DMM Working Group                                                J. Auge
Internet-Draft                                             G. Carofiglio
Intended status: Informational                            L. Muscariello
Expires: 9 January 2021                                      M. Papalini
                                                                   Cisco
                                                             8 July 2020


   Anchorless mobility management through hICN (hICN-AMM): Deployment
                                options
           draft-auge-dmm-hicn-mobility-deployment-options-04

Abstract

   A novel mobility management approach has been proposed, that
   leverages routable location-independent identifiers (IDs) and an
   Information-Centric Networking (ICN) communication model integrated
   in IPv6, also referred to as Hybrid ICN (hICN).  In virtue of its
   anchorless property, we denote this approach as hICN-AMM (hICN
   Anchorless Mobility Management) hereinafter.

   Such approach belongs to the category of pure ID-based mobility
   management schemes whose objective is (i) to overcome the limitations
   of traditional locator-based solutions like Mobile IP, (ii) to remove
   the need for a global mapping system as the one required by locator-
   identifier separation solutions like LISP or ILA.

   ID-based networking as proposed by ICN architectures allows to
   disentangle forwarding operations from changes of network location,
   hence removing tunnels and user plane or control plane anchors.

   This document discusses hICN-AMM deployment options and related
   tradeoffs in terms of cost/benefits.  Particular attention is devoted
   to the insertion in the recently proposed 5G Service Based
   Architecture under study at 3GPP where an hICN-AMM solution might
   present a more efficient alternative to the traditional tunnel-based
   mobility architecture through GTP-U.

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/.




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   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Overview of a mobile access network and the 5G
           architecture  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   3.  Transparent integration (option #1) . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     3.1.  MEC deployment (option #1a) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     3.2.  hICN deployment as a UPF (option #1b) . . . . . . . . . .  10
     3.3.  Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
   4.  "Integrated" approaches: data-plane alternatives to GTP-U
           (option #2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
     4.1.  hICN insertion at N9 interface only (option #2a)  . . . .  13
     4.2.  hICN deployment at both N9 and N3 interfaces (option
           #2b)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
     4.3.  Control plane considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   5.  Deployment considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
     5.1.  hICN in a slice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
     5.2.  End-to-end deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
     5.3.  Network-contained deployment  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
     5.4.  Alternative data planes: joint hICN/SRv6 deployment . . .  18
   6.  Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  19
   7.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20
     7.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20
     7.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  22





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1.  Introduction

   The steady increase in mobile traffic observed in the recent years
   has come with a growing expectation from next generation 5G networks
   of a seamless latency-minimal service experience over multiple
   heterogeneous access networks.  Motivated by stringent next-
   generation applications requirements and by the convergence of
   diverse wireless radio accesses, 5G standardization bodies have
   encouraged re-consideration of the existing Mobile IP and GTP-based
   architecture aiming at a simplified and sustainable mobility
   solution.

   Specifically, enhanced user plane solutions are currently
   investigated where GTP-U tunnels would be replaced by more flexible
   and dynamic forwarding schemes tailored to application needs and
   enabling novel use cases such as caching/computing at the edge (MEC/
   FOG), coordinated use of multiple network accesses in parallel, etc.

   It is commonly accepted that the inefficiencies of tunnels in terms
   of state and network overhead, as well as the presence of anchors in
   the data plane are a direct consequence of using locators as
   identifiers of mobile nodes/services.  This has motivated the
   introduction of a class of approaches distinguishing locators and
   identifiers, known as Loc/ID split, and more recently of pure ID-
   based approaches inspired from name-based Information-Centric
   Networking (ICN) architectures.

   The focus of this document is on the latter category of solutions and
   more precisely on the hICN-AMM proposal in
   [I-D.auge-dmm-hicn-mobility], that aims at a simplified anchorless
   mobility management through Hybrid ICN (hICN), a fully-fledged ICN
   architecture in IPv6 [I-D.muscariello-intarea-hicn].

   hICN-AMM benefits result both from the flexibility of pure ID-based
   mobility solutions, that completely decouple data delivery from
   underlying network connectivity, and from the native mobility support
   of ICN architectures.

   Forwarding operations are performed directly based on location-
   independent IDs stored in routers' FIBs and no mapping of ID into
   locators is required.  In this way, purely ID-based architectures
   remove the need to maintain a global mapping system at scale, and its
   intrinsic management complexity.

   Additional benefits brought by ICN communication model include:






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   *  the flexibility of multi-source/multi-path connectionless pull-
      based transport.  An example is the native support for consumer
      mobility, i.e. the transparent emission of data requests over
      multiple and varying available network interfaces during node
      mobility;

   *  the opportunity to define fine-grained per-application forwarding
      and security policies.

   An overview of ICN principles and advantages for a simplified
   mobility management resulting from name-based forwarding can be found
   in [RFC7476], while a detailed description of the proposal is
   presented in [I-D.auge-dmm-hicn-mobility].

   In this document, we discuss the integration of hICN-AMM proposal
   within an existing mobile network architecture and analyze the
   resulting tradeoffs in terms of cost/benefits.  The 3GPP 5G
   architecture is used here as a reference as the envisaged target for
   hICN-AMM insertion.

