





Network Working Group                                           C. Mills
Request for Comments: 1272                                           BBN
                                                                D. Hirsh
                                         Meridian Technology Corporation
                                                                 G. Ruth
                                                                     BBN
                                                           November 1991


                    INTERNET ACCOUNTING: BACKGROUND

Status of this Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  It does
   not specify an Internet standard.  Distribution of this memo is
   unlimited.

1. Statement of Purpose

   This document provides background information for the "Internet
   Accounting Architecture" and is the first of a three document set:

      Internet Accounting Background & Status (this document)
      Internet Accounting Architecture        (under construction)
      Internet Accounting Meter Service       (under construction)

   The focus at this time is on defining METER SERVICES and USAGE
   REPORTING which provide basic semantics for measuring network
   utilization, a syntax, and a data reporting protocol.  The intent is
   to produce a set of standards that is of practical use for early
   experimentation with usage reporting as an internet accounting
   mechanism.

   The architecture should be expandable as additional experience is
   gained.  The short-term Internet Accounting solution is intended to
   merge with OSI and Autonomous Network Research Group (ANRG) efforts
   and be superseded by those efforts in the long term.  The OSI
   accounting working groups are currently defining meter syntax and
   reporting protocols.  The ANRG research group is currently
   researching economic models and accounting tools for the Internet
   environment.

   Internet Accounting as described here does not wrestle with the
   applications of usage reporting, such as monitoring and enforcing
   network policy; nor does it recommend approaches to billing or tackle
   such thorny issues as who pays for packet retransmission.

   This document provides background and tutorial information on issues



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RFC 1272            Internet Accounting: Background        November 1991


   surrounding the architecture, or in a sense, an explanation of
   choices made in the Internet Accounting Architecture.

2. Goals for a Usage Reporting Architecture

   We have adopted the accounting framework and terminology used by OSI
   (ISO 7498-4 OSI Reference Model Part 4: Management Framework).  This
   framework defines a generalized accounting management activity which
   includes calculations, usage reporting to users and providers and
   enforcing various limits on the use of resources.  Our own ambitions
   are considerably more modest in that we are defining an architecture
   to be used over the short- term (until ISO and ANRG have final
   pronouncement and standards) that is limited to network USAGE
   REPORTING.

   The OSI accounting model defines three basic entities:

      1) the METER, which performs measurements and aggregates the
         results of those measurements;

      2) the COLLECTOR, which is responsible for the integrity and
         security of METER data in short-term storage and transit;
         and

      3) the APPLICATION, which processes/formats/stores METER
         data.  APPLICATIONS implicitly manage METERS.

   This working group, then, is concerned with specifying the attributes
   of METERS and COLLECTORS, with little concern at this time for
   APPLICATIONS.

3. The Usage Reporting Function

3.1. Motivation for Usage Reporting

   The dominant motivations for usage reporting are:

          o  Understanding/Influencing Behavior.
             Usage reporting provides feedback for the subscriber on
             his use of network resources. The subscriber can better
             understand his network behavior and measure the impact of
             modifications made to improve performance or reduce
             costs.

          o  Measuring Policy Compliance.
             From the perspective of the network provider, usage
             reports might show whether or not a subscriber is in
             compliance with the stated policies for quantity of



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             network usage.  Reporting alone is not sufficient to
             enforce compliance with policies, but reports can
             indicate whether it is necessary to develop additional
             methods of enforcement.

          o  Rational Cost Allocation/Recovery.
             Economic discipline can be used to penalize inefficient
             network configuration/utilization as well as to reward
             the efficient.  It can be used to encourage bulk transfer
             at off hours.  It can be used as a means to allocate
             operating costs in a zero-sum budget, and even be used as
             the basis for billing in a profit-making fee-for-service
             operation.

