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rfc:rfc3717

Network Working Group B. Rajagopalan Request for Comments: 3717 Consultant Category: Informational J. Luciani

                                                Marconi Communications
                                                            D. Awduche
                                                                   MCI
                                                            March 2004
               IP over Optical Networks: A Framework

Status of this Memo

 This memo provides information for the Internet community.  It does
 not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of this
 memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

 Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

 The Internet transport infrastructure is moving towards a model of
 high-speed routers interconnected by optical core networks.  The
 architectural choices for the interaction between IP and optical
 network layers, specifically, the routing and signaling aspects, are
 maturing.  At the same time, a consensus has emerged in the industry
 on utilizing IP-based protocols for the optical control plane.  This
 document defines a framework for IP over Optical networks,
 considering both the IP-based control plane for optical networks as
 well as IP-optical network interactions (together referred to as "IP
 over optical networks").

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 1] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

Table of Contents

 1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
 2.  Terminology and Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
 3.  The Network Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
     3.1.  Network Interconnection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
     3.2.  Control Structure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
 4.  IP over Optical Service Models and Requirements. . . . . . . . 13
     4.1.  Domain Services Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     4.2.  Unified Service Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     4.3.  Which Service Model? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
     4.4.  What are the Possible Services?. . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
 5.  IP transport over Optical Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
     5.1.  Interconnection Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
     5.2.  Routing Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
     5.3.  Signaling-Related. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
     5.4.  End-to-End Protection Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
 6.  IP-based Optical Control Plane Issues. . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
     6.1.  Addressing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
     6.2.  Neighbor Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
     6.3.  Topology Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
     6.4.  Protection and Restoration Models. . . . . . . . . . . . 29
     6.5.  Route Computation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
     6.6.  Signaling Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
     6.7.  Optical Internetworking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
 7.  Other Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
     7.1.  WDM and TDM in the Same Network. . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
     7.2.  Wavelength Conversion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
     7.3.  Service Provider Peering Points. . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
     7.4.  Rate of Lightpath Set-Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
     7.5.  Distributed vs. Centralized Provisioning . . . . . . . . 37
     7.6.  Optical Networks with Additional Configurable
           Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
     7.7.  Optical Networks with Limited Wavelength Conversion
           Capability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
 8.  Evolution Path for IP over Optical Architecture. . . . . . . . 39
 9.  Security Considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
     9.1.  General Security Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
     9.2.  Security Considerations for Protocol Mechanisms. . . . . 43
 10. Summary and Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
 11. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
 12. Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
 13. Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
 14. Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
 15. Full Copyright Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 2] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

1. Introduction

 Optical network technologies are evolving rapidly in terms of
 functions and capabilities.  The increasing importance of optical
 networks is evidenced by the copious amount of attention focused on
 IP over optical networks and related photonic and electronic
 interworking issues by all major network service providers,
 telecommunications equipment vendors, and standards organizations. In
 this regard, the term "optical network" is used generically in
 practice to refer to both SONET/SDH-based transport networks, as well
 as switched optical networks (including all-optical networks).
 It has been realized that optical networks must be survivable,
 flexible, and controllable.  There is, therefore, an ongoing trend to
 introduce intelligence in the control plane of optical networks to
 make them more versatile [1].  An essential attribute of intelligent
 optical networks is the capability to instantiate and route optical
 layer connections in real-time or near real-time, and to provide
 capabilities that enhance network survivability.  Furthermore, there
 is a need for multi-vendor optical network interoperability, when an
 optical network may consist of interconnected vendor-specific optical
 sub-networks.
 The optical network must also be versatile because some service
 providers may offer generic optical layer services that may not be
 client-specific.  It would therefore be necessary to have an optical
 network control plane that can handle such generic optical services.
 There is general consensus in the industry that the optical network
 control plane should utilize IP-based protocols for dynamic
 provisioning and restoration of optical channels within and across
 optical sub-networks.  This is based on the practical view that
 signaling and routing mechanisms developed for IP traffic engineering
 applications could be re-used in optical networks. Nevertheless, the
 issues and requirements that are specific to optical networking must
 be understood to suitably adopt and adapt the IP-based protocols.
 This is especially the case for restoration, and for routing and
 signaling in all-optical networks.  Also, there are different views
 on the model for interaction between the optical network and client
 networks, such as IP networks.  Reasonable architectural alternatives
 in this regard must be supported, with an understanding of their
 relative merits.
 Thus, there are two fundamental issues related to IP over optical
 networks.  The first is the adaptation and reuse of IP control plane
 protocols within the optical network control plane, irrespective of
 the types of digital clients that utilize the optical network.  The

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 3] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 second is the transport of IP traffic through an optical network
 together with the control and coordination issues that arise
 therefrom.
 This document defines a framework for IP over optical networks
 covering the requirements and mechanisms for establishing an IP-
 centric optical control plane, and the architectural aspects of IP
 transport over optical networks.  In this regard, it is recognized
 that the specific capabilities required for IP over optical networks
 would depend on the services expected at the IP-optical interface as
 well as the optical sub-network interfaces.  Depending on the
 specific operational requirements, a progression of capabilities is
 possible, reflecting increasingly sophisticated interactions at these
 interfaces.  This document therefore advocates the definition of
 "capability sets" that define the evolution of functionality at the
 interfaces as more sophisticated operational requirements arise.
 This document is organized as follows.  In the next section,
 terminology covering some basic concepts related to this framework
 are described.  The definitions are specific to this framework and
 may have other connotations elsewhere.  In Section 3, the network
 model pertinent to this framework is described.  The service model
 and requirements for IP-optical, and multi-vendor optical
 internetworking are described in Section 4.  This section also
 considers some general requirements.  Section 5 considers the
 architectural models for IP-optical interworking, describing the
 relative merits of each model.  It should be noted that it is not the
 intent of this document to promote any particular model over the
 others.  However, particular aspects of the models that may make one
 approach more appropriate than another in certain circumstances are
 described.  Section 6 describes IP-centric control plane mechanisms
 for optical networks, covering signaling and routing issues in
 support of provisioning and restoration.  The approaches described in
 Section 5 and 6 range from the relatively simple to the
 sophisticated.  Section 7 describes a number of specialized issues in
 relation to IP over optical networks.  Section 8 describes a possible
 evolution path for IP over optical networking capabilities in terms
 of increasingly sophisticated functionality that may be supported as
 the need arises.  Section 9 considers security issues pertinent to
 this framework.  Finally, the summary and conclusion are presented in
 Section 10.

2. Terminology and Concepts

 This section introduces  terminology pertinent to this framework and
 some related concepts.  The definitions are specific to this
 framework and may have other interpretations elsewhere.

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 4] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 WDM
 Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) is a technology that allows
 multiple optical signals operating at different wavelengths to be
 multiplexed onto a single optical fiber and transported in parallel
 through the fiber.  In general, each optical wavelength may carry
 digital client payloads at a different data rate (e.g., OC-3c, OC-
 12c, OC- 48c, OC-192c, etc.) and in a different format (SONET,
 Ethernet, ATM, etc.).  For example, there are many commercial WDM
 networks in existence today that support a mix of SONET signals
 operating at OC-48c (approximately 2.5 Gbps) and OC-192
 (approximately 10 Gbps) over a single optical fiber.  An optical
 system with WDM capability can achieve parallel transmission of
 multiple wavelengths gracefully while maintaining high system
 performance and reliability.  In the near future, commercial dense
 WDM systems are expected to concurrently carry more than 160
 wavelengths at data rates of OC-192c and above, for a total of 1.6
 Tbps or more.  The term WDM will be used in this document to refer to
 both WDM and DWDM (Dense WDM).
 In general, it is worth noting that WDM links are affected by the
 following factors, which may introduce impairments into the optical
 signal path:
 1. The number of wavelengths on a single fiber.
 2. The serial bit rate per wavelength.
 3. The type of fiber.
 4. The amplification mechanism.
 5. The number and type of nodes through which the signals pass before
    reaching the egress node or before regeneration.
 All these factors (and others not mentioned here) constitute domain
 specific features of optical transport networks.  As noted in [1],
 these features should be taken into account in developing standards
 based solutions for IP over optical networks.
 Optical cross-connect (OXC)
 An OXC is a space-division switch that can switch an optical data
 stream from an input port to a output port.  Such a switch may
 utilize optical-electrical conversion at the input port and
 electrical-optical conversion at the output port, or it may be all-
 optical.  An OXC is assumed to have a control-plane processor that
 implements the signaling and routing protocols necessary for
 computing and instantiating optical channel connectivity in the
 optical domain.

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 5] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 Optical channel trail or Lightpath
 An optical channel trail is a point-to-point optical layer connection
 between two access points in an optical network.  In this document,
 the term "lightpath" is used interchangeably with optical channel
 trail.
 Optical mesh sub-network
 An optical sub-network, as used in this framework, is a network of
 OXCs that supports end-to-end networking of optical channel trails
 providing functionality like routing, monitoring, grooming, and
 protection and restoration of optical channels.  The interconnection
 of OXCs in this network can be based on a general mesh topology. The
 following sub-layers may be associated with this network:
 (a) An optical multiplex section (OMS) layer network: The optical
     multiplex section layer provides transport for the optical
     channels.  The information contained in this layer is a data
     stream comprising a set of  optical channels, which may have a
     defined aggregate bandwidth.
 (b) An optical transmission section (OTS) layer network: This layer
     provides functionality for transmission of optical signals
     through different types of optical media.
 This framework does not address the interaction between the optical
 sub-network and the OMS, or between the OMS and OTS layer networks.
 Mesh optical network (or simply, "optical network")
 A mesh optical network, as used in document, is a topologically
 connected collection of optical sub-networks whose node degree may
 exceed 2.  Such an optical network is assumed to be under the purview
 of a single administrative entity.  It is also possible to conceive
 of a large scale global mesh optical network consisting of the
 voluntary interconnection of autonomous optical networks, each of
 which is owned and administered by an independent entity.  In such an
 environment, abstraction can be used to hide the internal details of
 each autonomous optical cloud from external clouds.
 Optical internetwork
 An optical internetwork is a mesh-connected collection of optical
 networks.  Each of these networks may be under a different
 administration.

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 6] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 Wavelength continuity property
 A lightpath is said to satisfy the wavelength continuity property if
 it is transported over the same wavelength end-to-end.  Wavelength
 continuity is required in optical  networks with no wavelength
 conversion feature.
 Wavelength path
 A lightpath that satisfies the wavelength continuity property is
 called a wavelength path.
 Opaque vs. transparent optical networks
 A transparent optical network is an optical network in which optical
 signals are transported from transmitter to receiver entirely in the
 optical domain without OEO conversion.  Generally, intermediate
 switching nodes in a transparent optical network do not have access
 to the payload carried by the optical signals.
 Note that amplification  of signals at transit nodes is permitted in
 transparent optical networks (e.g., using Erbium Doped Fiber
 Amplifiers << EDFAs).
 On the other hand, in opaque optical networks,  transit nodes may
 manipulate  optical signals traversing through them.  An example of
 such manipulation would be OEO conversion which may involve 3R
 operations (reshaping, retiming, regeneration, and perhaps
 amplification).
 Trust domain
 A trust domain is a network under a single technical administration
 in which adequate security measures are established to prevent
 unauthorized intrusion from outside the domain.  Hence, it may be
 assumed that most nodes in the domain are deemed to be secure or
 trusted in some fashion.  Generally, the rule for "single"
 administrative control over a trust domain may be relaxed in practice
 if a set of administrative entities agree to trust one another to
 form an enlarged heterogeneous trust domain.  However, to simplify
 the discussions in this document, it will be assumed, without loss of
 generality, that the term trust domain applies to a single
 administrative entity with appropriate security policies.  It should
 be noted that within a trust domain, any subverted node can send
 control messages which can compromise the entire network.

