Computer Networksand ISDN Systems23 (1991) 155-1~O 185

North-Holland

Protocol interworking techniques

Integrated routing for multi-protocol

TCP/IP-OSI environments
Ross W. Callon
Digital EquJpment CorlJoration, 550 King Street, LKGI-2/AI9 Linleton. MA 01460-1289, USA

Ah~'tract
Callon, R.W., Integrated routing for muhl-protocol TCP/IP-O$I environments~Computer Ner~'orks and ISDN Systt:ms23
(199t) 185-190.
This paper describes an Integrated Routing Protocol, based on the OSI IS-IS protocol, which may he used as an Interior
Gateway Protocol (IGP) to support TCP/IP and well as OSI CLNP. This allows a single routing protocol to he used in pure
IP environments, pure OSI CLNP environments, as well as multi-protocol environments.

Kffa'ords: integrated routing, IS-IS, TCP/IP, OSI coexistence.

I, Introduction Use of O S ! I S - I S for Routing in T C P / I P and

The OSI routing framework [2] partitions an
internet into routing domains. For example, a rout-
ing domain may consist of a corporate network, a
university campus, a government agency network,
or a public backbone network. The use of routing
domains provides administrative independence,
and allows different routing domains to use differ-
ent internal routing protocols.
The IS-IS routing protocol [3] provides routing
for OS! C L N P [1] within a routing domain. IS-IS
has been designed for robust operation, simplicity
of configuration and management, and efficient
operation over a wide range of network size. The
IS-IS routing protocol also provides a great deal
of flexibility. For example, IS-IS has been ex-
tended for use in routing T C P / I P and DECnet t
Phase 4. This allows the use of a single integrated
routing protocol for routing of multiple protocol
suites.
This paper describes the manner in which the
OSI IS-IS protocol has been augmented to sup-
port the T C P / I P protocol suite, as specified in
Dual Eovironments [5].
Routing between routing domains is also im-
portant, but is outside of the scope of this paper.
Routing between domains deals with a variety of
policy and administrative issues which are differ-
ent from the issues involved in routing within a
routing domain.
Throughout this paper we will refer to In-
tegrated IS-IS as adding T C P / I P support to the
OSI IS-IS routing protocol. We will tend to ignore
DECnet Phase 4 support. Howc';er, the manner in
which we have added T C P / I P support to IS-IS is
compatible with the way that DECnet Phase 4
support has been added. Also, DECnet Phase 5
makes use of C L N P as its network layer protocol.
Thus the Integrated IS-IS allows one routing pro-
tocol to support all of " I C P / I E CLNP, DECnet
Phase 4, and DECnet Phase 5. in principle, it
would also be possible to add support for other
protocol suites to IS-IS.
z DECr,ct is a trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation.

Elsevier Science Publishers B.V,

186 R. W. Callon / Integrated routing

2. Terminology

Area In IS-IS, a network is divided hierarchi-

cally into areas. Routing within an area
is separated from routing between areas.
ARP Address Resolution Protocol.
AS Autonomous System. The T C P / I P term
for a routing domain.
CLNP ConnectionLess Network Layer Protocol
(ISO 8473). Tile OSI equivalent to lP.
ES End System. The OSI term for a host.
ES-IS End System to Intermediate System
Routing Exchange Protocol. The proto-
col used between routers and end sys-
tems (OS19542).
Host T C P / I P term for an end system.
IAB lnternet Activities Board. The parent
body for the IETF.
ICMP Internet Control Message Protocol.
IETF lnternet Engineering Task Force. A
group working on the T C P / I P protocol
suite.
IP lnternet Protocol.
IS Intermediate System. The OS1 term for a
router.
IS-IS Intermediate System to Intermediate
System Routing Exchange Protocol. The
OSI routing protocol for use within a
routing domain.
ISO International Organization for Stan-
dardization. An international body
authorized to write standards of many
kinds.
OSI Open Systems Interconnection. An inter-
national standard architecture for com-
puter communicat!or~s.
Router A device used to route packets (same as
IS). In IS-IS, level 1 reuters are used to
• S.~l 2 fouler
o laVel I rmJler
X IP host
E "axtecnel" IP router
Fig. l.
route packets Within an area. Level 2
reuters are used to route packets be-
tween areas. A single router may operate
as a level 1 and level 2 router at the same
time.
TOS Type of Service. A specific handling re-
quest applied to IP packets.
QOS Quality of Service. The OSI term for
TOS.
3. Integrated IS-IS
3.1. Overview
Figure 1 shows a simple routing domain which
is using IS-IS. Illustrated are two areas (the two
large ovals), four level 2 reuters, and a variety of
level 1 reuters and T C P / I P hosts. OSI end sys-
tems are not illustrated. Two external reuters
(marked E) provide connectivity to other routing
domains.