   The chief deterrent to usage reporting is the cost of measuring
   usage, which includes:

          o  Reporting/collection overhead.
             This offers an additional source of computational load
             and network traffic due to the counting operations,
             managing the reporting system, collecting the reported
             data, and storing the resulting counts.  Overhead
             increases with the accuracy and reliability of the
             accounting data.

          o  Post-processing overhead.
             Resources are required to maintain the post-processing
             tasks of maintaining the accounting database, generating
             reports, and, if appropriate, distributing bills,
             collecting revenue, servicing subscribers.

          o  Security overhead.
             The use of security mechanisms will increase the overall
             cost of accounting.  Since accounting collects detailed
             information about subscriber behavior on the network and
             since these counts may also represent a flow of money, it
             is necessary to have mechanisms to protect accounting
             information from unauthorized disclosure or manipulation.

   The balance between cost and benefit is regulated by the GRANULARITY
   of accounting information collected.  This balance is policy-
   dependent.  To minimize costs and maximize benefit, accounting detail
   is limited to the minimum amount to provide the necessary information
   for the research and implementation of a particular policy.







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3.2. Network Policy and Usage Reporting

   Accounting requirements are driven by policy.  Conversely, policy is
   typically influenced by the available management/reporting tools and
   their cost.  This section is NOT a recommendation for billing
   practices, but intended to provide additional background for
   understanding the problems involved in implementing a simple,
   adequate usage reporting system.

   Since there are few tools adequate for any form of cost recovery
   and/or long-term monitoring there are few organizations that practice
   proactive usage reporting in the Internet.  Those that do have
   generally invented their own.  But far and away the most common
   approach is to treat the cost of network operations as overhead with
   network reports limited to short-term, diagnostic intervention.  But
   as the population and use of the Internet increases and diversifies,
   the complexity of paying for that usage also increases.  Subsidies
   and funding mechanisms appropriate to non-profit organizations often
   restrict commercial use or require that "for profit" use be
   identified and billed separately from the non-profit use.  Tax
   regulations may require verification of network connection or usage.
   Some portions of the Internet are distinctly "private", whereas other
   Internet segments are treated as public, shared infrastructure.

   The number of administrations operating in some connection with the
   Internet is exploding.  The network "hierarchy" (backbone, regional,
   enterprise, stub network) is becoming deeper (more levels),
   increasingly enmeshed (more cross-connections) and more diversified
   (different charters and usage patterns).  Each of these
   administrations has different policies and by-laws about who may use
   an individual network, who pays for it, and how the payment is
   determined.  Also, each administration balances the OVERHEAD costs of
   accounting (metering, reporting, billing, collecting) against the
   benefits of identifying usage and allocating costs.

   Some members of the Internet community are concerned that the
   introduction of usage reporting will encourage new billing policies
   which are detrimental to the current Internet infrastructure (though
   it is also reasonable to assert that the current lack of usage
   reporting may be detrimental as well).  Caution and experimentation
   must be the watch words as usage reporting is introduced.  Well
   before meters are used for active BILLING and ENFORCEMENT, they
   should first be used to:

          o  UNDERSTAND USER BEHAVIOR
             (learn to quantify and/or predict individual and
             aggregate traffic patterns over the long term),




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          o  QUANTIFY NETWORK IMPROVEMENTS,
             (measure user and vendor efficiency in how network
             resources are consumed to provide end-user data transport
             service) and

          o  MEASURE COMPLIANCE WITH POLICY.

   Accounting policies for network traffic already exist.  But they are
   usually based on network parameters which change seldom, if at all.
   Such parameters require little monitoring (the line speed of a
   physical connection, e.g.,Ethernet, 9600 baud, FDDI).  The connection
   to the network is then charged to the subscriber as a FLAT-FEE
   regardless of the amount of traffic passed across the connection and
   is similar to the monthly unlimited local service phone bill.

   Usage-insensitive access charges are sufficient in many cases, and
   can be preferable to usage-based charging in Internet environments,
   for financial, technical, and social reasons.  Sample incentives for
   the FLAT-FEE billing approach are:

          o  FINANCIAL:
             Predictable monthly charges.  No overhead costs for
             counting packets and preparing usage-based reports.

          o  TECHNICAL:
             Easing the sharing of resources.  Eliminating the
             headaches of needing another layer of accounting in proxy
             servers which associate their usage with their clients'.
             Examples of proxy servers which generate network traffic
             on behalf of the actual user or subscriber are mail
             daemons, network file servers, and print spoolers.

          o  SOCIAL:
             Treating the network as an unregulated public
             infrastructure with equal access and information sharing.
             Encouraging public-spirited behavior -- contributing to
             public mailing lists, information distribution, etc.

