Autonomic Network Intent and Format
draft-du-anima-an-intent-00

ANIMA WG                                                           Z. Du
Internet-Draft                                                  S. Jiang
Intended status: Informational              Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd
Expires: December 13, 2015                                 June 11, 2015

                  Autonomic Network Intent and Format
                      draft-du-anima-an-intent-00

Abstract

   This document describes the concept and consideration of the
   Autonomic Network Intent, and proposes a uniform format for the
   Autonomic Network Intent.

Status of This Memo

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on December 13, 2015.

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Requirements Language and Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   3.  Intervention of the Network Running by Autonomic Network
       Intent  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     3.1.  Administrative Intent and Service Intent  . . . . . . . .   4
   4.  Uniform Format of the Autonomic Network Intent  . . . . . . .   4
   5.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   6.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   7.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   8.  Change log [RFC Editor: Please remove]  . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   9.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6

1.  Introduction

   This document describes the concept and consideration of the
   Autonomic Network Intent, which is used to operate the Autonomic
   Nodes within Autonomic Networks.  The background to Autonomic Network
   (AN) is described in [I-D.irtf-nmrg-autonomic-network-definitions]
   and [I-D.irtf-nmrg-an-gap-analysis].  A generic discovery and
   negotiation protocol (GDNP) is proposed by
   [I-D.carpenter-anima-gdn-protocol], which would be used in the
   propagation of the Autonomic Network Intent.

   The Autonomic Network Intent should be able to be unscrambled by all
   Autonomic Nodes, although certain parts of contents may not be
   relevant to a specific Autonomic Node.  The Autonomic Network Intent
   gives operational guidance for every Autonomic Node.

   This document also proposes a generic format for Autonomic Network
   Intent.

   The interface to receive or configure the Autonomic Network Intent is
   out of scope.  The distribution mechanism of the Autonomic Network
   Intent is introduced in [I-D.liu-anima-intent-distribution].

   Note in draft: This version is preliminary.  In particular, many
   design details may be subject to change until the anima
   specifications become agreed.

2.  Requirements Language and Terminology

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
   [RFC2119] when they appear in ALL CAPS.  When these words are not in

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   ALL CAPS (such as "should" or "Should"), they have their usual
   English meanings, and are not to be interpreted as [RFC2119] key
   words.

   Autonomic Function:  A feature or function which requires no
      configuration, and can derive all required information either
      through self-knowledge, discovery or through Intent.

   Autonomic Node:  A node which employs exclusively Autonomic
      Functions.

   Autonomic Network:  A network containing exclusively Autonomic Nodes.
      It may contain one or several Autonomic Domains.

   Autonomic Service Agent:  An agent implemented on an Autonomic Node
      which implements an Autonomic Function.

   Intent:  An abstract, high level policy used to operate the network,
      quoted from [I-D.irtf-nmrg-autonomic-network-definitions].

   Autonomic Network Intent:  Intent that is used to intervene the
      running status of the Autonomic Network.

3.  Intervention of the Network Running by Autonomic Network Intent

   The Autonomic Network is supposed to work with minimum intervention
   from human operators.  However, it is still needed to receive some
   form of guidance/information/orders in order to meet specific
   requirements.

   Upon receiving the Autonomic Network Intent, the Autonomic Node
   should be able to unscramble the meaning of the intent with no
   ambiguity, and act accordingly.

   Using this intent approach, the operator can manage the network as a
   whole, and does not need to configure specific node(s) in the network
   like what happens in the traditional NMS system.  In other words, the
   operator communicates with the Autonomic Network using an abstract or
   high lever intent, and the configurations of the nodes take place
   automatically.  By replacing most of the NMS jobs, intent-based
   management makes the network management work much easier than before.

   On the other sides, the intent-based and NMS-based management may co-
   exist for a long time, because autonomic behavior will be defined
   function by function.  Similarly, at the beginning of defining the
   Autonomic Network Intents, the intent-based method cannot be assumed
   to cover every aspect of network management.

