Subject: WG Review: Forwarding and Control Element Separation (forces)

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 02 Jul 2001 18:38:26 -0400

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

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

Forwarding and Control Element Separation (forces)
--------------------------------------------------

 Current Status: Proposed Working Group

Description of Working Group:
 
The emergence of off-the-shelf network processor devices that
implement the fast path or forwarding plane in network devices
such as routers, along with the appearance of a new generation
of third party signaling, routing, and other router control
plane software, has created the need for standard mechanisms
to allow these components to be combined into functional wholes.
ForCES aims to define a framework and associated mechanisms for
standardizing the exchange of information between the logically
separate functionality of the control plane, including entities
such as routing protocols, admission control, and signaling, and
the forwarding plane, where per-packet activities such as packet
forwarding, queuing, and header editing occur. By defining a set
of standard mechanisms for control and forwarding separation,
ForCES will enable rapid innovation in both the control and
forwarding planes. A standard separation mechanism allows the
control and forwarding planes to innovate in parallel while
maintaining interoperability.

The products of this working group will be:

o A set of requirements for mechanisms to logically
  separate the control and data forwarding planes of
  an IP network element (NE)

o An applicability statement for the ForCES model
  and protocol

o Informational RFCs as necessary documenting current
  approaches to the functional model and controlled
  objects therein

o A description of the functional model of a
  Forwarding Element

o A formal definition of the controlled objects in the
  functional model of a forwarding element. This
  includes IP forwarding, IntServ and DiffServ QoS. An
  existing specification language shall be used for
  this task.

o Specification of IP-based protocol for transport of the
  controlled objects. ForCES will re-use existing L4
  protocols (e.g. UDP, TCP, SCTP) for transport purposes.

The main focus area of the working group will be control and
forwarding separation for IP forwarding devices where the
control and forwarding elements are in close (same room/small
number of hops) or very close (same box/one hop) proximity. Other
scenarios will be considered but at not the main focus of the
work. The functional model of the forwarding element will include
QoS (DiffServ and IntServ) capabilities of modern networking
devices such as routers.  In order to minimize the effort to
integrate forwarding elements and control elements, a mechanism
for auto discovery and capability information exchange will form
an integral part of the standardized interface.

ForCES will coordinate with other standards bodies and working
groups as appropriate. Examples of such bodies include IETF/GSMP,
IETF/Megaco, the Network Processing Forum (NPF), the Multiservice
Switching Forum (MSF), IEEE P1520, and SoftSwitch. ForCES will
review relevant protocol efforts such as GSMP and Megaco and will
extend or reuse them if appropriate. If protocol reuse is
accepted as satisfactory for fulfilling the ForCES requirements
then ForCES may recharter to adopt specific deliverables around
the selected protocol.