Forces Forwarding Element Functional Model

1. Forces Forwarding Element Functional Model Presented by Joel M. Halpern Megisto Systems, Inc. jhalpern@megisto.com

2. State of Document • Now has most of the sections started • Talks about Capability and State modeling • Talks about FE Blocks, block granularity, and the topology among them • Talks about the trade-off between meta-data and FE Block topology complexity • Outlines kinds of blocks and lists blocks we have so far

3. Fine Grained FE Blocks • The document describes fine grained blocks, on the level of granularity of • Shaper • Marker • Classifier • Not large scale blocks such as “DiffServ” or even “AF” • Open: how to represent IP Forwarding

4. FE Block Description • Describes different kinds of FE Blocks • Input / Output Blocks • Processing Blocks • Describes their parameters • Inputs • Outputs • Meta-Data • State • And lists specific blocks that are needed

5. Classifier Open debate about how to build a classifier • Separate blocks to • Analyze packet and produce meta-data • Perform path branching on meta-data • A single block to analyze, create meta-data, and select from multiple exits The document currently has both

6. Meta-Data • Where and how to use Meta-Data is an open question • Some other I-Ds have some very good descriptions of the “when” aspect • There are many different views on how to represent and work with meta-data • So we need to decide how to tackle that

7. Representation • We need to resolve this • Do we use the same representation in the document and on the wire? • Do we define a mapping between them? • I strongly recommend that we use a computer checkable definition in our document • I also recommend that if we use XML that we use XML Schema

8. Forward • We need to pick a representation and start spelling out blocks • We need to spell out IP Forwarding • We would like to make this a working group document