Network Working Group                                J. de Oliveira, Ed.
Request for Comments: 4829                             Drexel University
Category: Informational                                 JP. Vasseur, Ed.
                                                    Cisco Systems, Inc.
                                                                L. Chen
                                                   Verizon Laboratories
                                                             C. Scoglio
                                                Kansas State University
                                                             April 2007


          Label Switched Path (LSP) Preemption Policies for
                       MPLS Traffic Engineering

Status of This Memo

  This memo provides information for the Internet community.  It does
  not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of this
  memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

  Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2007).

IESG Note

  This RFC is not a candidate for any level of Internet Standard.  The
  IETF disclaims any knowledge of the fitness of this RFC for any
  purpose and, in particular, notes that the decision to publish is not
  based on IETF review for such things as security, congestion control,
  or inappropriate interaction with deployed protocols.  The RFC Editor
  has chosen to publish this document at its discretion.  Readers of
  this document should exercise caution in evaluating its value for
  implementation and deployment.  See RFC 3932 for more information.

Abstract

  When the establishment of a higher priority (Traffic Engineering
  Label Switched Path) TE LSP requires the preemption of a set of lower
  priority TE LSPs, a node has to make a local decision to select which
  TE LSPs will be preempted.  The preempted LSPs are then rerouted by
  their respective Head-end Label Switch Router (LSR).  This document
  presents a flexible policy that can be used to achieve different
  objectives: preempt the lowest priority LSPs; preempt the minimum
  number of LSPs; preempt the set of TE LSPs that provide the closest
  amount of bandwidth to the required bandwidth for the preempting TE
  LSPs (to minimize bandwidth wastage); preempt the LSPs that will have
  the maximum chance to get rerouted.  Simulation results are given and



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  a comparison among several different policies, with respect to
  preemption cascading, number of preempted LSPs, priority, wasted
  bandwidth and blocking probability is also included.

Table of Contents

  1.  Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
  2.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
  3.  LSP Setup Procedure and Preemption . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
  4.  Preemption Cascading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
  5.  Preemption Heuristic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
    5.1.  Preempting Resources on a Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
    5.2.  Preemption Heuristic Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
  6.  Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
    6.1.  Simple Case: Single Link . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
    6.2.  Network Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
  7.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
  8.  Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
  9.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
































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1.  Motivation

  The IETF Traffic Engineering Working Group has defined the
  requirements and protocol extensions for DiffServ-aware MPLS Traffic
  Engineering (DS-TE) [RFC3564] [RFC4124].  Several Bandwidth
  Constraint models for use with DS-TE have been proposed [RFC4127]
  [RFC4128] [RFC4126] and their performance was analyzed with respect
  to the use of preemption.

  Preemption can be used as a tool to help ensure that high priority
  LSPs can always be routed through relatively favorable paths.
  Preemption can also be used to implement various prioritized access
  policies as well as restoration policies following fault events
  [RFC2702].

  Although not a mandatory attribute in the traditional IP world,
  preemption becomes important in networks using online, distributed
  Constrained Shortest Path First (CSPF) strategies for their Traffic
  Engineering Label Switched Path (TE LSP) path computation to limit
  the impact of bandwidth fragmentation.  Moreover, preemption is an
  attractive strategy in an MPLS network in which traffic is treated in
  a differentiated manner and high-importance traffic may be given
  special treatment over lower-importance traffic [DEC-PREP, ATM-PREP].
  Nevertheless, in the DS-TE approach, whose issues and requirements
  are discussed in [RFC3564], the preemption policy is considered an
  important piece on the bandwidth reservation and management puzzle,
  but no preemption strategy is defined.  Note that preemption also
  plays an important role in regular MPLS Traffic Engineering
  environments (with a single pool of bandwidth).

  This document proposes a flexible preemption policy that can be
  adjusted in order to give different weight to various preemption
  criteria: priority of LSPs to be preempted, number of LSPs to be
  preempted, amount of bandwidth preempted, blocking probability.  The
  implications (cascading effect, bandwidth wastage, priority of
  preempted LSPs) of selecting a certain order of importance for the
  criteria are discussed for the examples given.