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3.1.  Administrative Intent and Service Intent

   The Autonomic Networks are supposed to self-managed.  It includes
   managing the network infrastructure, and also the network services
   that are running over the network infrastructure.  However, the
   network services have different features against network
   administration, as listed below.  Hence, it may be better to organize
   them into separated Administrative Intent and Service Intent.

   o  A Service Intent may have a smaller scope than the Administrative
      Intent because only the nodes related to the service need to know
      this intent.  Although it may only affect a few nodes, the Service
      Intent may also be propagated domain wide.

   o  A Service Intent may have a limited lifetime, while the
      Administrative Intents are normally permanent although the content
      of the Administrative Intent may be updated from time to time.

   o  There maybe are many Service Intents in the autonomic domain,
      while only one Administrative Intent for a giving Autonomic
      Service Agent.

   {Editor notes: one possibility is to treat the Service Intent as a
   normal Intent for a certain Autonomic Service Agent, such as a
   Autonomic Service Provision Agent.}

4.  Uniform Format of the Autonomic Network Intent

   {Editor Notes: It is still remaining an open issue for the way that
   intent may be organized.  Should the intent be a single one in a
   given AN domain with a hierarchical version, or multiple intents,
   each of which targets different Autonomic Service Agent?  For now,
   the below text takes the later approach.}

   This section proposes a uniform intent format.  It uses the tag-based
   format.

   <autonomic_intent>  The root tag for the Autonomic Network Intent.

   <intent_type>  It indicates the intent type, which is associated with
      a specific Autonomic Service Agent.

   <autonomic_domain>  It indicates the domain of the Autonomic Network.
      It is also the scope of the Autonomic Network Intent.

   <intent_version>  It indicates the version of the Autonomic Network
      Intent.  This is an important feature for synchronization.

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   <content>  It contains the main information of the intent.  It may
      include objects, policies, goals and configuration data.  The
      detailed contents and formats should be defined under their
      specific situations by documents that specifies the Autonomic
      Service Agent.  Within the content, there may be sub_intents.

   {Editor Notes: it may be needed for a <specification_version>, which
   identifies the different version of intent specification.}

5.  Security Considerations

   Relevant security issues are discussed in
   [I-D.carpenter-anima-gdn-protocol].  The Autonomic Network Intent
   requires strong security environment from the start, because it would
   be great risk if the Autonomic Network Intent had been maliciously
   tampered.

6.  IANA Considerations

   This document defines one new format.  The IANA is requested to
   establish a new assigned list for it.

7.  Acknowledgements

   Valuable comments were received from Bing Liu.

   This document was produced using the xml2rfc tool [RFC2629].

8.  Change log [RFC Editor: Please remove]

   draft-du-anima-an-intent-00: original version, 2015-06-xx.

9.  References

   [I-D.behringer-anima-autonomic-control-plane]
              Behringer, M., Bjarnason, S., BL, B., and T. Eckert, "An
              Autonomic Control Plane", draft-behringer-anima-autonomic-
              control-plane-02 (work in progress), March 2015.

   [I-D.carpenter-anima-gdn-protocol]
              Carpenter, B. and B. Liu, "A Generic Discovery and
              Negotiation Protocol for Autonomic Networking", draft-
              carpenter-anima-gdn-protocol-03 (work in progress), April
              2015.

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   [I-D.irtf-nmrg-an-gap-analysis]
              Jiang, S., Carpenter, B., and M. Behringer, "General Gap
              Analysis for Autonomic Networking", draft-irtf-nmrg-an-
              gap-analysis-06 (work in progress), April 2015.

   [I-D.irtf-nmrg-autonomic-network-definitions]
              Behringer, M., Pritikin, M., Bjarnason, S., Clemm, A.,
              Carpenter, B., Jiang, S., and L. Ciavaglia, "Autonomic
              Networking - Definitions and Design Goals", draft-irtf-
              nmrg-autonomic-network-definitions-07 (work in progress),
              March 2015.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC2629]  Rose, M., "Writing I-Ds and RFCs using XML", RFC 2629,
              June 1999.

Authors' Addresses

   Zongpeng Du
   Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd
   Q14, Huawei Campus, No.156 Beiqing Road
   Hai-Dian District, Beijing, 100095
   P.R. China

   Email: duzongpeng@huawei.com

   Sheng Jiang
   Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd
   Q14, Huawei Campus, No.156 Beiqing Road
   Hai-Dian District, Beijing, 100095
   P.R. China

   Email: jiangsheng@huawei.com

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