   After a short overview of 5G architecture, we first discuss hICN-AMM
   insertion with no modification to the existing 3GPP architecture.  We
   then consider the additional benefits emerging from a tighter
   integration involving optimization of data plane interfaces.
   Finally, we consider the impact of different degrees of hICN
   penetration, ranging from end-to-end to fully network-contained
   deployments.

2.  Overview of a mobile access network and the 5G architecture

   Figure 1 schematizes a typical mobile network composed of edge,
   backhaul and core network segments.  In the rest of this document, we
   assume an IPv6-based network.


















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                    , - ,              , - ,              , - ,
   Cell site    , '       ' ,      , '       ' ,      , '       ' ,
       __     ,               ,__,               ,__,              ,
    __/ A\   ,                /X/|                /X/|               ,
   / A\__/  __     IP edge    |_|/  IP backhaul   |_|/    IP core    __
   \__/ A\ /X/|               , ,                 , ,               /X/|
   / A\__/ |_|/    network    ,__     network     ,__     network   |_|/
   \__/ A\  |,                /X/|                /X/|               |
      \__/  | ,               |_|/,               |_|/,              |
            |   ,          , ' |   ,          , '' |   ,          , '|
            |     ' - ,  '     |     ' - ,  '      |     ' -  , '    |
          +-+-+              +-+-+               +-+-+             +-+-+
          |   |              |   |               |   |             |   |
          |DDC|              |DDC|               |DDC|             |DDC|
          |   |              |   |               |   |             |   |
          +---+              +---+               +---+             +---+

        Figure 1: Overview of a typical mobile network architecture

   With the adoption of virtualization and softwarization technologies,
   services are increasingly hosted in Distributed Data Centers (DDC)
   deployed at the network edge (Mobile Edge Computing, MEC).

   5G network has been designed around such evolved Service Based
   Architecture (SBA) [TS.23.501-3GPP], exploiting SDN and NFV
   capabilities.  It consists in a set of modular functions with
   separation of user and control planes.  Figure 2 gives the
   traditional representation of this architecture (as of Release 15) in
   its service-based representation.

                       Service Based Interfaces
   +-------+ +-------+ +-------+ +-------+ +-------+ +-------+ +-------+
   | NSSF  | |  NRF  | |  DSF  | |  UDM  | |  NEF  | |  PCF  | |  AUSF |
   +---+---+ +---+---+ +---+---+ +---+---+ +---+---+ +---+---+ +---+---+
       |         |         |         |         |         |         |
   ----+------+--+---------+---------+-------+-+---------+---------+----
              |                              |
     +--------+---------+          +---------+--------+      MOBILITY
     |        AMF       |          |        SMF       |     MANAGEMENT
     +-+--------------+-+          +++--------------+-+
       |              |              |              |        control
       | N1           | N2           | N4           | N4      plane
    ...|..............|..............|..............|...................
       |              |              |              |       user plane
       |              |              |              |
   +---+---+      +---+---+  N3  +---+---+  N9  +---+---+  N6  +-------+
   |  UE   +------+  gNB  +------+  UPF  +------+  UPF  +------+  DN   |
   +-------+      +-------+      +---+---+      +-------+      +-------+



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                    Figure 2: 5G reference architecture

   The mobility management subsystem corresponds to the bottom part of
   the picture and distinguishes user and control planes.

   *  the *user plane* (UP) represents the path followed by user
      traffic, between the mobile node or User Equipment (UE), and the
      Data Network (DN) corresponding to the egress point interfacing
      the ISP network and the Internet.  The UP consists of the Radio
      Access Network (RAN), terminated by the gNB function, and of a
      series of User Plane Functions (UPFs) which are generic functions
      to transport/ process the traffic up to the egress point.  In
      particular, UPFs serve as Layer 2 and Layer 3 anchors respectively
      in the RAN, and at the interface with the DN (to advertise IP
      prefixes).  The interfaces between gNB and UPF (N3), and in-
      between UPFs (N9) are those where GTP tunnels are currently
      established, and where there are opportunities for optimization.

   *  the principal *control plane* functions are the Access Management
      Function (AMF) which is responsible for the radio access, and the
      Session Management Function (SMF) which is taking care of the
      sessions established between a UE and a DN.

   The resulting protocol stack between user plane components is
   represented in Figure 3.  It illustrates the encapsulation overhead
   of this solution at the various UPFs, and well as tunnel
   inefficiencies due to the transport of all mobile traffic up to the
   anchor in the core (N6), the latter preventing convergence with non-
   3GPP network accesses.






















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       UE            5G-AN        N3         UPF        N9   UPF    N6
                                  |                     |            |
   +--------+                     |                     |            |
   |  App.  |--------------------------------------------------------|
   +--------+                     |                     | +--------+ |
   | IP PDU |---------------------------------------------| IP PDU | |
   +--------+ +-----------------+ | +-----------------+ | +--------+ |
   |        | |\     relay     /| | |\     relay     /| | |        | |
   |        | | \_____________/ |-|-| \_____________/ |-|-|        | |
   |        | |        | GTP-U  | | | GTP-U  |  GTP-U | | |  GTP-U | |
   |        | |        +--------+ | +--------+--------+ | +--------+ |
   |   5G   | |   5G   |  UDP   |-|-|  UDP   |   UDP  |-|-|   UDP  | |
   |   AN   |-|   AN   +--------+ | +--------+--------+ | +--------+ |
   |protocol| |protocol|   IP   |-|-|   IP   |   IP   |-|-|   IP   | |
   | layers | | layers +--------+ | +--------+--------+ | +--------+ |
   |        | |        |   L2   |-|-|   L2   |   L2   |-|-|   L2   | |
   |        | |        +--------+ | +--------+--------+ | +--------+ |
   |        | |        |   L1   |-|-|   L1   |   L1   |-|-|   L1   | |
   +--------+ +-----------------+ | +-----------------+ | +--------+ |
                                  |                     |            |