2.  Introduction

  In [RFC2702], issues and requirements for Traffic Engineering in an
  MPLS network are highlighted.  In order to address both traffic-
  oriented and resource-oriented performance objectives, the authors
  point out the need for priority and preemption parameters as Traffic
  Engineering attributes of traffic trunks.  The notion of preemption
  and preemption priority is defined in [RFC3272], and preemption
  attributes are defined in [RFC2702] and [RFC3209].




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  A traffic trunk is defined as an aggregate of traffic flows belonging
  to the same class that are placed inside an LSP [RFC3564].  In this
  context, preemption is the act of selecting an LSP that will be
  removed from a given path in order to give room to another LSP with a
  higher priority (lower preemption number).  More specifically, the
  preemption attributes determine whether an LSP with a certain setup
  preemption priority can preempt another LSP with a lower holding
  preemption priority from a given path, when there is competition for
  available resources.  Note that competing for resources is one
  situation in which preemption can be triggered, but other situations
  may exist, themselves controlled by a policy.

  For readability, a number of definitions from [RFC3564] are repeated
  here:

  Class-Type (CT): The set of Traffic Trunks crossing a link that is
  governed by a specific set of Bandwidth constraints.  CT is used for
  the purposes of link bandwidth allocation, constraint-based routing,
  and admission control.  A given Traffic Trunk belongs to the same CT
  on all links.

  TE-Class: A pair of:

  i.  A Class-Type.

  ii.  A preemption priority allowed for that Class-Type.  This means
  that an LSP transporting a Traffic Trunk from that Class-Type can use
  that preemption priority as the set-up priority, as the holding
  priority, or both.

  By definition, there may be more than one TE-Class using the same CT,
  as long as each TE-Class uses a different preemption priority.  Also,
  there may be more than one TE-Class with the same preemption
  priority, provided that each TE-Class uses a different CT.  The
  network administrator may define the TE-Classes in order to support
  preemption across CTs, to avoid preemption within a certain CT, or to
  avoid preemption completely, when so desired.  To ensure coherent
  operation, the same TE-Classes must be configured in every Label
  Switched Router (LSR) in the DS-TE domain.

  As a consequence of a per-TE-Class treatment, the Interior Gateway
  Protocol (IGP) needs to advertise separate Traffic Engineering
  information for each TE-Class, which consists of the Unreserved
  Bandwidth (UB) information [RFC4124].  The UB information will be
  used by the routers, checking against the bandwidth constraint model
  parameters, to decide whether preemption is needed.  Details on how
  to calculate the UB are given in [RFC4124].




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3.  LSP Setup Procedure and Preemption

  A new LSP setup request has two important parameters: bandwidth and
  preemption priority.  The set of LSPs to be preempted can be selected
  by optimizing an objective function that represents these two
  parameters, and the number of LSPs to be preempted.  More
  specifically, the objective function could be any, or a combination,
  of the following [DEC-PREP, ATM-PREP]:

  * Preempt the LSPs that have the least priority (preemption
    priority).  The Quality of Service (QoS) of high priority traffic
    would be better satisfied, and the cascading effect described below
    can be limited.

  * Preempt the least number of LSPs.  The number of LSPs that need to
    be rerouted would be lower.

  * Preempt the least amount of bandwidth that still satisfies the
    request.  Resource utilization could be improved.  The preemption
    of larger TE LSPs (more than requested) by the newly signaled TE
    LSP implies a larger amount of bandwidth to be rerouted, which is
    likely to increase the probability of blocking (inability to find a
    path for some TE LSPs).

  * Preempt LSPs that minimize the blocking probability (risk that
    preempted TE LSP cannot be rerouted).

  After the preemption selection phase is finished, the selected LSPs
  are signaled as preempted and the new LSP is established (if a new
  path satisfying the constraints can be found).  The UB information is
  then updated via flooding of an IGP-TE update and/or simply pruning
  the link where preemption occurred.  Figure 1 shows a flowchart that
  summarizes how each LSP setup request is treated in a preemption-
  enabled scenario.

















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     LSP Setup Request
    (TE-Class i, bw=r)
              |
              |
              v               NO
    UB[TE-Class i] >= r ? -------> Reject LSP
                                   Setup and flood an updated IGP-TE
              |                    LSA/LSP
              |YES
              v              NO
     Preemption Needed ? -------> Setup LSP/Update UB if a threshold is
              |                   crossed
              | YES
              v
          Preemption   ---->    Setup LSP/Reroute Preempted LSPs
          Algorithm             Update UB

  Figure 1: Flowchart for LSP setup procedure.

