BESS - IETF 125 Meeting Minutes

Summary

The BGP Enabled ServiceS (BESS) Working Group met at IETF 125 to discuss the status of the current charter, progress on active documents, and several new technical proposals. Key themes of the session included improving MAC address scalability, enhancing convergence times via data-plane notifications, and refining EVPN interoperability and inter-domain procedures. Several documents were noted as ready for Working Group Last Call (WGLC), and the chairs introduced the new BGP Directorate to assist with early technical reviews.

Key Discussion Points

WG Update and Status

Stéphane Litkowski introduced the new BGP Directorate, which will provide early reviews for BGP-related drafts to ensure protocol integrity before moving to WGLC.
draft-ietf-bess-ebgp-dmz is currently in a joint WGLC with the IDR Working Group. Jeff Haas noted that while the document is stable and well-deployed, more feedback is needed to move it forward.
draft-ietf-bess-rfc7432bis is a high-priority milestone; the chairs aim to progress this quickly.
draft-ietf-bess-vpls-multihoming is ready for submission to the IESG.
draft-ietf-bess-evpn-geneve requires authors to provide further justification for its "Experimental" status to satisfy IESG requests.

Technical Presentations

draft-ietf-bess-evpn-umr-mobility-03

Presenter: Krishna Swami
Discussion: The draft addresses MAC mobility issues when using Unknown MAC Routes (UMR) as defined in RFC 9014. It proposes moving mobility procedures to the gateways and maintaining separate intra-DC and inter-DC mobility counters.
Outcome: Authors believe the document is stable and requested WGLC.

draft-ietf-bess-evpn-modes-interop-03

Presenter: Krishna Swami
Discussion: An informational draft defining interoperability between different EVPN service types (VLAN-based, bundle, aware-bundle) and IRB modes (asymmetric vs. symmetric).
Outcome: Requested WGLC.

draft-sajassi-bess-evpn-l3-optimized-irb-04

Presenter: Krishna Swami
Discussion: Focuses on reducing MAC scale by using L3 forwarding models while preserving mobility. It outlines three options for proxy ARP/ND. Option C (Host discovery via BGP control plane) still requires detailed procedural definitions.
Outcome: Seeking Working Group adoption.

EVPN D-PATH

Presenter: Jorge Rabadan
Document: draft-ietf-bess-evpn-dpath
Discussion: Updates include terminology alignment with the EVPN/IPVPN Interworking draft (e.g., using "re-originate" instead of "redistribute"). D-PATH advertisement is now disabled by default.
Outcome: Ready for WGLC pending BGP Directorate review.

EVPN inter-domain-opt-B

Presenter: Jorge Rabadan
Discussion: To solve the lack of identification in AD per-ES routes across domains, the draft proposes a new "Egress PE Identifier" sub-TLV in the BGP Tunnel Encapsulation Attribute. This allows ingress PEs to correlate MAC/IP routes with AD per-ES routes for mass withdraw and aliasing procedures.
Outcome: Requested Working Group adoption.

EVPN Anycast MH

Presenter: Jorge Rabadan
Discussion: Updates to Anycast VTEP procedures, including applicability to inter-domain service gateways (RFC 9014). It allows for underlay ECMP load balancing by sharing a VTEP IP across PEs in an Ethernet Segment.
Outcome: On the queue for adoption.

EVPN-MH fast notification

Presenter: Jeffrey Zhang
Discussion: Proposes using data-plane UDP notifications to signal link failures on multihomed segments. This mechanism is independent of BGP and aims to provide sub-second convergence where BGP updates might be delayed.
Outcome: Seeking comments; authors clarified this is primarily for link failures, not node failures.

draft-liu-bess-srv6-evpn-validation

Presenter: Yao Liu
Discussion: Investigating data plane failure detection for SRv6 EVPN. Options include ICMPv6-based or UDP-based (similar to MPLS LSP Ping) validation.
Outcome: Seeking feedback on requirements and use cases before finalizing the solution type.

draft-liu-opsawg-ipfix-bgp-vpn

Presenter: Yao Liu
Discussion: Proposes new IPFIX Information Elements (IEs) to export BGP VPN next hops and SRv6 Locators.
Outcome: Stéphane Litkowski suggested providing clearer guidance on how these new IEs interact with existing BGP next hop IEs to avoid implementation confusion.

draft-smm-bess-alt-label-00

Presenter: Mankamana Mishra
Discussion: Addresses label churn/loops in "per-next-hop received label" allocation modes. Proposes signaling an "alternative label" using the Next-Hop Characteristic (NHC) BGP attribute to provide extra context and stop recursive label allocation at border routers.
Outcome: Jorge Rabadan suggested including EVPN families in the scope.

Decisions and Action Items

draft-ietf-bess-vpls-multihoming: Chair (Matthew Bocci) to submit to IESG.
draft-ietf-bess-evpn-geneve: Authors must update the draft with experimentation details/justification for the IESG.
draft-ietf-bess-evpn-bfd: Chairs to follow up on the implementation poll.
BGP Directorate Review: Several documents (including D-PATH and MUP SAFI) are now undergoing review by the new BGP Directorate.

Next Steps

Progress draft-ietf-bess-rfc7432bis to WGLC as a priority.
Call for adoption for EVPN Inter-domain Option B and EVPN Anycast MH expected on the mailing list.
Authors of L3 Optimized IRB to define "Option C" (Host discovery via BGP) procedures in the next revision.
Continued discussion on the list regarding the UDP fast notification and SRv6 validation requirements.

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