   In other cases USAGE-SENSITIVE charges may be preferred or required
   by a local administration's policy.  Government regulations or the
   wishes of subscribers with low or intermittent traffic patterns may
   force the issue (note: FLAT FEES are beneficial for heavy network
   users.  USAGE SENSITVE charges generally benefit the low-volume
   user).  Where usage-sensitive accounting is used, cost ceilings and
   floors may still be established by static parameters, such as "pipe
   size" for fixed connections or "connection time" for dial-up
   connection, to satisfy the need for some predictability.




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   Different billing schemes may be employed depending on network
   measures of distance.  For example, local network traffic may be
   flat-rate and remote internet traffic may be usage-based, analogous
   to the local and long distance billing policies adopted by the
   telephone companies.

   The ANRG is independently investigating policy models and
   infrastructure economics for billing and cost recovery.

3.3. The Nature of Usage Accounting

   Although the exact requirements for internet usage accounting will
   vary from one network administration to the next and will depend on
   policies and cost trade-offs, it is possible to characterize the
   problem in some broad terms and thereby bound it.  Rather than try to
   solve the problem in exhaustive generality (providing for every
   imaginable set of accounting requirements), some assumptions about
   usage accounting are posited in order to make the problem tractable
   and to render implementations feasible.  Since these assumptions form
   the basis for our architectural and design work, it is important to
   make them explicit from the outset and hold them up to the scrutiny
   of the Internet community.

3.3.1. A Model for Internet Accounting

   We begin with the assumption that there is a "network administrator"
   or "network administration" to whom internet accounting is of
   interest.  He "owns" and operates some subset of the internet (one or
   more connected networks)that may be called his "administrative
   domain".  This administrative domain has well defined boundaries.


                        our domain X
                     -------------------
                    /    |   |   |   |
                   /                 |           C
                  /                ------       /
             Network A            /    | \     /
              -----     (diagonals        \___/____
              | | |      cross admin.      domain B
                         boundaries)


   The network administrator is interested in 1) traffic within his
   boundaries and 2) traffic crossing his boundaries.  Within his
   boundaries he may be interested in end-system to end-system
   accounting or accounting at coarser granularities (e.g., department
   to department).



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   The network administrator is usually not interested in accounting for
   end-systems outside his administrative domain; his primary concern is
   accounting to the level of other ADJACENT (directly connected)
   administrative domains.  Consider the viewpoint of the administrator
   for domain X of the internet.  The idea is that he will send each
   adjacent administrative domain a bill (or other statement of
   accounting) for its use of his resources and it will send him a bill
   for his use of its resources.  When he receives an aggregate bill
   from Network A, if he wishes to allocate the charges to end users or
   subsystems within his domain, it is HIS responsibility to collect
   accounting data about how they used the resources of Network A.  If
   the "user" is in fact another administrative domain, B, (on whose
   behalf X was using A's resources) the administrator for X just sends
   his counterpart in B a bill for the part of X's bill attributable to
   B's usage.  If B was passing traffic for C, them B bills C for the
   appropriate portion X's charges, and so on, until the charges
   percolate back to the original end user, say G. Thus, the
   administrator for X does not have to account for G's usage; he only
   has to account for the usage of the administrative domains directly
   adjacent to himself.

   This paradigm of recursive accounting may, of course, be used WITHIN
   an administrative domain that is (logically) comprised of sub-
   administrative domains.

   The discussion of the preceding paragraphs applies to a general mesh
   topology, in which any Internet constituent domain may act as a
   service provider for any connected domain.  Although the Internet
   topology is in fact such a mesh, there is a general hierarchy to its
   structure and hierarchical routing (when implemented) will make it
   logically hierarchical as far as traffic flow is concerned.  This
   logical hierarchy permits a simplification of the usage accounting
   perspective.

