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Use cases of Application-aware Networking (APN) in Edge Computing
draft-liu-apn-edge-usecase-02

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This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Expired".
Authors Peng Liu , Zongpeng Du , Shuping Peng , Zhenbin Li
Last updated 2021-01-12
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draft-liu-apn-edge-usecase-02
Network Working Group                                             P. Liu
Internet-Draft                                                     Z. Du
Intended status: Informational                              China Mobile
Expires: July 15, 2021                                           S. Peng
                                                                   Z. Li
                                                                  Huawei
                                                        January 11, 2021

   Use cases of Application-aware Networking (APN) in Edge Computing
                     draft-liu-apn-edge-usecase-02

Abstract

   The ever-emerging new services are imposing more and more highly
   demanding requirements on the network.  However, the current
   deployments could not fully accommodate those requirements due to
   limited capabilities.  For example, it is difficult to utilize the
   traditional centralized deployment mode to meet the low-latency
   demand of some latency-sensitive applications.  Moreover, the total
   amount of centralized service data is growing exponentially, which
   brings great pressure on the network bandwidth.  There has been a
   clear trend that decentralized sites comprising of computing and
   storage resources are deployed at various locations to provide
   services.  In particular, when the sites are deployed at the network
   edge, i.e. the Edge Computing, it can better handle the business
   needs of the users nearby, which provides the possibilities to
   provide differentiated network and computing services.  In order to
   achieve the full benefits of the edge computing, it actually implies
   a precondition that the network should be aware of the applications'
   requirements in order to steer their traffic to the network paths
   that can satisfy their requirements.  Application-aware networking
   (APN) fits as the missing puzzle piece to bridge the applications and
   the network to accommodate the edge services' needs, fully releasing
   the benefits of the edge computing.

   This document describes the various application scenarios in edge
   computing to which the APN can be beneficial, including augmented
   reality, cloud gaming and remote control, which empowers the video
   business, users interaction business and user-device interaction
   business.  In those scenarios, APN can identify the specific
   requirements of edge computing applications on the network, process
   close to the users, provide SLA guaranteed network services such as
   low latency and high reliability.

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Requirements Language

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on July 15, 2021.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2021 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
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   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Edge Computing and APN  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Usage Scenarios of APN in edge computing  . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.1.  Augmented Reality (AR)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
       3.1.1.  Use Case Description  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
       3.1.2.  Augmented Reality Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
       3.1.3.  Augmented Reality with Edge Computing and APN . . . .   5
     3.2.  Cloud Gaming  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6

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       3.2.1.  Use Case Description  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
       3.2.2.  Cloud Gaming Today  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
       3.2.3.  Cloud Gaming with Edge Computing and APN  . . . . . .   7
     3.3.  Remote control of industry  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
       3.3.1.  Use Case Description  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
       3.3.2.  Remote control of industry Today  . . . . . . . . . .   8
       3.3.3.  Remote control of industry with Edge Computing and
               APN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   4.  Conclusion  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   5.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   6.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   7.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11

1.  Introduction

   Edge computing is to deploy service sites near the user side to
   provide users with better network and computing services.  The
   services of edge computing can not only be implemented in the edge
   data center, but also be integrated in the network equipment, which
   brings the possibility for the convergence of network and computing,
   and also puts forward the requirements for the technology combining
   of different industries.  On the one hand, the demand of different
   applications for the network need to be exposed; on the other hand,
   the network needs to be aware of computing power and steers the
   traffic along the appropriate path towards the suitable sites.

   The existing network can only identify the application demands in a
   coarse granularity.  When the application demand is high causing the
   heavy network load, it usually fails to guarantee the latency and
   reliability of the applications especially the mission-critical
   applications.  Application-aware networking (APN) is to solve the
   problem of mutual recognition between network and application.  APN
   enables the network to be aware of the applications' requirements in
   a fine granularity, and then either steer the corresponding traffic
   onto the appropriate network path (if exist) that can satisfy these
   requirements or establish an exclusive network path which wouldn't be
   influenced by other applications' traffic flow.

