RFC 2430 (rfc2430) - Page 1 of 16
A Provider Architecture for Differentiated Services and Traffic Engineering (PASTE)
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
Network Working Group T. Li
Request for Comments: 2430 Juniper Networks
Category: Informational Y. Rekhter
Cisco Systems
October 1998
A Provider Architecture for
Differentiated Services and Traffic Engineering
(PASTE)
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does
not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this
memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1998). All Rights Reserved.
1.0 Abstract
This document describes the Provider Architecture for Differentiated
Services and Traffic Engineering (PASTE) for Internet Service
Providers (ISPs). Providing differentiated services in ISPs is a
challenge because the scaling problems presented by the sheer number
of flows present in large ISPs makes the cost of maintaining per-flow
state unacceptable. Coupled with this, large ISPs need the ability
to perform traffic engineering by directing aggregated flows of
traffic along specific paths.
PASTE addresses these issues by using Multiprotocol Label Switching
(MPLS) [1] and the Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP) [2] to create
a scalable traffic management architecture that supports
differentiated services. This document assumes that the reader has
at least some familiarity with both of these technologies.
2.0 Terminology
In common usage, a packet flow, or a flow, refers to a unidirectional
stream of packets, distributed over time. Typically a flow has very
fine granularity and reflects a single interchange between hosts,
such as a TCP connection. An aggregated flow is a number of flows
that share forwarding state and a single resource reservation along a
sequence of routers.
Li & Rekhter Informational