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 7] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 Flow
 In this document, the term flow will be used to signify the smallest
 non-separable stream of data, from the point of view of an endpoint
 or termination point (source or destination node).  The reader should
 note that the term flow is heavily overloaded in contemporary
 networking literature.  In this document, we will consider a
 wavelength to be a flow, under certain circumstances.  However, if
 there is a method to partition the bandwidth of the wavelength, then
 each partition may be considered a flow, for example using time
 division multiplexing (TDM), it may be feasible to consider each
 quanta of time within a given wavelength as a flow.
 Traffic Trunk
 A traffic trunk is an abstraction of traffic flow traversing the same
 path between two access points which allows some characteristics and
 attributes of the traffic to be parameterized.

3. The Network Model

3.1. Network Interconnection

 The network model considered in this memo consists of IP routers
 attached to an optical core internetwork, and connected to their
 peers over dynamically established switched optical channels.  The
 optical core itself is assumed to be incapable of processing
 individual IP packets in the data plane.
 The optical internetwork is assumed to consist of multiple optical
 networks, each of which may be administered by a different entity.
 Each optical network consists of sub-networks interconnected by
 optical fiber links in a general topology (referred to as an optical
 mesh network).  This network may contain re-configurable optical
 equipment from a single vendor or from multiple vendors.  In the near
 term, it may be expected that each sub-network will consist of
 switches from a single vendor.  In the future, as standardization
 efforts mature, each optical sub-network may in fact contain optical
 switches from different vendors.  In any case, each sub-network
 itself is assumed to be mesh-connected internally.  In general, it
 can be expected that topologically adjacent OXCs in an optical mesh
 network will be connected via multiple, parallel (bi-directional)
 optical links.  This network model is shown in Figure 1.
 In this environment, an optical sub-network may consist entirely of
 all-optical OXCs or OXCs with optical-electrical-optical (OEO)
 conversion.  Interconnection between sub-networks is assumed to be
 implemented through compatible physical interfaces, with suitable

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 8] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 optical-electrical conversions where necessary.  The routers that
 have direct physical connectivity with the optical network are
 referred to as "edge routers" with respect to the optical network. As
 shown in Figure 1, other client networks (e.g., ATM) may also connect
 to the optical network.
 The switching function in an OXC is controlled by appropriately
 configuring the cross-connect fabric.  Conceptually, this may be
 viewed as setting up a cross-connect table whose entries are of the
 form <input port i, output port j>, indicating that the data stream
 entering input port i will be switched to output port j.  In the
 context of a wavelength selective cross-connect (generally referred
 to as a WXC), the cross-connect tables may also indicate the input
 and output wavelengths along with the input and output ports.  A
 lightpath from an ingress port in an OXC to an egress port in a
 remote OXC is established by setting up suitable cross-connects in
 the ingress, the egress and a set of intermediate OXCs such that a
 continuous physical path exists from the ingress to the egress port.
 Optical paths tend  to be bi-directional, i.e., the return path from
 the egress port to the ingress port is typically routed along the
 same set of intermediate interface cards as the forward path, but
 this may not be the case under all circumstances.

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 9] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

                         Optical Network
                 +---------------------------------------+
                 |                                       |
                 |          Optical Subnetwork           |
 +---------+     | +-----------------------------------+ |
 |         |     | | +-----+      +-----+      +-----+ | |
 | IP      |     | | |     |      |     |      |     | | |
 | Network +-UNI --+-+ OXC +------+ OXC +------+ OXC + | |
 |         |     | | |     |      |     |      |     | | |
 +---------+     | | +--+--+      +--+--+      +--+--+ | |
                 | +----|------------|------------|----+ |
                 |      |            |            |      |
                 |     INNI         INNI         INNI    |
 +---------+     |      |            |            |      |
 |         |     | +----+------+     |    +-------+----+ |
 | IP      + UNI-  |           |  +-----+ |            | |
 | Network |     | |  Optical  |          |   Optical  | |
 |         |     | |Subnetwork +---INNI---+ Subnetwork | |
 +---------+     | |           |          |            | |
                 | +-----+-----+          +------+-----+ |
                 |       |                       |       |
                 +-------+-----------------------+-------+
                         |                       |
                        ENNI                    ENNI
                         |                       |
                 +-------+-----------------------+-------+
                 |                                       |
                 |           Optical Network             |
                 |                                       |
                 +-------+-----------------------+-------+
                         |                       |
                        UNI                     UNI
                         |                       |
                   +-----+----- --+        +-----+------+
                   |              |        |            |
                   | Other Client |        |Other Client|
                   |   Network    |        |  Network   |
                   | (e.g., ATM)  |        |            |
                   +- ------------+        +------------+
              Figure 1: Optical Internetwork Model
 Multiple traffic streams exiting from an OXC may be multiplexed onto
 a fiber optic link using WDM technology.  The WDM functionality may
 exist  outside of the OXC, and be transparent to the OXC.  Or, this
 function  may be built into the OXC.  In the later case, the cross-
 connect table   (conceptually) consists of pairs of the form, <{input
 port i, Lambda(j)}, {output port k, Lambda(l)}>.  This indicates that

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 10] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 the data stream received on wavelength Lambda(j) over input port i is
 switched to output port k on Lambda(l).  Automated establishment of
 lightpaths involves setting up the cross-connect table entries in the
 appropriate OXCs in a coordinated manner such that the desired
 physical path is realized.
 Under this network model, a switched lightpath must be established
 between a pair of IP routers before the routers can transfer user
 traffic among themselves.  A lightpath between IP routers may
 traverse multiple optical networks and be subject to different
 provisioning and restoration procedures in each network.
 The IP-based control plane issue for optical networks pertains to the
 design of standard signaling and routing protocols for provisioning
 and restoration of lightpaths across multiple optical networks.
 Similarly, IP transport over optical networks involves establishing
 IP reachability and seamlessly constructing forwarding paths from one
 IP endpoint to another over an optical network.

3.2. Control Structure

 There are three logical control interfaces identified in Figure 1.
 These are the client-optical internetwork interface, the internal
 node-to-node interface within an optical network (between OXCs in
 different sub-networks), and the external node-to-node interface
 between nodes in different optical networks.  These interfaces are
 also referred to as the User-Network Interface (UNI), the internal
 NNI (INNI), and the external NNI (ENNI), respectively.
 The distinction between these interfaces arises out of the type and
 amount of control information flow across them.  The client-optical
 internetwork interface (UNI) represents a service boundary between
 the client (e.g., IP router) and the optical network.  The client and
 server (optical network) are essentially two different roles: the
 client role requests a service connection from a server; the server
 role establishes the connection to fulfill the service request --
 provided all relevant admission control conditions are satisfied.
 Thus, the control flow across the client-optical internetwork
 interface is dependent on the set of services defined across it and
 the manner in which the services may be accessed.  The service models
 are described in Section 4.  The NNIs represent vendor-independent
 standardized interfaces for control flow between nodes.  The
 distinction between the INNI and the ENNI is that the former is an
 interface within a given network under a single technical
 administration, while the later indicates an interface at the
 administrative boundary between networks.  The INNI and ENNI may thus
 differ in the policies that restrict control flow between nodes.

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 11] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 Security, scalability, stability, and information hiding are
 important considerations in the specification of the ENNI.  It is
 possible in principle to harmonize the control flow across the UNI
 and the NNI and eliminate the distinction between them.  On the other
 hand, it may be required to minimize flow of control information,
 especially routing-related information, over the UNI; and even over
 the ENNI.  In this case, UNI and NNIs may look different in some
 respects.  In this document, these interfaces are treated as
 distinct.
 The client-optical internetwork interface can be categorized as
 public or private depending upon context and service models.  Routing
 information (i.e., topology state information) can be exchanged
 across a private client-optical internetwork interface.  On the other
 hand, such information is not exchanged across a public client-
 optical internetwork interface, or such information may be exchanged
 with very explicit restrictions (including, for example abstraction,
 filtration, etc).  Thus, different relationships (e.g., peer or
 over-lay, Section 5) may occur across private and public logical
 interfaces.
 The physical control structure used to realize these logical
 interfaces may vary.  For instance, for the client-optical
 internetwork interface, some of the possibilities are:
 1. Direct interface: An in-band or out-of-band IP control channel
    (IPCC) may be implemented between an edge router and each OXC to
    which it is connected.  This control channel is used for
    exchanging signaling and routing messages between the router and
    the OXC.  With a direct interface, the edge router and the OXC it
    connects to are peers with respect to the control plane.  This
    situation is shown in Figure 2.  The type of routing and signaling
    information exchanged across  the direct interface may vary
    depending on the service definition.  This issue is addressed in
    the next section.  Some choices for  the routing protocol are OSPF
    or ISIS (with traffic engineering extensions and additional
    enhancements to deal with the peculiar characteristics of optical
    networks) or BGP, or some other protocol.  Other directory-based
    routing information exchanges are also possible.  Some of the
    signaling protocol choices are adaptations of RSVP-TE or CR-LDP.
    The details of how the IP control channel is realized is outside
    the scope of this document.
 2. Indirect interface: An out-of-band IP control channel may be
    implemented between the client and a device in the optical network
    to signal service requests and responses.  For instance, a
    management system or a server in the optical network may receive
    service requests from clients.  Similarly, out-of-band signaling

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 12] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

    may be used between management systems in client and optical
    networks to signal service requests.  In these cases, there is no
    direct control interaction between clients and respective OXCs.
    One reason to have an indirect interface would be that the OXCs
    and/or clients do not support a direct signaling interface.
 +---------------------------+    +---------------------------+
 |                           |    |                           |
 | +---------+   +---------+ |    | +---------+   +---------+ |
 | |         |   |         | |    | |         |   |         | |
 | | Routing |   |Signaling| |    | | Routing |   |Signaling| |
 | | Protocol|   |Protocol | |    | | Protocol|   |Protocol | |
 | |         |   |         | |    | |         |   |         | |
 | +-----+---+   +---+-----+ |    | +-----+---+   +---+-----+ |
 |       |           |       |    |       |           |       |
 |       |           |       |    |       |           |       |
 |    +--+-----------+---+   |    |    +--+-----------+---+   |
 |    |                  |   |    |    |                  |   |
 |    |     IP Layer     +....IPCC.....+     IP Layer     |   |
 |    |                  |   |    |    |                  |   |
 |    +------------------+   |    |    +------------------+   |
 |                           |    |                           |
 |        Edge Router        |    |            OXC            |
 +---------------------------+    +---------------------------+
                          Figure 2: Direct Interface
 3. Provisioned interface: In this case, the optical network services
    are manually provisioned and there is no control interactions
    between the client and the optical network.
 Although different control structures are possible, further
 descriptions in this framework assume direct interfaces for IP-
 optical and optical sub-network control interactions.

