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Group Based Policy Specification for Network Service Chaining

URL of the launchpad blueprint:

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/group-based-policy/+spec/group-based-policy-service-chaining

Group Based Policy provides the intent based application-oriented abstractions for the specification of networking requirements to deploy applications. Network Services are an essential component for the deployment of applications. This blueprint defines how policy-based redirection can be made to a chain of network services based on the deployment requirements of applications. We propose an API, Resource and DB model, and a high level design for the implementation of this feature.

One common use-case for using multiple services can be described as a "service-chain" - that is, application of specific services in a specific order for every packet on a specific datapath. This API provides an abstraction to specify that behavior with clear definition of the expected semantics.

The goal of this specification is to provide the user with a tool that captures their high level intent without getting coupled with incidental details of their specific deployment. This then provides a path for migrating such services across technology changes or for hybrid deployments. By design, this specification does not mandate the technology used to providethat service.

Problem description

Typical scenarios for combining services can usually be specified quite succinctly (as traffic on this interface must first inspected by a firewall and then processed by a loadbalancer). Unfortunately specifying that can many times get mired in incidental complexity around service insertion and traffic steering issues. If the user was able to describe that intent, we could orchestrate the required service lifecycle events and steer the traffic as required without exposing that complexity (and the resulting coupling) outside the specific implementation details.

This has the added benefits that:

  1. As we are only specifying the intent, it is back-end technology agnostic
  2. The additional information allows us to provide technology upgrade without breaking service usage from a user perspective
  3. It can support hybrid deployments, or migrations across vendors, even when the underlying technology used by those vendors is different.

Also, when specifying abstractions that are required to be implemented across technologies, it is critical that the semantics that are expected by the API (or implied) be clearly defined so that the usage can actually be portable across those technologies.

Proposed change

  1. An API to specify a service-chain
  2. An API to instantiate/delete an instance of a service-chain
  3. Database updates (new resources) to support that API
  4. Configuration of service-chain-providers in ini file
  5. Implementation of Redirect Action (this will require support in the GBP mapping drivers)

Alternatives

As identified in the problem statement, service insertion and traffic steering provide a more general solution. This is a simpler use-case that does not require those technologies to be enabled. Where traffic steering is available, it can be used as a provider for this API.

Data model impact

The following new resources are proposed:

  1. ServiceChainNode
Attribute Name Type Access Default Value Validation/ Conversion Description
id string (UUID) RO, all generated N/A identity
name string RW, all '' string human-readable name
type (flavor?) string RW, all required foreign-key service-type
config string RW, all '' string service configuration (as a HEAT template) 1
service_params list of strings RW, all '' list of strings list of required service config param names
  1. ServiceChainSpec
Attribute Name Type Access Default Value Validation/ Conversion Description
id string (UUID) RO, all generated N/A identity
name string RW, all '' string human-readable name
nodes string RW, all required list of strings (UUIDs) list of ServiceChainNode
service_params list of strings RO, all generated N/A list of required service config parameter names

service_params is generated by aggregating the service_params of each of the ServiceChainNodes in the ServiceChainSpec. The parameter is not specified in the API to create the ServiceChainSpec resource.

  1. ServiceChainInstance
Attribute Name Type Access Default Value Validation/ Conversion Description
id string (UUID) RO, all generated N/A identity
name string RW, all '' string human-readable name
service-chain-spec string RW, all required foreign-key for ServiceChainSpec service-chain spec for this instance
provider_ptg string (UUID) RW, all required foreign-key Destination PolicyTargetGroup
consumer_ptg string (UUID) RW, all required foreign-key Source PolicyTargetGroup
classifier string (UUID) RW, all required foreign-key Classifier
service_param_values string RW, all required dictionary configuration parameter names and values

SEMANTICS:

The expected semantics would be equivalent of:

  1. As if the services were created to process traffic from consumer_ptg to provider_ptg that matches the classifier NOTE: This is just specifying that the service chain needs to be applied to all traffic that is traversing between the PolicyTargetGroups. The provider may implement it using any valid insertion strategy.
  2. In the order of ServiceChainNodes in the ServiceChainSpec for inbound traffic to the Destination PolicyTargetGroup, and in opposite order for outbound traffic from the Destination PolicyTargetGroup
  3. Not all providers will honor arbitrary ordering of services for application of the service. In that case, the provider will raise a "NotImplemented" exception.

USAGE WORKFLOW:

  1. Assume a application policy that defines connectivity between a provider PolicyTargetGroup (ptg1) and a consumer PolicyTargetGroup (ptg2)

  2. Assume that the semantics that I want to provide are of having all traffic from ptg1 to/from ptg2 needs to be (a) first inspected by a firewall, and then (b) load balanced by a load balancer.

  3. Then I would create a ServiceChainSpec with 2 ServiceChainNodes. The first node would be of type FW and the second one LB. The FW node would have config string as the HEAT template for FWaaS configuration and the LB would have the config string as the HEAT template for the LBaaS configuration. CLI for that would look like:

    gbp servicechain-node-create --type flavor_id --config_file fw_heat_template fw_node
gbp servicechain-node-create --type flavor_id --config_file lb_heat_template lb_node

gbp servicechain-spec-create --nodes "fw_node;lb_node" fwlb_spec

    This creates the ordered-list ["FW", "LB"] as the list of services in the chain.

  4. The spec fwlb_spec created in step 3 would be used as the target of a policy-rule in the application policy

  5. Finally the GBP provider would create a ServiceChainInstance from this ServiceChainSpec. A equivalent CLI command for that would look like:

    gbp servicechain-instance-create --servicechain_spec_id fwlb_spec --provider_ptg ptg1 --consumer_ptg ptg2 --classifier classifier-all --config_param_values "vip=IP1" service-chain

    This creates a chain that applies services in the order:

    • FW->LB->ptg1 for ingress traffic, and
    • ptg1->LB->FW for egress traffic.

REST API impact

  1. CRUD for ServiceChainNode
  2. CRUD for ServiceChain
  3. CRUD for ServiceChainInstance

Security impact

CRUD API is provided using existing API model, no new surface is exposed.

Service/Service configuration is provided by underlying services, so no new surface is exposed.

Notifications impact

1. All updates to service-chain-spec resources need to be relayed to the configured service-chain-providers

2. Updates to ServiceChainNode or ServiceChainSpec need to generate notification to backend to "fixup" the ServiceChainInstances as required.

3. It is assumed that the existing notifications exception handling meets the needs for this API and no new constructs are specified.

Other end user impact

  1. The CLI/UI impact of this new API (not captured in this blueprint)
  2. Additional configuration for service-chain-providers in ini file (configuration of service-chain-providers will be specific to service-chain-providers and is not in the scope of this BP).

Performance impact

No significant performance impact is expected.

Other deployer impact

No other deployment impacts are expected

Developer impact

Devstack will have to be updated for service-chain-providers.

Implementation

Assignee(s)

The following people are working on several different aspects of the proposed framework:

Hemanth Ravi (hemanth-ravi)

Subrahmanyam Ongole (osms69)

Magesh GV (magesh-gv)

Prasad Vellanki (prasad-vellanki)

Mandeep Dhami (mandeep-dhami)

Sumit Naiksatam (snaiksat)

Work items

  1. Build API
  2. Update Datamodel
  3. Build unit-tests
  4. Update Mapping driver implementation
  5. Update documentation

Dependencies

None

Testing

Unit Tests will be provided.

Documentation impact

Documentation will need to be updated for:

  1. Services chain model and usage
  2. Configuration of service-chain-providers

References

  1. Openstack Heat https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Heat↩︎