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Application Aware Computing Network
draft-li-cats-application-aware-computing-network-01

Document Type Active Internet-Draft (individual)
Authors Zhenbin Li , Hang Shi , Xia Chen , Zongpeng Du , Shuai Zhang
Last updated 2024-02-28
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draft-li-cats-application-aware-computing-network-01
CATS                                                               Z. Li
Internet-Draft                                                    H. Shi
Intended status: Standards Track                                 X. Chen
Expires: 1 September 2024                                         Huawei
                                                                   Z. Du
                                                            China Mobile
                                                                S. Zhang
                                                            China Unicom
                                                        29 February 2024

                  Application Aware Computing Network
          draft-li-cats-application-aware-computing-network-01

Abstract

   This document describes a solution framework that adheres to the CATS
   framework.  The solution uses APN as part of the CATS service
   identifier and flow identifier.

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 1 September 2024.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2024 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

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   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 Revised BSD License text as
   described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are
   provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     2.1.  Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Locator and APN ID  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     3.1.  APN Segment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.2.  LOC + APN ID  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   4.  Overview  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     4.1.  Realization of CATS Framework Components  . . . . . . . .   5
     4.2.  Realization of CATS Framework Workflow  . . . . . . . . .   5
       4.2.1.  Service Announcement  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
       4.2.2.  Metric Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
       4.2.3.  Service Request Processing  . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
       4.2.4.  Service Instance Affinity . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   5.  APN for Real Locator  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   6.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   7.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   8.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     8.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     8.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7

1.  Introduction

   Many services deploy their service instances in multiple
   geographically distributed sites to get better response time.  As
   described in [I-D.ietf-cats-usecases-requirements], traffic steering
   that takes into account both the computing resource metric and
   network metric would improve the QoE of several services, e.g., AR/VR
   and intelligent transportation.

   A CATS framework is described in [I-D.draft-ldbc-cats-framework].  It
   defines following core concepts:

   1.  CATS service identifier represents a service which consists of
       multiple service contact instances.

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   2.  Service contact instance affinity means that packet that belongs
       to a flow should always goes to the same service contact
       instance.

   These concepts are similar to APN described in
   [I-D.draft-li-apn-header].  The Application-aware Networking (APN)
   framework[I-D.li-apn-framework] defines that application-aware
   information (i.e.  APN attribute) including APN identification (ID)
   and/or APN parameters (e.g. network performance requirements) is
   encapsulated at network edge devices and carried in packets
   traversing an APN domain in order to facilitate service provisioning,
   perform fine-granularity traffic steering and network resource
   adjustment.  [I-D.li-apn-app-side-framework] defines the extension of
   the APN framework for the application side.  In this extension, the
   APN resources of an APN domain is allocated to applications which
   compose and encapsulate the APN attribute in packets.  The APN ID
   includes application group ID and user group ID.  Application group
   ID can be used as part of CATS service identifier.  User group ID +
   application group ID can be used as CATS flow ID.  This document
   describes a CATS framework using APN.  The realization can use APN
   framework for application side.

2.  Terminology

   This document reuses terms defined in [I-D.draft-ldbc-cats-framework]
   and [I-D.draft-li-apn-header].

2.1.  Requirements Language

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
   BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
   capitals, as shown here.

3.  Locator and APN ID

   In CATS, the packet needs to carry the locator information and the
   application identifier information.  The application identifier
   information can be carried in APN ID.  As described in
   [I-D.draft-li-apn-header], the length of the APN ID can be 32bit, 64
   bit or 128bit.  Depending on whether APN ID can fit into 128bit, the
   following two formats are defined.  They carry the same information
   and can be used in different deployment scenarios.

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3.1.  APN Segment

   APN segment is an SRv6 SID[RFC8986], consisting of LOC:FUNCT:ARG,
   where:

   *  LOC is routable and leads to the service contact instance.

   *  FUNCT is APN ID which consists of user group id and application
      group ID.  The length of APN ID is 32 bit or 64 bit.

3.2.  LOC + APN ID

   If 128 bit is not enough to hold the APN ID + LOC.  Then the APN ID
   can be put in other places as described in
   [I-D.draft-li-apn-ipv6-encap], e.g., IPv6 extension header.

4.  Overview

   For simplicity, this document use APN segment as an illustration
   example, see Figure 1.

 APN Seg: APN segment = LOC:FUNCT(APN ID): ARG
                                                             APN Seg
                                      +-------------+       +----------+
                                      |CATS-Router 1|       | Service  |
                                      +-------------+-------| contact  |
            CATS Forwarding Table     |    C-SMA    |       | instance |
 LOC+APP ID, metrics, To CATS-Router1 +-------------+       +----------+
 LOC+APP ID, metrics, To CATS-Router3        |
              +-------------+        +----------------+
              |    C-TC     |        |                |
 +------+     |-------------|        |    Underlay    |
 |Client|-----|     | C-PS  |--------| Infrastructure |
 +------+     |     +-------|        |                |
              |CATS-Router 2|        |                |
              +-------------+        +----------------+
               CATS Flow Table               |              APN Seg
       LOC+APN ID, To CATS-Router1    +-------------+       +----------+
                                      |CATS-Router 3|       | Service  |
                                      +-------------+-------| contact  |
                                      |    C-SMA    |       | instance |
                                      +-------------+       +----------+
                     <----------------------    <----------------
          (Overlay route of APN Seg, metrics)   (APN Seg, metrics)
             Service overlay route w/ metrics   Service route w/ metrics

                    Figure 1: Architecture Overview

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4.1.  Realization of CATS Framework Components

   The LOC + application group ID in the APN segment is used as CATS
   service identifier.  The CATS overlay is established from the Ingress
   CATS-Router to an Egress CATS-Router.  The CATS Traffic Classifier is
   running at the Ingress CATS-Router.  Depending on the deployment, the
   CATS Path Selector, C-SMA and C-NMA can be centralized or
   distributed.  CIS-ID is used to forward the packet to a specific CATS
   service contact instance.  The choice of the CIS-ID is out of scope.

