Dear authors of draft-ietf-opsawg-ipfix-bgp-community document,

This document is a WG document, and you have received community feedback on it stating that there are unclear aspects and questionable approaches described in it. Please address the comments to have the document cover the concerns raised.

The comments specifically on the operational aspects of how this proposed mechanism is expected to be used tend to repeat - this seems to be an area that is not clear to the community. Please focus on addressing it in substantial detail.

It would be beneficial to bring this document to the attention of the operations community too (as any other document - there is nothing specific to your document in this regard). Try to talk to Apricot, RIPE, NANOG, regional NOGs communities to sense the need and the details of this proposed mechanism, and then incorporate the feedback received there to the document.

Thank you.

Ignas



On 01/03/2018 15:39, li zhenqiang wrote:
Hi Joel,

Thank you for your prompt reply and sorry for the confusing words.

Let me try to explain it clearly in simple words again. BGP community attributes, such as standard community, extended community, large community, have already  been defined by IDR working group. Operaters use those already defined BGP communities in their field networks with their own plans to represent the groups of customers, peers, geographical and topological regions. For example, using standard community XXX to represent fixed line customers,  YYY for WLAN customers, and ZZZ for mobile customers, using community AAA for state L, BBB for state M, CCC for state N. Now we want to know the traffic generated by the WLAN customer in state N. So we need the community information related to the traffic flow exported by IPFIX. If IPFIX can export BGP community information using the IEs introduced in my doc, the  IPFIX collector, without running BGP protocol, can easily figure up the traffic in BGP community granularity, i.e. the traffic from different customers, from different states, from different customers in different states, and so on.

Best Regards,
Zhenqiang Li
------------------------------------------------------------------------
li_zhenqi...@hotmail.com