                        Figure 3: 5G protocol stack

3.  Transparent integration (option #1)

   This section discusses the insertion of hICN-AMM in an unmodified
   3GPP 5G reference architecture, where GTP tunnels are preserved.  As
   previously stated, maintaining GTP tunnels does not allow to overcome
   limitations of anchor-based approaches.  However, a transparent
   integration of hICN-AMM limits to the minimum deployment costs and
   already brings advantages over the baseline architecture.  We
   consider two cases: a) hICN-AMM deployment within Mobile Edge
   Computing (MEC) platforms, exploiting the local breakout capabilities
   of 5G networks, b) hICN-AMM deployment as User Plane Function (UPF)
   inside mobile user plane.

3.1.  MEC deployment (option #1a)

   Option #1a refers to the deployment of an hICN forwarder within
   Mobile Edge Computing platforms.  It relies on the local breakout
   capability introduced in 5G, i.e. a specific UPF denoted UL/CL
   (uplink classifier) that locally diverts specific flows to an
   alternative DN, filtering packets based for instance on information
   carried in packet headers.







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   In the hICN-AMM case, this function is used to realize the hICN
   punting function described in [I-D.muscariello-intarea-hicn], i.e. to
   identify hICN traffic (Interest and Data packets) and forward it to
   the local MEC hICN instance.

   The MEC deployment is illustrated in Figure 4.  It is worth noticing
   that option #1a shares similarities with the deployment approach for
   ID/Loc solutions proposed in [I-D.homma-dmm-5gs-id-loc-coexistence].

     +-----------------+          +------------------+
     |        AMF      |          |        SMF       |
     +-+-------------+-+          +++--------------+-+
       |             |             .|              |
       | N1          | N2       N4 .| N4           | N4
       |             |             .|              |
   +---+--+     +---+---+  N3  +---+---+  N9  +---+---+  N6  +-------+
   |  UE  +-----+  gNB  +------+ UL/CL +------+  UPF  +------+  DN   |
   +------+     +-------+      +---+---+      +-------+      +-------+
                                  .|
                                  .| N9
                                  .|                            _
                               +--++---+  N9  +-------+  MEC  _( )___
                               |  UPF  +------+   DN  +------(  hICN )_
                               +-------+      +-------+      (_________)
                                  ^               ^              ^
                                  |_______________|              |
                                    local breakout        hICN insertion

                      Figure 4: hICN insertion in MEC

   Although it preserves tunnels and anchor points, option #1a permits
   an early termination of tunnels and the distribution of hICN
   capabilities close to the edge like in path caching and rate/loss/
   congestion control which may be leveraged for efficient low-latency
   content distribution, especially in presence of consumer mobility.
   Let us analyze more in details such advantages.

   *Pro: Benefits of edge caching*

   The ability for the UE to communicate with an endpoint close to the
   access is a pre-requisite of latency-sensitive and interactive
   applications such as AR/VR.  Option #1a avoids forwarding of high-
   throughput traffic into the core, when it can be terminated locally
   at MEC.

   hICN ability to take dynamic hop-by-hop forwarding decisions
   facilitates edge/core traffic load-balancing.  In addition, the pull-
   based transport model enables request aggregation removing traffic



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   redundancy and facilitates the use of dynamically discovered sources.
   This is the case of requests directly satisfied from locally buffered
   temporary copies.  In this way, hICN implicitly realizes
   opportunistic multicast distribution of popular content with benefits
   for improved users' QoE for services such as VoD or live streaming as
   well as reduced traffic cost by offloading the mobile core.

   We remark that for caching of data or of requests to be effective, a
   sufficient level of aggregation is required: one can thus expect hICN
   instances to be useful in the backhaul and core locations (with an
   eventual hierarchy of caches), while low-latency applications will
   benefit from deployments close to the cell site.

   *Pro: Consumer mobility improvements*

   Consumer mobility is natively supported in ICN.  It is sufficient for
   a mobile UE to keep sending interests as soon as it connects to a new
   network interface.  The combined use of identifiers and of a pull-
   model in hICN-AMM allows for seamless mobility across heterogeneous
   wired and wireless networks, as well as their simultaneous use for
   multi-homing and bandwidth aggregation.

   Figure 5 illustrates a mobility scenario considering a 3GPP access
   and a non-3GPP WiFi access tunneled to a N3 Inter-networking Function
   (N3IWF) offering a N3 interface for connection to the first UPF.  In
   this setting, both wireless accesses are assumed to be connected
   through the same backhaul link, and thus to converge into the same
   first UPF.