  In [DEC-PREP], the authors propose connection preemption policies
  that optimize the discussed criteria in a given order of importance:
  number of LSPs, bandwidth, and priority; bandwidth, priority, and
  number of LSPs.  The novelty in our approach is the use of an
  objective function that can be adjusted by the service provider in
  order to stress the desired criteria.  No particular criteria order
  is enforced.  Moreover, a new criterion is added to the objective
  function: optimize the blocking probability (to minimize the risk
  that an LSP is not rerouted after being preempted).

4.  Preemption Cascading

  The decision of preempting an LSP may cause other preemptions in the
  network.  This is called preemption cascading effect and different
  cascading levels may be achieved by the preemption of a single LSP.
  The cascading levels are defined in the following manner: when an LSP
  is preempted and rerouted without causing any further preemption, the
  cascading is said to be of level zero.  However, when a preempted LSP
  is rerouted, and in order to be established in the new route it also
  causes the preemption of other LSPs, the cascading is said to be of
  level 1, and so on.

  Preemption cascading is not desirable and therefore policies that
  minimize it are of interest.  Typically, this can result in severe
  network instabilities.  In Section 5, a new versatile preemption
  heuristic will be presented.  In Section 6, preemption simulation
  results will be discussed and the cascading effect will be analyzed.





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5.  Preemption Heuristic

5.1.  Preempting Resources on a Path

  It is important to note that once a request for an LSP setup arrives,
  each LSR along the TE LSP path checks the available bandwidth on its
  outgoing link.  For the links in which the available bandwidth is not
  enough, the preemption policy needs to be activated in order to
  guarantee the end-to-end bandwidth reservation for the new LSP.  This
  is a distributed approach, in which every node on the path is
  responsible for running the preemption algorithm and determining
  which LSPs would be preempted in order to fit the new request.  A
  distributed approach may not lead to an optimal solution.

  Alternatively, in a centralized approach, a manager entity runs the
  preemption policy and determines the best LSPs to be preempted in
  order to free the required bandwidth in all the links that compose
  the path.  The preemption policy would try to select LSPs that
  overlap with the path being considered (preempt a single LSP that
  overlaps with the route versus preempt a single LSP on every link
  that belongs to the route).

  Both centralized and distributed approaches have advantages and
  drawbacks.  A centralized approach would be more precise, but require
  that the whole network state be stored and updated accordingly, which
  raises scalability issues.  In a network where LSPs are mostly
  static, an offline decision can be made to reroute LSPs and the
  centralized approach could be appropriate.  However, in a dynamic
  network in which LSPs are set up and torn down in a frequent manner
  because of new TE LSPs, bandwidth increase, reroute due to failure,
  etc., the correctness of the stored network state could be
  questionable.  Moreover, the setup time is generally increased when
  compared to a distributed solution.  In this scenario, the
  distributed approach would bring more benefits, even when resulting
  in a non-optimal solution (The gain in optimality of a centralized
  approach compared to a distributed approach depends on many factors:
  network topology, traffic matrix, TE strategy, etc.).  A distributed
  approach is also easier to be implemented due to the distributed
  nature of the current Internet protocols.

  Since the current Internet routing protocols are essentially
  distributed, a decentralized approach was selected for the LSP
  preemption policy.  The parameters required by the new preemption
  policies are currently available for OSPF and Intermediate System to
  Intermediate System (IS-IS).






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5.2.  Preemption Heuristic Algorithm

  Consider a request for a new LSP setup with bandwidth b and setup
  preemption priority p.  When preemption is needed, due to lack of
  available resources, the preemptable LSPs will be chosen among the
  ones with lower holding preemption priority (higher numerical value)
  in order to fit r=b-Abw(l).  The variable r represents the actual
  bandwidth that needs to be preempted (the requested, b, minus the
  available bandwidth on link l: Abw(l)).

  L is the set of active LSPs having a holding preemption priority
  lower (numerically higher) than p.  So L is the set of candidates for
  preemption. b(l) is the bandwidth reserved by LSP l in L, expressed
  in bandwidth units, and p(l) is the holding preemption priority of
  LSP l.

