Current Open Questions in Path Aware Networking
draft-irtf-panrg-questions-08
Path Aware Networking RG B. Trammell
Internet-Draft Google Switzerland GmbH
Intended status: Informational 23 December 2020
Expires: 26 June 2021
Current Open Questions in Path Aware Networking
draft-irtf-panrg-questions-08
Abstract
In contrast to the present Internet architecture, a path-aware
internetworking architecture has two important properties: it exposes
the properties of available Internet paths to endpoints, and provides
for endpoints and applications to use these properties to select
paths through the Internet for their traffic. While this property of
"path awareness" already exists in many Internet-connected networks
within single domains and via administrative interfaces to the
network layer, a fully path-aware internetwork expands these concepts
across layers and across the Internet.
This document poses questions in path-aware networking open as of
2021, that must be answered in the design, development, and
deployment of path-aware internetworks. It was originally written to
frame discussions in the Path Aware Networking proposed Research
Group (PANRG), and has been published to snapshot current thinking in
this space.
Discussion Venues
This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.
Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at
https://github.com/panrg/questions.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
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working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction to Path-Aware Networking . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1. Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1. A Vocabulary of Path Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2. Discovery, Distribution, and Trustworthiness of Path
Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3. Supporting Path Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.4. Interfaces for Path Awareness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.5. Implications of Path Awareness for the Transport and
Application Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.6. What is an Endpoint? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.7. Operating a Path Aware Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.8. Deploying a Path Aware Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1. Introduction to Path-Aware Networking
In the current Internet architecture, the network layer provides an
unverifiable, best-effort service to the endpoints using it. While
there are technologies that attempt better-than-best-effort delivery,
the interfaces to these are generally administrative as opposed to
endpoint-exposed (e.g. PCE [RFC4655] and SD-WAN approaches), and
they are often restricted to single administrative domains. In this
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environment, an application can assume that a packet with a given
destination address will eventually be forwarded toward that
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