Fast recovery in IP networks using Multiple Routing Configurations

Amund Kvalbein Simula Research Laboratory

Motivation
Increasing use of the Internet for applications with stringent performance requirements
Telephony, videoconferencing, online games ISPs must adhere to tough SLAs

The recovery mechanisms in the Internet are not designed for these requirements
Many (most) failures are short lived Failures are advertised too widely! This gives slow reaction and fosters instability
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Our approach
Failure reaction should be local
To avoid instability and overhead Challenge: avoid loops

Failure reaction should be proactive

To reduce recovery times and packet loss Challenge: minimize overhead

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Outline
Multiple Routing Configurations
The basic idea Generating backup configurations Forwarding

Evaluation Load balancing improvement Implementation issues Wrap up

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Multiple Routing Configurations

Guaranteed protection against single link, node or SRLG failures Same mechanism for both link and node failures
Generally difficult to distinguish at neighbor

A configuration is the graph and the weight function

Different weight setting in each configuration
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The general observation

An unused link can fail without consequences So can a single-connected node Several links and/or nodes can be protected in one logical topology
All nodes are still reachable

Build topologies so that all elements are protected

Few such topologies are needed to protect all elements!
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Isolated links and nodes

An isolated link has infinite weight A restricted link has a high weight wr wr is chosen so that the link is used only as a last resort A node is isolated when all attached links are either isolated or restricted

Traffic never goes through an isolated link or an isolated node!

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Building backup configurations

6 1

4 2 5

C0
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Building backup configurations

6 1 6 1 6 1

4 2 5

4 2 5

4 2 5

C1
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C2
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C3
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Forwarding

6 1

6 1

4 2 5

4 2 5

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How many configurations are needed?

16
32 64 128 512

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How long are the backup paths?

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What about load distribution?

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Why bother to avoid overload?

- its only for short while
Motivation for fast rerouting
Do not loose packets Increase stability

FRR should not make it worse for unaffected traffic

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Routing performance during FRR

Given TM estimate: What decides the load distribution?
Link weights in C0 Structure of backup configurations Link weights in backup configurations

Three step approach

Optimize link weights in C0 Build backup configurations Optimize link weights in backup configurations

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Building backup configurations

Optimize C0 independently Identify the heaviest nodes (most traffic) Build configs with good connectivity for heavy nodes

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Optimizing link weights

Heavy optimization task
Dependencies between configurations

Local weight search heuristic

Based on well known Fortz/Thorup method

Optimize only for most severe link failures Take advantage of configuration structure
A link failure only activates one or two backup configurations

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Evaluation Max link load

Real and synthetic network topologies Gravity model traffic demands
Network
Geant

Failure free
0.68

MRC n=5
1.01

MRC n=10
1.08

OSPF
1.20

Cost239
Sprint US (POP)

0.66
0.64

0.99
1.10

0.99
1.10

0.99
1.10

German Telecom
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0.66

1.02

1.02

1.17
18

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Evaluation Number of configurations

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Implementation issues
Representing backup configurations
IETF: Multi-Topology routing
Can calculate independent shortest path trees in each topology

Need ability to switch configuration in-flight Marking packets

Same problem as in MT-routing Reuse of ToS/DSCP bits has been proposed
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Summary
MRC guarantees protection against any single link or node failure Modest state overhead Small path length stretch for recovered traffic Flexibility in how recovered traffic is routed Realistic to implement
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Related work
Failure Insensitive Routing (FIR)
Relies on interface-specific routing tables to infer link failures

Not-via addresses
Calculates one configuration for each protected element

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MRC extensions
Multi-failure protection
SRLG, uncorrelated failures Can guarantee protection against two independent failures (at a cost)

Improved configuration construction

Eliminate isolated links Use deflection in forwarding procedure

Use in TE context
Spread demands on several topologies

Lab implementation
Using Quagga routing software
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