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Problem statement and use cases of Application-aware IPv6 Networking (APN6)
draft-li-apn6-problem-statement-usecases-00

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This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Expired".
Authors Zhenbin Li , Shuping Peng , Daniel Voyer , Chongfeng Xie , Peng Liu , Chang Liu , Kentaro Ebisawa , Yukito Ueno , Stefano Previdi , Jim Guichard
Last updated 2019-09-25
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draft-li-apn6-problem-statement-usecases-00
Network Working Group                                              Z. Li
Internet-Draft                                                   S. Peng
Intended status: Standards Track                     Huawei Technologies
Expires: March 28, 2020                                         D. Voyer
                                                             Bell Canada
                                                                  C. Xie
                                                           China Telecom
                                                                  P. Liu
                                                            China Mobile
                                                                  C. Liu
                                                            China Unicom
                                                              K. Ebisawa
                                                Toyota Motor Corporation
                                                                 Y. Ueno
                                          NTT Communications Corporation
                                                              S. Previdi
                                                              Individual
                                                             J. Guichard
                                             Futurewei Technologies Ltd.
                                                      September 25, 2019

  Problem statement and use cases of Application-aware IPv6 Networking
                                 (APN6)
              draft-li-apn6-problem-statement-usecases-00

Abstract

   Operators are facing the challenges of providing better network
   services for users.  As the ever-developing 5G and industrial
   verticals evolve, more and more services that have diverse network
   requirements such as ultra-low latency and high reliability are
   emerging and accessing the network, differentiated service treatments
   are desired by users.  However, operators are still not aware of
   applications, which cause that only coarse-grained services can be
   provided to users.  As a result, operators are only evolving to be
   large but dumb pipes without corresponding revenue increase.  As the
   network technologies evolve including deployments of IPv6 and SRv6,
   the programmability provided by IPv6 and SRv6 encapsulations can be
   augmented by conveying the application related information into the
   network.  Adding application knowledge to the network layer, allow
   applications to specify finer granularity requirements, which
   eventually bridges network and applications.

   This document analyzes the existing problems of the current operators
   in the application awareness, and outlines various use cases that
   could benefit from the Application-aware IPv6 Networking (APN6).

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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 March 28, 2020.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2019 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
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   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  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Problem Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.1.  Large but dumb pipe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.2.  Network on its own  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.3.  Decoupling of network and applications  . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.4.  Challenges of traditional differentiated service
           provisioning  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4

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     3.5.  Challenges of supporting new 5G and edge computing  . . .   6
   4.  Application-aware IPv6 Networking (APN6)  . . . . . . . . . .   6
   5.  Use cases of APN6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     5.1.  App-aware SLA Guarantee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     5.2.  App-aware network slicing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     5.3.  App-aware deterministic networking  . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     5.4.  App-aware service function chaining . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     5.5.  App-aware network measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   6.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   7.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   8.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   9.  Contributors  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   10. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
     10.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
     10.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12

1.  Introduction

   Operators are facing the challenges of providing better network
   services for users.  As the ever-developing 5G and industrial
   verticals evolve, more and more services that have diverse network
   requirements such as ultra-low latency and high reliability are
   emerging and accessing the network, differentiated service treatments
   are desired by users.  However, operators are still not aware of
   applications, which cause that only coarse-grained services can be
   provided to users.  As a result, operators are only evolving to be
   large but dumb pipes without corresponding revenue increase.  As the
   network technologies evolve including deployments of IPv6 and SRv6,
   the programmability provided by IPv6 and SRv6 encapsulations can be
   augmented by conveying the application related information into the
   network.  Adding application knowledge to the network layer, allow
   applications to specify finer granularity requirements, which
   eventually bridges network and applications.

   This document analyzes the existing problems of the current operators
   in the application awareness, and outlines various use cases that
   could benefit from the Application-aware IPv6 Networking (APN6).