2.  Edge Computing and APN

   In a whole edge computing network, there are user terminal, edge
   gateway and edge data center.  The edge gateway can be the UPF In 5G
   network.  Edge data center is usually close to users and serves a
   limited group of users, the network and computing tasks performed by
   edge computing are more specific and customized.  Both computing
   resources and network resources need to be able to provide fine-
   grained service guarantee.  The goal of APN is to provide fine-

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   grained network service, including latency, jitter, reliability and
   others, which can be well matched with edge computing.

   Appilication-aware networking includes the app-aware edge, app-aware
   process head-end, app-aware process mid-point and app-aware process
   end-point.  A user's request is sent from the client, and then passes
   through all the nodes of the APN network to the server.  The function
   of app-aware edge can be deployed in the edge gateway, so the request
   traffic of client can be distinguished by the edge gateway/app-aware
   edge and sent to the edge data center through the APN.  In some
   cases, the reply of the edge data center will not return to the
   original client, and may be sent to another client through the APN.

     +------+    +----------------+    +-------------+    +---------+
     |      |    | Edge Gateway/  |    |     APN     |    |  Edge   |
     |Client|<-->|                |<-->|             |<-->|  Data   |
     |      |    | App-aware Edge |    |   Network   |    |  Center |
     +------+    +----------------+    +-------------+    +---------+

                          Edge Computing and APN

3.  Usage Scenarios of APN in edge computing

   This section presents several typical scenarios which require edge
   computing to interconnect and to co-ordinate with APN to meet the
   service requirements and ensure user experience.

3.1.  Augmented Reality (AR)

3.1.1.  Use Case Description

   Augmented reality is a relatively new application that promotes the
   integration of real world information and virtual world information
   content.  It includes several technologies, such as track
   registration, display, virtual object generation, interaction and
   merging.

3.1.2.  Augmented Reality Today

   AR gives users an immersive experience.  It is widely used in the
   consumer industry presently, and may also be applied in industrial
   fields such as health care and education in the future.The general
   process of AR / VR is as follows:

   * Image acquisition equipment (such as camera) collects image or
   video information and sends it to data center.

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   * Data center carries out identification, feature extraction and
   template rendering, and sends them to AR terminal.

   * The AR terminal plays the synthesized information.

   Considering the user experience, AR usually needs a high bandwidth of
   100mbps due to multi-channel acquisition of image or video data, and
   a low end-to-end latency less than 60ms.  With centralized
   deployment, the network transmission distance is too long, so the
   latency demand can't be met; the large volume of traffic load also
   imposes high challenge on the network bandwidth.

3.1.3.  Augmented Reality with Edge Computing and APN

   If the deployment mode of edge computing is adopted, the following
   functions can be realized:

   * The collected image or video information can be encoded/decode and
   compressed by the edge equipment to reduce the bandwidth requirements
   of data transmission.

   * The edge data center can process the collected image or video data
   nearby and send it to the AR terminal equipment, which reduces the
   distance of network transmission and greatly reduces the latency.

   Although edge computing can reduce the overall latency of services
   and reduce the demand for network bandwidth, it still needs
   differentiated network services to provide the ultimate guarantee for
   application with high SLA requirements.  APN can achieve:

   * Edge device obtains and encapsulates AR application feature
   information and sends it to the head end node.

   * Head end node in the APN identifies the AR data flow and steers it
   into a specific transmission path according to the demanded
   bandwidth, latency and reliability.

   * Mid point in the APN forwards the data stream along the specific
   path.

   * End point in the APN receives AR data stream and forwards it either
   to Data Centre for processing or to the AR player for playing.

   In the whole process, because APN identifies the traffic of AR
   application, it can provide corresponding network services to provide
   customized high reliability, low latency and other SLA guarantee.

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  +------+  Camera                                               +------+
  |Source|                                                     ->|  AR  |
  |data  |-\                                                  /  |Player|
  +------+|   +-----+   +-------+   +---------+   +-------+  /   +------+
           \->|App- |   |  APN  |   |  Edge   |   |  APN  |-/
              |aware|-->|       |-->|  Data   |-->|       |
           /->|Edge |   |Network|   |  Center |   |Network|-\
  +------+ |  +-----+   +-------+   +---------+   +-------+  \   +------+
  |Source|-/                                                  \  |  AR  |
  |data  |                                                     ->|Player|
  +------+  Camera                                               +------+

               Augmented Reality with Edge Computing and APN

3.2.  Cloud Gaming

3.2.1.  Use Case Description

   Cloud gaming is to deploy the game application in the data center,
   and realize the functions includes the logical process of game
   command control, as well as the tasks of game acceleration, video
   rendering and other tasks with high requirements for chips.  In this
   way, the terminal is a video player.  Users can get a good game
   experience without the support of high-end system and chips.

