Internet DRAFT - draft-bergkvist-boomerang-framework

draft-bergkvist-boomerang-framework






Network Working Group                       J. Bergkvist, Telia Research 
INTERNET-DRAFT                               I. Cselenyi, Telia Research 
Expiration Date: May 2001                      D. Ahlard, Telia Research 
                                                                         
                                                           November 2000 
 
       Boomerang - A Simple Resource Reservation Framework for IP 
              <draft-bergkvist-boomerang-framework-00.txt> 
                                      
Status of this Memo 
    
   This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with 
   all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026. 
    
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   This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo 
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Abstract 
        
   This draft describes a framework for providing quantitative IP 
   services with guaranteed QoS. The proposed reservation approach is 
   based on a new, lightweight signaling protocol and it suits both 
   Diff-Serv, Int-Serv QoS architectures. 
        
   The main designing principle of the Boomerang protocol is to make 
   reservation almost as simple as forwarding an ordinary packet. Thus: 
    
   * Signaling messages are generated only by the initiating node, 
     therefore complexity and intelligence is concentrated in one point 
     enabling simple implementation 
    
   * Flow state aggregation can be suggested to subsequent nodes by 
     appending the Boomerang message 
    

 
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   * Bi-directional reservation can be made by a single message loop 
     independently of the path, which yields fast and effective 
     reservation setup 
    
   * The only requirement on the far-end node is that it should be able 
     to bounce the Boomerang message back, thus it works where Ping 
     works. 
    
   According to actual measurements, a Linux-based Boomerang-aware 
   router can handle more than 120 000 concurrent reservation sessions 
   and up to 6800 reservation requests per second, while the impact on 
   data forwarding performance is negligible. 
    
1. Terminology 
        
   The terminology given in [E2E] is used in this document extended with 
   the following notions: 
        
   Boomerang Protocol (BOOMP) 
   The simple, hop-by-hop resource reservation protocol used in this 
   framework. 
        
   Initiating Node (IN) 
   This is the node that initiates the resource reservation. Can be the 
   sender or receiver of data traffic or any BOOMP-aware network node. 
        
   Far-End Node (FEN) 
   This is the destination node to which reservations are being made. 
        
   Micro-Flow 
   A data flow from one end-point to another, defined uniquely by MF 
   classification [MF]. 
        
   Boomerang Node (BN) 
   A BOOMP-aware node which performs admission control and reservation 
   for single or aggregated micro-flows. 
        
   Aggregating Node (AN) 
   A Boomerang Node that associates several micro-flows with a common, 
   aggregated QoS specification and appends an aggregation field to the 
   Boomerang messages of associated micro-flows, in order to suggest an 
   aggregated reservation state for subsequent BNs. 
    
2. Introduction 
        
   In DiffServ networks, the DS field signals the resource and 
   forwarding demands of DS Behavior Aggregates [DSARCH]. Traffic 
   Conditioner nodes - placed on the edge or inside of the DS region - 
   are responsible for enforcing the Traffic Conditioning Agreement 
   (TCA) referred by the particular DiffServ Code Point (DSCP) 
   [DSFIELD]. Although signaling protocol based interaction between 
   traffic conditioners and traffic sources were discouraged earlier, 
   there are emerging work on this topic again [DSRSVP]. 

 
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   A simple and dynamic way of interchanging information between traffic 
   conditioners and traffic sources is to periodically insert signaling 
   packets among data packets and let them return to the traffic source 
   [TICKET]. Signaling messages can be transparently forwarded on 
   statically overprovisioned links while border nodes and upstream 
   nodes of bottleneck links can reserve resources according to the 
   message content. In this way, the source can explicitly express the 
   resource demand of a specific traffic stream in terms of bandwidth, 
   buffer or forwarding behavior and it can generate traffic according 
   to the feed-back from traffic conditioners. Using this dynamic QoS 
   approach, network operators can offer guaranteed services to 
   ambitious customers and quantitative QoS applications [E2E] in an 
   end-to-end manner.  
        
