path: root/doc/rfc/rfc3568.txt

Network Working Group                                          A. Barbir
Request for Comments: 3568                               Nortel Networks
Category: Informational                                          B. Cain
                                                        Storigen Systems
                                                                 R. Nair
                                                              Consultant
                                                           O. Spatscheck
                                                                    AT&T
                                                               July 2003


         Known Content Network (CN) Request-Routing Mechanisms

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 (2003).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   This document presents a summary of Request-Routing techniques that
   are used to direct client requests to surrogates based on various
   policies and a possible set of metrics.  The document covers
   techniques that were commonly used in the industry on or before
   December 2000.  In this memo, the term Request-Routing represents
   techniques that is commonly called content routing or content
   redirection.  In principle, Request-Routing techniques can be
   classified under: DNS Request-Routing, Transport-layer
   Request-Routing, and Application-layer Request-Routing.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
   2.  DNS based Request-Routing Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
       2.1.  Single Reply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
       2.2.  Multiple Replies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
       2.3.  Multi-Level Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
             2.3.1.  NS Redirection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
             2.3.2.  CNAME Redirection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
       2.4.  Anycast. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
       2.5.  Object Encoding. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
       2.6.  DNS Request-Routing Limitations. . . . . . . . . . . . 6
   3.  Transport-Layer Request-Routing  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7



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   4.  Application-Layer Request-Routing  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
       4.1.  Header Inspection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
             4.1.1.  URL-Based Request-Routing. . . . . . . . . . . 8
             4.1.2.  Header-Based Request-Routing . . . . . . . . . 9
             4.1.3.  Site-Specific Identifiers. . . . . . . . . . .10
       4.2.  Content Modification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10
             4.2.1.  A-priori URL Rewriting . . . . . . . . . . . .11
             4.2.2.  On-Demand URL Rewriting. . . . . . . . . . . .11
             4.2.3.  Content Modification Limitations . . . . . . .11
   5.  Combination of Multiple Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . .11
   6.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12
   7.  Additional Authors and Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . .12
   A.  Measurements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
       A.1.  Proximity Measurements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
             A.1.1.  Active Probing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
             A.1.2.  Metric Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14
             A.1.3.  Surrogate Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14
   8.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
   9.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
   10. Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . .17
   11. Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
   12. Full Copyright Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

1.  Introduction

   This document provides a summary of known request routing techniques
   that are used by the industry before December 2000.  Request routing
   techniques are generally used to direct client requests to surrogates
   based on various policies and a possible set of metrics.  The task of
   directing clients' requests to surrogates is also called
   Request-Routing, Content Routing or Content Redirection.

   Request-Routing techniques are commonly used in Content Networks
   (also known as Content Delivery Networks) [8].  Content Networks
   include network infrastructure that exists in layers 4 through 7.
   Content Networks deal with the routing and forwarding of requests and
   responses for content. Content Networks rely on layer 7 protocols
   such as HTTP [4] for transport.

   Request-Routing techniques are generally used to direct client
   requests for objects to a surrogate or a set of surrogates that could
   best serve that content.  Request-Routing mechanisms could be used to
   direct client requests to surrogates that are within a Content
   Network (CN) [8].







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   Request-Routing techniques are used as a vehicle to extend the reach
   and scale of Content Delivery Networks.  There exist multiple
   Request-Routing mechanisms.  At a high-level, these may be classified
   under: DNS Request-Routing, transport-layer Request-Routing, and
   application-layer Request-Routing.

   A request routing system uses a set of metrics in an attempt to
   direct users to surrogate that can best serve the request.  For
   example, the choice of the surrogate could be based on network
   proximity, bandwidth availability, surrogate load and availability of
   content.  Appendix A provides a summary of metrics and measurement
   techniques that could be used in the selection of the best surrogate.

   The memo is organized as follows: Section 2 provides a summary of
   known DNS based Request-Routing techniques.  Section 3 discusses
   transport-layer Request-Routing methods.  In section 4 application
   layer Request-Routing mechanisms are explored.  Section 5 provides
   insight on combining the various methods that were discussed in the
   earlier sections in order to optimize the performance of the
   Request-Routing System.  Appendix A provides a summary of possible
   metrics and measurements techniques that could be used by the
   Request-Routing system to choose a given surrogate.

