Neutron/ServiceChainUseCases

Service Chain Use Cases

SFC Encapsulation

Use case status: not yet supported.

SFC Encapsulation is an architectural principle of Service Function Chaining, as described in the respective published RFCs so far [sfc_encap_7498, sfc_encap_7665]. The concept decouples the forwarding plane from the service plane and, besides being able to carry metadata, enables truly dynamic service chains by having them being composed of multiple SFPs (Service Function Paths) that can selected throughout the chain based on classification criteria (instead of pre-selected based on classification criteria, somewhat like pre-defining an RSP [Rendered Service Path]). The only approved, but not yet released, SFC Encapsulation protocol is NSH [sfc_encap_nsh].

The networking-sfc team has stated its intent to support NSH, consequently embracing SFC Encapsulation. To fully leverage this concept, however, a few changes more changes to the project are necessary. The following links contain discussion and information relevant to understand and achieve this use case (or use case enabler): [sfc_encap_discussion, sfc_encap_api_proposal].

If the networking-sfc team is welcoming of this proposal, a Proof of Concept based on networking-sfc will be developed to show this feature, based on the latest OVS NSH patches: [sfc_encap_ovs].

Assignee: Igor Duarte Cardoso.

References

[sfc_encap_7498]: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc7498/?include_text=1 [sfc_encap_7665]: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc7665/?include_text=1 [sfc_encap_nsh]: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-sfc-nsh/?include_text=1 [sfc_encap_discussion]: https://etherpad.openstack.org/p/networking-sfc-and-sfc-encapsulation [sfc_encap_api_proposal]: https://review.openstack.org/#/c/308453/ [sfc_encap_ovs]: https://github.com/yyang13/ovs_nsh_patches/tree/98e1d3d6b1ed49d902edaede11820853b0ad5037