   Currently RSVP is the only accepted signaling protocol for resource 
   reservation setup in IP networks [RSVP] and it is probably the best 
   choice for making multicast reservation sessions. However, there are 
   several points where the handling of signaling could be simplified 
   (i.e. speeded up), if unicast sessions are considered: 
        
   * Reservation and path finding messages should not be separated 
    
   * The far end host should not be modified 
       
   * Network nodes should not keep track of the life-cycle of signaling 
     session, i.e. they should not store signaling states just 
     reservation states 
    
   * The number of message types should be kept very low 
       
   Therefore we propose a new reservation protocol for IP networks, 
   called Boomerang, which meets the following challenges: 
        
   1. Simple way for aggregating micro-flow reservation states 
       
   2. Simple processing of signaling messages at network nodes resulting 
      in simple implementation 
       
   3. Only one message type and a single signaling loop for reservation 
      set-up and tear-down 
       
   4. No requirements on the far end node 
       
   5. Concentrating the intelligence in the Initiating Node (IN). The IN 
      is responsible for signaling and maintaining the reservation 
      session. Network nodes along reserved path keep only flow states, 
      resulting in low load and processing time on network nodes. 
       
   The Boomerang protocol has been designed to be quick and simple, yet 
   powerful. It aims for extending the QoS mechanisms offered by DS, 
   RSVP, Int-Serv [IntServ] rather than replacing them. 
    

 
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3. Designing Objectives 
        
3.1 Simple Implementation 
    
   In BOOMP, signaling states (meaning intelligence) are needed only in 
   the initiating node. Other BNs are 'passive' and the only requirement 
   is that they are able to interpret the Boomerang message. Therefore 
   the most complex BOOMP implementation is made locally in IN, while 
   other BNs only look-up reservation state and setup QoS treatment for 
   the flow. That also contributes to simplicity that BOOMP is focused 
   on unicast and sender oriented multicast services. 
    
3.2 Small Processing Load in Routers 
    
    In order to decrease the context made for keeping track of the 
   reservation state of micro-flows, ANs can propose an aggregation of 
   these flow states. Consistency of micro-flow aggregation is 
   maintained by appending an aggregation field in the repeatedly 
   circulated BOOMP refresh messages. All control logic related to an 
   aggregation is concentrated in one AN, while other nodes can simply 
   rely on the information steadily coming in Boomerang messages or 
   handle micro-flow states. 
    
3.3 Fast Reservation Setup 
    
3.3.1 Bi-Directional Reservation 
    
   This implies that both the sender and the receiver node can send a 
   Boomerang, i.e. can act as IN. Many applications can not benefit from 
   receiver orientated reservations. Moreover, policy and billing may 
   suit better to sender initiated reservation in case of certain 
   applications (like broadcast video). For unicast applications BOOMP 
   can be used in a receiver oriented manner. 
        
   Different QoS parameters might be set up along the forward and 
   reverse path of the traffic flow. The forward and reverse path for a 
   bi-directional flow may differ. 
        
3.3.2 Resource Query 
    
   When the Boomerang flies through the network, each BN decreases the 
   resource request field if it has less resources available for the 
   corresponding reservation. In this way the IN gets information about 
   the current network state and has a good chance to make a successful 
   reservation trial. 
    
3.3.3 Single Message Loop 
    
   BOOMP requires only one 'signaling loop' between the IN and FEN for a 
   successful reservation. 
    



 
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3.4 Low Protocol Overhead 
    
   There is typically one or maximum two signaling loop required per 
   reservation session and signaling messages are small. A simple 
   calculation is given in Section 6. about the amount of signaling 
   overhead for BOOMP. 
        
3.5 Robustness 
    
   BNs maintain reservation states as soft states, i.e. reservations 
   time out if they are not refreshed periodically. In this way orphan 
   reservations disappear automatically and routing changes have just a 
   temporary effect. 
    
3.6 Quick Penetration 
        
   The following features results in an incremental deployment of BOOMP 
   in current IP networks. 
    
3.6.1 Transparency 
    
   The only requirement for BOOMP-unaware nodes is to forward the BOOMP 
   messages. QoS in this node has to be ensured by another (loose or 
   tight) QoS mechanism, otherwise the end-to-end QoS can be 
   compromised. There is a prototype in which PING is used as the 
   transport mechanism of BOOMP enabling the proper behavior in the vast 
   majority of current IP-capable network devices. 
    
3.6.2 QoS Interoperability 
    
   On the top of guaranteed resource reservation in Boomerang Nodes, 
   BOOMP can be used for asking for both tight QoS (such as the EF DSCP) 
   and loose QoS (such as AF DSCP) [EF, AF]. It is not limited to any 
   specific QoS specification, for instance it can transport Intserv 
   parameters as well. 
    