   Placing an hICN instance at the aggregation of the two accesses would
   be beneficial both in terms of mobility and of local loss recovery,
   as a lost packet would be fast retransmitted directly from local hICN
   instance.

   tunnelled non-3GPP radio
   (eg. WiFi)  +------+  N3
          +----+ N3IWF+-------+                         hICN
         /     +------+        \                          +
        /                       \                         |
   +---+---+   +-------+ N3 +---+---+ N9 +---+---+ N6 +---+---+
   |  UE   +---+  gNB  +----+ UL/CL +----+  UPF  +----+  DN   +---+ hICN
   +-------+   +-------+    +---+---+    +-------+    +-------+

      Figure 5: Example of a UE connection to two local radio accesses

   *Pro: Multihoming and multi-source communications*





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   A specific feature of hICN transport is to control the use of
   multiple path/sources of content at the same time, for instance
   caches located at the edge of different fixed/mobile network
   accesses.  The consumer is able to use both network accesses in
   parallel adapting load-balancing on a per-packet granularity, based
   on network conditions in order to exploit the full aggregated
   bandwidth and/or to compensate variations induced by UE mobility or
   by random fluctuations of individual radio channel conditions.

   Figure 6 presents the case of a mobile consumer fetching data
   simultaneously from two distinct sources, for instance local caches
   behind each radio access.

   tunnelled non-3GPP radio
   (eg. WiFi) +-------+ N3 +-------+ N9 +-------+ N6 +-------+
          +---+ N3IWF +----| UL/CL +----+  UPF  +----+  DN   +----+ hICN
         /    +-------+    +-------+    +-------+    +-------+
        /
   +---+---+  +-------+ N3 +-------+ N9 +---+---+ N6 +---+---+
   |  UE   +--+  gNB  +----+ UL/CL +----+  UPF  +----+  DN   +----+ hICN
   +-------+  +-------+    +---+---+    +-------+    +-------+

               Figure 6: Multi-source communication with hICN

   *Con: Remaining IP anchors hinder producer mobility*

   hICN-AMM MEC deployments are not suitable for handling producer
   mobility effectively due to the presence of an anchor node in the
   core at the N6 interface which traffic has to pass through.  An
   alternative would be to put in place dedicated control mechanisms to
   update routers FIB following mobility events, but such coordination
   between hICN forwarders would involve interaction with SMF.

   *Con: Loss of 3GPP control plane*

   More generally, traffic in between forwarders in the MEC will be out
   of reach for the mobile core.  At the time of this writing, MEC
   interfaces are not well standardized; slicing and QoS functions will
   only be available up to the breakout point.

3.2.  hICN deployment as a UPF (option #1b)

   The design of hICN makes it a good candidate for being deployed as a
   UPF in NFV environments, for instance within a container (see
   Figure 7.  This solution has the advantage of preserving the
   interface with the 3GPP control plane, including support for slicing
   or QoS.




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     +------------------+          +------------------+
     |        AMF       |          |        SMF       |
     +-+--------------+-+          +-+--------------+-+
       |              |              |              |
       | N1           | N2           | N4           | N4
       |              |              |              |
   +---+---+      +---+---+  N3  +---+---+  N9  +---+---+  N6  +-------+
   |  UE   +------+  gNB  +------+  UPF  +------+  UPF  +------+  DN   |
   +-------+      +-------+      +-------+      +-------+      +-------+
                                    ^                ^
                                    |________________|
                                      hICN insertion

                                  Figure 7

   *Improved traffic engineering*

   On-path deployments of hICN-AMM, as early as at the first UPF, bring
   additional advantages in terms of opportunities to optimize traffic
   engineering, including multipath and load balancing support.

   As an example, one may consider hICN deployment at the PDU Session
   Anchor, with dynamic congestion-aware and per-application control of
   multiple downstream paths to the edge.

   *Network-assisted transport*

   hICN ability to provide in-network assistance for rate/loss/
   congestion control is an additional advantage, e.g. to support rate
   adaptation in the case of dynamic adaptive streaming, or to improve
   reliability of WiFi communications via local wireless detection and
   recovery [WLDR].

   We illustrate the latter case in Figure 8, where an hICN UPF is
   deployed as the first UPF following the WiFi access. hICN UPF can
   exploit network buffers to realize loss detection and recovery of the
   packet transiting on the unreliable radio access, thus offering
   superior performance for WiFi traffic with respect to a traditional
   end-to-end recovery approach.  Such feature could be fundamental for
   low-latency reliable services.











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                               +-- Loss Detection and Recovey
                               V
               +-------+ N3 +-------+
          +----+ N3IWF +----| hICN  |
         /     +-------+    +---+---+
        /                    N9 |
   +---+---+   +-------+ N3 +---+---+ N9 +---+---+ N6 +---+---+
   |  UE   +---+  gNB  +----+  UPF  +----+  UPF  +----+  DN   +---+ hICN
   +-------+   +-------+    +---+---+    +-------+    +-------+

         Figure 8: In-network loss detection and recovery with hICN

   *Producer mobility*

   Option #1b is appropriate for handling producer mobility; however, it
   would be supported through traditional DMM approaches for identifier-
   based mobility.

3.3.  Summary

   This section has reviewed various insertion strategies for hICN,
   including overlay deployments using local breakout to hICN instances
   situated in MEC, or hICN forwarders deployed within an UPF.  While
   those approaches have the merit of allowing an easy or early
   integration of hICN and exploiting some of its benefits, they do not
   fully exploit purely ID-based capabilities nor the dynamic hICN
   forwarding.

