A Novel Technique to Improve Scalability in SRv6-Based Networks

In the evolving landscape of computer networks, the demand for increased resilience and scalability is crucial to meet the growing challenges of modern applications and services. Achieving these requirements often involves complex networking protocols with sophisticated traffic engineering and network programming techniques. However, as classical networks transition towards such complexity, the proliferation of diverse protocols can lead to heightened protocol heterogeneity, resulting in a more intricate and costly maintenance environment. In light of these concerns, Segment Routing over IPv6 would be a logical candidate for solving this problem, as it can provide both traffic engineering and network programming capabilities in IP networks while relying only on the IPv6 protocol. However, scalability issues may arise with SRv6 in the context of larger networks. Network segments are identified with IPv6 addresses, and the presence of tens, or in some specific cases, even hundreds of segment identifiers in an IPv6 packet, would degrade network performance instead of the expected improvement. To address this problem, we present a novel approach, named SRv6 Policy Translation, to limit the number of segment identifiers used in a packet at any point in the traversal of SRv6 domains. Furthermore, we present a proof-of-concept Linux kernel module implementation of this technique with thorough performance measurements.