2.  Terminology

   ACL: Access Control List

   APN6: Application-aware IPv6 Networking

   DPI: Deep Packet Inspection

   PBR: Policy Based Routing

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   QoE: Quality of Experience

3.  Problem Statement

   This section summarizes the challenges faced by the operators to
   satisfy the various requirements of applications and provide fine-
   granular traffic operations.

3.1.  Large but dumb pipe

   Currently, the network is still not aware of applications, that is,
   the network and applications are actually decoupled.  It is difficult
   for network operators to provide fine-granular traffic operations for
   performance-demanding applications.  In order to satisfy the SLA
   requirements operators continue to increase the network bandwidth but
   only carrying very light traffic load (around 30%-40% of its
   capacity).  This situation greatly increases the CAPEX and OPEX but
   only brings very little revenue from the carried services, which
   makes operators' network infrastructure large but dumb pipes.

3.2.  Network on its own

   As the network evolves, VPN/TE/FRR play important roles in satisfying
   the service isolation, SLA guarantee, and high reliability, etc.
   Those network technologies have been evolving themselves, which make
   the network features continuously upgrading.  However, such
   continuous upgrading doesn't bring corresponding revenue increase.
   Marginal Utility has been reduced, which has become the bottleneck of
   operators to increase their revenue.

3.3.  Decoupling of network and applications

   MPLS played a very important role in helping the network enter the
   generation of All-IP successfully.  However, MPLS actually doesn't
   allow a close interworking with the application layer since MPLS
   encapsulation is, typically, not used by the packet source.

   As new services continuously evolve, more encapsulations are
   required, and this isolation and decoupling has further become the
   blockage towards the seamless convergence of the network and
   applications.

3.4.  Challenges of traditional differentiated service provisioning

   A number of IETF activities have been reviewed which are primarily
   intended to evolve the IP architecture to support new service
   definitions which allow preferential or differentiated treatment to
   be accorded to certain types of traffic.  The challenge when using

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   traditional ways to guarantee SLA is that the packets are not able to
   carry enough information for indicating applications and expressing
   their service/SLA requirements.  The network devices mainly rely on
   the 5-tuple of the packets or DPI.  However, there are some
   challenges of those traditional methods in differentiated service
   provisioning.

   1.  Five tuples used for ACL/PBR

   Five tuples are widely used for ACL/PBR.  However, they cannot
   provide enough information for the fine-grained service process, and
   can only be seen as indirect application information which needs to
   be translated in order to indicate a specific application.  It will
   further impact on the forwarding performance.

   2.  Deep Packet Inspection (DPI)

   If more information is needed, it has to be done through the use of
   DPI in order to deeply inspect the packets.  However, this will
   introduce more CAPEX and OPEX in the network and also it imposes
   security challenges.

   3.  Orchestration and SDN-based solution

   In the era of SDN, typically, a SDN controller is used to manage and
   operate the network infrastructure and orchestrator elements allow to
   introduce application requirements so that the network is programmed
   accordingly.  The SDN controller can be aware of the service
   requirements of the applications on the network through the interface
   with the orchestrator, and the service requirement is used by the
   controller for traffic management over the network.  However, this
   method raises the following problems:

   1) The whole loop is long and time-consuming which is not suitable
   for the fast service provisioning for critical applications;

   2) Too many interfaces are involved in the loop, as shown in
   Figure 1, which introduce challenges of standardization and inter-
   operability.