3.6.3 Multiple Scope 
    
   There are many different way of using the Boomerang protocol for 
   resource reservation. It can be used between two hosts running 
   unicast services, either in a sender in or receiver oriented manner. 
   It can also be used for sender oriented multicast services.  
        
   Moreover, the scope of BOOMP can be limited to a single network 
   domain, which is connected to domains utilizing other QoS techniques. 
    
3.6.4 No requirements on the Far-end Node 
    
   The other end-user can be quite unaware of all BOOMP implementation 
   in initiating node and network nodes and still profit from its 
   functionality. 
    


 
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4. Reservation Concept 
    
4.1 Boomerang Reservation Message 
        
   The BOOMP reservation message contains the following fields for IPv4 
   traffic [BOOMER]: 
        
   * A signaling header 
   * A flow specification 
   * QoS specification 
    
4.1.1 Signaling Header 
    
   This field contains the refresh interval and several flags in which 
   BNs can indicate the result of processing the Boomerang message. 
        
   The refresh interval is a measure of how often the reservation has to 
   be refreshed in order to preserve it in network nodes. The Initiating 
   Node can choose any refresh interval. Moreover, it can be decreased 
   by any router that needs a higher refresh rate. 
        
   If the IN stops sending refresh messages the resource allocation will 
   eventually time out.  
    
4.1.2 Flow Specification 
    
   A BN identifies a micro-flow uniquely by five fields, found in the 
   BOOMP reservation message that sets up the flow. These fields in the 
   reservation message are: source IP address, source port number, 
   destination IP address, destination port number and the IP protocol 
   field. 
    
4.1.3 QoS Specification 
    
   The IN indicates the type of QoS it requires with the BOOMP 
   reservation message - for the forward as well as for the reverse 
   direction. The QoS parameter specifies a service class (PHB) and 
   related resources. In our current BOOMP implementation EF PHB [EF] 
   and bit rate are used, but other formats are also possible 
   [DGVECTOR].  
    
4.1.4 Transport Mechanism 
    
   There are several ways for transporting the Boomerang protocol. 
        
   ICMP ECHO / ECHO REPLY 
   In the current prototype implementation BOOMP is wrapped in an ICMP 
   ECHO / ECHO REPLY messages, i.e. a normal PING message. This 
   conveniently ensures the correct node behavior from most existing 
   nodes both passive routers and hosts. 
        
   New protocol or new ICMP message 


 
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   A cleaner implementation would be to define a new ICMP message for 
   the BOOMP primitives, or to assign an entirely new protocol for BOOMP 
   signaling. 
        
   In both these later cases however, we would not have the correct end-
   node behavior for free. We would probably have to configure each 
   unaware network node to accept these messages. 
        
   The router alert option should be set for each Boomerang message in 
   order to indicate that the routers should investigate this message 
   [RALERT]. 
        
   Inbound signaling 
   A slightly different approach is to transport the reservation 
   messages as an integral part of the transport protocol. In this case 
   a transport mechanism must be defined for each transport protocol 
   where we desire to do resource reservation. This is the approach 
   taken in YESSIR [YESSIR], which is an inbound signaling protocol for 
   RTP connections. 
    
4.2 Operation 
        
   Resource reservation with the Boomerang protocol is simple. The 
   Initiating Node (IN) sends a Boomerang message to the Far-End Node 
   (FEN) containing the desired forward and reverse QoS descriptors 
   (e.g. bit rate). When this message reaches the FEN, it is echoed back 
   to the IN. The Boomerang message follows standard routing protocols, 
   and allocates resources hop-by-hop in all Boomerang-aware nodes (BNs) 
   en route. This ensures that the reservation will be made along the 
   correct path for both upstream and downstream traffic. When IN gets 
   back the Boomerang message, it verifies the completion of the 
   reservation by examining the appropriate message flags that have been 
   set in the BOOMP message by the BNs along the way. Reservation 
   messages are then sent periodically from the IN to the FEN (the rate 
   is specified by the IN itself) to keep the reservation alive in all 
   of the nodes along the upstream and downstream paths. 
        
