ASTN/ASON and GMPLS

Overview and Comparison

By,
KishoreKasiUdayashankar
KaveriappaMuddiyadaK

Motivations
Complex process of provisioning of end-to-end transport
service
Heterogeneous transport networks
Automation of end-to-end provisioning
Ability to offer more service
Directly integrate IP clients over WDM

 How?
intelligence into the control plane of OTN
automatic and seamless circuit provisioning
unified control binding technologies

Benefits?
cost reduction and better quality of network operation
simplified and rapid network configuration
switched services and dynamic bandwidth assignment

ASTN/ASON
ITU-T Recommendation G.805/G.8080
Architecture that defines the components and interactions
between components
Distributed control plane
Task of control planes
Call and connection control
Path control based on network state
Discovery for self configuration

ASTN/ASON (Continued)
Protocols must support multi-layer, multi-vendor network

Layering
Administrative partitioning
Operational partitioning
Types of interfaces in the
control plane

GMPLS
Unified control plane for packet and circuit switching
technologies
Four interfaces.
Interface Switching Capability
No NNIs.

GMPLS (Continued)
Extension of routing protocols
OSPF-TE and ISIS-TE
Signaling protocols, RSVP-TE and CR-LDP
Label Switched Paths (LSP)

Multi-layer Resource Model Representation

In GMPLS
Basic topology abstraction is TE link
Link interface can support one or more interface switching
types defined
Interface Switching Capability (ISC)
ISC descriptor describes related TE properties
A particular resource on a link is represented by a label

In GMPLS (Continued...)
Basic service abstraction is a LSP
Concept of hierarchical LSP
LSP in server region represented as TE link or
Forwarding adjacency in client region
Client LSP routed over a TE link == tunneled within a
server LSP

Multi-layer Resource Model Representation

In ASON
ISC concept has been reduced
Optical part of OTN hierarchy is mapped to LSC
Digital path layers of OTN and SDH hierarchy is mapped to
TDM

In ASON (Continued)

In ASON (Continued)
Transport
networks functional
model G.805
Client/server
association between
adjacent layers
Each layer
partitioned to reflect
internal structure

In ASON (Continued)
Partitioning concepts
Starting from the smallest indivisible subnetwork
Contained and containing subnetwork
Contained subnetwork cannot provide connectivity not
available in containing subnetwork
Ports on boundary of containing subnetworks and
interconnection capability are represented by contained
subnetworks

In ASON (Continued)
Partitioning concepts (contd)

In ASON (Continued)
Layering concepts
Layer networks in a client-server model
Termination and Adaptation Functions
Topology and connectivity not visible to client

In ASON (Continued)

Overview of MPLS/GMPLS Concepts

Forward Equivalence Class
Label
LSR
LSP
Label allocation
Next Hop Label Forwarding Entry (NHLFE)
Route selection

From: Dr. Harry Perros, Connection Oriented Networks (CSC 576), Fall 06

From: Dr. Harry Perros, Connection Oriented Networks (CSC 576), Fall 06

Control Plane Architecture

In GMPLS
Peer model
Overlay model
Augmented model

Control Plane Architecture

In ASON
Protocol neutral way
Support various transport infrastructure
Applicable irrespective of control plane that has been
subdivided into domains

In ASON (Continued)
General model of policy
System is a collection of
components
System boundary
Nested system
boundaries
Policy port as filters

In ASON (Continued)
General model of federation
Creation, deletion and maintenance of connections
across multiple domains
Community of domains
Domains cooperate for connection management
Joint Federation Model and Cooperative model

In ASON (Continued)
Joint federation Model

Cooperative Model

In ASON (Continued)
Architectural components
Connection controller (CC) component
Routing controller (RC) component
Link resource manager component
Traffic policing (TP) component
Call controller component
Discovery agent (DA)

GMPLS Control Plane, Policy-based

Management and Information Modeling
Policy based Management (PBM)
Improve collaboration between management and
GMPLS control plane.
Extending Policy Core Information models (PCIM) with
policy events.
Diverse local and global decision logic distributed
among multiple network elements and network layers.

Discussion Items

Advantages and Features.

Types of GMPLS policies and actions few examples
Control plane and PBM architecture.
GMPLS managed entities
Two uses cases to explain PBM in GMPLS

Advantages
Dynamic, flexible and cooperative interworking
Traffic engineering (TE) capabilities brought by GMPLS.
Improve operational efficiency.
New services requires complex and dynamic
configurations of network resources.
Avoid configuring node-by-node and consider entire
network domain as a whole.
Increase automation by using rule sets.