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                     +--------------+
               /-----| Orchestrator | -------------------\
              /      +--------------+     Resource        \
APP Req.     /                     \        Management      \
       +---------+            +---------+       &        +---------+
       |SDN Ctrl1|            |SDN Ctrl2|    Service     |SDN Ctrl3|
       +---------+            +---------+  Provisioning  +---------+
APP Req. /     \             /           \              /           \
      +-/-+  +--\--+  +----------+  +----------+  +----------+  +----------+
      |APP|  | DCN |  |Network D1|..|Network D3|  |Network D4|..|Network D6|
      +---+  +-----+  +----------+  +----------+  +----------+  +----------+

Figure 1. Many interfaces involved in the long service-provisioning loop

3.5.  Challenges of supporting new 5G and edge computing

   As the continuous development of 5G, IoT, and edge computing, more
   and more new type of services are (and will be) accessing network.
   Vast volume of network traffic with diverse requirements such as low
   latency and high reliability rapidly increases.  If we continue to
   use traditional methods, it will cause much higher CAPEX and OPEX to
   satisfy the ever-developing applications' diverse requirements.

4.  Application-aware IPv6 Networking (APN6)

   To resolve the above-mentioned issues, one possible way is to convey
   the application characteristic information (including application
   identification and network performance requirements) into the
   network, and make the network aware of application characteristic
   information more quickly in order to perform the fine-granularity
   network resource adjustment and SLA performance guarantee, hence to
   better serve demanding applications.

   The IPv6 encapsulation including its extension headers (EH) [RFC8200]
   are well suited for a good programmability and can be utilized to
   encapsulate application information as well as other necessary
   information.  EH provides very good foundations for the application-
   aware fine-granularity service provisioning.  We name this technology
   as APN6.

   The advantages of using IPv6 to support APN6 include,

   1.  Simplicity: Conveying application information with IPv6
       encapsulation can just be based on IP reachability.

   2.  Seamless convergence: Much easier to achieve seamless convergence
       between applications and network since both are based on IPv6.

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   3.  Great extensibility: IPv6 encapsulation including its extension
       headers can be used to carry very rich information relevant to
       applications.

   4.  Good compatibility: On-demand network upgrade and service
       provisioning.  If the application information is not recognized
       by the node, the packet will be forwarded based on pure IPv6,
       which ensure backward compatibility.

   5.  Little dependency: Information conveying and service provisioning
       are only based on the forwarding plane of devices, which is
       different from the Orchestration and SDN-based solution which
       involves multiple elements and diverse interfaces.

   6.  Quick response: Flow-driven and direct response from devices
       since it is based on the forwarding plane.

   APN6 has the following key elements,

   1.  Application information is conveyed by the IPv6 encapsulation:
       The conveyed application characteristic information (application-
       aware information) includes application identification and/or its
       network performance requirements.  This element is not enforced
       but actually provides an open option for applications to decide
       whether to input this application-aware information.

   2.  Application information and network service provisioning
       matching: provide fine-granularity network service provisioning
       (traffic operations) and SLA guarantee based on the application-
       aware information carried in IPv6 packets.  This element provides
       the network capabilities to applications.  According to the
       application-aware information, appropriate network services are
       selected and provisioned to the demanding applications and
       satisfy their performance requirements.

   3.  Network measurement based on IPv6: measure the network
       performance and update the matching between the applications and
       corresponding network services in order for better fine-
       granularity SLA compliance.  The network measurement methods
       include in-band and out-of-band, passive, active, per-packet,
       per-flow, per node, end-to-end, etc.  These methods can also be
       integrated.

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             Applications         |          Network

   Element 1: Conveying  ------------------->
                                 /|\
             Application Info     |     Network capabilities
                                  |       (SLA guarantee)
                                  |             /|\
                         Element 2: Matching     |
                                                 |
                                        Element 3: Network Measurement

   Figure 2. Illustration of the key elements of APN6

5.  Use cases of APN6

   This session provides the use cases that can benefit from the
   application awareness.  The corresponding requirements for APN6 are
   also outlined.

5.1.  App-aware SLA Guarantee

   Among various applications being carried and running in the network,
   some revenue-producing applications such as online gaming, video
   streaming, and enterprise video conferencing have much more demanding
   performance requirements such as low network latency and high
   bandwidth.  In order to achieve better Quality of Experience (QoE) of
   the end users and engage customers, the network needs to be able to
   provide fine-granularity and even application-level SLA guarantee.
   Differentiated service provisioning is desired.