   If a reservation request is denied by a BN, the following actions are 
   taken before the reservation message is forwarded using standard 
   routing rules: 
    
   a) The NACK flag in the message is set 
    
   b) If the requested resources are greater than the available 
      resources at the current node, the QoS Specification fields of 
      the Boomerang message are updated to reflect the current lowest 
      available resources. 
    
   c) If the Refresh Interval in the Boomerang exceeds the network 
      node's current maximum refresh interval, it is updated to reflect 
      the current minimum refresh interval. 
        


 
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   If a message arrives at the network node with the NACK flag already 
   set, only actions (b) and (c) are taken. 
        
   When the reservation arrives back at the IN, it checks the message to 
   see if the reservation was successful. 
   If the NACK flag is NOT set, the reservation was successful, but the 
   Refresh Interval field might still have changed. If this is the case, 
   the IN continues to send Boomerang messages with the interval stated 
   in the refresh interval field. 
   If the NACK flag is set, the request was denied somewhere along the 
   message path. This is where the IN has to take some action. A new 
   maximum QoS Specification might have been specified, so the IN may 
   choose to retry the old request, revoke it with the attained new QoS 
   specification, or release the request. 
    
4.2.1 Lost Boomerang 
    
   If the Boomerang message does not return to the IN within a certain 
   time, it is considered to be lost. The IN can wait and repeat the 
   original request again, or downgrade the demanded resource amount and 
   request less. 
    
5. Issues 
    
5.1 Flow-state Aggregation 
    
   The Boomerang protocol requires no signaling states in the network 
   nodes, but aggregation of reservation (or flow) states is still 
   desirable. There are different ways for making flow state aggregation 
   in BOOMP. 
    
5.1.1 Aggregation Suggested by Earlier Node 
    
   This is an extension to the Boomerang protocol, which allows a 
   microflow node to suggest a destination subnet-based aggregation to a 
   later network node. When the microflow node discovers that it has a 
   large number of reservations between two subnets it can decide to 
   append aggregation information for these subnets to each signaling 
   message within this aggregated flow. This is done by appending a 
   special message field to Boomerang containing the class, IP protocol, 
   source / destination subnetmask for this aggregation, an aggregation 
   key (e.g. the aggregating node's own IP number) and the total 
   resource demand of this aggregated flow. Nodes inside the network may 
   now use this information to create states for these aggregates of 
   micro-flows and can perform policing on these. The later node can 
   then in turn suggest further aggregation for following nodes. 
    
5.1.2 Measurement Based Admission Control 
    
   This covers any method where no hard control is kept of the allocated 
   resources. On contrary, admission control is performed by measuring 
   the current amount of traffic in the given class. Experiments 
   indicate [MEASURE] that measurement based techniques can be made to 

 
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   work even with long range dependant flows for a reasonably large 
   aggregation. 
    
5.1.3 Refresh Message based Admission Control 
    
   Instead of storing hard states for keeping track of the used 
   resources, the refresh request messages can be used. By summing the 
   requested rates weighted by the refresh interval over a sliding 
   window, the node can estimate the amount of resources already 
   reserved and use this knowledge to do admission control. A similar 
   approach is proposed in [TICKET]. The accuracy of the estimate will 
   depend on the number of refresh messages within the sliding window, 
   and the node should therefore refresh a rather frequent refresh 
   interval. As with the measurement-based scheme, dynamic policeing of 
   individual flows is not possible. 
    
5.2 Route Changes 
    
   While the issues of routing and route changes are not strictly a part 
   of the signaling problem, the questions inevitably arise. If we are 
   granted resources along a specific path, our data must stay along 
   this path or our reservation will be useless. Furthermore, if we 
   reserve resources along a path and allow these packets through 
   policing as e.g. EF PHB, a path change may ruin the performance of 
   other EF users in violation of the PHB specifications. To avoid this 
   we must either keep states at each potential bottleneck where we 
   might expect sudden route changes, or pin the route. This can be done 
   either dynamically by "freezing" the router cache entry, or by using 
   static route policies over narrow links. Our own experiences shows 
   that in a network with best effort routing, route changes are very 
   rare and are almost always triggered by a change in topology (such as 
   a link failure). The case of non topology driven route changes almost 
   always occur in the access network where the number of flows is 
   reasonably low. Refreshed reservations and soft reservation states 
   can help in most of the cases. 
    
