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Host to Network Signaling Use Cases for Collaborative Traffic Differentiation
draft-rwbr-tsvwg-signaling-use-cases-02

Document Type Active Internet-Draft (individual)
Authors Sridharan Rajagopalan , Dan Wing , Mohamed Boucadair , Tirumaleswar Reddy.K
Last updated 2024-03-17
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draft-rwbr-tsvwg-signaling-use-cases-02
Transport and Services Working Group                      S. Rajagopalan
Internet-Draft                                                   D. Wing
Intended status: Informational                      Cloud Software Group
Expires: 18 September 2024                                  M. Boucadair
                                                                  Orange
                                                                T. Reddy
                                                                   Nokia
                                                           17 March 2024

     Host to Network Signaling Use Cases for Collaborative Traffic
                            Differentiation
                draft-rwbr-tsvwg-signaling-use-cases-02

Abstract

   Host-to-network (and vice versa) signaling can improve the user
   experience by informing the network which flows are more important
   and which packets within a flow are more important without having to
   disclose the content of the packets being delivered.  The
   differentiated service may be provided at the network (e.g., packet
   discard preference), the sender (e.g., adaptive transmission or
   session migration), or through cooperation of both the host and the
   network.

   This document lists use cases demonstrating the need for a mechanism
   to share metadata about flows between a receiving host and its
   networks to enable differentiated traffic treatment for packets sent
   to the host.  Such a mechanism is typically implemented using a
   signaling protocol between the host and a set of network elements.

About This Document

   This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.

   The latest revision of this draft can be found at
   https://danwing.github.io/signaling-use-cases/draft-wing-tsvwg-
   signaling-use-cases.html.  Status information for this document may
   be found at https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-rwbr-tsvwg-
   signaling-use-cases/.

   Discussion of this document takes place on the Transport and Services
   Working Group Working Group mailing list (mailto:tsvwg@ietf.org),
   which is archived at https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/tsvwg/.
   Subscribe at https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/tsvwg/.

   Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at
   https://github.com/danwing/signaling-use-cases.

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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
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   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on 18 September 2024.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2024 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
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   provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Scope & Running Experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   3.  Conventions and Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   4.  Various Approaches for Collaborative Signaling  . . . . . . .   5
   5.  Signaling Avoidance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   6.  Use Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     6.1.  Generic Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
       6.1.1.  Priority Between Flows (Inter-Flow) of The Same
               Host  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
       6.1.2.  Priority Within a Flow (Intra-Flow) . . . . . . . . .   7
     6.2.  Detailed Use Cases  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
       6.2.1.  Media Streaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
       6.2.2.  Interactive Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
       6.2.3.  Bulk Data Transfer  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
       6.2.4.  Mixed Traffic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12

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       6.2.5.  Assisted Offload  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
   7.  Operational Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
     7.1.  Policy Enforcement  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
     7.2.  Redundant Functions & Classification Complications  . . .  14
     7.3.  Metadata Scope  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
     7.4.  Applications Interference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
     7.5.  Abuse and Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
     7.6.  Key Establishment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
     7.7.  Metadata Version/Capability Exchange  . . . . . . . . . .  16
     7.8.  Forwarding Processing: Slow Path vs. Fast Path  . . . . .  16
     7.9.  Impacts of Nested Congestion Controls . . . . . . . . . .  16
   8.  Requirements Summary  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   9.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   10. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   11. Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18

1.  Introduction

   Bandwidth constraints exist most predominantly at the access network
   (e.g., radio access networks).  Users who are serviced via these
   networks use various hosts which run various applications; each
   having different connectivity needs for an optimal user experience.
   These needs are not frozen but change over time depending on the
   application and even depending on how an application is used (e.g.,
   user's preferences).

   The simple network diagram below shows where such bandwidth and
   performance constraints usually exist with a "B" (for Bottleneck).
   Other network bottlenecks may be experienced in other segments not
   shown in the figure, such as interconnection links or the
   infrastructure that hosts the service (e.g., flash crowds).  When a
   bottleneck exists temporarily, the network has no choice but to
   discard or delay packets -- which can harm certain flows and thus
   lead to suboptimal perceived experience.  In this document, this is
   termed 'reactive policy'.