4. IP over Optical Service Models and Requirements

 In this section, the service models and requirements at the UNI and
 the NNIs are considered.  Two general models have emerged for the
 services at the UNI (which can also be applied at the NNIs).  These
 models are as follows.

4.1. Domain Services Model

 Under the domain services model, the optical network primarily offers
 high bandwidth connectivity in the form of lightpaths. Standardized
 signaling across the UNI (Figure 1) is used to invoke the following
 services:

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 13] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 1. Lightpath creation: This service allows a lightpath with the
    specified attributes to be created between a pair of termination
    points in the optical network.  Lightpath creation may be subject
    to network-defined policies (e.g., connectivity restrictions) and
    security procedures.
 2. Lightpath deletion: This service allows an existing lightpath to
    be deleted.
 3. Lightpath modification: This service allows certain parameters of
    the lightpath to be modified.
 4. Lightpath status enquiry: This service allows the status of
    certain parameters of the lightpath (referenced by its ID) to be
    queried by the router that created the lightpath.
 An end-system discovery procedure may be used over the UNI to verify
 local port connectivity between the optical and client devices, and
 allows each device to bootstrap the UNI control channel.  Finally, a
 "service discovery" procedure may be employed as a precursor to
 obtaining UNI services.  Service discovery allows a client to
 determine the static parameters of the interconnection with the
 optical network, including the UNI signaling protocols supported.
 The protocols for neighbor and service discovery are different from
 the UNI signaling protocol itself (for example, see LMP [2]).
 Because a small set of well-defined services is offered across the
 UNI, the signaling protocol requirements are minimal.  Specifically,
 the signaling protocol is required to convey a few messages with
 certain attributes in a point-to-point manner between the router and
 the optical network.  Such a protocol may be based on RSVP-TE or LDP,
 for example.
 The optical domain services model does not deal with the type and
 nature of routing protocols within and across optical networks.
 The optical domain services model would result in the establishment
 of a lightpath topology between routers at the edge of the optical
 network.  The resulting overlay model for IP over optical networks is
 discussed in Section 5.

4.2. Unified Service Model

 Under this model, the IP and optical networks are treated together as
 a single integrated network from a control plane point of view. In
 this regard, the OXCs are treated just like any other router as far
 as the control plane is considered.  Thus, in principle, there is no
 distinction between the UNI, NNIs and any other router-to-router

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 14] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 interface from a routing and signaling point of view.  It is assumed
 that this control plane is IP-based, for example leveraging the
 traffic engineering extensions for MPLS or GMPLS, as described in
 [1].  The unified service model has so far been discussed only in the
 context of a single administrative domain.  A unified control plane
 is possible even when there are administrative boundaries within an
 optical internetwork, but some of the integrated routing capabilities
 may  not be practically attractive or even feasible in this case (see
 Section 5).
 Under the unified service model and within the context of a GMPLS
 network, optical network services are obtained implicitly during
 end-to-end GMPLS signaling.  Specifically, an edge router can create
 a lightpath with specified attributes, or delete and modify
 lightpaths as it creates GMPLS label-switched paths (LSPs).  In this
 regard, the services obtained from the optical network are similar to
 the domain services model.  These services, however, may be invoked
 in a more seamless manner as compared to the domain services model.
 For instance, when routers are attached to a single optical network
 (i.e., there are no ENNIs), a remote router could compute an end-to-
 end path across the optical internetwork.  It can then establish an
 LSP across the optical internetwork.  But the edge routers must still
 recognize that an LSP  across the optical internetwork is a
 lightpath, or a conduit for multiple packet-based LSPs.
 The concept of "forwarding adjacency" can be used to specify virtual
 links across optical internetworks in routing protocols such as OSPF
 [3].  In essence, once a lightpath is established across an optical
 internetwork between two edge routers, the lightpath can be
 advertised as a forwarding adjacency (a virtual link) between these
 routers.  Thus, from a data plane point of view, the lightpaths
 result in a virtual overlay between edge routers.  The decisions as
 to when to create such lightpaths, and the bandwidth management for
 these lightpaths is identical in both the domain services model and
 the unified service model.  The routing and signaling models for
 unified services is described in Sections 5 and 6.

4.3. Which Service Model?

 The relative merits of the above service models can be debated at
 length, but the approach recommended in this framework is to define
 routing and signaling mechanisms in support of both models.  As noted
 above, signaling for service requests can be unified to cover both
 models.  The developments in GMPLS signaling [4] for the unified
 service model and its adoption for UNI signaling [5, 6] under the
 domain services model essentially supports this view.  The
 significant difference between the service models, however, is in
 routing protocols, as described in Sections 5 and 6.

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 15] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

4.4. What are the Possible Services?

 Specialized services may be built atop the point-to-point
 connectivity service offered by the optical network.  For example,
 optical virtual private networks and bandwidth on demand are some of
 the services that can be envisioned.

4.4.1. Optical Virtual Private Networks (OVPNs)

 Given that the data plane links between IP routers over an optical
 network amounts to a virtual topology which is an overlay over the
 fiber optic network, it is easy to envision a virtual private network
 of lightpaths that interconnect routers (or any other set of clients)
 belonging to a single entity or a group of related entities across a
 public optical network.  Indeed, in the case where the optical
 network provides connectivity for multiple sets of external client
 networks, there has to be a way to enforce routing policies that
 ensure routing separation between different sets of client networks
 (i.e., VPN service).

5. IP transport over Optical Networks

 To examine the architectural alternatives for IP over optical
 networks, it is important to distinguish between the data and control
 planes.  The optical network provides a service to external entities
 in the form of fixed bandwidth transport pipes (optical paths).  IP
 routers at the edge of the optical networks must necessarily have
 such paths established between them before communication at the IP
 layer can commence.  Thus, the IP data plane over optical networks is
 realized over a virtual topology of optical paths.  On the other
 hand, IP routers and OXCs can have a peer relation with respect to
 the control plane, especially for routing protocols that permit the
 dynamic discovery of IP endpoints attached to the optical network.
 The IP over optical network architecture is defined essentially by
 the organization of the control plane.  The assumption in this
 framework is that an IP-based control plane [1] is used, such as
 GMPLS.  Depending on the service model(Section 4), however, the
 control planes in the IP and optical networks can be loosely or
 tightly coupled.  This coupling determines the following
 characteristics:
 o  The details of the topology and routing information advertised by
    the optical network across the client interface;
 o  The level of control that IP routers can exercise in selecting
    explicit paths for connections across the optical network;

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 16] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 o  Policies regarding the dynamic provisioning of optical paths
    between routers.  These include access control, accounting, and
    security issues.
 The following interconnection models are then possible:

5.1. Interconnection Models

5.1.1. The Peer Model

 Under the peer model, the IP control plane acts as a peer of the
 optical transport network control plane.  This implies that a single
 instance of the control plane is deployed over the IP and optical
 domains.  When there is a single optical network involved and the IP
 and optical domains belong to the same entity, then a common IGP such
 as OSPF or IS-IS, with appropriate extensions, can be used to
 distribute topology information [7] over the integrated IP-optical
 network.  In the case of OSPF, opaque LSAs can be used to advertise
 topology state information.  In the case of IS-IS, extended TLVs will
 have to be defined to propagate topology state information.  Many of
 these extensions are occurring within the context of GMPLS.
 When an optical internetwork with multiple optical networks is
 involved (e.g., spanning different administrative domains), a single
 instance of an intra-domain routing protocol is not attractive or
 even realistic.  In this case, inter-domain routing and signaling
 protocols are needed.  In either case, a tacit assumption is that a
 common addressing scheme will be used for the optical and IP
 networks.  A common address space can be trivially realized by using
 IP addresses in both IP and optical domains.  Thus, the optical
 network elements become IP addressable entities as noted in [1].

5.1.2. The Overlay Model

 Under the overlay model, the IP layer routing, topology distribution,
 and signaling protocols are independent of the routing, topology
 distribution, and signaling protocols within the optical domain.
 This model is conceptually similar to the classical IP over ATM or
 MPOA models, but applied to an optical internetwork instead.  In the
 overlay model, a separate instance of the control plane (especially
 the routing and signaling protocols) would have to be deployed in the
 optical domain, independent of what exists in the IP domain.  In
 certain circumstances, it may also be feasible to statically
 configure the optical channels that provide connectivity for the IP
 domain in the overlay model.  Static configuration can be effected
 through network management functions.  Static configuration, however,

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 17] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 is unlikely to scale in very large networks, and may not support the
 rapid connection provisioning requirements of  future highly
 competitive networking environments.

5.1.3. The Augmented Model

 Under the augmented model, there are separate routing instances in
 the IP and optical domains, but certain types of information from one
 routing instance can be passed through to the other routing instance.
 For example, external IP addresses could be carried within the
 optical routing protocols to allow reachability information to be
 passed to IP clients.
 The routing approaches corresponding to these interconnection models
 are described below.

5.2. Routing Approaches

5.2.1. Integrated Routing

 This routing approach supports the peer model within a single
 administrative domain.  Under this approach, the IP and optical
 networks are assumed to run the same instance of an IP routing
 protocol, e.g., OSPF with suitable "optical" extensions.  These
 extensions must capture optical link parameters, and any constraints
 that are specific to optical networks.  The topology and link state
 information maintained by all nodes (OXCs and routers) may be
 identical, but not necessarily.  This approach permits a router to
 compute an end-to-end path to another router across the optical
 network.  Suppose the path computation is triggered by the need to
 route a label switched path (LSP) in a GMPLS environment.  Such an
 LSP can be established using GMPLS signaling, e.g., RSVP-TE or CR-LDP
 with appropriate extensions.  In this case, the signaling protocol
 will establish a lightpath between two edge routers.  This lightpath
 is in essence a tunnel across the optical network, and may have
 capacity much larger than the bandwidth required to support the first
 LSP.  Thus, it is essential that other routers in the network realize
 the availability of excess capacity within the lightpath so that
 subsequent LSPs between the routers can use it rather than
 instantiating a new lightpath.  The lightpath may therefore be
 advertised as a virtual link in the topology as a means to address
 this issue.
 The notion of "forwarding adjacency" (FA) described in [3] is
 essential in propagating existing lightpath information to other
 routers.  An FA is essentially a virtual link advertised into a link
 state routing protocol.  Thus, an FA could be described by the same
 parameters that define resources in any regular link.  While it is

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 18] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 necessary to specify the mechanism for creating an FA, it is not
 necessary to specify how an FA is used by the routing scheme.  Once
 an FA is advertised in a link state protocol, its usage for routing
 LSPs is defined by the route computation and traffic engineering
 algorithms implemented.
 It should be noted that at the IP-optical interface, the physical
 ports over which routers are connected to OXCs constrain the
 connectivity and resource availability.  Suppose a router R1 is
 connected to OXC O1 over two ports, P1 and P2.  Under integrated
 routing, the connectivity between R1 and O1 over the two ports would
 have been captured in the link state representation of the network.
 Now, suppose an FA at full port bandwidth is created from R1 to
 another router R2 over port P1.  While this FA is advertised as a
 virtual link between R1 and R2, it is also necessary to remove the
 link R1-O1 (over P1) from the link state representation since that
 port is no longer available for creating a lightpath.  Thus, as FAs
 are created, an overlaid set of virtual links is introduced into the
 link state representation, replacing the links previously advertised
 at the IP-Optical interface.  Finally, the details of the optical
 network captured in the link state representation is replaced by a
 network of FAs.  The above scheme is one way to tackle the problem.
 Another approach is to associate appropriate dynamic attributes with
 link state information, so that a link that cannot be used to
 establish a particular type of connection will be appropriately
 tagged.   Generally, however, there is a great deal of similarity
 between integrated routing   and domain-specific routing (described
 next).  Both ultimately deal with the creation of  a virtual
 lightpath topology (which is overlaid over the optical network) to
 meet certain traffic engineering objectives.