Ross W. Callon is with the Distributed Systems At'chitecture group at Digital Equipment Corporation in
Linlcton, Massachusetts. He is working on OSI-TCP/IP Interoperability issues, and is the architect for the
Integrated IS-IS protocol. Mr. Callon is also the co-area director of the OSI Integration area of the IETF,
and is the chair of the 1ETF IS-IS working group,
Mr. Callon received his B.Se. in Mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his
M,Sc in Operations Research from Stanford University.
 R. ~E Ca#on / Integratedrouting
The external routers may offer external routes
for TCP/IP only, for OSI only, or for both proto-
col suites. The external routes are expected to
differ between protocol suites, and so it is im-
portant to handle such external routes indepen-
dently.
Consider what the base (OSI) IS-IS protocol
provides: For example, consider a level 1 router
within an area. The OSI IS-IS routing protocol
allows that router to know the identity and
up/down status of the other touters in its area,
the identity and status of the links in the area, and
which touters are level 2. IS-IS also allows for a
number of important "background" routing fea-
tures, such as "allowing information to be reliably
broadcast between routers within an area, allow-
ing the up/down status of each link to he periodi-
cally checked, etc. In addition, IS-IS allows each
router to know which OSI addresses arc reachable
via each other router in the area.
In order to add IP support to the routers, th~re
are two additional things needed: (i) each of Ihe
routers needs to know how to forward IP pack¢ts
(including how to parse IP packet headers, oper-
ation of ARP, ICMP, ate). This is necessary lot IP
operation, but is independent of the routing proto-
col; (ii) each of the touters needs to know which
IP addresses are reachable at each of the other
routers (at level 1: addresses reachable via each
other router in the area; at level 2: addresses
reachable via each level 2 router in the routing
domain), Thus addition of IP support to IS-IS is
very simple: The basic idea is that you add an
optional field to the appropriate IS-IS packets
which allows each router to tell the other routers
what IP addresses it can reach.
This IP reachability information specifies a set
of one or more {IP address, subnet mask} pairs,
which together specify which IP addresses are
reachable via each router. This IP reachabifity
information is treated independently from OSI
information. Thus the overhead of the operation
of the routing protocol can be shared between
protocol suites, without constraining the address
assignment and while allowing IP packets to be
forwarded independently from OS! packets.
3.2. What integrated IS-IS provides
Integrated IS-IS provides a single routing pro-
tocol, based on the OSI IS-IS, with additional IP
187
information added to the IS-IS packets. This ad-
ditional information is added in a manner which
allows pure-OS! ronters (touters which conform
only to the OSI IS-IS protocol, specified in OSI
DIS 10589) to safely ignore the TCP/IP-speeific
information.
For both TCP/1P and OSI, IS-IS provides effi-
cient hierarchical dynamic routing (for example,
this automatically responds to network problems
such as failed links or ronters). This is based on a
common area hierarchy, including a common level
2 backbone. However, addressing and external
routing are independent.
IP and OSI packets are routed "as is" over the
data link service, without t.he need for encapsula-
tion or header translation. There are optional fea-
totes for Quality of Service/Type of Service rout-
ing. Also, there are optional provisions for authen-
tication,
For IP, Integrated IS-IS also provides support
for 1P suhnetting, with variable subnet masks.
This is important to allow flexible use of the
limited IP address space.
Integrated routing allows IP addresses to be
assigned completely independently from the OSI
addresses. Rontars which use Integrated IS-IS treat
IP addresses and OSI addresses as different things.
There is no need to map between IP addresses and
OSI addresses. The independence of IP addressing
is necessary for two re~asons: (1) due to existing
environments which already have separate and
it,dependent OSI and IP addresses assigned; (2)
due to obscure technical issues relating to IP sub-
netting (specifically related to variable subnet
masks).
There is also an optional provision for encapsu-
lation. If implemented, this would for example
allow IP packets to be encapsulated inside OSI
packets for transmission via OSl-only routers. If
this feature is used, packets are encapsulated only
when necessary, and the Integrated IS-IS protocol
will automatically determine where packets need
to be encapsulated and decapsulated.
Integrated Routing allows for IP-only routers,
OSI-only routers, and multi-protocol routers.
OSI-only routers comply with OSI DIS 10589.
IP-only and multi-protocol ronters need to comply
with both OSI DIS 10589 and RFC 1195. Routers
may be mixed on a per area basis. That is, each
area may be OSI-only (contain a mix of OSI-only
and multiprotocol touters, but forward only OSI
188 R.W. Cation / Integrated routing
packets), may be IP-only, or may be multi-proto-
col. In practice,, due to the great commercial im-
portance of both OSI and TCP/IP. we expect
most IS-IS-based router products to he multi-pro-
tocol.
Multi-protocol reuters must comply with nor-
mal IP and OSI requirements. Thus, for example,
OSI packets are forwarded using normal OSI pro-
