Overview of Edge Data Discovery
draft-mcbride-edge-data-discovery-overview-01
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draft-mcbride-edge-data-discovery-overview-01
T2TRG M. McBride
Internet-Draft Huawei
Intended status: Standards Track D. Kutscher
Expires: September 11, 2019 Emden University
E. Schooler
Intel
CJ. Bernardos
UC3M
March 10, 2019
Overview of Edge Data Discovery
draft-mcbride-edge-data-discovery-overview-01
Abstract
This document describes the problem of distributed data discovery in
edge computing. Increasing numbers of IoT devices and sensors are
generating a torrent of data that originates at the very edges of the
network and that flows upstream, if it flows at all. Sometimes that
data must be processed or transformed (transcoded, subsampled,
compressed, analyzed, annotated, combined, aggregated, etc.) on edge
equipment, particularly in places where multiple high bandwidth
streams converge and where resources are limited. Support for edge
data analysis is critical to make local, low-latency decisions (e.g.,
regarding predictive maintenance, the dispatch of emergency services,
identity, authorization, etc.). In addition, (transformed) data may
be cached, copied and/or stored at multiple locations in the network
on route to its final destination. Although the data might originate
at the edge, for example in factories, automobiles, video cameras,
wind farms, etc., as more and more distributed data is created,
processed and stored, it becomes increasingly dispersed throughout
the network. There needs to be a standard way to find it. New and
existing protocols will need to be identified/developed/enhanced for
distributed data discovery at the network edge and beyond.
Status of This Memo
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time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
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This Internet-Draft will expire on September 11, 2019.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1. Edge Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2. Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3. Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.4. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. The Edge Data Discovery Problem Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1. A Cloud-Edge Continuum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2. Types of Edge Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3. Scenarios for Discovering Edge Data Resources . . . . . . . . 8
4. Edge Data Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.1. Types of Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.2. Naming the Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5. Use Cases of edge data discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
8. Acknowledgement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
9. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1. Introduction
Edge computing is an architectural shift that migrates Cloud
functionality (compute, storage, networking, control, data
management, etc.) out of the back-end data center to be more
proximate to the IoT data being generated and analyzed at the edges
of the network. Edge computing provides local compute, storage and
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connectivity services, often required for latency- and bandwidth-
sensitive applications. Thus, Edge Computing plays a key role in
verticals such as Energy, Manufacturing, Automotive, Video Analytics,
Retail, Gaming, Healthcare, Mining, Buildings and Smart Cities.
1.1. Edge Data
Edge computing is motivated at least in part by the sheer volume of
data that is being created by IoT devices (sensors, cameras, lights,
vehicles, drones, wearables, etc.) at the very network edge and that
flows upstream, in a direction for which the network was not
originally provisioned. In fact, in dense IoT deployments (e.g.,
many video cameras are streaming high definition video), where
multiple data flows collect or converge at edge nodes, data is likely
to need transformation (transcoded, subsampled, compressed, analyzed,
annotated, combined, aggregated, etc.) to fit over the next hop link,
or even to fit in memory or storage. Note also that the act of
performing compute on the data creates yet another new data stream!
In addition, data may be cached, copied and/or stored at multiple
locations in the network on route to its final destination. With an
increasing percentage of devices connecting to the Internet being
mobile, support for in-the-network caching and replication is
critical for continuous data availability, not to mention efficient
network and battery usage for endpoint devices.
Additionally, as mobile devices' memory/storage fill up, in an edge
context they may have the ability to offload their data to other
proximate devices or resources, leaving a bread crumb trail of data
in their wakes. Therefore, although data might originate at edge
devices, as more and more data is continuously created, processed and
stored, it becomes increasingly dispersed throughout the physical
world (outside of or scattered across managed local data centers),
increasingly isolated in separate local edge clouds or data silos.
Thus there needs to be a standard way to find it. New and existing
protocols will need to be identified/developed/enhanced for these
purposes. Being able to discover distributed data at the edge or in
the middle of the network - will be an important component of Edge
computing.
1.2. Background
An IETF T2T RG Edge discussion was held and a comparative study on
the definition of Edge computing was presented in multiple sessions
in T2T RG in 2018. An IETF BEC (beyond edge computing) effort has
been evaluating potential gaps in existing edge computing
architectures. Edge Data Discovery is one potential gap that needs
evaluation and a solution.
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Businesses, such as industrial companies, are starting to understand
how valuable the data is that they've kept in silos. Once this data
is made accessible on edge computing platforms, they may be able to
monetize the value of the data. But this will happen only if data
can be discovered and searched among heterogeneous equipment in a
standard way. Discovering the data, that its most useful to a given
market segment, will be extremely useful in building business
revenues. Having a mechanism to provide this granular discovery is
the problem that needs solving either with existing, or new,
protocols.
1.3. 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].
1.4. Terminology
o Edge: The edge encompasses all entities not in the back-end cloud.