5.2.2. Domain-Specific Routing

 The domain-specific routing approach supports the augmented
 interconnection model.  Under this approach, routing within the
 optical and IP domains are separated, with a standard routing
 protocol running between domains.  This is similar to the IP inter-
 domain routing model.  A specific approach for this is considered
 next.  It is to be noted that other approaches are equally possible.

5.2.2.1. Domain-Specific Routing using BGP

 The inter-domain IP routing protocol, BGP [8], may be adapted for
 exchanging routing information between IP and optical domains.  This
 would allow routers to advertise IP address prefixes within their
 network to the optical internetwork and to receive external IP
 address prefixes from the optical internetwork.  The optical
 internetwork transports the reachability information from one IP

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 19] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 network to others.  For instance, edge routers and OXCs can run
 exterior BGP (EBGP).  Within the optical internetwork, interior BGP
 (IBGP) is may be used between border optical switches, and EBGP may
 be used between different networks (over ENNI, Figure 1).
 Under this scheme, it may be necessary to identify the egress points
 in the optical internetwork corresponding to externally reachable IP
 addresses.  To see this, suppose an edge router intends to establish
 an LSP to a destination node across the optical internetwork.  It may
 request a direct lightpath to that destination, without explicitly
 specifying the egress optical port for the lightpath because the
 optical internetwork has knowledge of externally reachable IP
 addresses.  However, if the same edge router were to establish
 another LSP to a different external destination, then for efficiency
 reasons, it may first need to determine whether there is an existing
 lightpath (with sufficient residual capacity) to the target
 destination.  For this purpose, it may be necessary for edge routers
 to keep track of which egress ports in the optical internetwork lead
 to which external destinations.  Thus, a border OXC receiving
 external IP prefixes from an edge router through EBGP must include
 its own IP address as the egress point before propagating these
 prefixes to other border OXCs or edge routers.  An edge router
 receiving this information need not propagate the egress address
 further, but it must keep the association   between external IP
 addresses and egress OXC addresses.  When optical VPNs are
 implemented, the address prefixes advertised by the border OXCs may
 be accompanied by some VPN specific identification.
 There are however, some potential negative effects that could result
 from domain-specific routing using BGP in an IPO environment:
 o  The amount of information that optical nodes will have to maintain
    will not be bound by the size of the optical network anymore, but
    will have to include external routes as well.
 o  The stability of the optical network control plane will no longer
    be dictated solely by the dynamics emanating within the optical
    network, but may be affected by the dynamics originating from
    external routing domains from which  external reachability
    information is received.

5.2.3. Overlay Routing

 The overlay routing approach supports the overlay interconnection
 model.  Under this approach, an overlay mechanism that allows edge
 routers to register and query for external addresses is implemented.
 This is conceptually similar to the address resolution mechanism used
 for IP over ATM.  Under this approach, the optical network could

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 20] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 implement a registry that allows edge routers to register IP
 addresses and VPN identifiers.  An edge router may be allowed to
 query for external addresses belonging to the same set of VPNs it
 belongs to.  A successful query would return the address of the
 egress optical port through which the external destination can be
 reached.
 Because IP-optical interface connectivity is limited, the
 determination of how many lightpaths must be established and to what
 endpoints are traffic engineering decisions.  Furthermore, after an
 initial set of such lightpaths are established, these may be used as
 adjacencies within VPNs for a VPN-wide routing scheme, for example,
 OSPF.  With this approach, an edge router could first determine other
 edge routers of interest by querying the registry.  After it obtains
 the appropriate addresses, an initial overlay lightpath topology may
 be formed.  Routing adjacencies may then be established across the
 lightpaths and further routing information may be exchanged to
 establish VPN-wide routing.

5.3. Signaling-Related

5.3.1. The Role of MPLS

 It is possible to model wavelengths, and potentially TDM channels
 within a wavelength as "labels".  This concept was proposed in [1],
 and "generalized" MPLS (GMPLS) mechanisms for realizing this are
 described in [4].  MPLS signaling protocols with traffic engineering
 extensions, such as RSVP-TE, can be appropriately extended and used
 for signaling lightpath requests.  These protocols can be adapted for
 client/server signaling in the case of the domain services model, and
 for end-to-end integrated signaling in the case of the unified
 services model.

5.3.2. Signaling Models

 With the domain-services model, the signaling control plane in the IP
 and optical network are completely separate as shown in Figure 3
 below.  This separation also implies the separation of IP and optical
 address spaces (even though the optical network would be using
 internal IP addressing).  While RSVP-TE and LDP can be adapted for
 UNI signaling, the full functionality of these protocols will not be
 used.  For example, UNI signaling does not require the specification
 of explicit routes.  On the other hand, based on the service
 attributes, new objects need to be signaled using these protocols as
 described in [5, 6].

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 21] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 MPLS Signaling      UNI Signaling     MPLS or other signaling
                                  |
 +-----------------------------+  |   +-----------------------------+
 |         IP Network          |  |   |       Optical Internetwork  |
 |  +---------+   +---------+  |  |   |  +---------+   +---------+  |
 |  |         |   |         |  |  |   |  |         |   |         |  |
 |  | Router  +---+ Router  +-----+------+  OXC    +---+   OXC   |  |
 |  |         |   |         |  |  |   |  |         |   |         |  |
 |  +-----+---+   +---+-----+  |  |   |  +-----+---+   +---+-----+  |
 +-----------------------------+  |   +-----------------------------+
                                  |
                                  |
            Completely Separated Addressing and Control Planes
               Figure 3: Domain Services Signaling Model
 With the unified services model, the addressing is common in the IP
 network and optical internetwork and the respective signaling control
 are related, as shown in Figure 4.  It is understood that GMPLS
 signaling is implemented in the IP and optical domains, using
 suitably enhanced RSVP-TE or CR-LDP protocols.  But the semantics of
 services within the optical internetwork may be different from that
 in the IP network.  As an example, the protection services offered in
 the optical internetwork may be different from the end-to-end
 protection services offered by the IP network.  Another example is
 with regard to bandwidth.  While the IP network may offer a continuum
 of bandwidths, the optical internetwork will offer only discrete
 bandwidths.  Thus, the signaling attributes and services are defined
 independently for IP and optical domains.  The routers at the edge of
 the optical internetwork must therefore identify service boundaries
 and perform suitable translations in the signaling messages crossing
 the IP-optical boundary.  This may still occur even though the
 signaling control plane in both networks are GMPLS-based and there is
 tighter coupling of the control plane as compared to the domain
 services model.

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 22] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

                      Service Boundary         Service Boundary
                            |                       |
 IP Layer GMPLS Signaling   | Optical Layer GMPLS   | IP Layer GMPLS
                            |                       |
    +--------+  +--------+  |  +-------+  +-------+ |  +--------+
    |        |  |        |  |  |       |  |       | |  |        |
    | IP LSR +--+ IP LSR +--+--+Optical+--+Optical+-+--+ IP LSR +---
    |        |  |        |  |  |  LSR  |  |  LSR  | |  |        |
    +-----+--+  +---+----+  |  +-----+-+  +---+---+ |  +--------+
                   Common Address Space, Service Translation
             Figure 4: Unified Services Signaling Model
 Thus, as illustrated in Figure 4, the signaling in the case of
 unified services is actually multi-layered.  The layering is based on
 the technology and functionality.  As an example, the specific
 adaptations of GMPLS signaling for SONET layer (whose functionality
 is transport) are described in [10].

5.4. End-to-End Protection Models

 Suppose an LSP is established from an ingress IP router to an egress
 router across an ingress IP network, a transit optical internetwork
 and an egress IP network.  If this LSP is to be afforded protection
 in the IP layer, how is the service coordinated between the IP and
 optical layers?
 Under this scenario, there are two approaches to end-to-end
 protection:

5.4.1. Segment-Wise Protection

 The protection services in the IP layer could utilize optical layer
 protection services for the LSP segment that traverses the optical
 internetwork.  Thus, the end-to-end LSP would be treated as a
 concatenation of three LSP segments from the protection point of
 view: a segment in the ingress IP network, a segment in the optical
 internetwork and a segment in the egress IP network.  The protection
 services at the IP layer for an end-to-end LSP must be mapped onto
 suitable protection services offered by the optical internetwork.
 Suppose that 1+1 protection is offered to LSPs at the IP layer, i.e.,
 each protected LSP has a pre-established hot stand-by in a 1+1 or 1:1
 configuration.  In case of a failure of the primary LSP, traffic can
 be immediately switched to the stand-by.  This type of protection can
 be realized end-to-end as follows.  With reference to Figure 5, let
 an LSP originate at (ingress) router interface A and terminate at
 (egress) router interface F.  Under the first protection option, a

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 23] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 primary path for the LSP must be established first.  Let this path be
 as shown in   Figure 5, traversing router interface B in the ingress
 network, optical ports C (ingress) and D (egress), and router
 interface E in the egress network.  Next, 1+1 protection is realized
 separately in each network by establishing a protection path between
 points A and B, C and D and E and F.  Furthermore, the segments B-C
 and D-E must themselves be 1+1 protected, using drop- side
 protection.  For the segment between C and D, the optical
 internetwork must offer a 1+1 service similar to that offered in the
 IP networks.
 +----------------+    +------------------+    +---------------+
 |                |    |                  |    |               |
 A Ingress IP Net B----C Optical Internet D----E Egress IP Net F
 |                |    |                  |    |               |
 +----------------+    +------------------+    +---------------+
             Figure 5: End-to-End Protection Example

5.4.2. Single-Layer Protection

 Under this model, the protection services in the IP layer do not rely
 on any protection services offered in the optical internetwork. Thus,
 with reference to Figure 5, two SRLG-disjoint LSPs are established
 between A and F.  The corresponding segments in the optical
 internetwork are treated as independent lightpaths in the optical
 internetwork.  These lightpaths may be unprotected in the optical
 internetwork.

