What is L3VPN  

Layer 3 Virtual Private Networks (l3vpn): L3VPN is a technology based on PE. It uses MPLS to forward VPN packets over service provider backbones.

L3VPN comprises the following types of devices:

            Customer edge (CE) device—A CE resides on a customer network and has one or more interfaces directly connected to service provider networks. It can be a router, a switch, or a host. 

·           Provider edge (PE) device—A PE resides at the edge of a service provider network and connects one or more CEs. On an MPLS network, all VPN services are processed on the PEs.

·           Provider (P) device—A P device is a core device on a service provider network. It is not directly connected to any CE. It has only basic MPLS forwarding capability.

Introduction 

This project is part of ONOSFW for OPNFV. The SFC creation is primarily driven by Openstack Neutron. The SFC component in ONOS implements the SFC creation requests from Openstack Neutron. All the required information for creating a service chain are supplied by Neutron using REST based APIs. Using these information, the SFC component prepares the flow rules as per the IETF NSH header and downloads the flow rules into OVS (OVS version 2.5.90 with official NSH Patch - https://github.com/yyang13/ovs_nsh_patches)

Architecture

SFC is implemented as a bundle within the VTN application in ONOSFW.

Refer to ONOSFW architecture.

What we do

1. SFC is implemented as a bundle within the VTN application in ONOSFW
2. The processing of REST based APIs from Neutron are implemented in ONOS as part of SFC project
3. REST APIs such as create port-pair(SF), create port-pair-group(SF group), create port-chain, create flow classifier rules are processed in ONOS
4. SFC resources such as SFs, SF groups, flow classifier rules are stored in ONOS for processing the create chain request
5. Interaction with VTN Resouce manager, VTNManager for various API
6. Implement the logic for service chain creation and flow rule download to classifier and SFFs
7. Extend the ONOS-Loxi for NSH header information download to OVS

Goals

Hummingbird Release

Implement basic foundation for SFC

Integrate with Openstack Neutron and service the REST based APIs

Interact with VTN Resource Manager and VTN Manager. Store the SFC resources. Define service chain logic in SFC.

Basic flow rule download to classifier and SFF.

Introduce NSH header in the flows for service plane logic in SFC