  In order to represent a cost for each preemption priority, an
  associated cost y(l) inversely related to the holding preemption
  priority p(l) is defined.  For simplicity, a linear relation
  y(l)=8-p(l) is chosen. y is a cost vector with L components, y(l). b
  is a reserved bandwidth vector with dimension L, and components b(l).

  Concerning the objective function, four main objectives can be
  reached in the selection of preempted LSPs:

  * minimize the priority of preempted LSPs,
  * minimize the number of preempted LSPs,
  * minimize the preempted bandwidth,
  * minimize the blocking probability.

  To have the widest choice on the overall objective that each service
  provider needs to achieve, the following equation was defined (for
  simplicity chosen as a weighted sum of the above mentioned criteria):

  H(l)= alpha y(l) + beta 1/b(l) + gamma (b(l)-r)^2 + theta b(l)

  In this equation:

  - alpha y(l) captures the cost of preempting high priority LSPs.

  - beta 1/b(l) penalizes the preemption of low bandwidth LSPs,
    capturing the cost of preempting a large number of LSPs.

  - gamma (b(l)-r)^2 captures the cost of preemption of LSPs that are
    much larger or much smaller than r.

  - theta b(l) captures the cost of preempting large LSPs.




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  Coefficients alpha, beta, gamma, and theta can be chosen to emphasize
  one or more components of H.

  The coefficient theta is defined such that theta = 0 if gamma > 0.
  This is because when trying to minimize the blocking probability of
  preempted LSPs, the heuristic gives preference to preempting several
  small LSPs (therefore gamma, which is the weight for minimizing the
  preempted bandwidth enforcing the selection of LSPs with similar
  amount of bandwidth as the requested, needs to be set as zero).  The
  selection of several small LSPs in a normally loaded portion of the
  network will increase the chance that such LSPs are successfully
  rerouted.  Moreover, the selection of several small LSPs may not
  imply preempting much more than the required bandwidth (resulting in
  low-bandwidth wastage), as it will be seen in the discussed examples.
  When preemption is to happen in a heavy loaded portion of the
  network, to minimize blocking probability, the heuristic will select
  fewer LSPs for preemption in order to increase the chance of
  rerouting.

  H is calculated for each LSP in L. The LSPs to be preempted are
  chosen as the ones with smaller H that add enough bandwidth to
  accommodate r.  When sorting LSPs by H, LSPs with the same value for
  H are ordered by bandwidth b, in increasing order.  For each LSP with
  repeated H, the algorithm checks whether the bandwidth b assigned to
  only that LSP is enough to satisfy r.  If there is no such LSP, it
  checks whether the bandwidth of each of those LSPs added to the
  previously preempted LSPs' bandwidth is enough to satisfy r.  If that
  is not true for any LSP in that repeated H-value sequence, the
  algorithm preempts the LSP that has the larger amount of bandwidth in
  the sequence, and keeps preempting in decreasing order of b until r
  is satisfied or the sequence is finished.  If the sequence is
  finished and r is not satisfied, the algorithm again selects LSPs to
  be preempted based on an increasing order of H. More details on the
  algorithm are given in [PREEMPTION].

  When the objective is to minimize blocking, the heuristic will follow
  two options on how to calculate H:

  * If the link in which preemption is to happen is normally loaded,
    several small LSPs will be selected for preemption using H(l)=
    alpha y(l) + theta b(l).

  * If the link is overloaded, few LSPs are selected using H(l)= alpha
    y(l) + beta 1/b(l).







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6.  Examples

6.1.  Simple Case: Single Link

  We first consider a very simple case, in which the path considered
  for preemption is composed by a single hop.  The objective of this
  example is to illustrate how the heuristic works.  In the next
  section, we will study a more complex case in which the preemption
  policies are being tested on a network.

  Consider a link with 16 LSPs with reserved bandwidth b in Mbps,
  preemption holding priority p, and cost y, as shown in Table 1.  In
  this example, 8 TE-Classes are active.  The preemption here is being
  performed on a single link as an illustrative example.

