Segment routing policies

The concept of a Segment Routing (SR) policy is described by the IETF draft draft-ietf-spring-segment-routing-policy. A segment-routing policy specifies a source-routed path from a head-end router to a network endpoint, and the traffic flows that are steered to that source-routed path. A segment-routing policy intended for use by a particular head-end router can be statically configured on that router or advertised to it in the form of a BGP route.

The following terms are important to understanding the structure of a segment routing policy and the relationship between one policy and another:

These concepts are illustrated by the following example. Suppose there is a network of 7 nodes as shown in Figure: Network example with 2 segment routing policies and there are two classes of traffic (blue and green) to be transported between node1 and node 7. There is a segment routing policy for the blue traffic between node1 and node7 and another segment routing policy for the green traffic between these same two nodes.

Figure: Network example with 2 segment routing policies

The two segment routing policies that are involved in this example and the associated relationships are depicted in Figure: Relationship between segment routing policies and paths.

Figure: Relationship between segment routing policies and paths