4.  "Integrated" approaches: data-plane alternatives to GTP-U (option
    #2)

   The section describes more integrated hICN-AMM/3GPP 5G approaches
   leveraging hICN capabilities in the mobile backhaul network in
   alternative to GTP-U tunnels over N9 (and possibly N3) interface(s),
   as shown in Figure 2 and Figure 3.

   It is proposed to replace GTP tunnels at N9 and optionally at N3
   interfaces by an hICN-enabled data plane operating on location-
   independent identifiers advertised by the routing protocol and whose
   forwarding information is stored/updated in routers' FIBs according
   to the hICN-AMM approach.

   We remind that an hICN data plane does not require the presence of a
   mapping system nor the enablement of all routers, since hICN traffic
   is transparently forwarded by regular hICN-unaware IP routers.






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4.1.  hICN insertion at N9 interface only (option #2a)

   Option #2a answers the question of the ongoing 3GPP study of
   alternative technologies for the N9 interface [TR.29.892-3GPP]. with
   no impact on gNB as illustrated in Figure 9.  The corresponding
   protocol layering is shown in Figure 10 where we assume hICN-
   enablement of the end-points (an alternative in-network hICN
   enablement via proxies is possible but not considered by this
   document).  In the protocol layer, hICN is associated to IPv6 PDU
   layer, transported over N9 directly over L2.

     +------------------+          +------------------+
     |        AMF       |          |        SMF       |
     +-+--------------+-+          +-+--------------+-+
       |              |              |              |
       | N1           | N2           | N4           | N4
       |              |              |              |
   +---+---+      +---+---+  N3  +---+---+  N9  +---+---+  N6  +-------+
   |  UE   +------+  gNB  +------+  UPF  +------+  UPF  +------+  DN   |
   +-------+      +-------+      +-------+      +-------+      +-------+
                                            ^
                                            |
                                      hICN insertion

                   Figure 9: Replacement of N9 interface

       UE            5G-AN        N3         UPF        N9   UPF    N6
                                  |                     |            |
   +--------+                     |                     |            |
   |  App.  |--------------------------------------------------------|
   +--------+                     |                     | +--------+ |
   | IP PDU |                     |                     | | IP PDU | |
   | (hICN) |---------------------------------------------| (hICN) | |
   +--------+ +-----------------+ | +-----------------+ | |        | |
   |        | |\     relay     /| | |\     decap     /  | |        | |
   |        | | \_____________/ |-|-| \_____________/   | |        | |
   |        | |        | GTP-U  | | | GTP-U  |          | |        | |
   |        | |        +--------+ | +--------+          | |        | |
   |   5G   | |   5G   |  UDP   |-|-|  UDP   |          | |        | |
   |   AN   |-|   AN   +--------+ | +--------+          | |        | |
   |protocol| |protocol|   IP   |-|-|   IP   |          | |        | |
   | layers | | layers +--------+ | +--------+--------+ | +--------+ |
   |        | |        |   L2   |-|-|   L2   |   L2   |-|-|   L2   | |
   |        | |        +--------+ | +--------+--------+ | +--------+ |
   |        | |        |   L1   |-|-|   L1   |   L1   |-|-|   L1   | |
   +--------+ +-----------------+ | +-----------------+ | +--------+ |
                                  |                     |            |




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          Figure 10: Replacement of N9 interface - Protocol layers

   *Anchorless consumer and producer mobility*

   Option #2a realizes a fully anchorless solution as the traffic does
   not need to go up to the anchor point in the core, nor to depend on
   the resolution performed by a mapping node.  As illustrated in
   Figure 11, communication between two UEs can take place by forwarding
   traffic between their first UPFs, and thus avoids unnecessarily
   overload of links up to the core.  In this way option #2a provides an
   effective traffic offloading and increased resiliency of network
   operations in the event of a failure that would disconnect the edge
   from the mobile core (e.g. disaster recovery scenario).

       +---+---+      +---+---+  N3  +-------+
       |  UE   +------+  gNB  +------+  UPF  +------ ...
       +-------+      +-------+      +---+---+
                                         | N9    hICN domain
       +---+---+      +---+---+  N3  +-------+
       |  UE   +------+  gNB  +------+  UPF  +------ ...
       +-------+      +-------+      +---+---+

              Figure 11: Offloading of inter-UE communications

   *Low state and signaling overhead*

   Unlike traditional 3GPP GTP-based mobility management, hICN-AMM does
   not involve signaling/ additional state to be maintained to handle
   static consumers/producers or mobile consumers.  Forwarding updates
   are required only in the event of producer mobility to guarantee
   real-time re-direction of consumer requests without triggering
   routing updates.

   *Dynamic forwarding strategies / UPF selection*

   Dynamic selection of next hop or exit point is simplified by hICN-AMM
   as it can be performed locally based on names and/or name-based
   locally available information (e.g. measurements of congestion status
   or residual latency up to the first data source).

4.2.  hICN deployment at both N9 and N3 interfaces (option #2b)

   Option #2b proposes to additionally remove GTP tunnels between the
   RAN and the first UPF (N3 interface).  It is illustrated in Figure 12
   and Figure 13.






