@techreport{ietf-cats-usecases-requirements-06, number = {draft-ietf-cats-usecases-requirements-06}, type = {Internet-Draft}, institution = {Internet Engineering Task Force}, publisher = {Internet Engineering Task Force}, note = {Work in Progress}, url = {https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-cats-usecases-requirements/06/}, author = {Kehan Yao and Luis M. Contreras and Hang Shi and Shuai Zhang and Qing An}, title = {{Computing-Aware Traffic Steering (CATS) Problem Statement, Use Cases, and Requirements}}, pagetotal = 36, year = 2025, month = feb, day = 14, abstract = {Distributed computing is a computing pattern that service providers can follow and use to achieve better service response time and optimized energy consumption. In such a distributed computing environment, compute intensive and delay sensitive services can be improved by utilizing computing resources hosted in various computing facilities. Ideally, compute services are balanced across servers and network resources to enable higher throughput and lower response time. To achieve this, the choice of server and network resources should consider metrics that are oriented towards compute capabilities and resources instead of simply dispatching the service requests in a static way or optimizing solely on connectivity metrics. The process of selecting servers or service instance locations, and of directing traffic to them on chosen network resources is called "Computing-Aware Traffic Steering" (CATS). This document provides the problem statement and the typical scenarios for CATS, which shows the necessity of considering more factors when steering traffic to the appropriate computing resource to better meet the customer's expectations.}, }