   At the bottom of the service hierarchy a service-consuming host sits
   on one of many "stub" networks.  These are interconnected into an
   enterprise-wide extended LAN, which in turn receives Internet
   service, typically from a single attachment to a regional backbone.
   Regional backbones receive national transport services from national
   backbones such as NSFnet, Alternet, PSInet, CERFnet, NSInet, or
   Nordunet.  In this scheme each level in the hierarchy has a
   constituency, a group for which usage reporting is germane, in the
   level underneath it.  In the case of the NSFnet the natural
   constituency, for accounting purposes at least, is the regional nets
   (MIDnet, SURAnet,...).  For the regionals it will be their member
   institutions; for the institutions, their stub networks; and for the
   stubs, their individual hosts.




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3.3.2. Implications of the Model

   The significance of the model sketched above is that Internet
   accounting must be able to support accounting for adjacent
   (intermediate) systems, as well as end-system accounting.  Adjacent
   system accounting information cannot be derived from end-system
   accounting (even if complete end-system accounting were feasible)
   because traffic from an end-system may reach the administrative
   domain of interest through different adjacent domains, and it is the
   adjacent domain through which it passes that is of interest.

   The need to support accounting for adjacent intermediate systems
   means that internet accounting will require information not present
   in internet protocol headers (these headers contain source and
   destination addresses of end-systems only).  This information may
   come from lower layer protocols (network or link layer) or from
   configuration information for boundary components (e.g., "what system
   is connected to port 5 of this IP router").

4. Meters

   A METER is a process which examines a stream of packets on a
   communications medium or between a pair of media.  The meter records
   aggregate counts of packets belonging to FLOWs between communicating
   entities (hosts/processes or aggregations of communicating hosts
   (domains)).  The assignment of packets to flows may be done by
   executing a series of rules.  Meters can reasonably be implemented in
   any of three environments -- dedicated monitors, in routers or in
   general-purpose systems.

   Meter location is a critical decision in internet accounting.  An
   important criterion for selecting meter location is cost, i.e.,
   REDUCING ACCOUNTING OVERHEAD and MINIMIZING THE COST OF
   IMPLEMENTATION.

   In the trade-off between overhead (cost of accounting) and detail,
   ACCURACY and RELIABILITY play a decisive role.  Full accuracy and
   reliability for accounting purposes require that EVERY packet must be
   examined.  However, if the requirement for accuracy and reliability
   is relaxed, statistical sampling may be more practical and
   sufficiently accurate, and DETAILED ACCOUNTING is not required at
   all.  Accuracy and reliability requirements may be less stringent
   when the purpose of usage-reporting is solely to understand network
   behavior, for network design and performance tuning, or when usage
   reporting is used to approximate cost allocations to users as a
   percentage of total fees.

   Overhead costs are minimized by accounting at the coarsest acceptable



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   GRANULARITY, i.e., using the greatest amount of AGGREGATION possible
   to limit the number of accounting records generated, their size, and
   the frequency with which they are transmitted across the network or
   otherwise stored.

   The other cost factor lies in implementation.  Implementation will
   necessitate the development and introduction of hardware and software
   components into the internet.  It is important to design an
   architecture that tends to minimize the cost of these new components.

4.1. Meter Placement

   In the model developed above, the Internet may be viewed as a
   hierarchical system of service providers and their corresponding
   constituencies.  In this scheme the service provider accounts for the
   activity of the constituents or service consumers.  Meters should be
   placed to allow for optimal data collection for the relevant
   constituency and technology.  Meters are most needed at
   administrative boundaries and data collected such that service
   provider and consumer are able to reconcile their activities.

   Routers (and/or bridges) are by definition and design placed
   (topologically) at these boundaries and so it follows that the most
   generally convenient place to position accounting meters is in or
   near the router.  But again this depends on the underlying transport.
   Whenever the service-providing network is broadcast (e.g., bus-
   based), not extended (i.e., without bridging or routing), then meter
   placement is of no particular consequence.  If one were generating
   usage reports for a stub LAN, meters could reasonably be placed in a
   router, a dedicated monitor, or a host at any point on the LAN.
   Where an enterprise-wide network is a LAN, the same observation
   holds.  At the boundary between an enterprise and a regional network,
   however, in or near a router is an appropriate location for meters
   that will measure the enterprise's network activity.