Features
Standardized operational processes in multi-vendor
environments.
Policy rule - Network operator has control over state
changes for a given network function.
Adapting and changing behavior at runtime.
Translating SLA, network and management areas (eg.
Routing, configuration, fault management) into policies.
Adding/deleting/modifying policies in policy
repository.

Features (Continued)
PBM Framework
Policy based admission control.

Policy Information Models

Policies are used to control the
state that a managed object is in at
any given time; the state itself is
modeled using an information
model.
Policy core Information Model
(PCIM), MIB, PIB.
Policy rule It is a binding of a
set of policy actions to a set of
policy conditions.

Policies and Policy Actions

Admission Control Policy
Call/connection admission action, Call/connection Rejection Action.

Signaling Control Policy

Signaling recovery action

TE Routing Policy
Link State Advertisement action, Manage TE Info action

Path Computation and Selection Policy

Path computation action, Link Type selection action

Load Distribution Policy

Load distribution action

Recovery related policies

Control Plane and PBM Architecture

Need for a separate Control Plane
(CP)
Fundamental principles of
GMPLS CP
Separating protocol generic and
application specific mechanisms.
TE Link as a unique application
specific entity.
Two-stage OSPF architecture and
database.

TE Link resource aggregates

that are encoded as links with TE
attributes.
OSPF-TE with opaque LSA
capabilities along with topology
LSA distribution.

GMPLS Managed Entities

Features of NOBEL Information Model.
Specifies managed entities and represents control plane (CP)
Components, capabilities, interworking of CP components.

CP Element represents a control plane instance hosted

by a CP node.
Separate instances of managed entities for control plane
and transport plane entities.

Managed entities representing CP Elements

and components

Use Case 1
Combined call and connection setup via User Network
Interface (UNI).
Considering circuit switch capable GMPLS network.
SLA/SLS information installed in policy and service admission
repository.
Global call admission directives in global Call admission policy
decision point (PDP) downloaded by policy execution point (PEP).
Local and node specific connection admission policies in global
connection admission PDP.

Call and Connection Setup via UNI

Description
[1] connection request using call setup messages over UNI
[1b] comparing client id and port with call admission
directives, does not match.
[2a] call level parameters translate into network resource
related requirements and evaluated by LPDP.
[2b] requirements verified against general connection
admission policy
[3] May be asked to renegotiate due to network or node
limitation

Continued
[4] connection setup is delegated to TEC which checks
against path selection policy rules with LPDP
[5] signaling controller (SgC) requests LPDP to check
against signaling control policy rules.
[6] ingress node signals modified call setup request.

Use Case 2
Event Driven TE Policy action for TE link utilization
threshold crossing event.
Emits threshold crossing alert (TSA).
use case example - Predefined percentage (say 85%) of the
current forwarding adjacency (FA) packet switched connection
(PSC) link unreserved bandwidth is consumed.
TE link utilization thresholds are set.

TE Control action
New FA PSC LSP
New FA TDM LSP eg. At the server layer.

Event Driven TE Policy Action

Description
[1a] TE link emits TCA to TEC, internal signal.
[1b] TE link emits TCA to Management Plane (MP), CPMP interaction notification.
[2] TEC requests PEP to invoke event policy rule.
[3] PEP forwards decision request to PDP (local, global or
both)
[3a],[3b] LPDP evaluates load-distribution action policy
rule. If it does not succeed, create LSP create action
policy is evaluated with global PDP.

Continued
[4] LPDP evaluates path computation/selection policy
rules and delegates TEC to enforce policy decisions.
[5] TEC triggers SgC for setup of server layer.
[6] If success, TEC will check LSA update policy and
Information dissemination policy to initiate LSA
update.
[7]. TEC updated TEDB with new FA-LSP and notifies MP
about result of policy decision [8a]
[8b] TE Link emits state change notification to inform MP.

Bibliography
G.805 ITU-T specification
G.8080 ITU-T specification
ASON Current status of standardization work, B.
Zeuner, G. Lehr, Deutsche Telekom
ASON and GMPLS The battle of optical control plane
Data connection limited.

Control plane for Optical networks: The ASON

Approach, Andrzej Jajszczyk, AGH University of
science and technology, Krakow, Poland
ASON and GMPLS Overview and Comparision, S.
Tomic, B. Statovci-Halimi, A. Halimi
GMPLS Control Plane, policy based management, and
information Modelling, H.Lonsethagen, et. al.