5.4.3. Differences

 A distinction between these two choices is as follows.  Under the
 first choice, the optical internetwork is actively involved in end-
 to-end protection, whereas under the second choice, any protection
 service offered in the optical internetwork is not utilized directly
 by client IP network.  Also, under the first choice, the protection
 in the optical internetwork may apply collectively to a number of IP
 LSPs.  That is, with reference to Figure 5, many LSPs may be
 aggregated into a single lightpath between C and D.  The optical
 internetwork protection may then be applied to all of them at once
 leading to some gain in scalability.  Under the second choice, each
 IP LSP must be separately protected.  Finally, the first choice
 allows different restoration signaling to be implemented in the IP
 and optical internetwork.  These restoration protocols are "patched
 up" at the service boundaries to realize end-to-end protection.  A
 further advantage of this is that restoration is entirely contained
 within the network where the failure occurs, thereby improving the
 restoration latency, and perhaps network stability as a fault within

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 24] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 an optical domain is contained and corrected within the domain.  For
 instance, if there is a failure in the optical internetwork, optical
 network protocols restore the affected internal segments.  Under the
 second choice, restoration signaling is always end-to-end between IP
 routers, essentially by-passing the optical internetwork.  A result
 of this is that restoration latency could be higher.  In addition,
 restoration protocols in the IP layer must run transparently over the
 optical internetwork in the overlay mode.  IP based recovery
 techniques may however be more resource efficient, as it may be
 possible to convey traffic through the redundant capacity under
 fault-free scenarios.  In particular, it may be possible to utilize
 classification, scheduling, and concepts of forwarding equivalence
 class to route lower class traffic over protect facilities and then
 possibly preempt them to make way for high priority traffic when
 faults occur.

6. IP-based Optical Control Plane Issues

 Provisioning and restoring lightpaths end-to-end between IP networks
 requires protocol and signaling support within optical sub-networks,
 and across the INNI and ENNI.  In this regard, a distinction is made
 between control procedures within an optical sub-network (Figure 1),
 between sub-networks, and between networks.  The general guideline
 followed in this framework is to separate these cases, and allow the
 possibility that different control procedures are followed inside
 different sub-networks, while a common set of procedures are followed
 across sub-networks and networks.
 The control plane procedures within a single vendor sub-network need
 not be defined since these can be proprietary.  Clearly, it is
 possible to follow the same control procedures inside a sub-network
 and across sub-networks.  But this is simply a recommendation within
 this framework document, rather than an imperative requirement. Thus,
 in the following, signaling and routing across sub-networks is
 considered first, followed by a discussion of similar issues across
 networks.

6.1. Addressing

 For interoperability across optical sub-networks using an IP-centric
 control plane, one of the fundamental issues is that of addressing.
 What entities should be identifiable from a signaling and routing
 point of view? How should they be addressed? This section presents
 some high level guidelines on this issue.

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 25] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 Identifiable entities in optical networks include OXCs, optical
 links, optical channels and sub-channels, Shared Risk Link Groups
 (SRLGs), etc.  An issue here is how granular the identification
 should be as far as the establishment of optical trails are
 concerned.  The scheme for identification must accommodate the
 specification of the termination points in the optical network with
 adequate granularity when establishing optical trails.  For instance,
 an OXC could have many ports, each of which may in turn terminate
 many optical channels, each of which contain many sub-channels etc.
 It is perhaps not reasonable to assume that every sub-channel or
 channel termination, or even OXC ports could be assigned a unique IP
 address.  Also, the routing of an optical trail within the network
 does not depend on the precise termination point information, but
 rather only on the terminating OXC.  Thus, finer granularity
 identification of termination points is of relevance only to the
 terminating OXC and not to intermediate OXCs (of course, resource
 allocation at each intermediate point would depend on the granularity
 of resources requested).  This suggests an identification scheme
 whereby OXCs are identified by a unique IP address and a "selector"
 identifies further fine-grain information of relevance at an OXC.
 This, of course, does not preclude the identification of these
 termination points directly with IP addresses(with a null selector).
 The selector can be formatted to have adequate number of bits and a
 structure that expresses port, channel, sub-channel, etc,
 identification.
 Within the optical network, the establishment of trail segments
 between adjacent OXCs require the identification of specific port,
 channel, sub-channel, etc.  With a GMPLS control plane, a label
 serves this function.  The structure of the label must be such that
 it can encode the required information [10].
 Another entity that must be identified is the SRLG [11].  An SRLG is
 an identifier assigned to a group of optical links that share a
 physical resource.  For instance, all optical channels routed over
 the same fiber could belong to the same SRLG.  Similarly, all fibers
 routed over a conduit could belong to the same SRLG.  The notable
 characteristic of SRLGs is that a given link could belong to more
 than   one SRLG, and two links belonging to a given SRLG may
 individually belong to two other SRLGs.  This is illustrated in
 Figure 6.  Here, the   links 1,2,3 and 4 may belong to SRLG 1, links
 1,2 and 3 could belong to SRLG 2 and link 4 could belong to SRLG 3.
 Similarly, links 5 and 6 could belong to SRLG 1, and links 7 and 8
 could belong to SRLG 4.  (In this example, the same SRLG, i.e., 1,
 contains links from two different adjacencies).

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 26] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 While the classification of physical resources into SRLGs is a manual
 operation, the assignment of unique identifiers to these SRLGs
 within an optical network is essential to ensure correct SRLG-
 disjoint path computation for protection.  SRLGs could be identified
 with a flat identifier (e.g., 32 bit integer).
 Finally, optical links between adjacent OXCs may be bundled for
 advertisement into a link state protocol [12].  A bundled interface
 may be numbered or unnumbered.  In either case, the component links
 within the bundle must be identifiable.  In concert with SRLG
 identification, this information is necessary for correct path
 computation.

6.2. Neighbor Discovery

 Routing within the optical network relies on knowledge of network
 topology and resource availability.  This information may be gathered
 and used by a centralized system, or by a distributed link state
 routing protocol.  In either case, the first step towards network-
 wide link state determination is the discovery of the status of local
 links to all neighbors by each OXC.  Specifically, each OXC must
 determine the up/down status of each optical link, the bandwidth and
 other parameters of the link, and the identity of the remote end of
 the link (e.g., remote port number).  The last piece of information
 is used to specify an appropriate label when signaling for lightpath
 provisioning.  The determination of these parameters could be based
 on a combination of manual configuration and an automated protocol
 running between adjacent OXCs.  The characteristics of such a
 protocol would depend on the type of OXCs that are adjacent (e.g.,
 transparent or opaque).
 Neighbor discovery would typically require in-band communication on
 the bearer channels to determine local connectivity and link status.
 In the case of opaque OXCs with SONET termination, one instance of a
 neighbor discovery protocol (e.g., LMP [2]) would run on each OXC
 port, communicating with the corresponding protocol instance at the
 neighboring OXC.  The protocol would utilize the SONET overhead bytes
 to transmit the (configured) local attributes periodically to the
 neighbor.  Thus, two neighboring switches can automatically determine
 the identities of each other and the local connectivity, and also
 keep track of the up/down status of local links.  Neighbor discovery
 with transparent OXCs is described in [2].

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 27] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 +--------------+          +------------+         +------------+
 |              +-1:OC48---+            +-5:OC192-+            |
 |              +-2:OC48---+            +-6:OC192-+            |
 |    OXC1      +-3:OC48---+     OXC2   +-7:OC48--+     OXC3   |
 |              +-4:OC192--+            +-8:OC48--+            |
 |              |          |            |  +------+            |
 +--------------+          +----+-+-----+  | +----+------+-----+
                                | |        | |          |
                                | |        | |          |
 +--------------+               | |        | |          |
 |              |          +----+-+-----+  | |   +------+-----+
 |              +----------+            +--+ |   |            |
 |     OXC4     +----------+            +----+   |            |
 |              +----------+    OXC5    +--------+     OXC6   |
 |              |          |            +--------+            |
 +--------------+          |            |        |            |
                           +------+-----+        +------+-----+
          Figure 6: Mesh Optical Network with SRLGs

6.3. Topology Discovery

 Topology discovery is the procedure by which the topology and
 resource state of all the links in a network are determined.  This
 procedure may be done as part of a link state routing protocol (e.g.,
 OSPF, ISIS), or it can be done via the management plane (in the case
 of centralized path computation).  The implementation of a link state
 protocol within a network (i.e., across sub-network boundaries) means
 that the same protocol runs in OXCs in every sub-network.  If this
 assumption does not hold then interworking of routing between sub-
 networks is required.  This is similar to inter-network routing
 discussed in Section 6.7.  The focus in the following is therefore on
 standardized link state routing.
 In general, most of the link state routing functionality is
 maintained when applied to optical networks.  However, the
 representation of optical links, as well as some link parameters, are
 changed in this setting.  Specifically,
 o  The link state information may consist of link bundles [12]. Each
    link bundle is represented as an abstract link in the network
    topology.  Different bundling representations are possible.  For
    instance, the parameters of the abstract link may include the
    number, bandwidth and the type of optical links contained in the
    underlying link bundle [12].  Also, the SRLGs corresponding to
    each optical link in the bundle may be included as a parameter.

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 28] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 o  The link state information should capture restoration-related
    parameters for optical links.  Specifically, with shared
    protection (Section 6.5), the link state updates must have
    information that allows the computation of shared protection
    paths.
 o  A single routing adjacency could be maintained between neighbors
    which may have multiple optical links (or even multiple link
    bundles) between them.  This reduces the protocol messaging
    overhead.
 o  Since link availability information changes dynamically, a
    flexible policy for triggering link state updates based on
    availability thresholds may be implemented.  For instance, changes
    in availability of links of a given bandwidth (e.g., OC-48) may
    trigger updates only after the availability figure changes by a
    certain percentage.
 These concepts are relatively well-understood.  On the other hand,
 the resource representation models and the topology discovery process
 for hierarchical routing (e.g., OSPF with multiple areas) are areas
 that need further work.

6.4. Protection and Restoration Models

 Automatic restoration of lightpaths is a service offered by optical
 networks.  There could be local and end-to-end mechanisms for
 restoration of lightpaths within a network (across the INNI).  Local
 mechanisms are used to select an alternate link (or network segment)
 between two OXCs across the INNI when a failure affects the primary
 link (or primary network segment) over which the (protected)
 lightpath is routed.  Local restoration does not affect the end-to-
 end route of the lightpath.  When local restoration is not possible
 (e.g., no alternate link is available between the adjacent OXCs in
 question), end-to-end restoration may be performed.  Under this
 scenario this, the affected lightpath may be rerouted over an
 alternate diverse path to circumvent failed resources.  For end-to-
 end restoration, alternate paths may be pre-computed to expedite the
 recovery time.  End to end restoration may also be mixed with local
 recovery in various ways depending on acceptable tradeoffs between
 utilization of network resources and recovery times.
 End-to-end protection may be based on two types of protection
 schemes; "1 + 1" protection or shared protection.  Under 1 + 1
 protection, a back-up path is established for the protected primary
 path along a physically diverse route.  Both paths are active and the
 failure along the primary path results in an immediate switch-over to
 the back-up path.  Under shared protection, back-up paths

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 29] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 corresponding to physically diverse primary paths may share the same
 network resources.  When a failure affects a primary path, it is
 assumed that the same failure will not affect the other primary paths
 whose back-ups share resources.
 It is possible that different restoration schemes may be implemented
 within optical sub-networks.  It is therefore necessary to consider a
 two-level restoration mechanism.  Path failures within an optical
 sub-network could be handled using procedures specific to the sub-
 network.  If this fails, end-to-end restoration across sub-networks
 could be invoked.  The border OXC that is the ingress to a sub-
 network can act as the source for restoration procedures within a
 sub-network.  The signaling for invoking end-to-end restoration
 across the INNI is described in Section 6.6.3.  The computation of
 the back-up path for end-to-end restoration may be based on various
 criteria.  It is assumed that the back-up path is computed by the
 source OXC, and signaled using standard methods.