5.3 Multicasting 
    
   The Boomerang protocol does not distinguish individual leafs within a 
   multicast group, so the most natural way to use it in conjunction 
   with multicast would be a sender oriented scheme. The sender would 
   send the reservation request to the entire multicast group and it 
   would be up to the leafs to detect the success or failure for that 
   particular branch. A typical application could be a broadcast video 
   server similar to the pay-TV found in hotel rooms. The server would 
   send reservation messages to the multicast group with a short refresh 
   interval (e.g. 3 seconds) and the NO_ECHO flag set. When a new client 
   is added to the multicast group resource reservation is attempted 
   within one refresh interval and the client will start receiving data 
   along with either ACKed or NACKed reservations. If it receives NACKs 
   then obviously the reservation failed and it is up to the client to 
   ask to be removed from the multicast list. 
        

 
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   From the perspective of the BOOMP, it is possible to ask for 
   resources for a multicast group along a specific branch. However, we 
   think that solving the complexity of multiple users depending on the 
   same reservation (accounting and such) is out of the scope of the 
   network layer. 
    
5.4 Denial of Service Attacks 
    
   The Boomerang protocol provides a special "key" field for preventing 
   misuse of partially failed reservations. The access router could 
   easily have a rate limit mechanism per source address. This is mainly 
   an implementation issue. 
    
5.5 Selective Hunting 
    
   The main idea is that even if the node is "Boomerang aware" we only 
   need to actually process the Boomerang messages if the node is judged 
   to be a bottleneck. The Boomerang protocol could be deactivated by 
   something like a bandwidth broker, if the node is not a bottleneck. 
   However, computers as opposed to humans do not benefit significantly 
   from resting so the main gain from deactivating the Boomerang 
   protocol would be a decrease in signaling delay. 
    
5.6 Security 
        
   TBD. 
    
5.7 Decreasing network signaling 
        
   There are a few issues concerning the efficiency of the protocol and 
   their possible solutions. 
    
5.7.1 Signaling Overhead 
    
   Since the Boomerang protocol suggests refreshing of reservations with 
   intervals down to a few seconds, using it with no aggregation might 
   create a significant network load. If the refresh interval is the 
   same for a large number of sources these will not quickly decorrelate 
   if they happen to be correlated, which may result in unpleasant 
   bursts of network traffic. A small numerical example: with the very 
   short refresh interval of 3 sec and packets consisting of 56 byte 
   IPv4 Boomerang message + ICMP + IP+ Ethernet = 92 bytes we will have 
   a bitrate of 245bps. For a 12kbps IP telephony call this is about 2% 
   overhead. In practical use with longer refresh interval, the overhead 
   should be significantly less. As for the correlation, the 
   reservations are obviously initiated in an uncorrelated fashion and 
   it would therefore be quite rare that more than a few sources at a 
   time would drive into correlation. The impact of these occurrences 
   could be further reduced by letting hosts and nodes that sets the 
   refresh value randomize it in a neighborhood of the desired value. 
    



 
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5.7.2 Network loading by end to end transmission of NACKED connections 
    
   In the Boomerang protocol we state that all signaling is end to end. 
   This means that network nodes does not generate signaling they only 
   modify and update incoming signaling messages. The reason for this is 
   that it makes the protocol extremely simple to implement. This also 
   means that a reservation which is NACKed early in the network still 
   has to travel the entire way to the end node and back, which both 
   loads the network and increases the probability of the reservation 
   getting lost. A solution to this would be to return the NACK 
   immediately by the NACKing node. We have chosen not to do this since 
   the NACK messages are an extremely small part of the network traffic 
   and we value the simplicity of passive nodes more. Instead we treat 
   the NACKed message as a query, and update it along the path with the 
   minimum available resources. This way the returning NACK can serve as 
   decision support for the initiating node. 
    
6. Illustrative scenarios 
        
   The multiple scopes of Boomerang based reservation process is 
   illustrated by two simple examples. 
    
6.1 Single-domain with a bottleneck 
        
   Let us consider a scenario where we have two hosts (A, F) attached to 
   a DS domain (B-C-D-E). The DS network is non blocking for high 
   priority traffic, but there is a highly utilized link in the middle 
   (C-D) where over-provisioning is difficult or very expensive (e.g. 
   the Atlantic cable). This is a potential bottleneck link for the 
   guaranteed service. 
        