     ------------------------------------------------------------------
     LSP                      L1   L2   L3   L4   L5   L6   L7   L8
     ------------------------------------------------------------------
     Bandwidth (b)            20   10   60   25   20    1   75   45
     Priority  (p)             1    2    3    4    5    6    7    5
     Cost      (y)             7    6    5    4    3    2    1    3
     ------------------------------------------------------------------
     LSP                      L9   L10  L11  L12  L13  L14  L15  L16
     ------------------------------------------------------------------
     Bandwidth (b)           100     5   40   85   50   20   70   25
     Priority  (p)             3     6    4    5    2    3    4    7
     Cost      (y)             5     2    4    3    6    5    4    1
     ------------------------------------------------------------------
     Table 1: LSPs in the considered link.

  A request for an LSP establishment arrives with r=175 Mbps and p=0
  (highest possible priority, which implies that all LSPs with p>0 in
  Table 1 will be considered when running the algorithm).  Assume
  Abw(l)=0.

  If priority is the only important criterion, the network operator
  configures alpha=1, beta=gamma=theta=0.  In this case, LSPs L6, L7,
  L10, L12, and L16 are selected for preemption, freeing 191 bandwidth
  units to establish the high-priority LSP.  Note that 5 LSPs were
  preempted, but all with a priority level between 5 and 7.

  In a network in which rerouting is an expensive task to perform (and
  the number of rerouted TE LSPs should be as small as possible), one
  might prefer to set beta=1 and alpha=gamma=theta=0.  LSPs L9 and L12
  would then be selected for preemption, adding up to 185 bandwidth
  units (less wastage than the previous case).  The priorities of the
  selected LSPs are 3 and 5 (which means that they might themselves
  preempt some other LSPs when rerouted).



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  Suppose the network operator decides that it is more appropriate to
  configure alpha=1, beta=10, gamma=0, theta=0 (the parameters were set
  to values that would balance the weight of each component, namely
  priority and number, in the cost function), because in this network
  rerouting is very expensive, LSP priority is important, but bandwidth
  is not a critical issue.  In this case, LSPs L7, L12, and L16 are
  selected for preemption.  This configuration results in a smaller
  number of preempted LSPs when compared to the first case, and the
  priority levels are kept between 5 and 7.

  To take into account the number of LSPs preempted, the preemption
  priority, and the amount of bandwidth preempted, the network operator
  may set alpha > 0, beta > 0, and gamma > 0.  To achieve a balance
  among the three components, the parameters need to be normalized.
  Aiming for a balance, the parameters could be set as alpha=1, beta=10
  (bringing the term 1/b(l) closer to the other parameters), and
  gamma=0.001 (bringing the value of the term (b(l)-r)^2 closer to the
  other parameters).  LSPs L7 and L9 are selected for preemption,
  resulting in exactly 175 bandwidth units and with priorities 3 and 7
  (note that less LSP are preempted but they have a higher priority
  which may result in a cascading effect).

  If the minimization of the blocking probability is the criterion of
  most interest, the cost function could be configured with theta=1,
  alpha=beta=gamma=0.  In that case, several small LSPs are selected
  for preemption: LSPs L2, L4, L5, L6, L7, L10, L14, and L16.  Their
  preemption will free 181 Mbps in this link, and because the selected
  LSPs have small bandwidth requirement there is a good chance that
  each of them will find a new route in the network.

  From the above example, it can be observed that when the priority was
  the highest concern and the number of preempted LSPs was not an
  issue, 5 LSPs with the lowest priority were selected for preemption.
  When only the number of LSPs was an issue, the minimum number of LSPs
  was selected for preemption: 2, but the priority was higher than in
  the previous case.  When priority and number were important factors
  and a possible waste of bandwidth was not an issue, 3 LSPs were
  selected, adding more bandwidth than requested, but still with low
  preemption priority.  When considering all the parameters but the
  blocking probability, the smallest set of LSP was selected, 2, adding
  just enough bandwidth, 175 Mbps, and with priority levels 3 and 7.

  When the blocking probability was the criterion of interest, several
  (8) small LSPs were preempted.  The bandwidth wastage is low, but the
  number of rerouting events will increase.  Given the bandwidth
  requirement of the preempted LSPs, it is expected that the chances of
  finding a new route for each LSP will be high.




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6.2.  Network Case

  For these experiments, we consider a 150 nodes topology with an
  average network connectivity of 3. 10% of the nodes in the topology
  have a degree of connectivity of 6. 10% of the links are OC3, 70% are
  OC48, and 20% are OC192.

