Preferred Path Routing - A Next-Generation Routing Framework Beyond Segment Routing

Segment Routing (SR) reintroduces source routing to networking. While SR has been defined for MPLS and IPv6 data planes, there are considerable problems with respect to increased path overhead in various deployments. This paper presents a new framework that is designed to overcome the SR challenges with a new routing paradigm, PPR (Preferred Path Routing). PPR is intended as enabler for next generation source routing by minimizing the data plane overhead caused in SR, which includes the network layer tax and processing overhead that is imposed on packets, critical specifically for small packets that are characteristic to many 5G applications. PPR extends SR for IP data planes without needing to replace existing hardware or even to upgrade the data plane. In addition, PPR allows dynamic path QoS reservations viz., bandwidth, and resources for providing deterministic queuing latency.