               A       B        C       D        E       F 
                       /-------------------------\ 
                      |                           | 
             +---+  +----+    +---+   +---+    +----+  +---+ 
             |IN |  |    |    |BN |   |BN |    |    |  |FEN| 
             +---+--|    |----|   |===|   |----|    |--+---+ 
             +---+  +----+    +---+   +---+    +----+  +---+ 
                      |                           | 
                       \-------DS domain---------/ 
        
        
   The traffic between hosts (A) and (F) has to pass through the DS 
   compliant network including the bottleneck link. Therefore one of the 
   hosts should send a BOOMP reservation request, in order to get 
   resources on the bottleneck link in a guaranteed manner. 
        
   Let us assume that host (A) sends a BOOMP message, which is forwarded 
   hop-by-hop through the network and echoed back by host (F). Since (B) 
   and (E) are BOOMP-unaware nodes, they just simply forward the 
   Boomerang message to the next hop. Node (C) as the ingress node of 
   the bottleneck link performs admission control for the requested 
   resources and indicates the result in the Boomerang message. 

 
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   Similarly, node (D) performs admission control for the backward 
   traffic. It is possible to specify different amount of resources for 
   the traffic going in the forward and reverse directions, and forward 
   and reverse paths can differ. 
        
   Host A can then see the result of the reservation from the returned 
   BOOMP message. 
        
   In case of a successful reservation, host A can start to send (or 
   receive) traffic with guaranteed QoS on the bottleneck links and DS-
   based QoS in the rest of the DS network. For the latter, data packets 
   shall be marked with proper DSCP [DSFIELD]. The initiating host 
   should refresh the reservation by sending BOOMP messages periodically 
   to prevent the soft states in the nodes from timing out. 
    
6.2 End-to-end reservation with aggregation 
        
        SUBNET_1                                         SUBNET_2 
        
        +---+                                             +---+ 
        | X |\        A       B       C       D          /| Z | 
        +---+ \     +---+  +----+-+  +----+  +----+     / +---+ 
        +---+  \    |   |  | AN | |  |BN  |  |BN  |    /  +---+ 
                *---+   +--|    | |--|    |--|    |---* 
        +---+  /    +---+  +----+-+  +----+  +----+    \  +---+ 
        | Y | /                                         \ | U | 
        +---+/                                           \+---+ 
        +---+          B -- aggregating node              +---+ 
        
        
   Aggregation of flow states can be made, if one or more resource 
   reservations share the same QoS specifications. It can be made on a 
   subnet-to-subnet basis, and requires no special de-aggregation 
   functionality. 
        
   In this example, (X) and (Y) are two nodes that want to allocate 
   resources to (Z). They do this in the usual way by sending Boomerang 
   messages that will pass through (A), (B), (C) and (D), bounce at (Z) 
   and then go back, reserving bandwidth in the opposite direction. (X) 
   and (Y) send their reservations periodically, each with its own 
   refresh interval. 
        
   The (B) node might aggregate these reservations, since it is aware of 
   the fact that both reservations are made with source=SUBNET_1 and 
   destination=SUBNET_2. To aggregate these reservations, (B) appends an 
   aggregation field to each refresh Boomerang message that arrives from 
   (X) and (Y). This aggregation field contains the sum of resources 
   reserved for the aggregate, information that helps to identify the 
   corresponding subnets (SUBNET_1 and SUBNET_2), and a special 
   aggregation key to differentiate this aggregation from other ones 
   made between the same subnets. 
        


 
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   (B) still keeps track of each reservation, it does not remove any 
   context. When the Boomerang messages leaves (B), heading for (Z), it 
   will contain this appended aggregation field and subsequent nodes may 
   use it to create contexts. 
        
   If (C) gets a Boomerang message from (X), with an aggregation field 
   appended, it may ignore the information about the individual flow, 
   and only create a context for the aggregation. Whenever another 
   reservation message arrives, (C) looks for aggregation fields, and 
   uses this part of the Boomerang message as a refresh message for the 
   aggregated reservation state. 
        
   Node (D) may, on the other hand, simply ignore these aggregation 
   fields, and treat each message as a unique reservation. If (X) then 
   stops sending refresh messages, the corresponding reservation state 
   times out in (B), and (B) updates the aggregated state to be 
   consistent with the currently reserved bandwidth. Moreover, (B) 
   indicates this change in the corresponding Boomerang messages by 
   removing the aggregation field. When the aggregation is removed 
   completely, the aggregated reservation will eventually time out in 
   (C), but by that time a new context should have been created in (C) 
   for each individual flow. 
        