   Meters are placed in (or near) routers to count packets at the
   Internet Protocol Level.  All traffic flows through two natural
   metering points: hosts and routers (Internet packet switches).  Hosts
   are the ultimate source and sink of all traffic.  Routers monitor all
   traffic which passes IN or OUT of each network.  Motivations for
   selecting the routers as the metering points are:

          o  Minimization of cost and overhead.
             (by concentrating the accounting function).  Centralize
             and minimize in terms of number of geographical or
             administrative regions, number of protocols monitored,
             and number of separate implementations modified.  (Hosts
             are too diverse and numerous for easy standardization.



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             Routers concentrate traffic and are more homogeneous.)

          o  Traffic control.
             When and if usage sensitive quotas are involved, changes
             in meter status (e.g., exceeding a quota) would result in
             an active influence on network traffic (the router starts
             denying access).  A passive measuring device cannot
             control network access in response to detecting state.

          o  Intermediate system accounting.
             As discussed above, internet accounting includes both
             end-system and intermediate system accounting.  Hosts see
             only end-system traffic; routers see both the end-systems
             (internet source and destination) and the adjacent
             intermediate systems.

   Therefore, meters should be placed at:

          o  administrative boundaries
             only for measuring inter-domain traffic;

          o  stub networks
             for measuring intra-domain traffic.  For intra-domain
             traffic, the requirement for performing accounting at
             almost every router is a disincentive for implementing a
             usage-based charging policy.

4.2. Meter Types

   Four possible types of metering technology are:

          o  Network monitors:
             These measure only traffic WITHIN a single network.  They
             include LAN monitors, X.25 call accounting systems and
             traffic monitors in bridges.

          o  Line monitors:
             These count packets flowing across a circuit.  They would
             be placed on inter-router trunks and on router ports.

          o  Router-integral meters:
             These are meters located within a router, implemented in
             software.  They count packets flowing through the router.

          o  Router spiders:
             This is a set of line monitors that surround a router,
             measure traffic on all of its ports and coordinate the
             results.



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4.3. Meter Structure

   While topology argues in favor of meters in routers, granularity and
   security favor dedicated monitors.  The GRANULARITY of the
   accountable entity (and its attributes) affects the amount of
   overhead incurred for accounting.  Each entity/attribute/reporting
   interval combination is a separate meter.  Each individual meter
   takes up local memory and requires additional memory or network
   resources when the meter reports to the application.  Memory is a
   limited resource, and there are cost implications to expanding memory
   significantly or increasing the frequency of reporting.  The number
   of concurrent flows open in a router is controlled by

          o  the granularity of the accountable entity

          o  the granularity of the attributes and sub-categories of
             packets

          o  memory
             (the number of flows that can be stored concurrently, a
             limit which can also be expressed as the average number
             of flows existing at this granularity plus some delta,
             e.g., peak hour average plus one standard deviation, or
             ...)

          o  the reporting interval
             (the lifetime of an individual meter)

   There is a spectrum of granularity control which ranges across
   the following dimensions.  (Most administrations will probably
   choose a granularity somewhere in the middle of the spectrum.)

   ENTITY:  Entities range across the spectrum from the coarsest
   granularity, PORT (a local view with a unique designation for the
   subscriber port through which packets enter and exit "my"
   network) through NETWORK and HOST to USER (not defined here).
   The port is the minimum granularity of accounting.  HOST is the
   finest granularity defined here.  Where verification is required,
   a network should be able to perform accounting at the granularity
   its subscribers use.  Hosts are ultimately responsible for
   identifying the end user, since only the hosts have unambiguous
   access to user identification.  This information could be shared
   with the network, but it is the host's responsibility to do so,
   and there is no mechanism in place at this time (e.g., an IP
   option, discussed in section 4.).

   ATTRIBUTE:  Each new attribute requires that an additional flow
   be maintained for each entity.  The coarsest granularity is NO



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   categorization of packets.  The finest granularity would be to
   maintain state information about the higher-levels protocols or
   type of service being used by communicating processes across the
   network.

   VALUES:  Values are the information which is recorded for each
   entity/attribute grouping.  Usually values are counters, such as
   packet counts and byte counts.  They may also be time stamps -
   start time and stop time, or reasons for starting or stopping
   reporting.

