Subject: draft-ietf-bmwg-call-01.txt

From: Kevin Dubray <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1998 11:20:12 -0700

Network Working Group                                       R. Craig
INTERNET-DRAFT                                         Cisco Systems
Expires in six months                                     March 1997

                 Terminology for Cell/Call Benchmarking

Status of this Memo

   This document is an Internet-Draft.  Internet-Drafts are working
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Abstract

   The purpose of this draft is to add terminology specific to the cell
   and call-based switch environment to that defined by the Benchmarking
   Methodology Working Group (BMWG) of the Internet Engineering Task
   Force (IETF) in RFC1242.

   While primarily directed towards wide area switches, portions of the
   document may be useful for benchmarking other devices such as ADSU's.

1.  Introduction

   In light of the increasing use of cell-based and/or circuit-switched
   transport layers in building networks, it would be useful to develop
   a set of benchmarks with which to compare technologies,
   implementation strategies, and products.

   1.1  Terminology Brought Forward

      The terminology defined in RFC 1242 applies equally well to this
      memo.  There is also a certain amount of overlap with terms
      defined in draft-ietf-bmwg-lanswitch-00.txt.

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2.  Definition Format (from RFC1242)

   Term to be defined.

   Definition:
      The specific definition for the term.

   Discussion:
      A brief discussion of the term, its application and any
      restrictions on measurement procedures.

   Measurement units:
      Units used to record measurements of this term, if applicable.

3.  Term Definitions

3.1  Virtual Circuit

   This group applies to those switches that are connection-oriented.

   3.1.1  Call setup time

      Definition:  the length of time for the virtual circuit to be
      established.

      Discussion:  as measured from the initiation of the signalling to
      circuit establishment.

      Measurement units:  fractional seconds

      Issues:

      See also:

   3.1.2  Call setup rate (sustained)

      Definition:  the maximum sustained rate of successful connection
      establishment.

      Discussion:  without loss of existing calls.

      Measurement units:  calls per second

      Issues:

      See also:

   3.1.3  Call maintenance overhead

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      Definition:  the amount of work required to maintain the calls
      that have been established.

      Discussion:  a method to obtain the desired result would be to
      benchmark with PVC's in place, then with SVC's.  The difference in
      results would be the overhead.

      Measurement units:

      Issues:

      See also:

   3.1.4  Call teardown time

      Definition:  the length of time for the virtual circuit to be torn
      down.

      Discussion:  measured from the start of the signalling to the
      freeing of the resources associated with that call (end to end, if
      applicable).

      Measurement units:  fractional seconds

      Issues:

      See also:

   3.1.5  Call teardown rate (sustained)

      Definition:  the maximum rate at which calls can be successfully
      torn down.

      Discussion:  without loss of existing calls, and without failure
      to tear down any calls that have been signalled to be destroyed.

      Measurement units:  teardowns per second

      Issues:

      See also:

   3.1.6  Impact of Signalling on Forwarding

      Definition:  cells per second versus calls per second

      Discussion:  some devices use the same engine for cell forwarding
      and call maintenance.  In this case, interaction between the two

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      functions will be inevitable.  More interesting, however, would be
      the case where the two processing functions are clearly separate,
      yet still interact.

      Measurement units:  cells per second versus calls per second

      Issues:

      See also:

3.2  Cell/Packet Interaction

   This group applies to cell-based switches, connection-oriented or
   not.

   3.2.1  Packet disassembly/reassembly time (peak)

      Definition:  the length of time to disassemble a layer 3 packet
      into layer 2 cells, or reassemble cells into a packet.

      Discussion:  with no packet or cell loss or corruption.  To arrive
      at a baseline, one could measure the switching rate for cells
      derived from ~1440 byte frames which are flowing across the switch
      as cells, then forward those same frames into the switch from an
      interface which would require them to be disassembled.  For
      example, the baseline measurement is taken while switching cells
      OC3-OC3.  Then switch FDDI or POS-OC3 and take the delta in
      performance as the SAR overhead.