    
7. References 
        
   [E2E]       Bernet, Y., Yavatka,r R., Ford, P., Baker, F., Nichols, 
               K., Speer, M., "A Framework for End-to-End QoS Combining 
               RSVP/Intserv and Differentiated Services", Internet 
               Draft, <draft-ietf-DiffServ-rsvp-00.txt>, March 1998. 
        
   [DSARCH]    Blake, S., Black, D., Carlson, M., Davies, E., Wang, Z. 
               and W. Weiss, "An Architecture for Differentiated 
               Services", RFC 2475, December 1998. 
        
   [DSFIELD]   Nichols, K., Blake, S., Baker, F. and D. Black, 
               "Definition of the Differentiated Services Field (DS 
               Field) in the IPv4 and IPv6 Headers", RFC 2474, December 
               1998. 
    
   [DSRSVP]    Y. Bernet, R. Yavatkar, P. Ford, F. Baker, L. Zhang, M. 
               Speer, R. Braden, B. Davie, J. Wroclawski, E. Felstaine  
               "A Framework for Integrated Services Operation Over 
               Diffserv Networks", Internet Draft, September 1999,  
               <draft-ietf-issll-diffserv-rsvp-03.txt> 
                       
   [EF]        V. Jacobson, Kathleen Nichols, Kedernath Poduri, "An 
               Expedited Forwarding PHB", Internet Draft, February 1999, 
               <draft-ietf-diffserv-phb-ef-02.txt> 
        
   [AF]        F. Baker, J. Heinanen, J. Wroclawski, W. Weiss, "Assured 
               Forwarding PHB Group", Internet Draft, February 1999. 
               <draft-ietf-diffserv-af-06.txt> 

 
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   [IntServ]   R. Braden, D. Clark, and S. Shenker, "Integrated Services 
               in the Internet Architecture: An Overview", Internet RFC 
               1633, July 1994. 
        
   [RSVP]      Braden, R., Zhang, L., Berson, S., Herzog, S., and Jamin, 
               S., "Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP) Version 1 
               Functional Specification", IETF RFC 2205, Proposed 
               Standard, September 1997. 
        
   [YESSIR]    P. Pan, H. Schulzrinne, "YESSIR: A Simple Reservation 
               Mechanism for the Internet", 
               http://www.ctr.columbia.edu/~pan/work/yessir/yessir.ps 
        
   [DGVECTOR]  Cselényi, I., Szabó, R., Szabó, I., Björkman, N., Latour-
               Henner, A., "Experimental Platform for Telecommunication 
               Resource Management" Computer Communications (21)17 
               (1998) pp.1624-1640 
        
   [MEASURE]   J.T. Lewis, R. Russell, F. Toomey, B. McGurk, S. Crosby, 
               I. Leslie, "Practical connection admission control for 
               ATM networks based on on-line measurements", Computer 
               Communications (21)17 (1998) pp. 1585-1596 
        
   [TICKET]    A. Eriksson, C. Gehrmann, "Robust and Secure Light-weight 
               Resource Reservation for Unicast IP Traffic", 
               International WS on QoS'98, IWQoS'98, May 18-20, 1998 
        
   [BOOMER]    D. Ahlard, J. Bergkvist, I. Cselényi, "Boomerang Protocol 
               Specification", Internet Draft, June 1999, Internet 
               Draft, <draft-bergkvist-boomerang-spec-00.txt> 
        
   [RALERT]    D. Katz, "IP router alert option", RFC 2113, IETF, 
               February 1997 
    
8. Author Information 
        
   Bergkvist, Joakim 
   Telia Research 
   Vitsandsgatan 9B 
   S-123 86 Farsta, Sweden 
   Phone: +46 8 713 81 71 
   Email: jobe@trab.se 
    
   Cselenyi, Istvan 
   Telia Research 
   Vitsandsgatan 9B 
   S-123 86 Farsta, Sweden 
   Phone: +46 8 713 81 73 
   Email: cse@trab.se 
        
   Ahlard, David 
   Telia Research 

 
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   Vitsandsgatan 9B 
   S-123 86 Farsta, Sweden 
   Phone: +46 8 713 81 90 
   Email: davahl@trab.se 


















































 
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