   REPORTING INTERVAL:  At the very finest level of granularity,
   each data packet might generate a separate accounting record.  To
   report traffic at this level of detail would require
   approximately one packet of accounting information for every data
   packet sent.  The reporting interval is then zero and no memory
   will be needed for flow record storage.  For a non-zero reporting
   interval flow records must be maintained in memory.  Storage for
   stale (old, infrequent) flows may be recycled when their data has
   been reported.  As the reporting interval increases, more and
   more stale records accumulate.

   The feasibility of a particular group of granularities varies
   with the PERFORMANCE characteristics of the network (link speed,
   link bandwidth, router processing speed, router memory), as well
   as the COST of accounting balanced against the requirement for
   DETAIL.  Since technological advances can quickly obsolete
   current technical limitations, and since the policy structure and
   economics of the Internet are in flux, meters will be defined
   with VARYING GRANULARITY which is regulated according to the
   traffic requirements of the individual network or administration
   and technical limitations.

4.4. Collection Issues

   There are two implicit assumptions about the nature of meters and
   traffic sources that they measure, both of which have substantial
   bearing on collectors.

      1.  The matrix of communicating entity pairs is large but
      sparse and, moreover, network traffic exhibits considerable
      source, destination and attribute coherence - so that lists
      can be quite compact.

      2.  Meters can be configured to generate either a static set
      of variables whose values are incremented, or a stream of
      records that must be periodically transferred and removed
      from the meter's memory.



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   Meters can generate large, unstructured amounts of information
   and the essential collection issue revolves around mapping
   collection activities into an SNMP framework (or, to the extent
   that this is not successful, specifying other collection
   paradigms).

   There are three major collection concerns:

          o  data confidentiality

          o  data integrity

          o  local and remote collection control

   The prime security concern is preserving the confidentiality of usage
   data.  (See ISO 7498 Part 2, "Security Architecture," for security
   terminology used herein.)  Given that accounting data are sensitive,
   the collector should be able (or may be required) to provide
   confidentiality for accounting data at the point of collection,
   through transmission and up to the point where the data is delivered.
   The delivery function may also require authentication of the origin
   and destination and provision for connection integrity (if
   connections are utilized).  Other security services (e.g., measures
   to counter denial of service attacks) are not deemed necessary for
   internet accounting at this time.  It is assumed that security
   services can be provided by SNMP and its mechanisms.  (This will
   require further investigation.)

   In order to have an accurate monitoring system, reliable delivery of
   data should be assured through one or more of:

          o  an acknowledgement retransmission scheme;

          o  redundant reporting to multiple collectors;

          o  having backup storage located at the meter.

   There is a place for both application polling and meter traps within
   this scheme, but there are significant trade-offs associated with
   each.

   Polling means that the collection point has some control over when
   accounting data is sent, so that not all meters flood the collector
   at once.  However, polling messages, particularly when structured
   with SNMP's GET-NEXT operator, add considerable overhead to the
   network.  Meter traps are required in any case (whether or not
   polling is the preferred collection method), so that a meter may rid
   itself of data when its cache is full.



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   The fundamental collection trade-off will be between primary and
   secondary storage at the meter, coupled with an efficient bulk-
   transfer protocol, versus minimal storage at the meter and a
   network-bandwidth-consuming collection discipline.

   A final collection concern is whether packets should be counted on
   entry into a router or upon exit from a router.  It is the nature of
   IP that not every packet received by a router is actually passed to
   an output port.  The Internet Protocol allows routers to discard
   packets (e.g., in times of congestion when the router cannot handle
   the offered load); it is presumed that higher level protocols (e.g.,
   TCP) will provide whatever reliable delivery service the user deems
   necessary (by detecting non- delivery and retransmitting).

   The question arises, therefore, whether an internet accounting system
   should count all packets offered to a router (since each packet
   offered consumes some router resources) or just those that are
   finally passed by the router to a network (why should a user pay for
   undelivered packets?)  Since there are good arguments for either
   position, we do not attempt to resolve this issue here.  (It should
   be noted, however, that SMDS has chosen to count on exit only.)
   Rather, we require that an internet accounting should provide ability
   for counting packets either way -- on entry to or on exit from a
   router.

