Current Open Questions in Path Aware Networking
draft-irtf-panrg-questions-05
Path Aware Networking RG B. Trammell
Internet-Draft Google Switzerland GmbH
Intended status: Informational 30 June 2020
Expires: 1 January 2021
Current Open Questions in Path Aware Networking
draft-irtf-panrg-questions-05
Abstract
In contrast to the present Internet architecture, a path-aware
internetworking architecture has two important properties: it exposes
the properties of available Internet paths to endpoints, and provides
for endpoints and applications to use these properties to select
paths through the Internet for their traffic. This document poses
questions in path-aware networking open as of 2019, that must be
answered in the design, development, and deployment of path-aware
intetnetworks. It was originally written to frame discussions in the
Path Aware Networking proposed Research Group (PANRG), and has been
published to snapshot current thinking in this space.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction to Path-Aware Networking . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1. A Vocabulary of Path Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2. Discovery, Distribution, and Trustworthiness of Path
Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.3. Supporting Path Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.4. Interfaces for Path Awareness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.5. Implications of Path Awareness for the Data Plane . . . . 6
2.6. What is an Endpoint? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.7. Operating a Path Aware Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.8. Deploying a Path Aware Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1. Introduction to Path-Aware Networking
In the current Internet architecture, the interdomain network layer
provides an unverifiable, best-effort service: an application can
assume that a packet with a given destination address will eventually
be forwarded toward that destination, but little else. A transport
layer protocol such as TCP can provide reliability over this best-
effort service, and a protocol above the network layer such as IPsec
AH [RFC4302] or TLS [RFC5246] can authenticate the remote endpoint.
However, no explicit information about the path is available, and
assumptions about that path sometimes do not hold, sometimes with
serious impacts on the application, as in the case with BGP hijacking
attacks.
By contrast, in a path-aware internetworking architecture, endpoints
have the ability to select or influence the path through the network
used by any given packet, and the network and transport layers
explicitly expose information about the path or paths available
between two endpoints to those endpoints and the applications running
on them, so that they can make this selection.
Path selection provides transparency and control to applications and
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