   One of the key objective of APN6 is for operators to provide fine-
   granularity SLA guarantee instead of coarse-grain traffic operations.
   This will enable operators to provide differentiated services for
   different applications of their customers and make increase revenue
   accordingly.

   Requirements for APN6:

   For achieving App-aware SLA Guarantee, APN6 needs to perform the
   three key elements as described in Section 4.  Application-level
   fine-granularity traffic operation that may include finer QoS
   scheduling is the key to guarantee the SLA of each specific demanding
   application.

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5.2.  App-aware network slicing

   More and more applications/services with diverse requirements are
   being carried over and sharing operators' network infrastructure, the
   same to the enterprise case.  However, it is still desired to have
   customized network transport that is able to support some
   application's specific requirements, considering also the service and
   resource isolation, which drives the concept of network slicing.

   Network slicing provides ways to partition the network infrastructure
   in either control plane or data plane into multiple network slices
   that are running in parallel.  These network slices can serve diverse
   services and fulfill their various requirements at the same time.
   For example, the mission critical application that requires ultra-low
   latency and high reliability can be provisioned over a separated
   network slice.

   Requirements for APN6:

   For achieving App-aware network slicing, APN6 needs to perform the
   three key elements as described in Section 4 in the context of
   network slicing.  To be more specific, for the element 2, it needs to
   match to a specific network slice according to the application
   information carried in the IPv6 packets.  The network measurement in
   element 3 also needs to happen within each network slice.

5.3.  App-aware deterministic networking

   [RFC8578] documents use cases for diverse industry applications that
   require deterministic flows over multi-hop paths.  Deterministic
   flows provide guaranteed bandwidth, bounded latency, and other
   properties relevant to the transport of time-sensitive data, and can
   coexist on an IP network with best-effort traffic.  It also provides
   for highly reliable flows through provision for redundant paths.

   Requirements for APN6:

   For achieving App-aware deterministic networking, APN6 needs to
   perform the three key elements as described in Section 4 in the
   context of deterministic networking.  To be more specific, for the
   element 2, it needs to match to a specific deterministic path
   according to the application information carried in the IPv6 packets.
   The network measurement in element 3 also needs to be performed on
   each app-aware deterministic path.

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5.4.  App-aware service function chaining

   The end-to-end service delivery often needs to go through various
   service functions, including traditional network service functions
   such as firewalls, DPI as well as new application-specific functions,
   both physical and virtual.  The definition and instantiation of an
   ordered set of service functions and subsequent steering of the
   traffic through them is called Service Function Chaining (SFC)
   [RFC7665].  SFC is applicable to both fixed and mobile networks as
   well as data center networks.

   Generally, in order to manipulate a specific application traffic
   along the SFC, a DPI needs to be deployed as the first service
   function of the chain to detect the application, which will impose
   high CAPEX and consume long processing time.  For the encrypted
   traffic, it even becomes impossible to inspect the application.

   Requirements for APN6:

   For achieving App-aware service function chaining, APN6 needs to
   perform the three key elements as described in Section 4 in the
   context of service function chaining.  To be more specific, for
   element 1 class information can be conveyed.  For element 2, it needs
   to match to a specific service function chain and subsequent steering
   according to the application information carried in the IPv6 packets.
   The network measurement in element 3 also needs to happen within each
   app-aware service function chain.

5.5.  App-aware network measurement

   Network measurement can be used for locating silent failure and
   predicting QoE satisfaction, which enables real-time SLA awareness/
   proactive OAM.  Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (OAM)
   refers to a toolset for fault detection and isolation, and network
   performance measurement.  In-situ Operations, Administration, and
   Maintenance (IOAM) records operational and telemetry information in
   the packet while the packet traverses a path between two points in
   the network.