2.  DNS based Request-Routing Mechanisms

   DNS based Request-Routing techniques are common due to the ubiquity
   of the DNS system [10][12][13].  In DNS based Request-Routing
   techniques, a specialized DNS server is inserted in the DNS
   resolution process.  The server is capable of returning a different
   set of A, NS or CNAME records based on user defined policies,
   metrics, or a combination of both.  In [11] RFC 2782 (DNS SRV)
   provides guidance on the use of DNS for load balancing.  The RFC
   describes some of the limitations and suggests appropriate useage of
   DNS based techniques.  The next sections provides a summary of some
   of the used techniques.

2.1.  Single Reply

   In this approach, the DNS server is authoritative for the entire DNS
   domain or a sub domain.  The DNS server returns the IP address of the
   best surrogate in an A record to the requesting DNS server.  The IP
   address of the surrogate could also be a virtual IP(VIP) address of
   the best set of surrogates for requesting DNS server.








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2.2.  Multiple Replies

   In this approach, the Request-Routing DNS server returns multiple
   replies such as several A records for various surrogates.  Common
   implementations of client site DNS server's cycles through the
   multiple replies in a Round-Robin fashion.  The order in which the
   records are returned can be used to direct multiple clients using a
   single client site DNS server.

2.3.  Multi-Level Resolution

   In this approach multiple Request-Routing DNS servers can be involved
   in a single DNS resolution.  The rationale of utilizing multiple
   Request-Routing DNS servers in a single DNS resolution is to allow
   one to distribute more complex decisions from a single server to
   multiple, more specialized, Request-Routing DNS servers.  The most
   common mechanisms used to insert multiple Request-Routing DNS servers
   in a single DNS resolution is the use of NS and CNAME records.  An
   example would be the case where a higher level DNS server operates
   within a territory, directing the DNS lookup to a more specific DNS
   server within that territory to provide a more accurate resolution.

2.3.1.  NS Redirection

   A DNS server can use NS records to redirect the authority of the next
   level domain to another Request-Routing DNS server.  The, technique
   allows multiple DNS server to be involved in the name resolution
   process.  For example, a client site DNS server resolving
   a.b.example.com [10] would eventually request a resolution of
   a.b.example.com from the name server authoritative for example.com.
   The name server authoritative for this domain might be a
   Request-Routing NS server.  In this case the Request-Routing DNS
   server can either return a set of A records or can redirect the
   resolution of the request a.b.example.com to the DNS server that is
   authoritative for example.com using NS records.

   One drawback of using NS records is that the number of
   Request-Routing DNS servers are limited by the number of parts in the
   DNS name.  This problem results from DNS policy that causes a client
   site DNS server to abandon a request if no additional parts of the
   DNS name are resolved in an exchange with an authoritative DNS
   server.

   A second drawback is that the last DNS server can determine the TTL
   of the entire resolution process.  Basically, the last DNS server can
   return in the authoritative section of its response its own NS
   record.  The client will use this cached NS record for further
   request resolutions until it expires.



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   Another drawback is that some implementations of bind voluntarily
   cause timeouts to simplify their implementation in cases in which a
   NS level redirect points to a name server for which no valid A record
   is returned or cached.  This is especially a problem if the domain of
   the name server does not match the domain currently resolved, since
   in this case the A records, which might be passed in the DNS
   response, are discarded for security reasons.  Another drawback is
   the added delay in resolving the request due to the use of multiple
   DNS servers.

2.3.2.  CNAME Redirection

   In this scenario, the Request-Routing DNS server returns a CNAME
   record to direct resolution to an entirely new domain.  In principle,
   the new domain might employ a new set of Request-Routing DNS servers.

   One disadvantage of this approach is the additional overhead of
   resolving the new domain name.  The main advantage of this approach
   is that the number of Request-Routing DNS servers is independent of
   the format of the domain name.

2.4.  Anycast

   Anycast [5] is an inter-network service that is applicable to
   networking situations where a host, application, or user wishes to
   locate a host which supports a particular service but, if several
   servers utilizes the service, it does not particularly care which
   server is used.  In an anycast service, a host transmits a datagram
   to an anycast address and the inter-network is responsible for
   providing best effort delivery of the datagram to at least one, and
   preferably only one, of the servers that accept datagrams for the
   anycast address.

   The motivation for anycast is that it considerably simplifies the
   task of finding an appropriate server.  For example, users, instead
   of consulting a list of servers and choosing the closest one, could
   simply type the name of the server and be connected to the nearest
   one.  By using anycast, DNS resolvers would no longer have to be
   configured with the IP addresses of their servers, but rather could
   send a query to a well-known DNS anycast address.