      Measurement units:  the appropriate fraction of a second

      Issues:

      See also:

   3.2.2  Packet disassembly/reassembly rate (sustained)

      Definition:  the maximum sustained rate at which packets can be
      disassembled/reassembled into/from cells.

      Discussion:  without loss or corruption.

      Measurement units:  packets per second

      Issues:

      See also:

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   3.2.3  Full packet drop rate (on cell loss)

      Definition:  the rate at which cell loss triggering full packet
      drop can be detected/sustained.

      Discussion:  When a packet is disassembled into cells, typically
      many cells result.  When these cells are transmitted, they are
      subject to loss or corruption. The device should recognize at the
      cell/packet boundary that a cell or cells belonging to a given
      packet has been lost and should drop that packet, immediately
      freeing those resources.  A couple of things are of interest here:
      whether the switch is able to detect very small amounts of cell
      loss and correctly drop the associated packets and whether large
      amounts of cell loss perturb this ability in any way.

      Measurement units:  (dropped) packets per second

      Issues:

      See also:

   3.2.4  End to end data integrity

      Definition:  the percentage of packets (post-reassembly) that
      actually contain undetected data link layer corruption.

      Discussion:  some network devices have been known to regenerate
      CRC's over the re-assembled packet (i.e., the CRC is not carried
      end to end), resulting in undetected data link layer corruption or
      re-ordering of cells in a packet.

      Measurement units:  percentage

      Issues:  production of a stream of traffic containing internal
      checksums sufficiently strong to detect cell re-ordering (the IP
      checksum is not).  The ISIS LSP checksum is.

      See also:

3.3  Switch Fabric

   This group applies to all switches.

   3.3.2  Topology Table Size

      Definition:  number of network elements supported.

      Discussion:  switches may support a limited topology due to static

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      table sizes or processing limitations.  This is true whether it's
      a "LAN" switch running spanning tree or a "WAN" switch running
      OSPF.  The effect of a limited topology table on a switch in a
      real-world environment can be disastrous.

      A similar metric (2.14 Address handling) is mentioned in "draft-
      ietf-bmwg-lanswitch-00.txt".  Here, a more general metric is
      intended.

      Measurement units:  number

      Issues:  Measuring the effects of an overflow is probably
      meaningless, since in the multi-switch case, there is no longer
      any network to speak of, hence, nothing to measure.

      If a device handles table overflow gracefully, this should be
      noted.  Similarly, if a device crashes and burns on table
      overflow, this should be noted.

      See also:

   3.3.3  Topology Table Learning Rate

      Definition:  the rate at which the topology table can be filled or
      updated.

      Discussion:  a single switch in isolation learning MAC addresses
      will flood frames when the rate exceeds its learning capability.
      This metric is covered in "2.15 Address learning speed" of
      "draft-ietf-bmwg-lanswitch-00.txt".  We generalize the metric here
      to include the topological databases of routing protocols used in
      switched networks (among the switches themselves) as well as the
      spanning tree recalculation among multiple LAN switches.

      Measurement units:  frames per second 1) with maximum diversity of
      addresses, 2) with routing instability introduced.

      Issues:

      See also:

   3.3.5  Throughput (from RFC1242) (Cell forwarding rate)

      Definition:  The maximum rate at which none of the offered frames
      are dropped by the device.

      Discussion:  This metric probably overlaps work being done in the
      ATM Forum.

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      Measurement units:  cells per second

      Issues:

      See also:

   3.3.6 Blocking Probability

      Definition:  likelihood of successful simultaneous communication
      amongst multiple ports.

      Discussion:  a switch is termed "non-blocking" if multiple ports
      are able to communicate across the switch fabric at the same time.
      We are interested in the probability of blocking occurring in the
      1:1, N:1, and N:M scenarios.

      One may calculate the "ideal" throughput in the absence of
      blocking, then take the delta with the experimental case and treat
      that as an empirical measurement of blocking probability, if
      enough samples are taken.

      Measurement units:  percentage likelihood of blocking.

      Issues:

      See also:

3.5  Congestion Control

   This group applies to all switches.

   3.5.1  Congestion avoidance

      Definition:  effectiveness of measures taken by the switch to
      avoid congestion.