   Requirements for APN6:

   For achieving App-aware network measurement, APN6 needs to perform
   the two key elements as described in Section 4 in the context of
   network measurement.  The network measurement in element 3 does not
   need to be considered here.

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6.  IANA Considerations

   This document does not include an IANA request.

7.  Security Considerations

   Since the application information is conveyed into the network, it
   does involve some security and privacy issues.

   First of all, APN6 only provides the capability to the applications
   to provide their profiles and requirements to the network, but it
   leaves the applications to decide whether to input this information.
   If the applications decide not to provide any information, they will
   be treated in the same way as today's network and cannot get the
   benefits from APN6.

   Once the application information has been carried in the IPv6 packets
   and conveyed into the network, the IPv6 extension headers, AH and
   ESP, can be used to guarantee the authenticity of the added
   application information.

   Any scheme involving an information exchange between layers
   (application and network layers in this case) will obviously require
   an accurate valuation of security mechanism in order to prevent any
   leak of critical information.  Some additional considerations may be
   required for multi-domain use cases.  For example, how to agree upon
   which application information/ID to use and guarantee authenticity
   for packets traveling through multiple domains (network operators).

8.  Acknowledgements

   The authors would like to acknowledge Robert Raszuk for his valuable
   review and comments.

9.  Contributors

   Liang Geng
   China Mobile
   China

   Email: gengliang@chinamobile.com

   Chang Cao
   China Unicom
   China

   Email: caoc15@chinaunicom.cn

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   Cong Li
   China Telecom
   China

   Email: licong.bri@chinatelecom.cn

10.  References

10.1.  Normative References

   [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>.

   [RFC7665]  Halpern, J., Ed. and C. Pignataro, Ed., "Service Function
              Chaining (SFC) Architecture", RFC 7665,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7665, October 2015,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7665>.

   [RFC8200]  Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6
              (IPv6) Specification", STD 86, RFC 8200,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8200, July 2017,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8200>.

   [RFC8578]  Grossman, E., Ed., "Deterministic Networking Use Cases",
              RFC 8578, DOI 10.17487/RFC8578, May 2019,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8578>.

10.2.  Informative References

   [I-D.ietf-6man-segment-routing-header]
              Filsfils, C., Dukes, D., Previdi, S., Leddy, J.,
              Matsushima, S., and d. daniel.voyer@bell.ca, "IPv6 Segment
              Routing Header (SRH)", draft-ietf-6man-segment-routing-
              header-23 (work in progress), September 2019.

   [I-D.ietf-spring-srv6-network-programming]
              Filsfils, C., Camarillo, P., Leddy, J.,
              daniel.voyer@bell.ca, d., Matsushima, S., and Z. Li, "SRv6
              Network Programming", draft-ietf-spring-srv6-network-
              programming-02 (work in progress), September 2019.

Authors' Addresses

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   Zhenbin Li
   Huawei Technologies
   China

   Email: lizhenbin@huawei.com

   Shuping Peng
   Huawei Technologies
   China

   Email: pengshuping@huawei.com

   Daniel Voyer
   Bell Canada
   Canada

   Email: daniel.voyer@bell.ca

   Chongfeng Xie
   China Telecom
   China

   Email: xiechf.bri@chinatelecom.cn

   Peng Liu
   China Mobile
   China

   Email: liupengyjy@chinamobile.com

   Chang Liu
   China Unicom
   China

   Email: liuc131@chinaunicom.cn

   Kentaro Ebisawa
   Toyota Motor Corporation
   Japan

   Email: ebisawa@toyota-tokyo.tech

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   Yukito Ueno
   NTT Communications Corporation
   Japan

   Email: yukito.ueno@ntt.com

   Stefano Previdi
   Individual
   Italy

   Email: stefano@previdi.net

   James N Guichard
   Futurewei Technologies Ltd.
   USA

   Email: jguichar@futurewei.com

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