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Auto-adjustment of Encapsulation Information in APN6
draft-du-apn6-auto-encapsulation-adjustment-02

Document Type Active Internet-Draft (individual)
Authors Zongpeng Du , Peng Liu
Last updated 2022-03-02
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draft-du-apn6-auto-encapsulation-adjustment-02
Network Working Group                                              Z. Du
Internet-Draft                                                    P. Liu
Intended status: Standards Track                            China Mobile
Expires: September 3, 2022                                 March 2, 2022

          Auto-adjustment of Encapsulation Information in APN6
             draft-du-apn6-auto-encapsulation-adjustment-02

Abstract

   This document introduces a method to adjust the encapsulation
   information in Application-aware IPv6 Networking.

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 September 3, 2022.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2022 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
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   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must

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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  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Auto-adjustment of Encapsulation Information  . . . . . . . .   2
     2.1.  Current Mechanism in APN6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     2.2.  Comparisons of Data Plane and Control Plane Programming .   3
     2.3.  Potential Solutions for Auto-adjustment . . . . . . . . .   4
   3.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   4.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   5.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   6.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     6.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     6.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6

1.  Introduction

   As the development of 5G and the new emerging Internet services, such
   as live video streaming, the networks are facing a larger and larger
   SLA requirement difference.  For better bearing of the user's
   traffic, the networks need to be intelligent and be aware of the user
   traffic's demand.  An innovative method called APN6 is introduced in
   [I-D.li-apn6-problem-statement-usecases] and [I-D.li-apn-framework].

   In the mechanism of APN6, the packet can carry the ID information and
   SLA requirements of the traffic, and a network equipment can get them
   in each packet and handle the packet accordingly.  It is one kind of
   network programming mechanisms in the data plane.

   As the encapsulation information increases in an APN packet, some
   bandwidth is kindly wasted in APN6 which contains a larger overhead
   in every packet.  On one aspect, it is believed that it is necessary
   for the evolution to an intelligent network; on the other aspect, it
   is recommended that after the network has known the requirements of
   the traffic and associated it with a proper policy, the traffic does
   not need to resend the same information in every packet again and
   again.  This document describes the process of the later.

2.  Auto-adjustment of Encapsulation Information

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2.1.  Current Mechanism in APN6

   As shown in Figure 1, the APN framework [I-D.li-apn-framework]
   includes Service-aware App, App-aware Edge Device, App-aware-process
   Head-End, App-aware-process Mid-Point, and App-aware-process End-
   Point.

  Client                                                         Server
  +-----+                                                        +-----+
  |App x|-\                                                   /->|App x|
  +-----+ |   +-----+ +---------+   +---------+   +---------+ |  +-----+
           \->|App- | |App-aware|-A-|App-aware|-A-|App-aware|-/
  User side   |aware|-|process  |-B-|process  |-B-|process  |
           /->|Edge | |Head-End |-C-|Mid-Point|-C-|End-Point|-\
  +-----+ |   +-----+ +---------+   +---------+   +---------+ |  +-----+
  |App y|-/                                                   \->|App y|
  +-----+           ---------  Uplink   ---------->              +-----+

               Figure 1: Framework and Key Components in APN6

   The data-driven process of APN6 is described below.

   The APP or the APP-aware Edge will generate APN packets each carries
   the application characteristic information in the encapsulation.

   App-aware-process Head-End can read that information and steer the
   packets into a given policy which satisfies the application's SLA
   requirements.  It is supposed that a set of paths, tunnels or SR
   policies, exist between the App-aware-process Head-End and the App-
   aware-process End-Point.  App-aware-process Head-End can find one
   existing path or establish a new one for the traffic.

2.2.  Comparisons of Data Plane and Control Plane Programming

   We can realize the same traffic steering in the control plane.  The
   control-plane based process, as described below, includes three key
   components: the identity of the traffic, policies in Head-End, and
   the interface to notify the user requirements.