   Compared with the traditional game mode, there are several advantages
   of cloud game, such as no installation, no upgrade, no repair, quick
   to play and reduce the terminal cost, so it will have stronger
   promotion.

3.2.2.  Cloud Gaming Today

   The biggest feature of cloud games is that users interact with each
   other through the network.  The general process is as follows:

   * The data center sends game video streaming information to the
   terminal, including game background picture, characters, etc.

   * The user makes corresponding operation instructions according to
   the received game video stream information and sends them to the data
   center.

   * The data center constantly updates the video stream and other data
   of the game according to the user's operation instructions.

   Game users usually pursue consumption experience.  Currently, most
   users are willing to spend extra money in order to obtain better user
   experience.  Generally speaking, the network latency of game is

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   required to be less than 30ms.  For competitive game, the latency
   will be required to be less than 10ms, because professional players
   usually can feel the millisecond level latency difference.  With
   centralized deployment, the network transmission distance is too
   long, which is a huge challenge to the network load, so the latency
   demand can't be met; the large volume of traffic load also imposes
   high challenge on the network bandwidth.

3.2.3.  Cloud Gaming with Edge Computing and APN

   If the deployment of edge computing is adopted, the following
   functions can be realized with the deployment of edge data center:

   * The edge data center sends the game video stream information to the
   terminal, and receives the user's control instruction information for
   processing.

   * users can make corresponding operation instructions according to
   the received video stream information, and get quick response.

   Edge computing can reduce the latency of game data transmission as a
   whole, but it should be noted that cloud games usually have multiple
   players playing a game together, which requires the deterministic
   latency of multi-party network path, which needs to be realized with
   APN:

   * Multiple edge devices obtain and encapsulate cloud game application
   feature information and send it to the head end node.

   * Head end node in the APN identifies the data flow of cloud games
   (maybe the same game), and steers it into a specific transmission
   path according to its requirements for bandwidth, delay, reliability,
   etc., which needs to ensure that the latency of multi-user control
   instructions arriving at the edge data center is consistent.

   * Mid point in the APN forwards game data stream according to the
   predetermined path.

   * The end point in the APN receives the cloud game data stream and
   steers it either to the data center for processing the users' control
   instruction or to the user for playing.

   The whole process requires APN not only to identify the cloud game
   traffic and provide customized network forwarding services for it,
   but also to ensure the deterministic latency of multi-user in the
   same game and provide better game experience.

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      Client A
     +---------+
     |Game data|
     +---------+-\   +----------+   +-----------+   +-----------+
                 |<->|App-aware |-A-|    APN    |-A-|           |
                     |  Edge A  |   | Network A |   |           |
                     +----------+   +-----------+   | Edge Data |
                     +----------+   +-----------+   |   Center  |
                     |App-aware |   |    APN    |   |           |
                 |<->|  Edge B  |-B-| Network B |-B-|           |
     +---------+-/   +----------+   +-----------+   +-----------+
     |Game data|
     +---------+
      Client B

                 Cloud Gaming with Edge Computing and APN

3.3.  Remote control of industry

3.3.1.  Use Case Description

   Industrial remote control refers to the remote control of field
   equipment in areas that are not convenient for manual field control,
   such as high-temperature and high-risk areas.  In the past, signaling
   was usually transmitted through industrial private networks and
   protocols.  With the development of industrial Internet, the industry
   also gradually has the demand of network interconnection.  Its
   network tends to adopt L3 protocol and flat architecture, which makes
   it possible for cross distance remote control service.

3.3.2.  Remote control of industry Today

   In the process of remote control, workers constantly make control
   instructions according to the received image or video information of
   field equipment, which requires interaction between personnel and
   equipment through the network.  Because the field environment that
   needs remote control is generally poor, it is also a challenge for
   the security of the operation equipment.  If the latency is too large
   or the reliability is not enough, it may cause the operation failure,
   equipment damage and other serious consequences.  Therefore, the
   remote control service requires low latency and high reliability.
   The general process of remote control is as follows:

   * Field equipment (such as camera) collects image or video
   information and sends it to data center.