   Furthermore, to combine measurement and redirection, the
   Request-Routing DNS server can advertise an anycast address as its IP
   address.  The same address is used by multiple physical DNS servers.
   In this scenario, the Request-Routing DNS server that is the closest
   to the client site DNS server in terms of OSPF and BGP routing will
   receive the packet containing the DNS resolution request.  The server
   can use this information to make a Request-Routing decision.



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   Drawbacks of this approach are listed below:

   o  The DNS server may not be the closest server in terms of routing
      to the client.

   o  Typically, routing protocols are not load sensitive.  Hence, the
      closest server may not be the one with the least network latency.

   o  The server load is not considered during the Request-Routing
      process.

2.5.  Object Encoding

   Since only DNS names are visible during the DNS Request-Routing, some
   solutions encode the object type, object hash, or similar information
   into the DNS name.  This might vary from a simple division of objects
   based on object type (such as images.a.b.example.com and
   streaming.a.b.example.com) to a sophisticated schema in which the
   domain name contains a unique identifier (such as a hash) of the
   object.  The obvious advantage is that object information is
   available at resolution time.  The disadvantage is that the client
   site DNS server has to perform multiple resolutions to retrieve a
   single Web page, which might increase rather than decrease the
   overall latency.

2.6.  DNS Request-Routing Limitations

   This section lists some of the limitations of DNS based
   Request-Routing techniques.

   o  DNS only allows resolution at the domain level.  However, an ideal
      request resolution system should service requests per object
      level.

   o  In DNS based Request-Routing systems servers may be required to
      return DNS entries with a short time-to-live (TTL) values.  This
      may be needed in order to be able to react quickly in the face of
      outages.  This in return may increase the volume of requests to
      DNS servers.

   o  Some DNS implementations do not always adhere to DNS standards.
      For example, many DNS implementations do not honor the DNS TTL
      field.

   o  DNS Request-Routing is based only on knowledge of the client DNS
      server, as client addresses are not relayed within DNS requests.
      This limits the ability of the Request-Routing system to determine
      a client's proximity to the surrogate.



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   o  DNS servers can request and allow recursive resolution of DNS
      names.  For recursive resolution of requests, the Request-Routing
      DNS server will not be exposed to the IP address of the client's
      site DNS server.  In this case, the Request-Routing DNS server
      will be exposed to the address of the DNS server that is
      recursively requesting the information on behalf of the client's
      site DNS server.  For example, imgs.example.com might be resolved
      by a CN, but the request for the resolution might come from
      dns1.example.com as a result of the recursion.

   o  Users that share a single client site DNS server will be
      redirected to the same set of IP addresses during the TTL
      interval.  This might lead to overloading of the surrogate during
      a flash crowd.

   o  Some implementations of bind can cause DNS timeouts to occur while
      handling exceptional situations.  For example, timeouts can occur
      for NS redirections to unknown domains.

   DNS based request routing techniques can suffer from serious
   limitations.  For example, the use of such techniques can overburden
   third party DNS servers, which should not be allowed [19].  In [11]
   RFC 2782 provides warnings on the use of DNS for load balancing.
   Readers are encouraged to read the RFC for better understanding of
   the limitations.

3.  Transport-Layer Request-Routing

   At the transport-layer finer levels of granularity can be achieved by
   the close inspection of client's requests.  In this approach, the
   Request-Routing system inspects the information available in the
   first packet of the client's request to make surrogate selection
   decisions.  The inspection of the client's requests provides data
   about the client's IP address, port information, and layer 4
   protocol.  The acquired data could be used in combination with
   user-defined policies and other metrics to determine the selection of
   a surrogate that is better suited to serve the request.  The
   techniques [20][18][15] are used to hand off the session to a more
   appropriate surrogate are beyond the scope of this document.

   In general, the forward-flow traffic (client to newly selected
   surrogate) will flow through the surrogate originally chosen by DNS.
   The reverse-flow (surrogate to client) traffic, which normally
   transfers much more data than the forward flow, would typically take
   the direct path.






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   The overhead associated with transport-layer Request-Routing [21][19]
   is better suited  for long-lived sessions such as FTP [1] and RTSP
   [3].  However, it also could be used to direct clients away from
   overloaded surrogates.

