Difference between revisions of "Project Proposals/GPE VPN"

Revision as of 03:21, 27 February 2016

Name

Options: Programmable VPN / VPN / GPE-VPN / Overlay Manager ?

In the rest of this draft the name "Programmable VPN" is used for the project.

Project Contact Name and Email

Florin Coras <fcoras@cisco.com>

Vina Ermagan <vermagan@cisco.com>

Repository Name

<will be chosen depending on the name choice. "pvpn" for programmable VPN?>

Description

Overview

Programmable VPN is project proposal for VPP to enable programmable Software Defined overlays. The Generic Protocol Encapsulation (GPE) [1] will be used as the main encapsulation format. GPE is effectively merging VXLAN and LISP [2] encapsulations in a single format that supports multi-protocol payloads.

Programmable VPN uses an extended LISP-based map-assisted control plane to dynamically lookup forwarding policies on demand. This includes policies such as connectivity, encryption, traffic engineering and virtual topologies, access control, and service chaining. An external open SDN controller will be used as the mapping system to store and provide the mapping and forwarding policies.

Programmable VPN data plane can be secured with IPsec based encryption.

Overlay tunnels, as well as cryptographic parameters, are provisioned on demand.

Data Plane Operations

Programmable VPN core data plane operations include:

• Determining the location of the destination overlay endpoints, encapsulating data packets to the right destination location, and forwarding these packets onto the underlay network.

• De-capsulating encapsulated packets and forwarding the packets towards their associated destinations in the overlay.

To enable dynamic encapsulation a map cache is used that maps flows in the overlay to the location(s) (IP address in the underlay network) of the next hop, or the destination endpoint, depending on the mapping/forwarding policy defined in the mapping system. The map cache would support generic mappings such that the programmable overlay services can be used by a variety of packets and protocols (e.g. L2, L3, NSH [3]) [4]. Multi-homing and load balancing as well as segmentation based on a VNI/IID will be supported.

The map cache is populated on demand using the LISP[4] map-request/map-reply protocol.

Control Plane Operations

Programmable VPN will use the LISP map-request/map-reply protocol to dynamically lookup the mapping and forwarding policy resulting in the location of the next hop associated with this flow. This mapping information is then cached in the map cache for future use. Changes/updates to the cached mappings are pushed to VPP by the mapping system.

Scope

Project scope includes data plane and control plane functions specified in the project description. This includes implementation of modules/nodes that enable dynamic encapsulation and de-capsulation of data packets starting with the GPE encapsulation format, the map cache, and the LISP control plane protocol for retrieval and update of the mapping and forwarding policies. The scope also includes integration with other components within VPP such as IPSec for encryption and NSH.

Initial Committers

<Committers list TBD>

Vendor Neutral

This projects is vendor neutral and implements/uses open technologies and protocols such as GPE [1], LISP [2], IPSec, NSH [3].

Meets Board Policy (including IPR, being within Board defined Scope etc)

Meets board policy as expressed in Technical Community Charter and IP Policy

References

• [1] https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-nvo3-vxlan-gpe
• [2] https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6830
• [3] https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-sfc-nsh
• [4] https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ermagan-lisp-nsh