The device edge is the boundary between digital and physical
entities in the last mile network. Sensors, gateways, compute
nodes are included. The infrastructure edge includes equipment on
the network operator side of the last mile network including cell
towers, edge data centers, cable headends, etc. See Figure 1 for
other possible tiers of edge clouds between the device edge and
the back-end cloud data center.
o Edge Computing: Distributed computation that is performed near the
edge, where nearness is determined by the system requirements.
This includes high performance compute, storage and network
equipment on either the device or infrastructure edge.
o Edge Data Discovery: The process of finding required data from
edge entities, i.e., from databases, files systems, device memory
that might be physically distributed in the network, and
consolidating it or providing access to it logically as if it were
a single unified source, perhaps through its namespace, that can
be evaluated or searched.
o NDN: Named Data Networking. NDN routes data by name (vs address),
caches content natively in the network, and employs data-centric
security. Data discovery may require that data be associated with
a name or names, a series of descriptive attributes, and/or a
unique identifier.
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2. The Edge Data Discovery Problem Scope
Our focus is on how to define and scope the edge data discovery
problem. This requires some discussion of the evolving definition of
the edge and in turn what is meant by edge data.
2.1. A Cloud-Edge Continuum
Although Edge Computing data typically originates at edge devices,
there is nothing that precludes edge data from being created anywhere
in the cloud-to-edge computing continuum (Figure 1). New edge data
may result as a byproduct of computation being performed on the data
stream anywhere along its path in the network. For example,
infrastructure edges may create new edge data when multiple data
streams converge upon this aggregation point and require
transformation to fit within the available resources. Edge data also
may be sent to the back-end cloud as needed. Discovering data which
has be sent to the cloud is out of scope of this document, the
assumption being that the cloud boundary is one that does not expose
or publish the availability of its data.
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+-------------------------------+
| Back-end Cloud Data Center |
+-------------------------------+
*** Cloud
* * Interconnect
***
+-------------------------------+
| Core Data Center |
+-------------------------------+
*** Backbone
* * Network
***
+-------------------------------+
| Regional Data Center |
+-------------------------------+
*** Metropolitan
* * Network
***
+-------------------------------+
| Infrastructure Edge |
+-------------------------------+
*** Access
* * Network
***
+-------------------------------+
| Device Edge |
+-------------------------------+
Figure 1: Cloud-to-edge computing continuum
Initially our focus is on discovery of edge data that resides at the
Device Edge and the Infrastructure Edge.
2.2. Types of Edge Data
Besides sensor and measurement data accumulating throughout the edge
computing infrastructure, edge data may also take the form of
streaming data (from a camera), meta data (about the data), control
data (regarding an event that was triggered), and/or an executable
that embodies a function, service, or any other piece of code or
algorithm. Edge data also could be created after multiple streams
converge at the edge node and are processed, transformed, or
aggregated together in some manner.
SFC Data and meta-data discovery
Service function chaining (SFC) allows the instantiation of an
ordered set of service functions and subsequent "steering" of traffic
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through them. Service functions provide a specific treatment of
received packets, therefore they need to be known so they can be used
in a given service composition via SFC. So far, how the SFs are
discovered and composed has been out of the scope of discussions in
IETF. While there are some mechanisms that can be used and/or
extended to provide this functionality, work needs to be done. An
example of this can be found in [I-D.bernardos-sfc-discovery].
In an SFC environment deployed at the edge, the discovery protocol
may also need to make available the following meta-data information
per SF:
o Service Function Type, identifying the category of SF provided.
o SFC-aware: Yes/No. Indicates if the SF is SFC-aware.
o Route Distinguisher (RD): IP address indicating the location of
the SF(I).
o Pricing/costs details.
o Migration capabilities of the SF: whether a given function can be
moved to another provider (potentially including information about
compatible providers topologically close).
o Mobility of the device hosting the SF, with e.g. the following
sub-options:
Level: no, low, high; or a corresponding scale (e.g., 1 to 10).
Current geographical area (e.g., GPS coordinates, post code).
Target moving area (e.g., GPS coordinates, post code).
o Power source of the device hosting the SF, with e.g. the following
sub-options:
Battery: Yes/No. If Yes, the following sub-options could be
defined:
Capacity of the battery (e.g., mmWh).
Charge status (e.g., %).
Lifetime (e.g., minutes).
Discovery of resources in an NFV environment: virtualized resources
do not need to be limited to those available in traditional data
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centers, where the infrastructure is stable, static, typically
homogeneous and managed by a single admin entity. Computational
capabilities are becoming more and more ubiquitous, with terminal
devices getting extremely powerful, as well as other types of devices
that are close to the end users at the edge (e.g., vehicular onboard
devices for infotainment, micro data centers deployed at the edge,
etc.). It is envisioned that these devices would be able to offer
storage, computing and networking resources to nearby network
infrastructure, devices and things (the fog paradigm). These
resources can be used to host functions, for example to offload/
complement other resources available at traditional data centers, but
also to reduce the end-to- end latency or to provide access to
specialized information (e.g., context available at the edge) or
hardware. Similar to the discovery of functions, while there are
mechanisms that can be reused/extended, there is no complete solution
yet defined. An example of work in this area is
[I-D.bernardos-intarea-vim-discovery]."