   In general, transport-layer Request-Routing can be combined with DNS
   based techniques.  As stated earlier, DNS based methods resolve
   clients requests based on domains or sub domains with exposure to the
   client's DNS server IP address.  Hence, the DNS based methods could
   be used as a first step in deciding on an appropriate surrogate with
   more accurate refinement made by the transport-layer Request-Routing
   system.

4.  Application-Layer Request-Routing

   Application-layer Request-Routing systems perform deeper examination
   of client's packets beyond the transport layer header.  Deeper
   examination of client's packets provides fine-grained Request-Routing
   control down to the level of individual objects.  The process could
   be performed in real time at the time of the object request.  The
   exposure to the client's IP address combined with the fine-grained
   knowledge of the requested objects enable application-layer
   Request-Routing systems to provide better control over the selection
   of the best surrogate.

4.1.  Header Inspection

   Some application level protocols such as HTTP [4], RTSP [3], and SSL
   [2] provide hints in the initial portion of the session about how the
   client request must be directed.  These hints may come from the URL
   of the content or other parts of the MIME request header such as
   Cookies.

4.1.1.  URL-Based Request-Routing

   Application level protocols such as HTTP and RTSP describe the
   requested  content by its URL [6].  In many cases, this information
   is sufficient to disambiguate the content and suitably direct the
   request.  In most cases, it may be sufficient to make Request-Routing
   decision just by examining the prefix or suffix of the URL.

4.1.1.1.  302 Redirection

   In this approach, the client's request is first resolved to a virtual
   surrogate.  Consequently, the surrogate returns an
   application-specific code such as the 302 (in the case of HTTP [4] or
   RTSP [3]) to redirect the client to the actual delivery node.




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   This technique is relatively simple to implement.  However, the main
   drawback of this method is the additional latency involved in sending
   the redirect message back to the client.

4.1.1.2.  In-Path Element

   In this technique, an In-Path element is present in the network in
   the forwarding path of the client's request.  The In-Path element
   provides transparent interception of the transport connection.  The
   In-Path element examines the client's content requests and performs
   Request-Routing decisions.

   The In-Path element then splices the client connection to a
   connection with the appropriate delivery node and passes along the
   content request.  In general, the return path would go through the
   In-Path element.  However, it is possible to arrange for a direct
   return by passing the address translation information to the
   surrogate or delivery node through some proprietary means.

   The primary disadvantage with this method is the performance
   implications of URL-parsing in the path of the network traffic.
   However, it is generally the case that the return traffic is much
   larger than the forward traffic.

   The technique allows for the possibility of partitioning the traffic
   among a set of delivery nodes by content objects identified by URLs.
   This allows object-specific control of server loading.  For example,
   requests for non-cacheable object types may be directed away from a
   cache.

4.1.2.  Header-Based Request-Routing

   This technique involves the task of using HTTP [4] such as Cookie,
   Language, and User-Agent, in order to select a surrogate.  In [20]
   some examples of using this technique are provided.

   Cookies can be used to identify a customer or session by a web site.
   Cookie based Request-Routing provides content service differentiation
   based on the client.  This approach works provided that the cookies
   belong to the client.  In addition, it is possible to direct a
   connection from a multi-session transaction to the same server to
   achieve session-level persistence.

   The language header can be used to direct traffic to a
   language-specific delivery node.  The user-agent header helps
   identify the type of client device.  For example, a voice-browser,
   PDA, or cell phone can indicate the type of delivery node that has
   content specialized to handle the content request.



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4.1.3.  Site-Specific Identifiers

   Site-specific identifiers help authenticate and identify a session
   from a specific user.  This information may be used to direct a
   content request.

   An example of a site-specific identifier is the SSL Session
   Identifier.  This identifier is generated by a web server and used by
   the web client in succeeding sessions to identify itself and avoid an
   entire security authentication exchange.  In order to inspect the
   session identifier, an In-Path element would observe the responses of
   the web server and determine the session identifier which is then
   used to associate the session to a specific server.  The remaining
   sessions are directed based on the stored session identifier.

4.2.  Content Modification

   This technique enables a content provider to take direct control over
   Request-Routing decisions without the need for specific witching
   devices or directory services in the path between the client and the
   origin server.  Basically, a content provider can directly
   communicate to the client the best surrogate that can serve the
   request.  Decisions about the best surrogate can be made on a per-
   object basis or it can depend on a set of metrics.  The overall goal
   is to improve scalability and the performance for delivering the
   modified content, including all embedded objects.