   * The data center receives the field information of the equipment and
   sends it to the workers in the office.

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   * Workers send control instructions and control equipment according
   to the received field information.

   Many industrial enterprises rent public cloud resources to construct
   their own data center, but the long distance of network transmission
   is not conducive to the timely transmission of image / video data
   stream, which will cause large latency and packet loss.

3.3.3.  Remote control of industry with Edge Computing and APN

   If the deployment mode of edge computing is adopted, and the data
   center and edge computing access equipment (such as gateway) are
   deployed in a location or enterprise park close to the business site,
   the following functions can be realized:

   * The collected image or video information can be encoded/ decoded
   and compressed by edge access equipment to reduce the bandwidth
   requirements.

   * The control instruction information can be identified by the edge
   equipment, so as to provide exclusive network transmission service.

   * The forwarding path of image / video and control information is
   shortened, which can greatly reduce the latency.

   Although edge computing can reduce the overall delay of services and
   reduce the demand of network bandwidth, it still needs to achieve
   differentiated network services through APN to provide the ultimate
   network guarantee for the services with the highest network
   requirements.

   For users, APN can realize those functions.

   * Edge device obtains and encapsulates the image or video information
   of the remote field device, then sends it to the head end node.

   * Head end in the APN identifies the information and steers the flow
   into a specific transmission path according to its requirements for
   bandwidth, delay, reliability, etc..

   * Mid point in the APN forwards along the specific path.

   * End point receives image or video data stream of field equipment
   and forwards it to users.

   For field equipment, APN can realize those functions.

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   * Edge device obtains and encapsulates the control instruction
   information and sends it to the head end node.

   * Head end in the APN identifies the control data flow and steers
   into a specific transmission path according to the demand for
   bandwidth, latency and reliability.

   * Mid point in the APN forwards along the specific path.

   * End point receives control information and forwards to the field
   equipment.

   In the whole process, APN identifies the traffic of remote control
   service, which can provide customized high reliability, low latency
   and other network guarantee.

         Worker
     +------------+
     |Control data|
     +------------+-\   +----------+    +-----------+    +-----------+
                    |<->|App-aware |-W->|    APN    |-W->|           |
                        |  Edge A  |<-C-| Network A |<-C-|           |
                        +----------+    +-----------+    | Edge Data |
                        +----------+    +-----------+    |   Center  |
                        |App-aware |-C->|    APN    |-C->|           |
         Camera     |<->|  Edge B  |<-W-| Network B |<-W-|           |
     +------------+-/   +----------+    +-----------+    +-----------+
     | Video data |
     +------------+
     On-site Device

          Remote control of industry with Edge Computing and APN

4.  Conclusion

   APN is able to identify the traffic of specific application, and
   provide low latency and high reliability network services in various
   edge computing scenarios such as AR, cloud gaming, remote industrial
   control, etc..

5.  Security Considerations

   TBD.

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6.  IANA Considerations

   TBD.

7.  Normative References

   [I-D.li-apn-framework]
              Li, Z., Peng, S., Voyer, D., Li, C., Geng, L., Cao, C.,
              Ebisawa, K., Previdi, S., and J. Guichard, "Application-
              aware Networking (APN) Framework", draft-li-apn-
              framework-01 (work in progress), September 2020.

   [I-D.li-apn-problem-statement-usecases]
              Li, Z., Peng, S., Voyer, D., Xie, C., Liu, P., Qin, Z.,
              Ebisawa, K., Previdi, S., and J. Guichard, "Problem
              Statement and Use Cases of Application-aware Networking
              (APN)", draft-li-apn-problem-statement-usecases-01 (work
              in progress), September 2020.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

Authors' Addresses

   Peng Liu
   China Mobile
   Beijing  100053
   China

   Email: liupengyjy@chinamobile.com

   Zongpeng Du
   China Mobile
   Beijing  100053
   China

   Email: duzongpeng@chinamobile.com

   Shuping Peng
   Huawei
   Beijing  100053
   China

   Email: pengshuping@huawei.com

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   Zhenbin Li
   Huawei
   Beijing  100053
   China

   Email: lizhenbin@huawei.com

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