3. Scenarios for Discovering Edge Data Resources
Mainly two types of situations need to be covered:
1. A set of data resources appears (e.g., a mobile node hosting data
joins a network) and they want to be discovered by an existing
but possibly virtualized and/or ephemeral data directory
infrastructure.
2. A device wants to discover data resources available at or near
its current location. As some of these resources may be mobile,
the available set of edge data may vary over time.
4. Edge Data Discovery
How can we discover data on the edge and make use of it? There are
proprietary implementations that collect data from various databases
and consolidate it for evaluation. We need a standard protocol set
for doing this data discovery, on the device or infrastructure edge,
in order to meet the requirements of many use cases. We will have
terabytes of data on the edge and need a way to identify its
existence and find the desired data. A user requires the need to
search for specific data in a data set and evaluate it using their
own tools. The tools are outside the scope of this document, but the
discovery of that data is in scope.
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4.1. Types of Discovery
There are many aspects of discovery and many different protocols that
address each aspect.
Discovery of new devices added to an environment. Discovery of their
capabilities/services in client/server environments. Discovery of
these new devices automatically. Discovering a device and then
synchronizing the device inventory and configuration for edge
services. There are many existing protocols to help in this
discovery: UPnP, mDNS, DNS-SD, SSDP, NFC, XMPP, W3C network service
discovery, etc.
Edge devices discover each other in a standard way. We can use DHCP,
SNMP, SMS, COAP, LLDP, and routing protocols such as OSPF for devices
to discovery one another.
Discovery of link state and traffic engineering data/services by
external devices. BGP-LS is one solution.
The question is if one or more of these protocols might be a suitable
contender to extend to support edge data discovery?
4.2. Naming the Data
Named Data Networking (NDN) is one of five research projects funded
by the U.S. National Science Foundation under its Future Internet
Architecture Program. NDN has its roots in an earlier project,
Content-Centric Networking (CCN), which Van Jacobson started at Xerox
PARC around the time of his Google talk, to turn his architecture
vision into a running prototype (see also his CoNEXT 2009 paper and
especially Jacobsons ACM Queue interview). The motivation is the
mis-match of todays Internet architecture and its usage. Today we
build, support, and use Internet applications and services on top of
an extremely capable architecture not designed to support them. What
if we had an architecture designed to support them? Specifically,
todays IP packets can name only endpoints of conversations (IP
addresses) at the network layer. What if we generalize this layer to
name any information (or content), not just endpoints? We make it
easier to develop, manage, secure, and use our networks. NDN can be
applied to edge data discovery to make it much easier to extract data
and meta-data by naming it. If data was named we would be able to
discover the appropriate data simply by its name.
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5. Use Cases of edge data discovery
1. Autonomous Vehicles
Autonomous vehicles rely on the processing of huge amounts of complex
data in real-time for fast and accurate decisions. These vehicles
will rely on high performance compute, storage and network resources
to process the volumes of data they produce in a low latency way.
Various systems will need a standard way to discover the pertinent
data for decision making
2. Video Surveillance
The majority of the video surveillance footage will remain at the
edge infrastructure (not sent to the cloud data center). This
footage is coming from vehicles, factories, hotels, universities,
farms, etc.Much of the video footage will not be interesting to those
evaluating the data. A mechanism, set of protocols perhaps, is
needed to identify the interesting data at the edge. What
constitutes interesting will be context specific, e.g., video frames
with a car in it, a backyard nocturnal creature in it, a person or
bicyclist or etc. Interesting video data may be stored longer in
storage systems at the very edge of the network or in flight in
networking equipment further away from the device edge.
3. Elevator Networks
Elevators are one of many industrial applications of edge computing.
Edge equipment receives data from 100's of elevator sensors. The
data coming into the edge equipment is vibration, temperature, speed,
level, video, etc. We need the ability to identify where the data we
need to evalute is located.
6. IANA Considerations
N/A
7. Security Considerations
Security considerations will be a critical component of edge data
discovery particularly as intelligence is moved to the extreme edge
where data is to be extracted.
8. Acknowledgement
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9. Normative References
[I-D.bernardos-intarea-vim-discovery]
Bernardos, C. and A. Mourad, "IPv6-based discovery and
association of Virtualization Infrastructure Manager (VIM)
and Network Function Virtualization Orchestrator (NFVO)",
draft-bernardos-intarea-vim-discovery-01 (work in
progress), February 2019.
[I-D.bernardos-sfc-discovery]
Bernardos, C. and A. Mourad, "Service Function discovery
in fog environments", draft-bernardos-sfc-discovery-02
(work in progress), March 2019.
[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>.
Authors' Addresses
Mike McBride
Huawei
Email: michael.mcbride@huawei.com
Dirk Kutscher
Emden University
Email: ietf@dkutscher.net
Eve Schooler
Intel
Email: eve.m.schooler@intel.com
Carlos J. Bernardos
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Av. Universidad, 30
Leganes, Madrid 28911
Spain
Phone: +34 91624 6236
Email: cjbc@it.uc3m.es
URI: http://www.it.uc3m.es/cjbc/
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