   The APP or the Edge knowing the application characteristic
   information, needs to report that information to the controller of
   the Head-End by some means.

   The controller needs to know the traffic requirements and the status
   of the network, and generate a policy for the Head-End. The policy
   SHOULD include the identity of the traffic and the path that the
   traffic should follow.

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   The Head-End needs to implement the policy, and steer the traffic to
   the proper path.

   In this mechanism, we do not need to carry extra information in each
   packet, but need to generate control messages between the Edge and
   the controller, and between the Head-End and the controller.

   In the situation that the traffic is small, and simple to handle, a
   control-layer decision-loop is not that necessary.  By comparison, a
   date-driven method is more flexible.  In this situation, the Head-End
   after steering the traffic needs to report the (summarized) change to
   the controller.

2.3.  Potential Solutions for Auto-adjustment

   We can find that after the Head-End has selected the policy, the
   extra information carried in the following APN6 packets has little
   use.  Therefore, an auto-adjustment of encapsulation information
   mechanism may be helpful for the simplification of the following IPv6
   packets.

   According to [I-D.li-apn-framework], the information may include
   application-aware identification, such as SLA level, application ID,
   user ID, flow ID, etc., and network performance requirements, such as
   bandwidth, latency, jitter, packet loss ratio, etc.  Hence, at least,
   we can send only the application-aware identification information in
   the following APN6 packets without network performance requirements
   information.

   Two methods are described below.

   One straightforward method is that we firstly send full information
   in APN6 packets, and after several seconds, we send APN6 packets that
   only contain the necessary information, such as the application-aware
   identification information.  In this method, we believe that the
   Head-End can handle the policy mapping process in the several
   seconds.  For example, it can be three seconds.  The number should be
   a parameter that can be adjusted according to the situation of each
   network.

   Another method is that after enabling the policy, the Head-End can
   notify the encapsulation point by some means.  However, we do not
   have a notification mechanism between different nodes in the data-
   plane network programming now.  We need to notify by using the
   control plane again.  The control plane sends a message to the
   encapsulation point to adjust the encapsulation degree.

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   This document suggests to enable a simple notification method for the
   data-plane network programming if the information is not that
   complicated.  For example, we can send a "ping" message with a
   specific flag to the encapsulation point.  The advantage is easy to
   inter-operate.

   In future, with the technical development of network equipments, the
   bandwidth may not be the bottleneck anymore, so that a full APN6
   encapsulation packet may be used widely to enable the data plane
   intelligence.  However, the auto-adjustment of encapsulation
   information method can help the adoption of the APN6 mechanism by
   providing a transit solution.  Meanwhile, this document also provides
   a feedback mechanism for the data plane programming to enable the
   coordination between two nodes.

3.  IANA Considerations

   TBD.

4.  Security Considerations

   TBD.

5.  Acknowledgements

   TBD.

6.  References

6.1.  Normative References

   [I-D.li-apn-framework]
              Li, Z., Peng, S., Voyer, D., Li, C., Liu, P., Cao, C.,
              Mishra, G., Ebisawa, K., Previdi, S., and J. N. Guichard,
              "Application-aware Networking (APN) Framework", draft-li-
              apn-framework-04 (work in progress), October 2021.

   [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>.

6.2.  Informative References

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   [I-D.li-apn6-problem-statement-usecases]
              Li, Z., Peng, S., Voyer, D., Xie, C., Liu, P., Liu, C.,
              Ebisawa, K., Previdi, S., and J. N. Guichard, "Problem
              Statement and Use Cases of Application-aware IPv6
              Networking (APN6)", draft-li-apn6-problem-statement-
              usecases-01 (work in progress), November 2019.

Authors' Addresses

   Zongpeng Du
   China Mobile
   No.32 XuanWuMen West Street
   Beijing  100053
   China

   Email: duzongpeng@foxmail.com

   Peng Liu
   China Mobile
   No.32 XuanWuMen West Street
   Beijing  100053
   China

   Email: liupengyjy@chinamobile.com

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