    *From:* Joel Halpern Direct <mailto:jmh.dir...@joelhalpern.com>
    *Date:* 2018-02-28 23:19
    *To:* li zhenqiang <mailto:li_zhenqi...@hotmail.com>; Dongjie
    (Jimmy) <mailto:jie.d...@huawei.com>; gen-...@ietf.org
    <mailto:gen-...@ietf.org>
    *CC:* draft-ietf-opsawg-ipfix-bgp-community....@ietf.org
    <mailto:draft-ietf-opsawg-ipfix-bgp-community....@ietf.org>;
    opsawg <mailto:opsawg@ietf.org>
    *Subject:* Re: Genart early review of
    draft-ietf-opsawg-ipfix-bgp-community-04
    I am having trouble reconciling two of your comments.
    In you rlast email you said that this is for "planed communities
    represent the groups of customers peers an geographical and
    topological
    related information".  Planned communities is presumably a new
    behavior,
    not existing behavior.
    In this email you say that these are "already defined BGP
    communities".
    You reference RFC 4384, which talks about several kinds of
    communities.
    maybe you intend the regional or national communities mentioned as
    being
    possible, but not defined, in that document.  This document's
    descriptions do not align well enough with RFC 4384 for me to say.
    Let's be clear.  The working group asked for an early review.  The WG
    now has my review, indicating that this document is unclear in
    multiple
    regards and could use improvement.
    It is now up to the WG and the chairs.
    Yours,
    Joel
    On 2/28/18 6:22 AM, li zhenqiang wrote:
    > Hi Joel,
    >
    > This is not for one operator, instead it is a common practice.
    Please
    > refer to RFC4384 and comments from Thomas who are from Swisscom.
    >
    > One clarification for this doc is it is not to introduce any new
    BGP
    > communities but to report the already defined BGP communities
    related to
    > a traffic flow through IPFIX, thus the IPFIX collector can
    analyze the
    > traffic in BGP community granularity without running BGP protocol.
    >
    > BGP community is a transitive attibute, thus the exporter can
    report all
    > the communities carried in the matching route entry, unless some
    BGP
    > communities are filtered by some routers.
    >
    > Sure I can add some text in the doc to say the proper processing
    of the
    > exporter, something like what I said in the previous mail, do
    you think
    > it is ok and enough?
    >   When the exporter, i.e. router, receives the templete to report
    > the communities, the exporter gets the information through BGP
    lookup
    > using the corresponding source or destination IP of a traffic flow.
    >
    > Thank you for your comments.
    >
    > Best Regards,
    > Zhenqiang Li
    >
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    > li_zhenqi...@hotmail.com
    >
    >     *From:* Joel M. Halpern <mailto:j...@joelhalpern.com>
    >     *Date:* 2018-02-28 10:13
    >     *To:* li zhenqiang <mailto:li_zhenqi...@hotmail.com>; Dongjie
    >     (Jimmy) <mailto:jie.d...@huawei.com>; gen-...@ietf.org
    >     <mailto:gen-...@ietf.org>
    >     *CC:* draft-ietf-opsawg-ipfix-bgp-community....@ietf.org
    > <mailto:draft-ietf-opsawg-ipfix-bgp-community....@ietf.org>; opsawg
    >     <mailto:opsawg@ietf.org>
    >     *Subject:* Re: Genart early review of
    >     draft-ietf-opsawg-ipfix-bgp-community-04
    >     Is this for one operator (still important, but not
    necessarily for
    >     standardization) or are there several operators who have
    expressed
    >     interest in this?
    >     Yes, we do proactive standards.  But the IDR group, for
    example, tends
    >     to be very careful to see if interest is reflected in
    implementation.
    >     In this case, given that what is proposed is a completely
    different use
    >     of the BGP communities, I think at least more clarity that
    this is only
    >     expected to be used for communities that match the purpose,
    and of how
    >     and why the vendors would implement the router-side logic.
    >     To get back to the points I made in the review:
    >     1) The document needs to be much clearer that it is about new
    >     communities whcih are expected to be defined for this use. 
    It needs to
    >     be clear if this is expected to be applied to communities
    put on by
    >     other AS, or only to communities provided by routers of the
    collecting
    >     AS.  The later leads to understandable configuration.  The
    former leads
    >     to questions about hos the meaning will be known.
    >     2) The document needs to be clear and explicit about what
    processing it
    >     is expecting the router to provide, and how much
    configuration is
    >     needed
    >     to get the right things to happen.
    >     Yours,
    >     Joel
    >     On 2/27/18 8:54 PM, li zhenqiang wrote:
    >      > Hi Joel,
    >      >
    >      > This is Zhenqiang Li from China Mobile. The purpose of
    this doc
    >     is not
    >      > to report the well-known communities, but the operator planed
    >      > communities represent the groups of the customers, peers,
    >      > the geographical and topological related information as
    stated in
    >      > RFC4384, which is a common practice and also used in our
    field
    >     network.
    >      >
    >      > When the exporter, i.e. router, receives the templete to
    report the
    >      > communities, the exporter gets the information through
    BGP lookup
    >     using
    >      > the corresponding source or destination IP of a traffic
    flow. The
    >      > procedure for the exporter to get the community
    informaiton of a
    >     traffic
    >      > flow is the same as it gets the AS information.
    >      >
    >      > Best Regards,
    >      > Zhenqiang Li
    >      >
    >
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    >      > li_zhenqi...@hotmail.com
    >      >
    >      >     *From:* Joel M. Halpern <mailto:j...@joelhalpern.com>
    >      >     *Date:* 2018-02-12 00:37
    >      >     *To:* Dongjie (Jimmy) <mailto:jie.d...@huawei.com>;
    >     gen-...@ietf.org
    >      >     <mailto:gen-...@ietf.org>
    >      >     *CC:* draft-ietf-opsawg-ipfix-bgp-community....@ietf.org
    >      > <mailto:draft-ietf-opsawg-ipfix-bgp-community....@ietf.org>;
    >      >     opsawg@ietf.org <mailto:opsawg@ietf.org>
    >      >     *Subject:* Re: Genart early review of
    >      > draft-ietf-opsawg-ipfix-bgp-community-04
    >      >     This was a requested early review. You folks can do
    as you
    >     deem best.
    >      >      From where I sit, it seems odd.  Most well-known
    communities
    >     do not
    >      >     fit
    >      >     the pattern of representing groups of sources or
    groups of
    >     destinations.
    >      >     I presume the intent here is for this to be useful in
    some AS
    >     other
    >      >     than
    >      >     the one originating the communities. Which makes it even