              +------+  |                     |          |
   +----+     |WLAN  |  |  +------+  +------+ | +------+ | +----+
   |host+--B--+access+--B--+router+--+router+---+router+---+host|
   +----+     |point |  |  +------+  +------+ | +------+ | +----+
              +------+  |                     |          |
                        |                     | Transit  |  Content
      User Network      |    ISP Network      | Network  |  Network

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   Complications that are induced by such phenomena may be eliminated by
   adequate dimensioning and upgrades.  However, such upgrades may not
   be always immediately possible or economically justified.

   Complementary mitigations are thus needed to soften these
   complications by introducing some collaboration between a host and
   its networks to adjust their behaviors.

   For traffic sent in either direction, the network network elements
   that terminate a bandwidth constraining link (or located few hops
   next to that element) can be fed with flow metadata.  Such
   augmentation allows those network elements to make autonomous
   decisions to prioritize, delay, or drop packets, especially when
   performing reactive resource management.  Absent such metadata, these
   network elements have no guidance and treat packets indiscriminately.

   There are several challenges with this metadata augmentation:

   *  for hosts:

      -  which data to share without privacy breach or lowering
         confidentiality.

   *  for network elements:

      -  Which metadata to honor

      -  Tradeoff between the extra cost (including processing) versus
         benefits

      -  Operational impacts

   Configured cooperation between an ISP and content providers (via
   contractual agreements, typically) can allows metadata signals
   augmenting packets to be honored by the ISP.  This cooperation has
   historically involved examination of server IP address, TLS SNI, AS
   number, or heuristics to identify flows.  However, this cooperation
   might have scalability issues (e.g., ISPs to establish and maintain
   agreements with a large number of content providers), operational
   implications as the network configuration will rely on service-
   specific (e.g., risk of frozen or stale configuration), mismatch
   between the expected service level from users and the delivered one,
   etc.  Moreover, smaller ISPs, small content providers, and new
   content providers are harmed.

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   A more egalitarian approach provides the same benefit to parties --
   large and small -- and also provide richer signaling to further
   improve user experience and metadata interoperability.  This allows
   all parties, big and small, to request the network differentiate a
   flow, improving the Internet for end users per [RFC8890].

   Rather than relying on configured cooperation between ISPs and
   content providers, this document shows use cases where the client
   tells its ISP the importance of packets it is receiving.  This
   provides several benefits described in later sections.

   There is already some consensus that applications can benefit by
   collaborative signaling the network ([IAB], [ATIS]).  This document
   provides use cases to further detail the need of such signaling and
   highlights the value of the receiving host signaling to its network
   about flows being sent to the host.

2.  Scope & Running Experiments

   This document does not intend to define any signaling protocol nor
   call whether a new signaling protocol, a new extension, one or more
   signaling protocols are needed.

   However, this document provides a reference to digest the intended
   benefits for enabling collaborating of a host and its networks.
   These benefits are yet to be backed up with more evidence.  Some
   experimental work would be reasonable to be endorsed by the IETF to
   solicit more feedback and collect assess the benefits under various
   setups.

3.  Conventions and Definitions

   Intentional Management:  network policy such as (monthly) bandwidth
      quota or bandwidth limit, or quality (delay and/or jitter))
      assurances.

   Reactive Management:  network reactions to congestion events, with
      very short to very long durations (e.g., varying wireless and
      mobile air interface conditions).

4.  Various Approaches for Collaborative Signaling

   Figure 1 depicts examples of approaches to establish channels to
   convey and share metadata between a host, its networks, and the
   servers.

   Metadata exchanges can occur in one single direction or both
   directions of a flows.

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   (1)  Proxied Connection
                          .--------------.                   +------+
                         |                |                +-+----+ |
   +------+              |   Network(s)   |              +-+----+ +-+
   |Client+--------------)----------------(--------------+Server+-+
   +---+--+              |                |              +---+--+
       |                  '-------+------'                   |
       |                          |                          |
       +<===User Data+Metadata===>+<===User Data+Metadata===>+
       |   Secure Connection 1    |   Secure Connection 2    |
       |                          |                          |

   (2)  Out-of-band Metadata Sharing
                           .--------------.                  +------+
                          |                |               +-+----+ |
   +------+               |   Network(s)   |             +-+----+ +-+
   |Client+---------------)----------------(-------------+Server+-+
   +---+--+               |                |             +---+--+
       |                   '-------+------'                  |
       |                           |                         |
       +<-----End-to-End Secure Connection + User Data------>+<---.
       |                           |                         | GLUE|
       |                           |                         | CXs |
       +<-- Metadata (Optional) -->+<- Metadata (Optional) ->+<---'
       |    Secure Connection 1    |    Secure Connection 2  |
       |                           |                         |