  Two classes of TE LSPs are in use: Voice LSPs and Data Internet/VPN
  LSPs.  For each class of TE LSP, the set of preemptions (and the
  proportion of LSPs for each preemption) and the size distributions
  are as follows (a total of T LSPs is considered):

  T: total number of TE LSPs in the network (T = 18,306 LSPs)

  Voice:

  Number: 20% of T
  Preemption: 0, 1 and 2
  Size: uniform distribution between 30M and 50M

  Internet/VPN TE:

  Number: 4% of T
  Preemption: 3
  Size: uniform distribution between 20M and 50M

  Number: 8% of T
  Preemption 4
  Size: uniform distribution between 15M and 40M

  Number: 8% of T
  Preemption 5
  Size: uniform distribution between 10M and 20M

  Number: 20% of T
  Preemption 6
  Size: uniform distribution between 1M and 20M

  Number: 40% of T
  Preemption 7
  Size: uniform distribution between 1K and 1M

  LSPs are set up mainly due to network failure: a link or a node
  failed and LSPs are rerouted.







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RFC 4829          LSP Preemption Policies for MPLS-TE         April 2007


  The network failure events were simulated with two functions:

  - Constant: 1 failure chosen randomly among the set of links every 1
    hour.

  - Poisson process with interarrival average = 1 hour.

  Table 2 shows the results for simulations with constant failure.  The
  simulations were run with the preemption heuristic configured to
  balance different criteria (left side of the table), and then with
  different preemption policies that consider the criteria in a given
  order of importance rather than balancing them (right side of the
  table).

  The proposed heuristic was configured to balance the following
  criteria:

  HPB: The heuristic with priority and bandwidth wastage as the most
  important criteria (alpha=10, beta=0, gamma=0.001, theta=0).

  HBlock: The heuristic considering the minimization of blocking
  probability (normal load links: alpha=1, beta=0, gamma=0, theta=0.01)
  (heavy load links: alpha=1, beta=10).

  HNB: The heuristic with number of preemptions and wasted bandwidth in
  consideration (alpha=0, beta=10, gamma=0.001, theta=0).

  Other algorithms that consider the criteria in a given order of
  importance:

  P: Sorts candidate LSPs by priority only.

  PN: Sorts the LSPs by priority, and for cases in which the priority
  is the same, orders those LSPs by decreasing bandwidth (selects
  larger LSPs for preemption in order to minimize number of preempted
  LSPs).

  PB: Sorts the LSPs by priority, and for LSPs with the same priority,
  sorts those by increasing bandwidth (select smaller LSPs in order to
  reduce bandwidth wastage).











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                     -------------------------------------------------
                     |       Heuristic       |   Other algorithms    |
                     -------------------------------------------------
                     |  HPB  | HBlock|  HNB  |   P   |  PN   |  PB   |
     -----------------------------------------------------------------
     Need to be      |  532  |  532  |  532  |  532  |  532  |  532  |
     Rerouted        |       |       |       |       |       |       |
     -----------------------------------------------------------------
     Preempted       |  612  |  483  |  619  |  504  |  477  |  598  |
     -----------------------------------------------------------------
     Rerouted        |467|76%|341|73%|475|77%|347|69%|335|70%|436|73%|
     Blocked         |145|24%|130|27%|144|23%|157|31%|142|30%|162|27%|
     -----------------------------------------------------------------
     Max Cascading   |  4.5  |   2   |   5   |  2.75 |   2   | 2.75  |
     -----------------------------------------------------------------
     Wasted Bandwidth|       |       |       |       |       |       |
     AVR (Mbps)      | 6638  |  532  | 6479  |  8247 | 8955  |  6832 |
     Worst Case(Mbps)| 35321 |26010  |36809  | 28501 | 31406 | 23449 |
     -----------------------------------------------------------------
     Priority        |       |       |       |       |       |       |
     Average         |   6   |  6.5  |  5.8  |  6.6  |  6.6  |  6.6  |
     Worst Case      |  1.5  |  3.8  |  1.2  |  3.8  |  3.8  |  3.8  |
     -----------------------------------------------------------------
     Extra Hops      |       |       |       |       |       |       |
     Average         |  0.23 | 0.25  | 0.22  | 0.25  | 0.25  | 0.23  |
     Worst Case      |  3.25 |  3    | 3.25  |  3    |   3   | 2.75  |
     -----------------------------------------------------------------
     Table 2: Simulation results for constant network failure:
              1 random failure every hour.

