sharon described this accurately. To elaborate: In a logically 
centralized NVA architecture, we could envision multiple interfaces including 
NVE-NVA, intra-NVA (clustering), and inter-NVA (federation). In a fully 
distributed control plane, however, we might imagine having only a single 
NVE-to-NVE control interface.

In the proposed charter text, we have said that a fully distributed control 
plane is not in NVO3 WG’s scope. This is not making a statement about whether 
that approach is valid, invalid, good, bad, etc, but rather is intended to 
focus our current work on the centralized architecture.

Likewise, we have said that the intra-NVA (clustering) interface is not in 
scope. Again, this is not making a statement about whether it is necessary, 
good, bad, etc - because it obviously is necessary - but rather is intended to 
focus our work. Further, it seems likely that such an interface will not 
benefit from open specification and/or standardization in the near future, as 
implementors may use various mechanisms of their own choosing within their 
implementation.

Of course, work on things like clustering, fully distributed control planes, 
etc, might be done in other WGs now. And/or the NVO3 WG might recharter to 
address them in the future. But our proposed charter text doesn’t take these 
into account at this time, just for the sake of focus.

I hope this helps answer your question.

Cheers,
-Benson


On Aug 28, 2014, at 2:20 PM, Sharon Barkai 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:

Must say I also struggled with the term logically centralized because for all 
practical purposes people will distribute the NVA, but then realized the point 
was - we could distribute the NVA based on the fact that there is fully 
functional IP underlay network that can be used for that. It is there by 
definition. And so this workgroup should not specify how to implement 
distributed software on an existing IP network, it should specify what this 
software does using which interfaces. If then people insist on using BGP, PNNI, 
IN to distribute states it's their call, other people may use simpler and more 
functional means.

--szb

On Aug 28, 2014, at 9:26, "Thomas D. Nadeau" 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:


On Aug 28, 2014:12:21 PM, at 12:21 PM, Manish Kumar (manishkr) 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:

Hi Benson,

The same text ("A logically centralized control plane for network 
virtualization")  was bothering me for days as well! However, having been out 
of touch with developments in the working group for the past few months, I 
thought I better do the homework to check if this has already been covered in 
some discussions earlier. I also see the intent of keeping out BGP and or MPLS 
(L2VPN/L3VPN) based solutions because work for the same is going on (or would 
be done) in other working groups.

The final solution, as you say, could very well involve centralised and/or 
distributed components. Even the updated framework document talks about a 
balance needed - "Domain and/or deployment specific constraints define the 
balance between centralized and distributed approaches". Given these, as well 
as based on other limitations of a centralised model, I still don't understand 
the rationale behind the text - "A logically centralized control plane for 
network virtualization" in the charter update. Excluding BGP and/or MPLS based 
solutions for the reason above makes sense but not distributed models 
summarily. Am I missing something here ?

I think you are. Logically centralized covers physically centralized and only 
allows you to have more resiliency/scale/performance than a single instance.  I 
would also think that no one in a production environment would install a single 
centralized instance anyways, so we need logically centralized to cover 
real-world scenarios.

--Tom



Thanks,
Manish

From: Benson Schliesser <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Date: Tuesday, 26 August 2014 5:18 AM
To: Osama Zia <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Cc: "[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Subject: Re: [nvo3] Second Draft Charter Update for Discussion

Hi, Osama.

On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 4:30 PM, Osama Zia 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
1. I am getting the impression that NVO3 WG will only look at logically
centralized control plane. All decentralized solutions such as BGP based
should be looked separately. Is this correct?

Yes. To elaborate:

Existing and new solutions that are based on BGP to provide network 
virtualization would be developed in the (to-be-formed) BESS working group. 
This would be the case for all BGP-based solutions, regardless of whether they 
have a control plane architecture that is distributed or centralized.

It is possible that NVO3 solutions could leverage BGP and/or that BGP-based 
solutions could leverage NVO3 work. In these cases we would work cross-WG to 
make sure that the solution is documented completely and accurately, with work 
happening in the most appropriate place(s). For example one could imagine 
combining a NVO3-developed data plane encap, a NVO3-developed TS-NVE control 
plane, and a BESS-developed NVA control plane. (There are many other possible 
combinations here; I'm not trying to be exhaustive, just illustrate the idea.)

Similar to what I've described above, NVO3 solutions might leverage distributed 
protocols in various ways, resulting in cross-WG work with other WGs. For 
example, it is possible that the centralized NVE-NVA control plane protocol is 
responsible for certain mapping functions whilst other functions are provided 
by distributed protocols, such as liveness detection via IGP-provided link 
state etc. (Again, not trying to be exhaustive, just illustrating the idea.)

2. The statement says that "The NVO3 WG will develop solutions for network
virtualization based on the following architectural tenets". However, the
control plane requirements and data plane requirements are optional.
Shouldn't architecture be based on certain requirements?

Requirements are certainly helpful, and as an NVO3 chair I do intend to 
encourage their development. But one of the goals of this recharter is to begin 
working on solutions in parallel, rather than in serial, with requirements. 
Indeed, the purpose of working on requirements is to assist the WG in 
developing solutions (requirements on their own have little value). And so with 
this new charter text we have given ourselves the flexibility to manage the 
production of requirements in whatever way is best for the WG.

Cheers,
-Benson


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