   (3)  Client-centric Metadata Sharing
                             .--------------.                  +------+
                            |                |               +-+----+ |
   +------+                 |   Network(s)   |             +-+----+ +-+
   |Client+-----------------)----------------(-------------+Server+-+
   +---+--+                 |                |             +---+--+
       |                     '-------+------'                  |
       |                             |                         |
       +<--------- Metadata -------->+                         |
       |        Secure Connection    |                         |
       |                             |                         |
       +<== End-to-End Secure Connection User Data+Metadata ==>+
       |                             |                         |

                  Figure 1: Candidate Signaling Approaches

   The client-centric metadata sharing approach because it preserves
   privacy and also takes advantage of clients having a full view on
   their available network attachments.  Without client involvement some
   use-cases cannot be solved, as detailed below in Section 6.1.

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      Note: some use cases may require seeking for users preference or
      receiving these preferences.  Such matters are out of scope.

5.  Signaling Avoidance

   Leveraging previous experience ([RFC9049]), the signaling protocol
   does _not_ need:

   *  application identity

   *  application cause (or 'reason') to signal metadata

   *  server identity

   *  client-to-server encrypted payload inspection by network elements

6.  Use Cases

6.1.  Generic Cases

6.1.1.  Priority Between Flows (Inter-Flow) of The Same Host

   Certain flows being received by a host (or by an application on a
   host) are less or more important than other flows of *the same host*.
   For example, a host downloading a software update is generally
   considered less important than another host doing interactive audio/
   video or gaming.  By signaling the relative importance of flows to a
   network element, the network element can (de-)prioritize those flows
   to best accommodate the needs of the various applications on a same
   host.

   Without a signaling in place between a receiving host and its
   network, remote peers are able to mark packets that interfere with
   the desires of the receiving host -- making their flows more
   important than what the receiving host considers more important.
   This eventually causes all flows to be marked as important, or --
   more likely -- such priority markings to be ignored.

6.1.2.  Priority Within a Flow (Intra-Flow)

   Interactive Audio/Video has long been using [RTP] which runs over
   UDP.  As described in Section 2.3.7.2 of [RFC7478], there is value in
   differentiating between voice, video and data.  Today's video
   streaming is exclusively over TCP but will migrate to QUIC and
   eventually is likely to support unreliable transport ([RFC9221],
   [I-D.ietf-moq-transport]).  With unreliable transport of video in RTP
   or QUIC, it is beneficial to differentiate the important video
   keyframes from other video frames.  Other applications such as gaming

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   and remote desktop also benefit from differentiating their packets to
   the network.

   Many of these flows do not originate from a content provider's
   network -- rather, they originate from a peer (e.g., VoIP,
   interactive video, peer-to-peer gaming, Remote Desktop).  Thus, the
   flows originate from an IP address that is not known before
   connection establishment, so there needs to be a way for the client
   to authorize the network elements to receive and hopefully to honor
   the metadata of those packets.

   Without a signaling in place between a receiving host and its
   network, remote peers are able to mark every packet of a flow as
   important, causing much the same problem as the previous use-case.
   Eventually, when all packets of every flow are marked as important,
   there is no differentiation between packets within a flow, rendering
   the network unable to improve reactive policy decisions.

6.2.  Detailed Use Cases

6.2.1.  Media Streaming

   Streaming video contains the occasional key frame ("i-frame")
   containing a full video frame.  These are necessary to rebuild
   receiver state after loss of delta frames.  The key frames are
   therefore more critical to deliver to the receiver than delta frames.

   Streaming video also contains audio frames which can be encoded
   separately and thus can be signaled separately.  Audio is more
   critical than video for almost all applications, but its importance
   (relative to other packets in the flow) is still an application
   decision.

   Examples: Super bowl, On-Demand Streaming

   Requirement:

   Signal the flow needs least delay between server and client.  Network
   can provide minimal delay information to the host.  Feedback from the
   network and the client, based on user preference, is required for
   more efficient streaming.  This is required for incorporating special
   needs based on application/user capabilities and to prioritize
   traffic during reactive events.

