IP based Generic Control Protocol (IGCP)
draft-chaparadza-intarea-igcp-00

Abstract

This document presents a proposal for a multi-purpose Generic Control Protocol (IGCP) for IP based networks. There is a growing need for a generic control protocol framework that can be further customized to specific usage contexts in which certain types of control information exchange messages and behavior among some functional entities hosted by different nodes or devices is desired. For example, the growing area of self-management, self-organization and autonomic networking introduces functional entities into the node/device and network architectures that need to exchange control information in order to implement self-adaptive behavior by dynamically configuring and optimizing the network. In this Draft we capture a number of control message exchange types of contexts (semantics) that can be selectively applied in the exchange of control information, which can form the basis of a generic control protocol, while at the same time defining the part in the message format that can be further customized according to the needs of specific functional entities designed to use the generic control protocol for exchanging control information. In this Draft, we present our proposal for such a generic control protocol, whose message format is divided into two parts: a Common Part and a Generic Data Part. The Common Part defines a set of a variety of selectable control semantics (e.g. simple one-way control information flow, indications of whether an acknowledgement is needed or not, solicitations for information or push/pull behaviors, negotiations for parameter value settings, etc). The Generic Data Part can be further customized and structured according to some specific use case of conveying control information carried by the Data Part that need to be parsed and used by some entities designed to interpret the Data Part according to their own specific customization and structuring of the Data Part. We also give an example domain of application of the IGCP, namely the domain of autonomic adaptive control of network behaviours, of which we illustrate further by providing an example Use Case that customizes the Data Part of the IGCP for use by special functional entities residing in different nodes in exchanging information using the IGCP messages.

Authors

Michael H. Behringer
Ranganai Chaparadza
Li Xin
Heikki Mahkonen
Razvan Petre

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