  From Table 2, we can conclude that among the heuristic (HPB, HBlock,
  HNB) results, HBlock resulted in the smaller number of LSPs being
  preempted.  More importantly, it also resulted in an overall smaller
  rejection rate and smaller average wasted bandwidth (and second
  overall smaller worst-case wasted bandwidth.)

  Although HBlock does not try to minimize the number of preempted
  LSPs, it ends up doing so, because it preempts LSPs with lower
  priority mostly, and therefore it does not propagate cascading much
  further.  Cascading was the overall lowest (preemption caused at most
  two levels of preemption, which was also the case for the policy PN).
  The average and worst preemption priority was very satisfactory
  (preempting mostly lowest-priority LSPs, like the other algorithms P,
  PN, and PB).

  When HPB was in use, more LSPs were preempted as a consequence of the
  higher cascading effect.  That is due to the heuristic's choice of
  preempting LSPs that are very similar in bandwidth size to the



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RFC 4829          LSP Preemption Policies for MPLS-TE         April 2007


  bandwidth size of the preemptor LSP (which can result in preempting a
  higher priority LSP and therefore causing cascading).  The wasted
  bandwidth was reduced when compared to the other algorithms (P, PN,
  PB).

  When HNB was used, cascading was higher than the other cases, due to
  the fact that LSPs with higher priority could be preempted.  When
  compared to P, PN, or PB, the heuristic HNB preempted more LSPs (in
  fact, it preempted the largest number of LSPs overall, clearly
  showing the cascading effect), but the average wasted bandwidth was
  smaller, although not as small as HBlock's (the HNB heuristic tries
  to preempt a single LSP, meaning it will preempt LSPs that have a
  reserved bandwidth similar to the actual bandwidth needed.  The
  algorithm is not always successful, because such a match may not
  exist, and in that case, the wasted bandwidth could be high).  The
  preempted priority was the highest on average and worse case, which
  also shows why the cascading level was also the highest (the
  heuristic tries to select LSPs for preemption without looking at
  their priority levels).  In summary, this policy resulted in a poor
  performance.

  Policy PN resulted in the small number of preempted LSPs overall and
  small number of LSPs not successfully rerouted.  Cascading is low,
  but bandwidth wastage is very high (overall highest bandwidth
  wastage).  Moreover, in several cases in which rerouting happened on
  portions of the network that were underloaded, the heuristic HBlock
  preempted a smaller number of LSPs than PN.

  Policy P selects a larger number of LSPs (when compared to PN) with
  low priority for preemption, and therefore it is able to successfully
  reroute less LSPs when compared to HBlock, HPB, HNB, or PN.  The
  bandwidth wastage is also higher when compared to any of the
  heuristic results or to PB, and it could be worse if the network had
  LSPs with a low priority and large bandwidth, which is not the case.

  Policy PB, when compared to PN, resulted in a larger number of
  preempted LSPs and an overall larger number of blocked LSPs (not
  rerouted), due to preemption.  Cascading was slightly higher.  Since
  the selected LSPs have low priority, they are not able to preempt
  much further and are blocked when the links are congested.  Bandwidth
  wastage was smaller since the policy tries to minimize wastage, and
  preempted priority was about the same on average and worst case.

  The simulation results show that when preemption is based on
  priority, cascading is not critical since the preempted LSPs will not
  be able to propagate preemption much further.  When the number of
  LSPs is considered, fewer LSPs are preempted and the chances of
  rerouting increases.  When bandwidth wastage is considered, smaller



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RFC 4829          LSP Preemption Policies for MPLS-TE         April 2007


  LSPs are preempted in each link and the wasted bandwidth is low.  The
  heuristic seems to combine these features, yielding the best results,
  especially in the case of blocking probability.  When the heuristic
  was configured to minimize blocking probability (HBlock), small LSPs
  with low priority were selected for preemption on normally loaded
  links and fewer (larger) LSPs with low priority were selected on
  congested links.  Due to their low priority, cascading was not an
  issue.  Several LSPs were selected for preemption, but the rate of
  LSPs that were not successfully rerouted was the lowest.  Since the
  LSPs are small, it is easier to find a new route in the network.
  When selecting LSPs on a congested link, fewer larger LSPs are
  selected improving load balance.  Moreover, the bandwidth wastage was
  the overall lowest.  In summary, the heuristic is very flexible and
  can be configured according to the network provider's best interest
  regarding the considered criteria.