   In general, the method takes advantage of content objects that
   consist of basic structure that includes references to additional,
   embedded objects.  For example, most web pages, consist of an HTML
   document that contains plain text together with some embedded
   objects, such as GIF or JPEG images.  The embedded objects are
   referenced using embedded HTML directives.  In general, embedded HTML
   directives direct the client to retrieve the embedded objects from
   the origin server.  A content provider can now modify references to
   embedded objects such that they could be fetched from the best
   surrogate.  This technique is also known as URL rewriting.

   Content modification techniques must not violate the architectural
   concepts of the Internet [9].  Special considerations must be made to
   ensure that the task of modifying the content is performed in a
   manner that is consistent with RFC 3238 [9] that specifies the
   architectural considerations for intermediaries that perform
   operations or modifications on content.

   The basic types of URL rewriting are discussed in the following
   subsections.




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4.2.1.  A-priori URL Rewriting

   In this scheme, a content provider rewrites the embedded URLs before
   the content is positioned on the origin server.  In this case, URL
   rewriting can be done either manually or by using software tools that
   parse the content and replace embedded URLs.

   A-priori URL rewriting alone does not allow consideration of client
   specifics for Request-Routing.  However, it can be used in
   combination with DNS Request-Routing to direct related DNS queries
   into the domain name space of the service provider.  Dynamic
   Request-Routing based on client specifics are then done using the DNS
   approach.

4.2.2.  On-Demand URL Rewriting

   On-Demand or dynamic URL rewriting, modifies the content when the
   client request reaches the origin server.  At this time, the identity
   of the client is known and can be considered when rewriting the
   embedded URLs.  In particular, an automated process can determine,
   on-demand, which surrogate would serve the requesting client best.
   The embedded URLs can then be rewritten to direct the client to
   retrieve the objects from the best surrogate rather than from the
   origin server.

4.2.3.  Content Modification Limitations

   Content modification as a Request-Routing mechanism suffers from many
   limitation [23].  For example:

   o  The first request from a client to a specific site must be served
      from the origin server.

   o  Content that has been modified to include references to nearby
      surrogates rather than to the origin server should be marked as
      non-cacheable.  Alternatively, such pages can be marked to be
      cacheable only for a relatively short period of time.  Rewritten
      URLs on cached pages can cause problems, because they can get
      outdated and point to surrogates that are no longer available or
      no longer good choices.

5.  Combination of Multiple Mechanisms

   There are environments in which a combination of different mechanisms
   can be beneficial and advantageous over using one of the proposed
   mechanisms alone.  The following example illustrates how the
   mechanisms can be used in combination.




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   A basic problem of DNS Request-Routing is the resolution granularity
   that allows resolution on a per-domain level only.  A per-object
   redirection cannot easily be achieved.  However, content modification
   can be used together with DNS Request-Routing to overcome this
   problem.  With content modification, references to different objects
   on the same origin server can be rewritten to point into different
   domain name spaces.  Using DNS Request-Routing, requests for those
   objects can now dynamically be directed to different surrogates.

6.  Security Considerations

   The main objective of this document is to provide a summary of
   current Request-Routing techniques.  Such techniques are currently
   implemented in the Internet.  However, security must be addressed by
   any entity that implements any technique that redirects client's
   requests.  In [9] RFC 3238 addresses the main requirements for
   entities that intend to modify requests for content in the Internet.

   Some active probing techniques will set off intrusion detection
   systems and firewalls.  Therefore, it is recommended that
   implementers be aware of routing protocol security [25].

   It is important to note the impact of TLS [2] on request routing in
   CNs.  Specifically, when TLS is used the full URL is not visible to
   the content network unless it terminates the TLS session.  The
   current document focuses on HTTP techniques.  TLS based techniques
   that require the termination of TLS sessions on Content Peering
   Gateways [8] are beyond the of scope of this document.

   The details of security techniques are also beyond the scope of this
   document.

7.  Additional Authors and Acknowledgements

   The following people have contributed to the task of authoring this
   document: Fred Douglis (IBM Research), Mark Green, Markus Hofmann
   (Lucent), Doug Potter.

   The authors acknowledge the contributions and comments of Ian Cooper,
   Nalin Mistry (Nortel), Wayne Ding (Nortel) and Eric Dean
   (CrystalBall).