   Problems:

   1.  All packets prioritized the same irrespective of user
       preferences/needs:

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       a.  A client based change in priority of a certain type of data
       is not possible.  For example, a hearing challenged user can
       choose video over audio while the priority is different for other
       users.

       b.  Dynamic changes to priority based on user activity is not
       possible today.  For example, audio packets having the same
       priority when a user mutes the audio locally, or change in
       priority during time of emergency where video streaming
       applications share the same priority as SOS signals.

   2.  In loss-prone networks or during a reactive policy events,
       retransmissions cause immense delay.  Networks, not able to
       distinguish between reliable and loss-tolerant data or the
       critical data within a flow (i-frames, p-frames, and audio
       packets), can have challenges in efficiently handling/forwarding
       data.

   Solution:

   1.  Client to ISP (Host-to-network) signaling can help with conveying
       user needs.

       a.  The server (content provider) achieves best scalability by
       sending a single stream with the same per-packet metadata.  The
       client, on the other hand, signaling the ISP to treat certain
       packets with a different priority over the others, can help solve
       the issue.  For example, for video streaming, if the metadata
       just said "audio" (0x00), "video i-frame" (0x01) "video p-frame"
       (0x02), the client could have the signaling protocol tell an
       upstream router which one was most important.  Some users could
       prioritize video over audio and vice versa.

       b.  Clients occasionally change the importance of receiving
       certain streams, such as muting video or audio, but still need to
       receive some frames to populate their playout jitter buffer.  In
       such cases, the client can signal the ISP to (de-)prioritize
       certain types of traffic during the duration of that event.  The
       per-packet metadata from the server would remain the same while
       the ISP treats certain per-packet metadata differently.  These
       signals can be propagated to the server (in the form of a network
       to host signals) for improved efficiency, but this is out of the
       scope of this document.

   2.  Server to ISP (Host-to-network) per packet metadata can help in
       informing the network about the nature of traffic.

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6.2.2.  Interactive Media

   Examples: VoIP (peer-to-peer (P2P), group conferencing), gaming.

   Requirement:

   The flow needs low jitter and low delay.  However, the network can
   only provide a limited amount of low jitter/low delay to each host,
   maybe as few as one.  This requires signaling feedback indicating
   that low jitter and low delay flows are already subscribed to other
   hosts.  In response, the user and the application will likely
   continue, occasionally re-attempting to get the desired quality of
   service from the network.

   In many scenarios a game or VoIP application will want to signal
   different metadata for the same type of packet in each direction.
   For example, for a game, video in the server-to-client direction
   might be more important than audio, whereas input devices (e.g.,
   keystrokes) might be more important than audio.

   Many interactive audio/video applications also support sharing the
   presenter's screen, file, video, or pictures.  During this sharing
   the presenter's video is less important but the screen or picture is
   more important.  This change of importance can be conveyed in
   metadata to the network, by signaling from the client to the network
   element(s).

   Both gaming (video in both directions, audio in both directions,
   input devices from client to server) and interactive audio/video
   (VoIP, video conference) involves important traffic in both
   directions -- thus is a slightly more complicated use-case than the
   previous example.  Additionally, most Internet service providers
   constrain upstream bandwidth so proper packet treatment is critical
   in the upstream direction.

   Examples: VoIP, online gaming.

   Problems:

   1.  Peer-to-peer communication often involves direct connection(s)
       without involvement of an intermediary server (or one of the
       peers take the role of a server in some gaming cases).  The
       signaling (like DSCP) from these IP addresses are often ignored
       as these IP addresses are not in the ISPs' list of recognized
       servers.  It is the same fate for servers that are not in the
       ISPs' list of recognized servers in an online gaming or a
       conference scenario

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   2.  Each peer part of the network will have different preferences and
       it is difficult for the application to modify metadata for each
       peer based on the preference.

   Solutions:

   1.  Client-to-network signal indicating ISP to honor the honoring
       signaling data of a particular flow enables any data,
       irrespective of whether the sending server is part of the list of
       IP addresses or not.  This enables client(user)-driven processing
       of metadata and client driven authorization of the IP addresses
       apart from the ISPs' list of recognized IP addresses.

   2.  Client-to-network signaling also helps the ISP treat the same
       metadata differently for different flows based on the user
       preference.  The per-packet metadata from the server would remain
       the same, simplifying signaling implementation on the server and
       making it more scalable.