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     +------------------+          +------------------+
     |        AMF       |          |        SMF       |
     +-+--------------+-+          +-+--------------+-+
       |              |              |              |
       | N1           | N2           | N4           | N4
       |              |              |              |
   +---+---+      +---+---+  N3  +---+---+  N9  +---+---+  N6  +-------+
   |  UE   +------+  gNB  +------+  UPF  +------+  UPF  +------+  DN   |
   +-------+      +-------+  ^   +-------+  ^   +-------+      +-------+
                             |              |
                             |              |
                              hICN insertion

               Figure 12: Replacement of N3 and N9 interfaces

       UE            5G-AN        N3         UPF        N9   UPF    N6
                                  |                     |            |
   +--------+                     |                     |            |
   |  App.  |--------------------------------------------------------|
   +--------+                     | +--------+--------+ | +--------+ |
   | IP PDU |                     | | IP PDU | IP PDU | | | IP PDU | |
   | (hICN) |-----------------------| (hICN) | (hICN) |-|-| (hICN) | |
   +--------+ +-----------------+ | |        |        | | |        | |
   |        | |\     decap     /  | |        |        | | |        | |
   |        | | \_____________/   | |        |        | | |        | |
   |        | |        |          | |        |        | | |        | |
   |        | |        |          | |        |        | | |        | |
   |   5G   | |   5G   |          | |        |        | | |        | |
   |   AN   |-|   AN   |          | |        |        | | |        | |
   |protocol| |protocol|          | |        |        | | |        | |
   | layers | | layers +--------+ | +--------+--------+ | +--------+ |
   |        | |        |   L2   |-|-|   L2   |   L2   |-|-|   L2   | |
   |        | |        +--------+ | +--------+--------+ | +--------+ |
   |        | |        |   L1   |-|-|   L1   |   L1   |-|-|   L1   | |
   +--------+ +-----------------+ | +-----------------+ | +--------+ |
                                  |                     |            |

      Figure 13: Replacement of N3 and N9 interfaces : Protocol layers

   *Full tunnel removal; No internetworking between N3 and N9*

   A clear advantage is the elimination of all GTP tunnels and a similar
   specification of both N3 and N9 interfaces as recommended by 3GPP, so
   removing challenges of inter-networking between N3 and N9.  Also, it
   leads to a flat and simpler architecture, allowing convergence with
   other non-3GPP accesses (and related management and monitoring
   tools).




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   *State and signaling reduction*

   A direct consequence is the extension to N3 of the property of hICN-
   AMM above described, namely the absence of signaling and additional
   state to be maintained to handle static consumers/producers or mobile
   consumers.

   *Dynamic first UPF selection*

   Dynamic forwarding capabilities are extended to the selection of the
   first UPF, hence closer to the edge w.r.t. option #2a.

   The advantage can be significant in the case of dense deployments
   scenarios: here hICN-AMM makes possible to isolate the core network
   from local edge mobility (a design objective of 5G mobile
   architecture), while still permitting distributed selection of
   ingress UPFs, and load-balancing of traffic across them.

4.3.  Control plane considerations

   By operating directly on router FIBs for mobility updates and for
   dynamic policy-based forwarding strategies etc., hICN inherits the
   simplicity of IP forwarding and can reuse legacy IP routing protocols
   to advertise/route ID prefixes.  In this way it remains compatible
   with the exiting control plane architecture as proposed in the 3GPP
   standard, with no change required to N1, N2 or N4.

   hICN-AMM producer mobility management does not require SMF
   interaction, but could be implemented by means of SMF signaling, at
   the condition to follow the same procedure described for MAP-Me
   protocol in hICN-AMM.  In the analysis of pros and cons of SMF
   interaction, it is worth noticing that the absence of SMF interaction
   might be beneficial in case of dense deployments or of failure of the
   central control entities (infrastructure-less communication
   scenarios) to empower distributed control of local mobility within an
   area.

5.  Deployment considerations

   The benefits previously described can be obtained by an upgrade of
   only a few selected routers at the network edge.  The design of hICN
   allows the rest of the infrastructure to remain unmodified, and to
   leverage existing management and monitoring tools.








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5.1.  hICN in a slice

   The use of hICN does not impose any specific slicing of the network
   as the architecture uses regular IPv6 packets, and is designed to
   coexist with regular traffic.  In that, hICN contrasts with previous
   approaches integrating ICN in IP networks by using separate slices
   and/or different PDU formats as reviewed in
   [I-D.irtf-icnrg-deployment-guidelines].

   Although not required, slicing can ease a transition of services
   towards hICN, and/or the coexistence of different mobility management
   solutions with hICN-AMM or of different hICN deployment options.

   An example use of slicing would be to create multiple slices for
   optimizing the delivery of services having different requirements
   such as a low-latency communication slice with hICN instances
   deployed very close to the edge, and a video delivery service with
   caches deployed in locations aggregating a sufficient number of users
   to be effective.

5.2.  End-to-end deployment

   Deployment of the hICN stack in the endpoints is the preferred
   insertion option and offers the full range of benefits. hICN client
   and network stacks are available through two reference
   implementations based on the CICN project [CICN].  They share the
   objective of smooth deployment in existing devices, and are fully
   user-space based.

   The first one is built on top of existing IP primitives and proposed
   as an application/library for all major OS vendors including iOS,
   Android, Linux, macOS and Windows.  The second one targets high-
   performance routers and servers, and leverages the VPP technology
   [VPP].

