5.  Examples

   Here follows a series of examples to illustrate what data may be of
   interest to service providers and consumers in a number of different
   scenarios.  In the illustrations that follow straight lines are
   interpreted as some sort of LAN.  Diagonals are point- to-point
   links. Diamonds are routers.  We assume that we are in a homogeneous
   protocol environment (IP).

5.1  A Single Segment LAN

   Consumers and providers on a single LAN service can utilize the same
   set of data:  the contribution of individual hosts to total network
   load.  A network accounting system measures flows between individual
   host pairs. (On a broadcast LAN, e.g., an Ethernet, this can be
   accomplished by a single meter placed anywhere on the LAN.)  Using
   this data, costs for the network management activity can be
   apportioned to individual hosts or the departments that own/manage
   the hosts.

   Alternately, flows can be kept by source only, rather than source-
   destination pairs.




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RFC 1272            Internet Accounting: Background        November 1991


5.2  An Extended (Campus or Facility-Wide) LAN

    128.252.100.X            128.252.150.X            128.253.220.X
  +----------------+       +----------------+      +----------------+
          |                        |                        |
          |                        |                        |
         / \                      / \                      / \
    128.252.100.10           128.252.150.10           128.253.220.10
         \ /                      \ /                      \ /
          |                        |                        |
       +--+-+----------------------+-+----------------------+-+-+
            |                        |                        |
           / \                      / \                      / \
      128.252.130.10           128.252.120.10           128.253.140.10
           \ /                      \ /                      \ /
            |                        |                        |
            |                        |                        |
  +-----------------+      +-----------------+      +----------------+
      128.252.130.X           128.252.120.X           128.253.140.X

   This is the first example in which the information that is germane
   for service provider and consumer are not identical.  The service
   consumers are now the individual subnets and the service provider is
   the facility-wide backbone.  A service provider is interested in
   knowing the contribution of individual subnets to the total traffic
   of the backbone. In order to ascertain this, a meter on the backbone
   (the longest line in the center of the illustration) can keep track
   of flows between subnet pairs.  Now the communications between
   individual hosts on adjacent subnets are aggregated into a single
   flow that measures activity between subnets.

   The service consumers, or subnets, might in turn want to keep track
   of the communications between individual hosts that use the services
   of the backbone.  An accounting system on the backbone could be
   configured to monitor traffic among individual host pairs.
   Alternately an accounting system on each individual subnet could keep
   track of local and "non-local" traffic.  The observed data of the two
   sets of meters (one for the service provider and one for the service
   consumers) should have reconcilable data.












Mills, Hirsh, & Ruth                                           [Page 15]

RFC 1272            Internet Accounting: Background        November 1991


5.3  A Regional Network

                                     116.125
                               +-----------------+
                                        |
                                        +
                                       / \
                                  116.125.10.10
                                       \ /
                                      / + \
                                     /     \
                                    /       \
                                   /         \
                   |              +           +              |
                   |             / \         / \             |
          128.242  |----- 128.242.10.10   128.252.10.10 -----|  128.252
                   |             \ /         \ /             |
                   |              +           +              |
                                   \         /
                                    \       /
                                     \     /
                                      \ + /
                                       / \
                                  124.110.10.10
                                       \ /
                                        +
                                +-----------------+
                                        |
                                    124.110

   In this example we have a regional network consisting of a ring of
   point-to-point links that interconnect a collection of campus-wide
   LANs. Again service provider and consumer have differing interests
   and needs for accounting data.  The service provider, the regional
   network, again will be interested in the contribution of each
   individual network to the total traffic on the regional network.
   This interest might extend to include measure of individual link
   utilization, and not just total offered load to the network as a
   whole.  In this latter case the service provider will require that
   meters be placed at one end or the other on each link.  For the
   service consumer, the individual campus, relevant measures would
   include the contribution of individual subnets or hosts to the total
   "outbound" traffic.  Meter(s) placed in (or at) the router that
   connects the campus- network to the regional network can perform the
   necessary measurement.