  For several cases, the failure of a link resulted in no preemption at
  all (all LSPs were able to find an alternate path in the network) or
  resulted in preemption of very few LSPs and subsequent successfully
  rerouting of the same with no cascading effect.

  It is also important to note that for all policies in use, the number
  of extra hops when LSPs are rerouted was not critical, showing that
  preempted LSPs can be rerouted on a path with the same length or a
  path that is slightly longer in number of hops.

7.  Security Considerations

  The practice described in this document does not raise specific
  security issues beyond those of existing TE.

8.  Acknowledgements

  We would like to acknowledge the input and helpful comments from
  Francois Le Faucheur (Cisco Systems) and George Uhl (Swales
  Aerospace).















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9.  Informative References

  [ATM-PREP]    Poretsky, S. and Gannon, T., "An Algorithm for
                Connection Precedence and Preemption in Asynchronous
                Transfer Mode (ATM) Networks", Proceedings of IEEE ICC
                1998.

  [DEC-PREP]    Peyravian, M. and Kshemkalyani, A. D. , "Decentralized
                Network Connection Preemption Algorithms", Computer
                Networks and ISDN Systems, vol. 30 (11), pp. 1029-1043,
                June 1998.

  [PREEMPTION]  de Oliveira, J. C. et al., "A New Preemption Policy for
                DiffServ-Aware Traffic Engineering to Minimize
                Rerouting", Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM 2002.

  [RFC2702]     Awduche, D., Malcolm, J., Agogbua, J., O'Dell, M., and
                J. McManus, "Requirements for Traffic Engineering Over
                MPLS", RFC 2702, September 1999.

  [RFC3209]     Awduche, D., Berger, L., Gan, D., Li, T., Srinivasan,
                V., and G. Swallow, "RSVP-TE: Extensions to RSVP for
                LSP Tunnels", RFC 3209, December 2001.

  [RFC3272]     Awduche, D., Chiu, A., Elwalid, A., Widjaja, I., and X.
                Xiao, "Overview and Principles of Internet Traffic
                Engineering", RFC 3272, May 2002.

  [RFC3564]     Le Faucheur, F. and W. Lai, "Requirements for Support
                of Differentiated Services-aware MPLS Traffic
                Engineering", RFC 3564, July 2003.

  [RFC4124]     Le Faucheur, F., "Protocol Extensions for Support of
                Diffserv-aware MPLS Traffic Engineering", RFC 4124,
                June 2005.

  [RFC4126]     Ash, J., "Max Allocation with Reservation Bandwidth
                Constraints Model for Diffserv-aware MPLS Traffic
                Engineering & Performance Comparisons", RFC 4126,
                June 2005.

  [RFC4127]     Le Faucheur, F., "Russian Dolls Bandwidth Constraints
                Model for Diffserv-aware MPLS Traffic Engineering",
                RFC 4127, June 2005.







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RFC 4829          LSP Preemption Policies for MPLS-TE         April 2007


  [RFC4128]     Lai, W., "Bandwidth Constraints Models for
                Differentiated Services (Diffserv)-aware MPLS Traffic
                Engineering: Performance Evaluation", RFC 4128,
                June 2005.

Authors' Addresses

  Jaudelice C. de Oliveira (editor)
  Drexel University
  3141 Chestnut Street (ECE Dept.)
  Philadelphia, PA  19104
  USA

  EMail: [email protected]


  JP Vasseur (editor)
  Cisco Systems, Inc.
  1414 Massachusetts Avenue
  Boxborough, MA  01719
  USA

  EMail: [email protected]


  Leonardo Chen
  Verizon Laboratories
  40 Sylvan Rd. LA0MS55
  Waltham, MA  02451
  USA

  EMail: [email protected]


  Caterina Scoglio
  Kansas State University
  2061 Rathbone Hall
  Manhattan, Kansas  66506-5204
  USA

  EMail: [email protected]










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