Takeover Suggestion Flag for the ENRP Handle Update Message

Reliable Server Pooling as described in defines protocols for providing highly available services. The management component used for pool administration is denoted as ENRP Server or Pool Registrar (PR). Since a single ENRP server constitutes a single point of failure, there must be multiple ENRP servers. Servers, denoted as Pool Elements (PE), use an arbitrary ENRP server for registration into the pool. The chosen ENRP server becomes the Home ENRP Server, also denoted as Home PR (PR-H), of the PE. It is responsible for making the PE identity known to the other ENRP servers (by using ENRP_HANDLE_UPDATE messages) and also to monitor the PE health (by using keep-alive messages). As shown in , the following scenario leads to unbalanced ENRP server workload: consider a set of multiple ENRP servers with one subset being unreliable (for example, their network connection has problems) and some reliable ENRP servers. After a while, the reliable ENRP server will get the home ENRP server role for almost all of the PEs, which results in high workload for this ENRP server. Since the home ENRP server role is more computation-intensive (as shown by ), this leads to highly unbalanced workload for large RSerPool setups. This unbalanced workload remains, even when the unreliable ENRP servers become reliable again (for example, when the network problems have been solved).

The Takeover Suggestion Flag defined in this draft defines a flag for the ENRP_HANDLE_UPDATE message. If the flag is set, the receiving ENRP server is suggested to take over the PE specified in the ENRP_HANDLE_UPDATE message.

The terms are commonly identified in related work and can be found in the RSerPool Overview document RFC 5351.

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in .

In this subsection, only the differences to the ENRP_HANDLE_UPDATE message defined in are explained. The following figure shows the ENRP_HANDLE_UPDATE message:

0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Type = 0x04 |0|0|0|0|0|0|0|T| Message Length | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Sending Server's ID | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Receiving Server's ID | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Update Action | (reserved) | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ : Pool Handle Parameter : +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ : Pool Element Parameter : +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ T flag: 1 bit (boolean) If set, the receiving ENRP server is suggested to take over the PE specified by the Pool Handle and Pool Element Parameters. It is RECOMMENDED for the receiving ENRP server to perform this takeover if it has the resources to do so.

The RSerPool reference implementation RSPLIB can be found at . It supports the functionalities defined by , , , and as well as the options , and of course the option defined by this document. An introduction to this implementation is provided in .

A large-scale and realistic Internet testbed platform with support for the multi-homing feature of the underlying SCTP protocol is NorNet. A description of NorNet is provided in , some further information can be found on the project website .

Security considerations for RSerPool systems are described by .

This document does not require additional IANA actions beyond those already identified in the ENRP and ASAP protocol specifications.