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Appendix A.  Measurements

   Request-Routing systems can use a variety of metrics in order to
   determine the best surrogate that can serve a client's request.  In
   general, these metrics are based on network measurements and feedback
   from surrogates.  It is possible to combine multiple metrics using
   both proximity and surrogate feedback for best surrogate selection.
   The following sections describe several well known metrics as well as
   the major techniques for obtaining them.

A.1.  Proximity Measurements

   Proximity measurements can be used by the Request-Routing system to
   direct users to the "closest" surrogate.  In this document proximity
   means round-trip time.  In a DNS Request-Routing system, the
   measurements are made to the client's local DNS server.  However,
   when the IP address of the client is accessible more accurate
   proximity measurements can be obtained [24].

   Proximity measurements can be exchanged between surrogates and the
   requesting entity.  In many cases, proximity measurements are
   "one-way" in that they measure either the forward or reverse path of
   packets from the surrogate to the requesting entity.  This is
   important as many paths in the Internet are asymmetric [24].

   In order to obtain a set of proximity measurements, a network may
   employ active probing techniques.

A.1.1.  Active Probing

   Active probing is when past or possible requesting entities are
   probed using one or more techniques to determine one or more metrics
   from each surrogate or set of surrogates.  An example of a probing
   technique is an ICMP ECHO Request that is periodically sent from each
   surrogate or set of surrogates to a potential requesting entity.

   In any active probing approach, a list of potential requesting
   entities need to be obtained.  This list can be generated
   dynamically.  Here, as requests arrive, the requesting entity
   addresses can be cached for later probing.  Another potential
   solution is to use an algorithm to divide address space into blocks
   and to probe random addresses within those blocks.  Limitations of
   active probing techniques include:

   o  Measurements can only be taken periodically.

   o  Firewalls and NATs disallow probes.




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   o  Probes often cause security alarms to be triggered on intrusion
      detection systems.

A.1.2.  Metric Types

   The following sections list some of the metrics, which can be used
   for proximity calculations.

   o  Latency: Network latency measurements metrics are used to
      determine the surrogate (or set of surrogates) that has the least
      delay to the requesting entity.  These measurements can be
      obtained using active probing techniques.

   o  Hop Counts: Router hops from the surrogate to the requesting
      entity can be used as a proximity measurement.

   o  BGP Information: BGP AS PATH and MED attributes can be used to
      determine the "BGP distance" to a given prefix/length pair.  In
      order to use BGP information for proximity measurements, it must
      be obtained at each surrogate site/location.

   It is important to note that the value of BGP AS PATH information can
   be meaningless as a good selection metric [24].

A.1.3.  Surrogate Feedback

   In order to select a "least-loaded" delivery node.  Feedback can be
   delivered from each surrogate or can be aggregated by site or by
   location.

A.1.3.1.  Probing

   Feedback information may be obtained by periodically probing a
   surrogate by issuing an HTTP request and observing the behavior.  The
   problems with probing for surrogate information are:

   o  It is difficult to obtain "real-time" information.

   o  Non-real-time information may be inaccurate.

   Consequently, feedback information can be obtained by agents that
   reside on surrogates that can communicate a variety of metrics about
   their nodes.








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8.  Normative References

   [1]  Postel, J. and J. Reynolds, "File Transfer Protocol", STD 9, RFC
        959, October 1985.

   [2]  Dierks, T. and C. Allen, "The TLS Protocol Version 1", RFC 2246,
        January 1999.

   [3]  Schulzrinne, H., Rao, A. and R. Lanphier, "Real Time Streaming
        Protocol", RFC 2326, April 1998.

   [4]  Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H., Masinter, L.,
        Leach, P. and T. Berners-Lee, "Hypertext Transfer
        Protocol -- HTTP/1.1", RFC 2616, June 1999.

   [5]  Partridge, C., Mendez, T. and W. Milliken, "Host Anycasting
        Service", RFC 1546, November 1993.

   [6]  Berners-Lee, T., Masinter, L. and M. McCahill, "Uniform Resource
        Locators (URL)", RFC 1738, December 1994.

   [7]  Schulzrinne, H., Casner, S., Federick, R. and V. Jacobson, "RTP:
        A Transport Protocol for Real-Time Applications", RFC 1889,
        January 1996.

   [8]  Day, M., Cain, B., Tomlinson, G. and P. Rzewski, "A Model for
        Content Internetworking (CDI)", RFC 3466, February 2003.

   [9]  Floyd, S. and L. Daigle, "IAB Architectural and Policy
        Considerations for Open Pluggable Edge Services", RFC 3238,
        January 2002.