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5.3.  Network-contained deployment

   In case it is not possible to insert hICN stack at endpoints, an hICN
   deployment fully contained in the network can be envisaged through
   the deployment of proxies.  An overview of different options
   implemented at the network, transport or application level is
   provided in [I-D.irtf-icnrg-deployment-guidelines].  An example would
   be the deployment of HTTP (or RTP) proxies (as made available through
   the CICN project) at the ingress and egress (resp. first and last
   UPFs), in order to benefit from content awareness in the network.
   Such configuration however reduces the flexibility and dynamic
   forwarding capabilities in endpoints.  In particular, existing
   transport protocols have limited support for dynamically changing
   paths/discovered sources or network conditions.

   In such configuration, traffic that is not handled through hICN-AMM
   mechanisms can still benefit from the lower overhead and anchorless
   mobility capabilities coming from the removal of GTP tunnels, as well
   as dynamic forwarding capabilities that are inherent to the
   forwarding pipeline.  This results from the ability to assign
   location-independent identifiers to endpoints even without the
   deployment of a full hICN stack.  The advantages of removed
   identifier/location mapping and of a lightweight FIB update process
   are maintained.  No encapsulation is required and packet headers are
   not modified, which may allow the network to have visibility of the
   source and/or destination identifiers.

5.4.  Alternative data planes: joint hICN/SRv6 deployment

   hICN is designed to operate inside an IPv6 network by means of an
   enriched communication layer supporting ICN primitives.  The targeted
   deployment of a few hICN-empowered nodes leads to the tradeoff
   between incremental deployment and benefits which are proportionally
   related to the degree of hICN penetration.  The association of hICN
   with other data planes technologies is investigated as a possibility
   to overcome the above-mentioned tradeoff yielding to a selective, yet
   fully beneficial insertion of hICN in IP networks.

   To this aim, we focus on hICN insertion in a Segment Routing (SR)
   enhanced data plane, specifically considering SRv6 instantiation of
   SR [I-D.ietf-spring-segment-routing].

   hICN/SRv6 combination inherits all SRv6 advantages presented in SR-
   dedicated section of this document, namely "underlay" management
   (fast reroute, etc.), service chaining or fine-grained TE, for
   instance.





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   In addition, it allows extending the reach of hICN on regular IP
   routers with SRv6 functionality.  One realization being to create
   SRv6 domains in between hICN nodes.  The hICN router (through
   forwarding strategies) would then act as a control plane for SRv6 by
   specifying the list of SIDs to insert in the packet.

   SRv6 forwarding of packets between hICN hops would permit to enforce
   dynamic per-application hICN forwarding strategies and their
   objectives (path steering, QoS, etc.), which would be otherwise not
   possible over not hICN-enabled IP network segments.  It would also
   allow dynamic multi-path and load balancing in hICN-unaware IP
   network segments and enforcing the symmetry of the request/reply path
   for more accurate round trip delay measurements and rate/congestion
   control).

6.  Summary

   hICN proposes a general purpose architecture that combines the
   benefits of a pure-ID (name-based) architecture with those of ICN.

   An hICN enabled network offers native offloading capabilities in
   virtue of the anchorless properties resulting from the pure-ID
   communication scheme.  It does so without the need for a mapping
   system, and further requires no change in the 5G architecture nor in
   its control plane.  The architecture will further leverage the
   incremental insertion of Information-Centric functionalities through
   proxies or direct insertion in user devices as the technology gets
   adopted and deployed.

   While a full deployment is recommended to make efficient use of
   available network resources, it is still possible to opt for a
   partial or phased deployment, with the associated tradeoffs that we
   summarize in Figure 14.

   This table reviews the various insertion options in the 3GPP
   architecture earlier introduced - namely options #1a (MEC), #1b
   (UPF), #2a (N9) and #2b (N9/N3) -, assuming endpoints are hICN-
   enabled.  Various levels of hICN penetration are then considered :
   (UE) the UE is hICN-enabled, (proxy) hICN processing is available
   through proxies, (None) no hICN function, the traffic is purely
   forwarded using endpoint identifiers rather than content identifiers.










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                                        +-----------------------+------+
                      hICN penetration: |       UE      | Proxy | None |
     Benefit:        Deployment option: | 1a 1b | 2a 2b |   2b  |  2b  |
   +------------------------------------+-------+-------+-------+------+
   | Additional state for static cons.  | Y  Y  | Y  N  |   N   |  N   |
   | Additional state for static prod.  | Y  Y  | Y  N  |   N   |  N   |
   | Additional state for mobile cons.  | Y  Y  | Y  N  |   N   |  N   |
   | Additional state for mobile prod.  | Y  Y  | Y  N  |   N   |  N   |
   +------------------------------------+-------+-------+-------+------+
   | Signalization for static consumer  | Y  Y  | N  N  |   N   |  N   |
   | Signalization for static producer  | Y  Y  | N  N  |   N   |  N   |
   | Signalization for mobile consumer  | Y  Y  | N  N  |   N   |  N   |
   | Signalization for mobile producer  | Y  Y  | Y  Y  |   Y   |  Y   |
   +------------------------------------+-------+-------+-------+------+
   | Removed tunnel/encap overhead      | N  N  | P  Y  |   Y   |  Y   |
   | Preserve perf. of ongoing flows    | N  N  | Y  Y  |   Y   |  Y   |
   +------------------------------------+-------+-------+-------+------+
   | Local offload                      | P  N  | Y  Y  |   Y   |  Y   |
   | Anchorless for UP                  | N  N  | Y  Y  |   Y   |  Y   |
   | Anchorless for CP                  | N  N  | Y  Y  |   Y   |  Y   |
   | Dynamic egress UPF selection       | N  N  | Y  Y  |   Y   |  Y   |
   | Dynamic ingress UPF selection      | N  N  | N  Y  |   Y   |  Y   |
   +------------------------------------+-------+-------+-------+------+
   | Edge caching : low-latency         | Y  Y  | Y  Y  |   P   |  N   |
   | Edge caching : multicast           | Y  Y  | Y  Y  |   P   |  N   |
   | Seamless mobility across het. RAT  | Y  Y  | Y  Y  |   Y   |  P   |
   | Multi-homing : bw aggregation      | Y  Y  | Y  Y  |   Y   |  P   |
   | Multi-source                       | Y  Y  | Y  Y  |   Y   |  N   |
   | In-network assistance              | N  Y  | Y  Y  |   P   |  N   |
   +------------------------------------+-------+-------+-------+------+
   | Integration with 3GPP CP           | N  Y  | Y  Y  |   Y   |  Y   |
   +------------------------------------+-------+-------+-------+------+

