WG Review: Global Routing Operations Working Group Charter (grow)

[iesg-secretary@ietf.org]

A new IETF working group has been proposed in the Operations and 
Management Area.  The IESG has not made any determination as yet. 

The following description was submitted, and is provided for 
informational purposes only:


Global Routing Operations Working Group Charter (grow)
------------------------------------------------

Current Status: Proposed Working Group


Description of Working Group:

 The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is fundamental to the
 operation of the Internet. In recent years, occurrences
 of BGP related operational issues have increased, and
 while overall understanding of the default-free routing
 system has improved, there is still a long and growing
 list of concerns. Among these are routing table growth
 rates, interaction of interior and exterior routing
 protocols, dynamic properties of the routing system, and
 the effects of routing policy on both the size and
 dynamic nature of the routing table. In addition, new and
 innovative uses of BGP, such as the use of BGP as a
 signaling protocol for some types of Virtual Private
 Networks, have created new and unexpected operational
 issues. 

 The purpose of the GROW is continue and expand on
 the original charter of the PTOMAINE WG. In particular,
 the purpose of the GROW is to consider and measure the
 problem of routing table growth, the effects of the
 interactions between interior and exterior routing
 protocols, and the effect of address allocation policies
 and practices on the global routing system. Finally,
 where appropriate, the GROW documents the operational
 aspects of measurement, policy, security, and VPN
 infrastructures. 

 GROW will also advise various working groups, including
 the IDR and RPSEC working groups, with respect whether it
 is addressing the relevant operational needs, and where
 appropriate, suggest course corrections. Finally,
 operational requirements developed in the GROW can also
 be used by any new working group charged with
 standardizing a next generation inter-domain routing
 protocol. 

 GOALS:
 -----

 (i). To provide a clear definition of the problems
                 facing Internet Routing Scaling today. This
                 includes routing table size and route processing
                 load (former PTOMAINE goal). 

 (ii). To collate measurements of routing table scaling
                 data and publish a reference list (former
                 PTOMAINE goal).

 (iii). To discuss and document methods of
                 filtering/aggregating prefix information and to
                 discuss and document what support from protocols
                 or vendor knobs that might be helpful in doing
                 this. In addition, to suggest policy guidelines
                 to RIRs, LIRs and/or ISPs for allocations and
                 aggregations,etc. that may be useful (former
                 PTOMAINE goal).

 (iv). To determine the long and short term effects of
                 filtering/aggregating prefixes to reduce router
                 resource consumption. 

 (v). To develop methods of controlling policy
                 information propagation in order to limit the
                 need for propagation of prefix sub-aggregates. 

 (vi). To determine the effects of using BGP as a
                 signaling mechanism on the scalability of BGP
                 (e.g.,. draft-ietf-ppvpn-rfc2547bis-03.txt)

 (vii). To determine the effects of interaction of new
                 IGP techniques (e.g., ISIS-TE) on the stability
                 of BGP and in particular, what techniques are
                 required to isolate the global infrastructure
                 from the any of the dynamic properties of such TE
                 systems.

 (viii). GROW will document operational aspects of routing
                 security and will provide recommendations for
                 protocol specific work to RPSEC, IDR, and other
                 WGs in Routing area. 


 Some Relevant References:
 -------------------------
 http://www.routeviews.org
 http://bgp.potaroo.net
 http://www.cidr-report.org
 http://www.pch.net/routing/BGP_table_size.html 
 http://moat.nlanr.net/AS 
 http://www.apnic.net/stats/bgp 
 http://www.merit.edu/ipma
 http://www.caida.org/projects/routing/atoms