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RFC 1272            Internet Accounting: Background        November 1991


5.4  A National Backbone

                                   __________
                                        |
                                        +
                                  |   /   \   |
                                  |--+  1  +--|
                                  |   \   /   |
                                        +
                                       / \
                                       \ /
                                      / + \
                                     /     \
                      _______       /       \        _______
                         |         /         \          |
                         +        +           +         +
                   |   /   \     / \         / \      /   \  |
                   |--+  4  +----\ /    5    \ /-----+  2  +-|
                   |   \   /      +           +       \   /  |
                         +         \         /          +
                      ___|____      \       /        ___|____
                                     \     /
                                      \ + /
                                       / \
                                       \ /
                                        +
                                  |   /   \   |
                                  |--+  3  +--|
                                  |   \   /   |
                                        +
                                    ____|____

   In this last case, the data that the service provider will want to
   collect is the traffic between regional networks.  The flow that
   measures a regional network, or regional network pairs, is defined as
   the union of all member-campus network address spaces.  This can be
   arrived at by keeping multiple individual network address flows and
   developing the regional network contribution as post-processing
   activity, or by defining a flow that is the union of all the relevant
   addresses.  (This is a cpu cycles for memory trade-off.)  Note that
   if the service provider measures individual network contributions,
   then this data is, in large
    measure, the data that the service consumers would require.

6.  Future Issues

   This last section is the collector for ancillary issues that are as
   yet undefined or out of current scope.



Mills, Hirsh, & Ruth                                           [Page 17]

RFC 1272            Internet Accounting: Background        November 1991


   APPLICATIONS standards:  Recommendations for storage, processing and
   reporting are left out for the moment.  Storage and processing of
   accounting information is dependent on individual network policy.
   Recommendations for standardizing billing schemes would be premature.

   QUOTAS are a form of closed loop feedback that represent an
   interesting extension of usage reporting.  But they will have to wait
   until the basic accounting technology is reasonably defined and has
   been the subject of a reasonable amount of experimentation.

   SESSION ACCOUNTING:  Detailed auditing of individual sessions across
   the internet (at level four or higher) will not be addressed by
   internet accounting.  Internet accounting deals only with measuring
   traffic at the IP level.

   APPLICATION LEVEL ACCOUNTING:  Service hosts and proxy agents have to
   do their own accounting for services, since the network cannot
   distinguish on whose behalf they are acting.  Alternately, TCP/UDP
   port numbers could become an optional field in a meter, since the
   conjunction of a pair of IP addresses and port numbers occurring at a
   particular time uniquely identifies a pair of communicating
   processes.

   The USER has not yet been defined, since an IP option would have to
   be added to the IP header to provide for this.  This option would
   probably contain two parts - a subscriber identification and a user
   sub-identification - to allow for the later introduction of quota
   mechanisms which have both group and individual quotas.  The
   subscriber is the fiscally responsible entity, for example the
   manager of a research group.  In any case, routers must be able to
   fall back to accounting by host, since there will most certainly be
   hosts on the network which do not implement a new IP option in a
   timely fashion.

7.  References

     International Standards Organization (ISO), "Management
     Framework," Part 4 of Information Processing Systems Open Systems
     Interconnection Basic Reference Model,ISO 7498-4, 1984.

     International Standards Organization (ISO), "Security
     Architecture," Part 2 of Information Processing Systems Open
     Systems Interconnection Basic Reference Model,ISO 7498-2, 1984.








Mills, Hirsh, & Ruth                                           [Page 18]

RFC 1272            Internet Accounting: Background        November 1991


Security Considerations

   Security issues are discussed in sections 2, 3 and 4.

Authors' Addresses

   Cyndi Mills
   Bolt, Beranek, and Newman
   150 Cambridge Park Drive
   Cambridge, MA  02140

   Phone:    617-873-4143
   Email: cmills@bbn.com


   Donald Hirsh
   Meridian Technology Corporation
   11 McBride Corporate Center Drive
   Suite 250
   Chesterfield, MO  63005

   Phone:    314-532-7708
   Email: hirsh@meridian.uucp


   Gregory Ruth
   Bolt, Beranek, and Newman
   150 Cambridge Park Drive
   Cambridge, MA  02140

   Phone:    617-873-3150
   Email: gruth@bbn.com



















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