6.5. Route Computation

 The computation of a primary route for a lightpath within an optical
 network is essentially a constraint-based routing problem.  The
 constraint is typically the bandwidth required for the lightpath,
 perhaps along with administrative and policy constraints.  The
 objective of path computation could be to minimize the total capacity
 required for routing lightpaths [13].
 Route computation with constraints may be accomplished using a number
 of algorithms [14].  When 1+1 protection is used, a back-up path that
 does not traverse on any link which is part of the same SRLG as links
 in the primary path must be computed.  Thus, it is essential that the
 SRLGs in the primary path be known during alternate path computation,
 along with the availability of resources in links that belong to
 other SRLGs.  This requirement has certain implications on optical
 link bundling.  Specifically, a bundled LSA must include adequate
 information such that a remote OXC can determine the resource
 availability under each SRLG that the bundled link refers to, and the
 relationship between links belonging to different SRLGs in the
 bundle.  For example, considering Figure 3, if links 1,2,3 and 4 are
 bundled together in an LSA, the bundled LSA must indicate that there
 are three SRLGs which are part of the bundle (i.e., 1, 2 and 3), and
 that links in SRLGs 2 and 3 are also part of SRLG 1.
 To encode the SRLG relationships in a link bundle LSA, only links
 which belong to exactly the same set of SRLGs must be bundled
 together.  With reference to Figure 3, for example, two bundles can
 be advertised for links between OXC1 and OXC2, with the following
 information:

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 30] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 Bundle No.     SRLGs    Link Type   Number   Other Info
 -------------------------------------------------------
   1             1,2       OC-48       3          ---
   2             1,3       OC-192      1          ---
 Assuming that the above information is available for each bundle at
 every node, there are several approaches possible for path
 computation.  For instance,
 1. The primary path can be computed first, and the (exclusive or
    shared) back-up is computed next based on the SRLGs chosen for the
    primary path.  In this regard,
    o  The primary path computation procedure can output a series of
       bundles the path  is routed over.  Since a bundle is uniquely
       identified with a set of SRLGs, the alternate path can be
       computed right away based on this knowledge.  In this case, if
       the primary path set up does not succeed for lack of resources
       in a chosen bundle, the primary and backup paths must be
       recomputed.
    o  It might be desirable to compute primary paths without choosing
       a specific bundle apriori.  That is, resource availability over
       all bundles between a node pair is taken into account rather
       than specific bundle information.  In this case, the primary
       path computation procedure would output a series of nodes the
       path traverses.  Each OXC in the path would have the freedom to
       choose the particular bundle to route that segment of the
       primary path.  This procedure would increase the chances of
       successfully setting up the primary path when link state
       information is not up to date everywhere.  But the specific
       bundle chosen, and hence the SRLGs in the primary path, must be
       captured during primary path set-up, for example, using the
       RSVP-TE Route Record Object [15].  This SRLG information is
       then used for computing the back-up path.  The back-up path may
       also be established specifying only which SRLGs to avoid in a
       given segment, rather than which bundles to use.  This would
       maximize the chances of establishing the back-up path.
 2. The primary path and the back-up path are computed together in one
    step, for example, using Suurbaale's algorithm [16].  In this
    case, the paths must be computed using specific bundle
    information.
 To summarize, it is essential to capture sufficient information in
 link bundle LSAs to accommodate different path computation procedures
 and to maximize the chances of successful path establishment.
 Depending on the path computation procedure used, the type of support

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 31] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 needed during path establishment (e.g., the recording of link group
 or SRLG information during path establishment) may differ.
 When shared protection is used, the route computation algorithm must
 take into account the possibility of sharing links among multiple
 back-up paths.  Under shared protection, the back-up paths
 corresponding to SRLG-disjoint primary paths can be assigned the same
 links.  The assumption here is that since the primary paths are not
 routed over links that have the same SRLG, a given failure will
 affect only one of them.  Furthermore, it is assumed that multiple
 failure events affecting links belonging to more than one SRLG will
 not occur concurrently.  Unlike the case of 1+1 protection, the
 back-up paths are not established apriori.  Rather, a failure event
 triggers the establishment of a single back-up path corresponding to
 the affected primary path.
 The distributed implementation of route computation for shared back-
 up paths require knowledge about the routing of all primary and
 back-up paths at every node.  This raises scalability concerns.  For
 this reason, it may be practical to consider the centralization of
 the route computation algorithm in a route server that has complete
 knowledge of the link state and path routes.  Heuristics for fully
 distributed route computation without complete knowledge of path
 routes are to be determined.  Path computation for restoration is
 further described in [11].

6.6. Signaling Issues

 Signaling within an optical network for lightpath provisioning is a
 relatively simple operation if a standard procedure is implemented
 within all sub-networks.  Otherwise, proprietary signaling may be
 implemented within sub-networks, but converted back to standard
 signaling across the INNI.  This is similar to signaling across the
 ENNI, as described in Section 6.7.  In the former case, signaling
 messages may carry strict explicit route information, while in the
 latter case the route information  should be loose, at the level of
 abstraction of sub-networks.  Once a route is determined for a
 lightpath, each OXC along the path must appropriately configure their
 cross-connects in a coordinated fashion.  This coordination is
 conceptually analogous to selecting incoming and outgoing labels in a
 label-switched environment.  Thus, protocols like RSVP-TE [9] may be
 adapted and used across the INNI for this purpose.  The adaptation of
 IP-based signaling protocols must take into account a number of
 peculiar attributes of optical networks.

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 32] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

6.6.1. Bi-Directional Lightpath Establishment

 Lightpaths are typically bi-directional.  That is, the output port
 selected at an OXC for the forward direction is also the input port
 for the reverse direction of the path.  Since signaling for optical
 paths may be autonomously initiated by different nodes, it is
 possible   that two path set-up attempts are in progress at the same
 time.  Specifically, while setting up an optical path, an OXC A may
 select output port i which is connected to input port j of the "next"
 OXC B.  Concurrently, OXC B may select output port j for setting up a
 different optical path, where the "next" OXC is A.  This results in a
 "collision".  Similarly, when WDM functionality is built into OXCs, a
 collision occurs when adjacent OXCs choose directly connected output
 ports and the same wavelength for two different optical paths.  There
 are two ways to deal with such collisions. First, collisions may be
 detected and the involved paths may be torn down and re-established.
 Or, collisions may be avoided altogether.

6.6.2. Failure Recovery

 The impact of transient partial failures must be minimized in an
 optical network.  Specifically, optical paths that are not directly
 affected by a failure must not be torn down due to the failure.  For
 example, the control processor in an OXC may fail, affecting
 signaling   and other internodal control communication.  Similarly,
 the control channel between OXCs may be affected temporarily by a
 failure.  These failure may not affect already established optical
 paths passing through the OXC fabric.  The detection of such failures
 by adjacent nodes, for example, through a keepalive mechanism between
 signaling peers, must not result in these optical paths being torn
 down.
 It is likely that when the above failures occur, a backup processor
 or a backup control channel will be activated.  The signaling
 protocol must be designed such that it is resilient to transient
 failures.  During failure recovery, it is desirable to recover local
 state at the concerned OXC with least disruption to existing optical
 paths.

6.6.3. Restoration

 Signaling for restoration has two distinct phases.  There is a
 reservation phase in which capacity for the protection path is
 established.  Then, there is an activation phase in which the back-up
 path is actually put in service.  The former phase typically is not
 subject to strict time constraints, while the latter is.

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 33] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 Signaling to establish a "1+1" back-up path is relatively straight-
 forward.  This signaling is very similar to signaling used for
 establishing the primary path.  Signaling to establish a shared
 back-up path is a little bit different.  Here, each OXC must
 understand which back-up paths can share resources among themselves.
 The signaling message must itself indicate shared reservation.  The
 sharing rule is as described in Section 6.4: back-up paths
 corresponding to physically diverse primary paths may share the same
 network resources.  It may therefore be necessary for the signaling
 message to carry adequate information that allows an OXC to verify
 that appropriateness of having a set of back-up paths sharing
 certain.
 Under both 1+1 and shared protection, the activation phase has two
 parts: propagation of failure information to the source OXC from the
 point of failure, and activation of the back-up path.  The signaling
 for these two phases must be very fast in order to realize response
 times in the order of tens of milliseconds.  When optical links are
 SONET-based, in-band signals may be used, resulting in expedited
 response.  With out-of-band control, it may be necessary to consider
 fast signaling over the control channel using very short IP packets
 and prioritized processing.  While it is possible to use RSVP or CR-
 LDP for activating protection paths, these protocols do not provide
 any means to give priority to restoration signaling as opposed to
 signaling for provisioning.  For instance, it is possible for a
 restoration-related RSVP message to be queued behind a number of
 provisioning messages thereby delaying restoration.  It may therefore
 be necessary to develop a notion of prioritization for restoration
 signaling and incorporate appropriate mechanisms into existing
 signaling protocols to achieve this.  Alternatively, a new signaling
 mechanism may be developed exclusively for activating protection
 paths during restoration.

6.7. Optical Internetworking

 Within an optical internetwork, it must be possible to dynamically
 provision and restore lightpaths across optical networks.  Therefore:
 o  A standard scheme for uniquely identifying lightpath end-points in
    different networks is required.
 o  A protocol is required for determining reachability of end-points
    across networks.
 o  A standard signaling protocol is required for provisioning
    lightpaths across networks.

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 34] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 o  A standard procedure is required for the restoration of lightpaths
    across networks.
 o  Support for policies that affect the flow of control information
    across networks will be required.
 The IP-centric control architecture for optical networks can be
 extended to satisfy the functional requirements of optical
 internetworking.  Routing and signaling interaction between optical
 networks can be standardized across the ENNI (Figure 1).  The
 functionality provided across ENNI is as follows.

6.7.1. Neighbor Discovery

 Neighbor discovery procedure, as described in Section 6.2, can be
 used for this.  Indeed, a single protocol should be standardized for
 neighbor discovery within and across networks.

6.7.2. Addressing and Routing Model

 The addressing mechanisms described in Section 6.1 can be used to
 identify OXCs, ports, channels and sub-channels in each network. It
 is essential that the OXC IP addresses are unique within the
 internetwork.
 Provisioning an end-to-end lightpath across multiple networks
 involves the establishment of path segments in each network
 sequentially.  Thus, a path segment is established from the source
 OXC to a border OXC in the source network.  From this border OXC,
 signaling across NNI is used to establish a path segment to a border
 OXC in the next network.  Provisioning then continues in the next
 network and so on until the destination OXC is reached.  The usage of
 protocols like BGP for this purpose need to be explored.