   LEGEND: (Y) Yes - (N) No - (P) Partial

                                 Figure 14

7.  References

7.1.  Normative References

   [RFC7476]  Pentikousis, K., Ed., Ohlman, B., Corujo, D., Boggia, G.,
              Tyson, G., Davies, E., Molinaro, A., and S. Eum,
              "Information-Centric Networking: Baseline Scenarios",
              RFC 7476, DOI 10.17487/RFC7476, March 2015,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7476>.

7.2.  Informative References



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   [CICN]     io, Linux Foundation fd., "CICN project", 2018.

   [I-D.auge-dmm-hicn-mobility]
              Auge, J., Carofiglio, G., Muscariello, L., and M.
              Papalini, "Anchorless mobility through hICN", Work in
              Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-auge-dmm-hicn-mobility-03,
              6 January 2020, <http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/
              draft-auge-dmm-hicn-mobility-03.txt>.

   [I-D.homma-dmm-5gs-id-loc-coexistence]
              Homma, S., Kawakami, K., Akhavain, A., Rodriguez-Natal,
              A., and R. Shekhar, "Co-existence of 3GPP 5GS and
              Identifier-Locator Separation Architecture", Work in
              Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-homma-dmm-5gs-id-loc-
              coexistence-03, 23 April 2019, <http://www.ietf.org/
              internet-drafts/draft-homma-dmm-5gs-id-loc-coexistence-
              03.txt>.

   [I-D.ietf-spring-segment-routing]
              Filsfils, C., Previdi, S., Ginsberg, L., Decraene, B.,
              Litkowski, S., and R. Shakir, "Segment Routing
              Architecture", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-
              ietf-spring-segment-routing-15, 25 January 2018,
              <http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-spring-
              segment-routing-15.txt>.

   [I-D.irtf-icnrg-deployment-guidelines]
              Rahman, A., Trossen, D., Kutscher, D., and R. Ravindran,
              "Deployment Considerations for Information-Centric
              Networking (ICN)", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft,
              draft-irtf-icnrg-deployment-guidelines-07, 3 September
              2019, <http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-irtf-
              icnrg-deployment-guidelines-07.txt>.

   [I-D.muscariello-intarea-hicn]
              Muscariello, L., Carofiglio, G., Auge, J., Papalini, M.,
              and M. Sardara, "Hybrid Information-Centric Networking",
              Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-muscariello-
              intarea-hicn-04, 20 May 2020, <http://www.ietf.org/
              internet-drafts/draft-muscariello-intarea-hicn-04.txt>.

   [TR.29.892-3GPP]
              3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), "Study on User
              Plane Protocol in 5GC, 3GPP TR 29.892 (study item)", 2017.







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   [TS.23.501-3GPP]
              3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), "System
              Architecture for 5G System; Stage 2, 3GPP TS 23.501
              v2.0.1", December 2017.

   [VPP]      io (Linux Foundation), FD., "Vector Packet Processing
              (VPP)", url https://wiki.fd.io/view/VPP, n.d..

   [WLDR]     Carofiglio, G., Muscariello, L., Papalini, M., Rozhnova,
              N., and X. Zeng, "Leveraging ICN In-network Control for
              Loss Detection and Recovery in Wireless Mobile networks",
              DOI 10.1145/2984356.2984361, Proceedings of the 2016
              conference on 3rd ACM Conference on Information-Centric
              Networking - ACM-ICN '16, 2016,
              <https://doi.org/10.1145/2984356.2984361>.

Authors' Addresses

   Jordan Auge
   Cisco Systems
   11, rue Camille Desmoulins
   92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux
   France

   Email: augjorda@cisco.com


   Giovanna Carofiglio
   Cisco Systems
   11, rue Camille Desmoulins
   92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux
   France

   Email: gcarofig@cisco.com


   Luca Muscariello
   Cisco Systems
   11, rue Camille Desmoulins
   92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux
   France

   Email: lumuscar@cisco.com


   Michele Papalini
   Cisco Systems
   11, rue Camille Desmoulins



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   92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux
   France

   Email: micpapal@cisco.com















































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