9.  Informative References

   [10] Eastlake, D. and A, Panitz, "Reserved Top Level DNS Names", BCP
        32, RFC 2606, June 1999.

   [11] Gulbrandsen, A., Vixie, P. and L. Esibov, "A DNS RR for
        specifying the location of services (DNS SRV)", RFC 2782,
        February 2002.

   [12] Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - concepts and facilities", STD
        13, RFC 1034, November 1987.

   [13] Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - concepts and facilities", STD
        13, RFC 1035, November 1987.





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   [14] Elz, R. and R. Bush, "Clarifications to the DNS Specification",
        RFC 2181, July  1997.

   [15] Awduche, D., Chiu, A., Elwalid, A., Widjaja, I. and X. Xiao,
        "Overview and Principles of Internet Traffic Engineering", RFC
        3272, May 2002.

   [16] Crawley, E., Nair, R., Rajagopalan, B. and H. Sandick, "A
        Framework for QoS-based Routing in the Internet", RFC 2386,
        August 1998.

   [17] Huston, G., "Commentary on Inter-Domain Routing in the
        Internet", RFC 3221, December 2001.

   [18] M. Welsh et al., "SEDA: An Architecture for Well-Conditioned,
        Scalable Internet Services", Proceedings of the Eighteenth
        Symposium on Operating Systems Principles (SOSP-18) 2001,
        October 2001.

   [19] A. Shaikh, "On the effectiveness of DNS-based Server Selection",
        INFOCOM 2001, August 2001.

   [20] C. Yang et al., "An effective mechanism for supporting content-
        based routing in scalable Web server clusters", Proc.
        International Workshops on Parallel Processing 1999, September
        1999.

   [21] R. Liston et al., "Using a Proxy to Measure Client-Side Web
        Performance", Proceedings of the Sixth International Web Content
        Caching and Distribution Workshop (WCW'01) 2001, August 2001.

   [22] W. Jiang et al., "Modeling of packet loss and delay and their
        effect on real-time multimedia service quality", Proceedings of
        NOSSDAV 2000, June 2000.

   [23] K. Johnson et al., "The measured performance of content
        distribution networks", Proceedings of the Fifth International
        Web Caching Workshop and Content Delivery Workshop 2000, May
        2000.

   [24] V. Paxson, "End-to-end Internet packet dynamics", IEEE/ACM
        Transactions 1999, June 1999.

   [25] F. Wang et al., "Secure routing protocols: Theory and Practice",
        Technical report, North Carolina State University 1997, May
        1997.





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10.  Intellectual Property Statement

   The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any
   intellectual property or other rights that might be claimed to
   pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in
   this document or the extent to which any license under such rights
   might or might not be available; neither does it represent that it
   has made any effort to identify any such rights.  Information on the
   IETF's procedures with respect to rights in standards-track and
   standards-related documentation can be found in BCP-11.  Copies of
   claims of rights made available for publication and any assurances of
   licenses to be made available, or the result of an attempt made to
   obtain a general license or permission for the use of such
   proprietary rights by implementors or users of this specification can
   be obtained from the IETF Secretariat.

   The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any
   copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary
   rights which may cover technology that may be required to practice
   this standard.  Please address the information to the IETF Executive
   Director.






























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11.  Authors' Addresses

   Abbie Barbir
   Nortel Networks
   3500 Carling Avenue
   Nepean, Ontario  K2H 8E9
   Canada

   Phone: +1 613 763 5229
   EMail: abbieb@nortelnetworks.com


   Brad Cain
   Storigen Systems
   650 Suffolk Street
   Lowell, MA  01854
   USA

   Phone: +1 978-323-4454
   EMail: bcain@storigen.com


   Raj Nair
   6 Burroughs Rd
   Lexington, MA  02420
   USA

   EMail: nair_raj@yahoo.com


   Oliver Spatscheck
   AT&T
   180 Park Ave, Bldg 103
   Florham Park, NJ  07932
   USA

   EMail: spatsch@research.att.com














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12.  Full Copyright Statement

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003).  All Rights Reserved.

   This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
   others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
   or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published
   and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any
   kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
   included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
   document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
   the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
   Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of
   developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for
   copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be
   followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than
   English.

   The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
   revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assignees.

   This document and the information contained herein is provided on an
   "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING
   TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING
   BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION
   HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
   MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Acknowledgement

   Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
   Internet Society.



















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