    >     harder to see
    >      >     when it would apply.
    >      >     I presume this is driven by having found that it
    would have
    >     helped in
    >      >     some real-world situation?
    >      >     I think the document would be helped by a clearer
    description of
    >      >     when it
    >      >     applies and what behavior is expected of the router
    (not just
    >     "the same
    >      >     as that over there.")
    >      >     Yours,
    >      >     Joel
    >      >     On 2/11/18 1:32 AM, Dongjie (Jimmy) wrote:
    >      >      > Hi Joel,
    >      >      >
    >      >      > Thanks for your review comments. Please see my
    replies inline:
    >      >      >
    >      >      >> -----Original Message-----
    >      >      >> From: Joel Halpern [mailto:j...@joelhalpern.com]
    >      >      >> Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2018 1:27 AM
    >      >      >> To: gen-...@ietf.org
    >      >      >> Cc:
    draft-ietf-opsawg-ipfix-bgp-community....@ietf.org;
    >      >     opsawg@ietf.org
    >      >      >> Subject: Genart early review of
    >      > draft-ietf-opsawg-ipfix-bgp-community-04
    >      >      >>
    >      >      >> Reviewer: Joel Halpern
    >      >      >> Review result: Not Ready
    >      >      >>
    >      >      >> This is an early gen-art review of
    >     draft-ietf-opsawg-ipfix-bgp-04.
    >      >      >>
    >      >      >> The document is clear about what it is trying to
    do, and
    >      >     readable.  It is not
    >      >      >> clear about how it expects this to actually work.
    >      >      >>
    >      >      >> However, I find the underlying concept confusing.
    >      >      >> 1) BGP Communities may sometimes represent subsets of
    >     traffic.
    >      >     But usually
    >      >      >> they represent tagging intended to influence
    routing which is
    >      >     only indirectly
    >      >      >> related to meaningful subsets of traffic for TE
    >     purposes.  One
    >      >     may be able to
    >      >      >> make an argument that this could better enable
    monitoring the
    >      >     effects of some
    >      >      >> BGP communities.  But the draft does not make
    that argument.
    >      >      >
    >      >      > This depends on how the BGP communities are used
    by the
    >      >     operators. Except some well-known communities, BGP
    >     communities are
    >      >     used in a customized manner. In some cases, BGP
    communities
    >     indicate
    >      >     the source and destination information of a group of
    traffic
    >     flows.
    >      >     These are the major case this document is focusing
    on, as it
    >     would
    >      >     be helpful for operator to collect the traffic statistics
    >     based on
    >      >     BGP communities. Using BGP communities to influence
    routing is
    >      >     another popular use case. In that case, it may also
    be helpful to
    >      >     collect traffic statistic information related to the BGP
    >      >     communities, while the purpose may not be just for TE.
    >      >      >
    >      >      > 2) It is
    >      >      >> unclear what this actually expects the router to
    do in
    >      >     generating this
    >      >      >> information.
    >      >      >> Reading between the lines, it seems that what is
    desired
    >     is for
    >      >     the router
    >      >      >> control process to go through the IPFIX collected
    information
    >      >     before it is
    >      >      >> exported, and add BGP community tags to the export
    >     information.
    >      >      >> (Generating such information directly from the
    forwarding
    >     plane
    >      >     would place
    >      >      >> significant load on the forwarding representation and
    >      >     processing, and on the
    >      >      >> control logic to generate FIB information.) 
    Given that
    >     off-line
    >      >     BGP information
    >      >      >> collection is a common practice, and that such
    information is
    >      >     common across
    >      >      >> the AS, it would actually seem simpler to perform
    such
    >      >     processing and
    >      >      >> aggregation offline rather than in the router.
    >      >      >
    >      >      > The behavior of a router would be similar to its
    behavior with
    >      >     the existing BGP relevant IEs, e.g. bgpSourceAsNumber,
    >      >     bgpDestinationAsNumber, bgpNextHopIPv4Address, etc.
    Basically
    >     this
    >      >     is the aggregated traffic information collection
    model, in
    >     which the
    >      >     router aggregates the collected traffic information
    based on
    >     the IEs
    >      >     specified in the template, so that it can export much
    less
    >      >     information to the collector without losing the
    information the
    >      >     collector really cares about. Exporting aggregated
    traffic
    >      >     statistics has been widely used in the networks.
    >      >      >
    >      >      > Note that the purpose of this mechanism is to
    export the
    >      >     aggregated traffic statistics information at the
    granularity
    >      >     specified by BGP communities, while BMP can used to
    collect the
    >      >     detailed information of BGP RIBs and BGP events, IMO
    they are
    >      >     designed for different purposes. Although it is
    possible to
    >     export
    >      >     all the non-aggregated traffic information to the
    collector,
    >     and let
    >      >     the collector to correlate them with the BGP communities,
    >     this can
    >      >     bring heavy burden to both the exporter and the
    collector.
    >      >      >
    >      >      >>
    >      >      >> If the IDR working group has not been consulted
    about this, I
    >      >     would strongly
    >      >      >> recommend working with them as to whether this is
    actually
    >      >     useful information
    >      >      >> to collect, and how and where to collect it. If
    the IDR
    >     working
    >      >     group does not
    >      >      >> consider important to work on this, then that
    gives you
    >     useful
    >      >     information in
    >      >      >> and of itself.
    >      >      >
    >      >      > The IDR WG has been notified about the LC of this
    document, so
    >      >     far there is no objection received from them. We
    would like to
    >      >     encourage IDR people to review and give feedbacks to
    help improve
    >      >     this document. Whether the new IEs are useful or not
    should be
    >      >     determined in the OPSAWG.
    >      >      >
    >      >      > Best regards,
    >      >      > Jie
    >      >      >
    >      >
    >


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