6.7.3. Restoration

 Local restoration across the ENNI is similar to that across INNI
 described in Section 6.6.3.  End-to-end restoration across networks
 is likely to be either of the 1+1 type, or segmented within each
 network, as described in Section 6.4.

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 35] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

7. Other Issues

7.1. WDM and TDM in the Same Network

 A practical assumption would be that if SONET (or some other TDM
 mechanism that is capable partitioning the bandwidth of a wavelength)
 is used, then TDM is leveraged as an additional method to
 differentiate between "flows".  In such cases, wavelengths and time
 intervals (sub-channels) within a wavelength become analogous to
 labels (as noted in [1]) which can be used to make switching
 decisions.  This would be somewhat akin to using VPI (e.g.,
 wavelength) and VCI (e.g., TDM sub-channel) in ATM networks.  More
 generally, this will be akin to label stacking and to LSP nesting
 within the context of Multi-Protocol Lambda Switching [1].  GMPLS
 signaling [4] supports this type of multiplexing.

7.2. Wavelength Conversion

 Some form of wavelength conversion may exist at some switching
 elements.  This however may not be the case in some pure optical
 switching elements.  A switching element is essentially anything more
 sophisticated than a simple repeater, that is capable of switching
 and converting a wavelength Lambda(k) from an input port to a
 wavelength  Lambda(l) on an output port.  In this display, it is not
 necessarily the case that Lambda(k) = Lambda(l), nor is it
 necessarily the case that the data carried on Lambda(k) is switched
 through the device without being examined or modified.
 It is not necessary to have a wavelength converter at every switching
 element.  A number of studies have attempted to address the issue of
 the value of wavelength conversion in an optical network.  Such
 studies typically use the blocking probability (the probability that
 a lightpath cannot be established because the requisite wavelengths
 are not available) as a metric to adjudicate the effectiveness of
 wavelength conversion.  The IP over optical architecture must take
 into account hybrid networks with some OXCs capable of wavelength
 conversion and others incapable of this.  The GMPLS "label set"
 mechanism [4] supports the selection of the same label (i.e.,
 wavelength) across an NNI.

7.3. Service Provider Peering Points

 There are proposed inter-network interconnect models which allow
 certain types of peering relationships to occur at the optical layer.
 This is consistent with the need to support optical layer services
 independent of higher layers payloads.  In the context of IP over
 optical networks, peering relationships between different trust
 domains will eventually have to occur at the IP layer, on IP routing

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 36] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 elements, even though non-IP paths may exist between the peering
 routers.

7.4. Rate of Lightpath Set-Up

 Dynamic establishment of optical channel trails and lightpaths is
 quite desirable in IP over optical networks, especially when such
 instantiations are driven by a stable traffic engineering control
 system, or in response to authenticated and authorized requests from
 clients.
 However, there are many proposals suggesting the use of dynamic,
 data-driven shortcut-lightpath setups in IP over optical networks.
 The arguments put forth in such proposals are quite reminiscent of
 similar discussions regarding ATM deployment in the core of IP
 networks.  Deployment of highly dynamic data driven shortcuts within
 core networks has not been widely adopted by carriers and ISPs for a
 number of reasons: possible CPU overhead in core network elements,
 complexity of proposed solutions, stability concerns, and lack of
 true economic drivers for this type of service.  This document
 assumes that this paradigm will not change and that highly dynamic,
 data-driven shortcut lightpath setups are for future investigation.
 Instead, the optical channel trails and lightpaths that are expected
 to be widely used at the initial phases in the evolution of IP over
 optical networks will include the following:
 o  Dynamic connections for control plane traffic and default path
    routed data traffic,
 o  Establishment and re-arrangement of arbitrary virtual topologies
    over rings and other physical layer topologies.
 o  Use of stable traffic engineering control systems to engineer
    lightpath connections to enhance network performance, either for
    explicit demand based QoS reasons or for load balancing).
 Other issues surrounding dynamic connection setup within the core
 center around  resource usage at the edge of the optical domain. One
 potential issue pertains to the number of flows that can be processed
 by an ingress or egress network element either because of aggregate
 bandwidth limitations or because of a limitation on the number of
 flows (e.g., lightpaths) that can be processed concurrently.
 Another possible short term reason for dynamic shortcut lightpath
 setup would be to quickly pre-provision paths based on some criteria
 (e.g., a corporate executive wants a high bandwidth reliable
 connection, etc.).  In this scenario, a set of paths can be pre-
 provisioned, but not actually instantiated until the customer

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 37] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 initiates an authenticated and authorized setup requests, which is
 consistent with existing agreements between the provider and the
 customer.  In a sense, the provider may have already agreed to supply
 this service, but will only instantiate it by setting up a lightpath
 when the customer submits an explicit request.

7.5. Distributed vs. Centralized Provisioning

 This document has mainly dealt with a distributed model for lightpath
 provisioning, in which all nodes maintain a synchronized topology
 database, and advertise topology state information to maintain and
 refresh the database.  A constraint-based routing entity in each node
 then uses the information in the topology database and other relevant
 details to compute appropriate paths through the optical domain.
 Once a path is computed, a signaling protocol (e.g., [9]) is used to
 instantiate the lightpath.
 Another provisioning model is to have a centralized server which has
 complete knowledge of the physical topology, the available
 wavelengths, and where applicable, relevant time domain information.
 A corresponding client will reside on each network element that can
 source or sink a lightpath.  The source client would query the server
 in order to set up a lightpath from the source to the destination.
 The server would then check to see if such a lightpath can be
 established based on prevailing conditions.  Furthermore, depending
 on the specifics of the model, the server may either setup the
 lightpath on behalf of the client or provide the necessary
 information to the client or to some other entity to allow the
 lightpath to be instantiated.
 Centralization aids in implementing complex capacity optimization
 schemes, and may be the near-term provisioning solution in optical
 networks with interconnected multi-vendor optical sub-networks.  In
 the long term, however, the distributed solution with centralization
 of some control procedures (e.g., traffic engineering) is likely to
 be the approach followed.

7.6. Optical Networks with Additional Configurable Components

 Thus far, this memo has focused mainly on IP over optical networks
 where the cross-connect is the basic dynamically re-configurable
 device in the optical network.  Recently, as a consequence of
 technology evolution, various types of re-configurable optical
 components are now available, including tunable lasers, tunable
 filters, etc.  Under certain circumstances, it may be necessary to

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 38] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 parameterize the characteristics of these components and advertise
 them  within the control plane.  This aspect is left for further
 study.

7.7. Optical Networks with Limited Wavelength Conversion Capability

 At the time of the writing of this document, the majority of optical
 networks being deployed are "opaque".  In this context the term
 opaque means that each link is optically isolated by transponders
 doing optical-electrical-optical conversions.  Such conversions have
 the added benefit of permitting 3R regeneration.  The 3Rs refer to
 re-power, signal retiming and reshaping.  Unfortunately, this
 regeneration requires that the underlying optical equipment be aware
 of both the bit rate and frame format of the carried signal.  These
 transponders are quite expensive and their lack of transparency
 constrains the rapid introduction of new services [17].  Thus there
 are strong motivators to introduce "domains of transparency" wherein
 all-optical networking equipment would transport data unfettered by
 these drawbacks.
 Thus, the issue of IP over optical networking in all optical sub-
 networks, and sub-networks with limited wavelength conversion
 capability merits special attention.  In such networks, transmission
 impairments resulting from the peculiar characteristics of optical
 communications complicate the process of path selection.  These
 transmission impairments include loss, noise (due primarily to
 amplifier spontaneous emission -- ASE), dispersion (chromatic
 dispersion and polarization mode dispersion), cross-talk, and non-
 linear effects.  In such networks, the feasibility of a path between
 two nodes is no longer simply a function of topology and resource
 availability but will also depend on the accumulation of impairments
 along the path.  If the impairment accumulation is excessive, the
 optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR) and hence the electrical bit
 error rate (BER) at the destination node may exceed prescribed
 thresholds, making the resultant optical channel unusable for data
 communication.  The challenge in the development of IP-based control
 plane for optical networks is to abstract these peculiar
 characteristics of the optical layer [17] in a generic fashion, so
 that they can be used for path computation.

8. Evolution Path for IP over Optical Architecture

 The architectural models described in Section 5 imply a certain
 degree of implementation complexity.  Specifically, the overlay model
 was described as the least complex for near term deployment and the
 peer model the most complex.  Nevertheless, each model has certain
 advantages and this raises the question as to the evolution path for
 IP over optical network architectures.

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 39] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 The evolution approach recommended in this framework is the
 definition of capability sets that start with simpler functionality
 in the beginning and include more complex functionality later.  In
 this regard, it is realistic to expect that initial IP over optical
 deployments will be based on the domain services model (with overlay
 interconnection), with no routing exchange between the IP and optical
 domains.  Under this model, direct signaling between IP routers and
 optical networks is likely to be triggered by offline traffic
 engineering decisions.  The next step in the evolution of IP-optical
 interaction is the introduction of reachability information exchange
 between the two domains.  This would potentially allow lightpaths to
 be established as part of end-to-end LSP set-up.  The final phase is
 the support for the full peer model with more sophisticated routing
 interaction between IP and optical domains.
 Using a common signaling framework (based on GMPLS) from the
 beginning facilitates this type of evolution.  In this evolution, the
 signaling capability and semantics at the IP-optical boundary would
 become more sophisticated, but the basic structure of signaling would
 remain.  This would allow incremental developments as the
 interconnection model becomes more sophisticated, rather than
 complete re-development of signaling capabilities.
 From a routing point of view, the use of Network Management Systems
 (NMS) for static connection management is prevalent in legacy optical
 networks.  Going forward, it can be expected that connection routing
 using the control plane will be gradually introduced and integrated
 into operational infrastructures.  The introduction of routing
 capabilities can be expected to occur in a phased approach.
 It is likely that in the first phase, service providers will either
 upgrade existing local element management (EMS) software with
 additional control plane capabilities (and perhaps the hardware as
 well), or upgrade the NMS software in order to introduce some degree
 of automation within each optical subnetwork.  For this reason, it
 may be desirable to partition the network into subnetworks and
 introduce IGP interoperability within each subnetwork (i.e., at the
 I-NNI level), and employ either static or signaled interoperability
 between subnetworks.  Consequently, it can be envisioned that the
 first phase in the evolution towards network level control plane
 interoperability in IP over Optical networks will be organized around
 a system of optical subnetworks which are interconnected statically
 (or dynamically in a signaled configuration).  During this phase, an
 overlay interconnection model will be used between the optical
 network itself and external IP and MPLS routers (as described in
 Section 5.2.3).