4.2.  Realization of CATS Framework Workflow

4.2.1.  Service Announcement

   Locator is routable and leads to service contact instances.  The
   locator is announced in anycast.  The locator and application group
   ID may be learned by client using a rendezvous service (DNS, for
   example).  The user group ID may be learned through a protocol
   between the client and server.  The detailed rendezvous procedure is
   out of scope.

4.2.2.  Metric Distribution

   As described in CATS framework, the metrics needs to be distributed
   along with the CS-ID route.  The detailed control plane solution
   depends on the deployment model (distributed, centralized or hybrid)
   and is out of scope of this document.  A sample procedure using
   distributed model is provided to illustrate the core process, see
   Figure 1.

   The C-SMA running as stand alone component at each service contact
   instance.  In addition to the route announcement of LOC, C-SMA also
   distributes the application group ID and the computing metric to the
   Egress.  The egress then pass the [(LOC, application group ID),
   computing metric] to the ingress node.  The protocol extension used
   to carry the information is out of scope.

4.2.3.  Service Request Processing

   The service request packet has the destination address set to APN
   segment.  The C-TC component in Ingress uses LOC + application group
   ID to match the service, finding the optimal service contact
   instance.  Then the best path to the corresponding service instance
   is selected by C-PS.  The packet is encapsulated and forwarded using
   the overlay path.  The Egress decapsulates the packet then forward it
   to the service contact instance.

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4.2.4.  Service Instance Affinity

   As per [I-D.draft-ldbc-cats-framework], the packets belong to the
   same flow should goes to the same service contact instance.  This
   document defines flow identifier as the tuple (locator, user group
   ID, app group ID).  By assigning the user group ID and app group ID,
   the service can archive customizable flow affinity without relying on
   traditional (IP, port) tuple.

5.  APN for Real Locator

   [I-D.draft-shi-cats-with-real-locator] defines real locator for CATS.
   When implementing solution of APN for CATS, the real locator can be
   carried in APN Para.  Other procedure is the same as defined in
   [I-D.draft-shi-cats-with-real-locator].

6.  Security Considerations

   This document does not introduce any new security considerations.

7.  IANA Considerations

   TBD.

8.  References

8.1.  Normative References

   [I-D.draft-li-apn-header]
              Li, Z., Peng, S., and S. Zhang, "Application-aware
              Networking (APN) Header", Work in Progress, Internet-
              Draft, draft-li-apn-header-04, 12 April 2023,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-li-apn-
              header-04>.

   [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/rfc/rfc2119>.

   [RFC8174]  Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8174>.

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   [I-D.draft-li-apn-ipv6-encap]
              Li, Z., Peng, S., and C. Xie, "Application-aware IPv6
              Networking (APN6) Encapsulation", Work in Progress,
              Internet-Draft, draft-li-apn-ipv6-encap-07, 10 July 2023,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-li-apn-ipv6-
              encap-07>.

   [I-D.draft-shi-cats-with-real-locator]
              Shi, H., Chen, X., and Z. Li, "CATS based on Real
              Locator", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-shi-
              cats-with-real-locator-00, 23 October 2023,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-shi-cats-
              with-real-locator-00>.

8.2.  Informative References

   [I-D.ietf-cats-usecases-requirements]
              Yao, K., Trossen, D., Boucadair, M., Contreras, L. M.,
              Shi, H., Li, Y., Zhang, S., and Q. An, "Computing-Aware
              Traffic Steering (CATS) Problem Statement, Use Cases, and
              Requirements", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-
              ietf-cats-usecases-requirements-02, 1 January 2024,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-cats-
              usecases-requirements-02>.

   [I-D.draft-ldbc-cats-framework]
              Li, C., Du, Z., Boucadair, M., Contreras, L. M., and J.
              Drake, "A Framework for Computing-Aware Traffic Steering
              (CATS)", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ldbc-
              cats-framework-06, 8 February 2024,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ldbc-cats-
              framework-06>.

Authors' Addresses

   Zhenbin Li
   Huawei
   Beijing
   Email: lizhenbin@huawei.com

   Hang Shi
   Huawei
   Beiqing Road
   Beijing
   China
   Email: shihang9@huawei.com

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   Xia Chen
   Huawei
   Beijing
   China
   Email: jescia.chenxia@huawei.com

   Zongpeng Du
   China Mobile
   Beijing
   China
   Email: duzongpeng@foxmail.com

   Shuai Zhang
   China Unicom
   Beijing
   China
   Email: zhangs366@chinaunicom.cn

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