cedures, and OSI-capable reuters must implement
the ES-IS protocol (ISO 9542) and understand
data packets in the normal OSI CLNP format.
Similarly. lP-capable reuters must comply with
the requirements for Internet gateways, and must
implement ARP. ICMP, etc.
Link level demultiplexing is necessary in order
to allow OSI and IP packets to share each relevant
type of link. This includes link types such as
Ethernet, 802 networks, X.25 links, and point to
point links using HDLC or PPP. Standards are
already in place for most of these, although some
work is needed to obtain a standard for demulti-
plexing over a single X.25 virtual circuit, or over
an HDLC link.
Standard Management Information Bases are
being worked on for management of the In-
tegrated IS-IS. The MIB for OSI support is speci-
fied in OSI DIS 10589. Additional MIB variables
for support of the IP features of IS-IS will be
developed in the IETF.
3.3. Topological considerations
The use of one integrated routing protocol, for
routing of packets from multiple protocol suites.
requires that a single network topology be used.
This includes use of a single common area struc-
ture and a single backbone.
An alternative approach is to use a separate
topology for each supported protocol suite. For
example, in an extreme case one may place sep-
arate independent restrictions on each link regard-
ing which protocols are ran on that link. This
implies a different partially-overlapping topology
for each protocol suite. This set of complex par-
tially overlapped topologies would require that a
separate routing protocol he run for each protocol
suite, and would therefore preclude use of in-
tegrated routing.
However, this complex structure is not an effi-
cient model for commercial communications. The
largest problem is the expense of maintaining sep-
arate topologies for each protocol suite. This ex-
pense includes additional personnel expense for
managing each protocol suite, poor performance
caused when the topology associated with one
suite breaks due to link failures (the result of link
failures will be different for each of the multiple
protocol suites supported), and additional cost
due to inefficient utilization of the link hand-
width. Similarly, use of different topologies for
each protocol suite greatly complicates the task of
capacity planning. With separate overlapping
topologies, network capacity planning must he
done separately for each protocol suite, although
the interactions between the different protocols on
shared lines must be considered (creating a com-
plex multicommodity flow problem). In contrast,
the use of a single common topology for all proto-
col suites allows capability planning to be based
on the total overall required capacity.
A close analogy can be made between running
separate topologies for each protocol suite, versus
running separate topologies for different admin-
istrative groups within a single company, or run-
ning separate topologies for different applications.
The principle of packet switching is based on
statistical sharing of resources between multiple
users. By using common links for multiple appli-
cations, and for users from different administra-
tive subgroups within a single larger organization,
great cost savings can be realized without reducing
the performance as perceived by the end user. The
advantages of cost sharing and ubiquitous com-
munication within an organization have tended to
drive organizations to combine scattered depart-
mental networks into a single packet switching
network for the overall organization. Similar ad-
vantages will drive the use of a common network
topology for support of multiple protocol suites.
We may consider the requirements on a net-
work from the perspective of the user. A user
sitting at a terminal or workstation wishes to
communicate using a distributed application, The
user wants the network to successfully deliver the
network traffic to the desired destination(s) in a
timely and reliable manner. Whether the packet
happens to be formatted in an OSI CLNP header.
or an IP header, is of relatively minor importance
to the user.
Packet switching allows statistical sharing of
network resources between multiple users, thereby
providing a cost effective data communications
 R. W, Callon / Integrated rou¢ing
service to a large number of users. By sharing the
network resources between multiple protocol
suites, while using a siltgle efficient robust dy-
namic routing protocol, integrated routing pro-
vides the most cost-effeetive solution to packet
switching in a multiprotocol environment. Thus
the manner in which integrated routing shares
resources between users is directly analogous to
the manner in which integrated routing shares
resources between multiple protocol suites.
3.4. Why integrated routing is based on O S i 10589
T h e r e are several reasons why the integrated
routing approach has been based on the OSI IS-IS
protocol.
One reason is that this allows routing to be
based on an International Standard protocol.
The OSI IS-IS protocol is a solid well-en-
gineered routing protocol. It has been carefully
designed to provide robust operation and to re-
spond quickly and efficiently to network prob-
lems. It has also been carefully designed to scale
to large networks where necessary (or more pre-
cisely, to operate efficiently over a very wide range
of network sizes).
A detailed description of the robustness and
scaling capabilities of IS-IS is beyond the scope of