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 40] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 Progressing with this phased approach to IPO routing
 interoperabibility evolution, the next level of integration will be
 achieved when a single carrier provides dynamic optical routing
 interoperability between subnetworks and between domains.  In order
 to become completely independent of the network switching capability
 within subnetworks and across domains, routing information exchange
 may need to be enabled at the UNI level.  This would constitute a
 significant evolution: even if the routing instances are kept
 separate and independent, it would still be possible to dynamically
 exchange reachability and other types of routing information. Another
 more sophisticated step during this phase is to introduce dynamic
 routing at the E-NNI level.  This means that any neighboring networks
 (independent of internal switching capability) would be capable of
 exchanging routing information with peers across the E-NNI.
 Another alternative would be for private networks to bypass these
 intermediate steps and directly consider an integrated routing model
 from the onset.  This direct evolution strategy is realistic, but is
 more likely to occur in operational contexts where both the IP (or
 MPLS) and optical networks are built simultaneously, using equipment
 from a single source or from multiple sources that are closely
 affiliated.  In any case, due to the current lack of operational
 experience in managing this degree of control plane interaction in a
 heterogeneous network (these issues may exist even if the hardware
 and software originate from the same vendor), an augmented model is
 likely to be the most viable initial option.  Alternatively, a very
 modular or hierarchical peer model may be contemplated.  There may be
 other challenges (not just of a technical, but also administrative
 and even political issues) that may need to be resolved in order to
 achieve full a peer model at the routing level in a multi-technology
 and multi-vendor environment.  Ultimately, the main technical
 improvement would likely arise from efficiencies derived from the
 integration of traffic-engineering capabilities in the dynamic
 inter-domain routing environments.

9. Security Considerations

 The architectural framework described in this document requires a
 number of different protocol mechanisms for its realization.
 Specifically, the role of neighbor discovery, routing, and signaling
 protocols were highlighted in previous sections.  The general
 security issues that arise with these protocols include:
 o  The authentication of entities exchanging information (e.g.,
    signaling, routing, or link management) across a control
    interface;

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 41] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 o  Ensuring the integrity of the information exchanged across the
    interface;
 o  Protection of the control mechanisms from intrusions and other
    modes of outside interference.
 Because optical connections may carry high volumes of traffic and are
 generally quite expensive, mechanisms are required to safeguard
 optical networks against intrusions and unauthorized utilization of
 network resources.
 In addition to the security aspects relating to the control plane,
 the data plane must also be protected from external interference.
 An important consideration in optical networks is the separation of
 control channels from data channels.  This decoupling implies that
 the state of the bearer channels carrying user traffic cannot be
 inferred from the state of the control channels.  Similarly, the
 state of the control channels cannot be inferred from the state of
 the data channels.  The potential security implications of this
 decoupling should be taken into account in the design of pertinent
 control protocols and in the operation of IPO networks.
 Another issue in IPO networks concerns the fact that the underlying
 optical network elements may be invisible to IP client nodes,
 especially in the overlay model.  This means that traditional IP
 tools such as traceroute cannot be used by client IP nodes to detect
 attacks within the optical domain.
 For the aforementioned reasons, the output of the routing protocol
 security (RPSEC) efforts within the IETF should be considered in the
 design of control protocols for optical networks.
 In Section 2, the concept of a trust domain was defined as a network
 under a single technical administration in which adequate security
 measures are established to prevent unauthorized intrusion from
 outside the domain.  It should be strongly noted that within a trust
 domain, any subverted node can send control messages which can
 compromise the entire network.

9.1. General security aspects

 Communication protocols usually require two main security mechanisms:
 authentication and confidentiality.  Authentication mechanisms ensure
 data origin verification and message integrity so that intrusions and
 unauthorized operations can be detected and mitigated.  For example,
 with reference to Figure 1, message authentication can prevent a
 malicious IP client from mounting a denial of service attack against

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 42] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 the optical network by invoking an excessive number of connection
 creation requests across the UNI interface.  Another important
 security consideration is the need to reject replayed control
 packets.  This capability can assist in countering some forms of
 denial of service attacks.  Replay protection provides a form of
 partial sequence integrity, and can be implemented in conjunction
 with an authentication mechanism.
 Confidentiality of signaling messages is also desirable, especially
 in scenarios where message attributes between communicating entities
 include sensitive or private information.  Examples of such
 attributes include account numbers, contract identification
 information, and similar types of private data.
 The case of equipment that are not co-located presents increased
 security threats.  In such scenarios, the communicating entities
 engaged in protocol message transactions may be connected over an
 external network.  Generally, the external network may be outside the
 span of control of the optical network (or client IP network)
 administrators.  As a result, the protocol messages may be subject to
 increased security threats, such as address spoofing, eavesdropping,
 and intrusion.  To mitigate such threats, appropriate security
 mechanisms must be employed to protect the control channels and
 associated signaling and routing messages.
 Requests for optical connections from client networks must also be
 filtered using appropriate policies to protect against security
 infringements and excess resource consumption.  Additionally, there
 may be a need for confidentiality of SRLGs in some circumstances.
 Optical networks may also be subject to subtle forms of denial of
 service attacks.  An example of this would be requests for optical
 connections with explicit routes that induce a high degree of
 blocking for subsequent requests.  This aspect might require some
 global coordination of resource allocation.
 Another related form of subtle denial of service attack could occur
 when improbable optical paths are requested (i.e., paths within the
 network for which resources are insufficiently provisioned).  Such
 requests for improbable paths may consume ports on optical switching
 elements within the network resulting in denial of service for
 subsequent connection requests.

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 43] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

9.2. Security Considerations for Protocol Mechanisms

 The security requirements for IP-centric control protocols employed
 in the control plane of optical networks would depend on the specific
 characteristics of the protocols and the security risks that exist in
 a particular operational context.  Such details relating to
 particular operational contexts are beyond the scope of this document
 and hence are not considered further.  Nevertheless, it must be
 stated that such control protocols must take into account the issues
 associated with the separation of control channels from data channels
 in switched optical networks, and the magnitude and extent of service
 interruptions  within the IP domain that could result from outages
 emanating from the optical domain.

10. Summary and Conclusions

 The objective of this document was to define a framework for IP over
 optical networks, considering the service models, and routing and
 signaling issues.  There are a diversity of choices for IP-optical
 control interconnection, service models, and protocol mechanisms. The
 approach advocated in this document was to support different service
 models which allow for future enhancements, and define complementary
 signaling and routing mechanisms to enable these capabilities.  An
 evolutionary scenario, based on a common signaling framework (e.g.,
 based on GMPLS) was suggested, with the capability to increase the
 complexity of interworking functionality as the requirements become
 more sophisticated.  A key aspect of this evolutionary principle is
 that the IP-optical control and service interaction is first based on
 the domain services model with overlay interconnection that will
 eventually evolve to support full peer interaction.

11. Informative References

 [1]   Awduche, D. and Y. Rekhter, "Multi-Protocol Lambda Switching:
       Combining MPLS Traffic Engineering Control With Optical
       Crossconnects", IEEE Communications Magazine, March 2001.
 [2]   Lang, J., et al., "Link Management Protocol", Work in progress.
 [3]   Kompella, K. and Y. Rekhter, "LSP Hierarchy with MPLS TE",
       Internet Draft, Work in progress.
 [4]   Berger, L., Ed., "Generalized Multi-Protocol Label Switching
       (GMPLS) Signaling Functional Description", RFC 3471, January
       2003.

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 44] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

 [5]   Rajagopalan, B., "Documentation of IANA Assignments for Label
       Distribution Protocol (LDP), Resource ReSeVation Protocol
       (RSVP), and Resource ReSeVation Protocol-Traffic Engineering
       (RSVP-TE) Extensions for Optical UNI Signaling", RFC 3476,
       March 2003.
 [6]   The Optical Interworking Forum, "UNI 1.0 Signaling
       Specification", December 2001.
 [7]   Kompella, K., et al., "OSPF Extensions in Support of
       Generalized MPLS," Work in Progress.
 [8]   Rekhter, Y. and T. Li, "A Border Gateway Protocol 4 (BGP4)",
       RFC 1771, March 1995.
 [9]   Berger, L., Ed., "Generalized Multi-Protocol Label Switching
       (GMPLS) Signaling Resource ReSeVation Protocol-Traffic
       Engineering (RSVP-TE) Extensions", RFC 3473, January 2003.
 [10]  Mannie, E., "GMPLS Extensions for SONET/SDH Control", Work in
       Progress.
 [11]  Doshi, B., Dravida, S., Harshavardhana, P., et. al, "Optical
       Network Design and Restoration," Bell Labs Technical Journal,
       Jan-March, 1999.
 [12]  Kompella, K., et al., "Link Bundling in MPLS Traffic
       Engineering", Work in Progress.
 [13]  Ramamurthy, S., Bogdanowicz, Z., Samieian, S., et al.,
       "Capacity Performance of Dynamic Provisioning in Optical
       Networks", Journal of Lightwave Technology, January 2001.
 [14]  Crawley, E., Nair, R., Rajagopalan, B. and H. Sandick, "A
       Framework for QoS-based Routing in the Internet", RFC 2386,
       August 1998.
 [15]  Awduche, D., Berger, L., Gan, D., Li, T., Swallow, G. and V.
       Srinivasan, "RSVP-TE: Extensions to RSVP for LSP Tunnels", RFC
       3209, December 2001.
 [16]  Suurballe, J., "Disjoint Paths in a Network", Networks, vol. 4,
       1974.
 [17]  Chiu, A., et al., "Impairments and Other Constraints On Optical
       Layer Routing", Work in Progress.

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 45] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

12. Acknowledgments

 We would like to thank Zouheir Mansourati (Movaz Networks), Ian
 Duncan (Nortel Networks), Dimitri Papadimitriou (Alcatel), and
 Dimitrios Pendarakis (Tellium) for their contributions to this
 document.  The Security Considerations section was revised to reflect
 input from Scott Bradner and Steve Bellovin.

13. Contributors

 Contributors are listed alphabetically.
 Brad Cain
 Cereva Networks
 3 Network Dr.
 Marlborough, MA 01752
 EMail: bcain@cereva.com
 Bilel Jamoussi
 Nortel Networks
 600 Tech Park
 Billerica, MA 01821
 Phone: 978-288-4734
 EMail: jamoussi@nortelnetworks.com
 Debanjan Saha
 EMail: debanjan@acm.org

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 46] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

14. Authors' Addresses

 Bala Rajagopalan
 Tellium, Inc.
 2 Crescent Place
 P.O. Box 901
 Oceanport, NJ 07757-0901
 EMail: braja@tellium.com
 James V. Luciani
 Marconi Communications
 2000 Marconi Dr.
 Warrendale, PA 15086
 EMail: james_luciani@mindspring.com
 Daniel O. Awduche
 MCI
 22001 Loudoun County Parkway
 Ashburn, VA 20147
 Phone: 703-886-1753
 EMail: awduche@awduche.com

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 47] RFC 3717 IP over Optical Networks: A Framework March 2004

15. Full Copyright Statement

 Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004).  This document is subject
 to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP 78 and
 except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights.
 This document and the information contained herein are provided on an
 "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE
 REPRESENTS OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE
 INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
 IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF
 THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED
 WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Intellectual Property

 The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any
 Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed
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 described in this document or the extent to which any license
 under such rights might or might not be available; nor does it
 represent that it has made any independent effort to identify any
 such rights.  Information on the procedures with respect to
 rights in RFC documents can be found in BCP 78 and BCP 79.
 Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any
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 The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention
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Acknowledgement

 Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
 Internet Society.

Rajagopalan, et al. Informational [Page 48]

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