      Discussion:  connections that are bursting above their committed
      rate may have cells buffered at the ingress, in order to avoid
      congestion in the trunks and impact on other connections, or they
      may simply be marked "discard-eligible" and forwarded into the
      network, hoping for the best.

      Distinguishing between these two approaches should be relatively
      simple.  In the first case, latency for the bursting session
      increases, but there is no cell loss.  Other sessions are
      unaffected.  In the second case, there may be cell loss across any
      of the sessions, and latency may increase across all.

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      Measurement units:  dropped cells, latency

      Issues:

      See also:

   3.5.2  Congestion management

      Definition:  effectiveness of measures taken by the switch to deal
      with congestion.

      Discussion:  in the face of sustained traffic above committed rate
      on multiple sessions, a switch has little choice but to begin
      discarding cells, since buffering cannot be infinite.  This case
      might arise if one were wildly profligate in over-subscribing
      trunk bandwidth, or if one had neglected to analyze the network
      applications to be run over the network and they were found to be
      network-hostile (UDP, IPX, AT, NetBIOS, for example).

      The switch has some discretion in deciding which cells to drop.
      Presumably, the strategy should involve something resembling
      "fairness".

      The basic idea is that ill-behaved connections should not starve
      others for resources.

      Measurement units:  latency, cell drops

      Issues:

      See also:

3.6  Inter-switch protocols

   This group applies to all switches.

   3.6.1  Impact of Routing on Forwarding

      Definition:  interaction between routing protocol and data
      forwarding operations.

      Discussion:  No amount of routing fluctuation should have an
      impact on data forwarding for unaffected destinations.  Similarly,
      no amount of data forwarding should cause the routing to become
      unstable.

      Measurement units:  route flaps per second versus cells per
      second, cells per second versus route stability (table fluctuation

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      or peer loss).

      Issues:

      See also:

   3.6.2  Impact of Congestion Control

      Definition:  interaction between congestion control and data
      forwarding operations.

      Discussion:  switches may share views of congestion in-band
      through the network.  Should these feedback messages be delayed or
      lost, the potential exists for an incorrect picture of current
      network conditions, which may exacerbate congestion and lead to
      cell loss.  Worse, it is possible to enter a stable oscillation
      state, where ever-increasing waves of congestion overwhelm the
      switches.

      Measurement units:

      Issues:

      See also:

3.7  Quality of Service

   This group applies to all switches.

   3.7.1  Traffic Management Policing

      Definition:  impact of misbehaving class on others, for example
      data forwarding on voice or video frames and vice versa.

      Discussion:  we wish to quantify the potential interaction amongst
      the various classes of service.  Constant bit rate (CBR), variable
      bit rate (VBR) (real and non-real time?), and available bit rate
      (ABR) streams are established, within their respective service
      levels, but sufficient to subscribe the trunk to 90%.  The bit
      rate of each is increased until it has exceeded its allocation by
      a degree which should cause loss or delay in the other streams.

      Measurement units:  cells (lost) per second, latency

      Issues:  some switches perform compression and silence
      suppression.  Should these features be disabled?

      See also:

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3.8  Multicast

   3.8.1  Cell replication

      Definition:  the device's ability to forward a cell to multiple
      ports simultaneously (multicast).

      Discussion:

      Measurement units:  replication factor 1:N and cells per second
      measured at ingress versus cells per second measured at the
      egresses.

      Issues:

      See also:

   3.8.2  Impact of multicast on unicast

      Definition:  switch's ability to insulate unicast traffic from the
      effects of multicast.

      Discussion:  a poorly-designed replication scheme could easily
      swamp unicast traffic.  Yet, multicast traffic often has QoS
      needs.  How does one reconcile the competing requirements?

      Measurement units:  cell loss, delay

      Issues:

      See also:

Security Considerations

   Security issues are not addressed in this memo.

Editor's Address

   Robert Craig
   Cisco Systems
   7025 Kit Creek Road
   PO Box 14987
   Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
   (919) 472-2886
   [email-masked]

Benchmarking Methodology Working Group                         [Page 10]