this paper. The reader is directed to [4] for a
detailed comparison of IS-IS with another weU-
known routing protocol.
IS-IS contains features which make it easy to
add multl-protocol support. For example, IS-IS is
extensible in allowing for non-OSI-standard infor-
mation (such as IP-specific information) in the
IS-IS packets. Not only does this make it rela-
tively easy to add IP support to IS-IS, it also
allows for increased flexibility to respond to fu-
ture protocol changes.
4. Advantages
The alternative to Integrated IS-IS is to use a
separate routing protocol for each protocol suite
that yon need to support. This approach is known
as ships in the night (S.I.N.), since the multiple
different routing protocols are intended to pass
each other in an independent manner. With S.I.N.
although the routing protocols are supposed to
189
work independently, there will be some degree of
competition for resources.
Probably the biggest advantage of integrated
routing is that it requires less network menage-
ment by the user. With Integrated IS-IS, there is
only one routing protocol to be configured and
debugged. The interactions between the various
protocol suites are explicit and straightforward.
Since the Integrated IS-IS provides a single rout-
ing protocol, within a single coordinated routing
domain using a single backbone, this implies that
there is less information to configure. This com-
bined with a single coordinated MIB simplifies
network management.
Similarly, with Integrated IS-IS, network prob-
lems such as failed links cause a single coordi-
nated protocol to react in a planned manner. With
S.I.N, when a link fails, multiple routing proto-
cols react at the same time in an uncoordinated
manner. Similarly, with S.I.N, if one protocol be-
comes unstable and starts to use excessive re-
sources, the other touting protocols are likely to
suffer. A bug in one protocol could crash the
other.
Since it requires only one routing protocol,
Integrated IS-IS uses fewer r~onrces. This in*
eludes less CPU and memory in the touter, as well
as less network bandwidth. Also, Integrated IS-IS
allows the implementation effort to be con-
centrated on a single protocol.
Use of a single routing protocol implies that
software maintenance is minimized. Router soft-
ware will need to be upgraded and re-tested
whenever any of the protocols in the router are
upgraded, which will happen less often if there are
fewer protocols.
Routing protocols are real time systems. For
example, if a single router behaves too slowly the
overall routing protocol operation can be jeopar-
dized. Perhaps the most obvious case of this is
that a router which transmits routing packets too
Slowly may eventually cause its neighboring touters
to decide that it is down, and bring down their
links to this router.
In order to guarantee correct operation of a
router during congested operation, it is necessary
to ensure that certain real time constraints are
met. This is easier to accomplish when only one
integrated routing protocol is used. Use of a single
routing protocol minimizes the total amount of
time-sensitive high priority resom%'es required.
190 R. W. Cullon / Integratedrouting
Similarly, use of a single routing protocol sim-
plifies the intellectual effort of determining what
the total set of real-time requirements are (and
similarly simplifies determining the relative prior-
ity between different high-priority tasks).
5. Summary
OSI IS-IS is being standardized in OSI. The
ISO/OSI version of IS-IS supports routing for the
OSI connectionless network layer protocol. The
specification is stable, and (as of May 1991) is out
for "Draft International Standard" ballot in ISO.
The features for addition of IP support to IS-IS
are being specified by the IETF and the IAB. The
IETF specification describes the additional fea-
tures that need to be added to the IS-IS protocol
to support IP. This has been released as RFC 1195
(Use of OSI IS-IS for Routing in T C P / 1 P and
Dual Environments), and is currently an Internet
"proposed standard".
The features for support of DECnet Phase 4
using IS-IS have been specified by Digital
Equipment Corporation. As mentioned previ-
ously, these are compatible with (but independent
from) the lP support.
Integrated IS-IS provides an efficient and
robust method for routing of multiple protocol
suites, using a single routing protocol. This has
significant advantages when compared to other
approaches, such as use of a separate protocol for
each protocol suite. The use of the Integrated
IS-IS routing protocol will allow networks to de-
ploy reuters from multiple vendors and to build a
single, cohesive, dynamic network infrastructure
supporting multiple protocol suites. The use of a
single routing protocol within this networking in-
frastructure provides benefits in network oper-
ations and maintenance; in diagnostics and
troubleshooting; and in network res~urce utiliza-
tion.
References
[1] Protocol for providing the Connectionless-Mode Network
Service,ISO 8473. March 1987.
[2l OSI Rout©ingFramewc~rk.ISO TR 9575. 1989.
[3] lnterm~liate Systemto IntermediateSystem Intra-Domaiu
Routeing Exchange Protocol for use in Conjunction with
the Protocol for Providing the Conncetionless-ModeNet-
work Service (ISO 8473), ISO DIS 10589. November 1990.
[4] R, Perlman, A Functional Comparisonof IS-ISand OSPF:
Two Routing Protocols for IP, to appear.
[5] R,W. Callon, Use of OSI IS-IS for Routing in TCP/IP and
Dual Environments,RFCl195, December199.