6.2.2.1.  Examples of Same Type of Metadata with Different Preferences

   A game or VoIP application may want to signal different metadata for
   the same type of packet in each direction.  For example, for a game,
   video in the server-to-client direction might be more important than
   audio, whereas input devices (e.g., keystrokes) might be more
   important than audio.  Each user can have varied preferences for the
   same type of data originating from the server.  Determination of such
   preferences is outside of the scope of this document.

   1.  Video in a media session: One user can choose to keep the video
       and screen-sharing equally distributed on the screen while
       another user can minimize or reduce the size of the video.  Based
       on the size/preference of the video window, video packets can be
       prioritized accordingly relative to screen-shared content.  This
       preference can be propagated to the server as network-to-host
       signaling for more efficient transmission but that is out of the
       scope of this document.

   2.  User Inactivity signal: When the user is inactive during an
       interactive session such as gaming (activity can be detected
       automatically or can be a simple user signal of Away-from-
       Keyboard (AFK)), the client can signal to the ISP to deprioritize
       the packets to the extent that the client receives some data to
       populate their playout jitter buffer.

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6.2.3.  Bulk Data Transfer

   Examples: backup/restore, software update, RSS feed update, email,
   printing to a print server, file copy

   Requirement: Signal the flow as below best-effort.

   Problem:

   1.  Bulk data is generally not interactive and can be forwarded of
       over paths of greater latency.  It is treated as non-time
       sensitive operation.  Although some bulk transfers (like saving a
       file in the middle of editing) that cannot be minimized, where
       the user will have to wait till it is completed to further use
       the device, should be given real-time importance.  Bulk data such
       as printing a file while editing can be parallelized and need not
       have real-time priority.  Similarly, backing up of data can be
       parallelized while restoring of data cannot be parallelized based
       on the application.

   Solution:

   1.  Client-to-network signaling can enhance the user experience by
       identifying and signaling the flow's priority appropriately for
       the ISP to handle the packets accordingly.

6.2.4.  Mixed Traffic

   Examples: Desktop Virtualization

   Requirement:  Signal flow will vary depending on the nature of the
      packet.  With variety of traffic going through the session, some
      packets can contain interactive traffic while the others contain
      bulk transfer.  There can be combination of reliable and
      unreliable traffic within the same session through multiple
      streams.  Host-to-network signaling plays a vital role in
      effectively forwarding mixed traffic for better user interactivity
      and network performance. ```

   Mixed traffic has a large variety of applications with unique cases.
   For the purpose of use case, Desktop Virtualization is considered
   below.

   Problems:

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   1.  In remote desktop use case, a server can host multiple
       connections with varying type of traffic to it.  These servers
       are often in a database, exposed to the internet through some
       sort of a gateway-proxy and the signaling (like DSCP bits) from
       these servers are often ignored by the ISPs.

   2.  A video key frame should be handled differently by the network
       depending on a streaming application versus a remote desktop
       application.  The video streaming application's primary and only
       nature of traffic is video and audio.  In contrast, a remote
       desktop application might be playing a video and its associated
       audio while at the same time the user is editing a document.  The
       user's keystrokes and those glyphs need to be prioritized over
       the video lest the user think their inputs are being ignored (and
       type the same characters again).

   3.  With multiple applications running in the same virtualized
       environment, video streaming having same priority as graphics
       updates while the user is playing a video in the background while
       typing a document in the foreground can cause interactivity
       issues.

   Solution:

   1.  Client-to-network signal indicating ISP to honor the signaling
       data of a particular flow enables the servers, that are not even
       directly visible to the ISPs, to benefit from signaling.  This
       enables client(user)-driven processing of metadata and client
       driven authorization of the IP addresses apart from the ISPs'
       list of recognized IP addresses.

   2.  Client signaling can reduce/eliminate the resource intensive
       responsibility of identifying such scenarios and modifying the
       metadata accordingly.  The per-packet metadata from the server
       would remain the same, simplifying signaling implementation on
       the server and making it more scalable.

   3.  Client signaling based on user activity can improve user
       experience.  Signaling the ISP to treat the same metadata
       differently based on the user activity can help improve/resolve
       this, while keeping the per packet metadata the same.

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6.2.5.  Assisted Offload

   There are cases (crisis) where "normal" network resources cannot be
   used at maximum and, thus, a network would seek to reduce or offload
   some of the traffic during these events -- often called 'reactive
   traffic policy'.  An example of such use case is cellular networks
   that are overly used (and radio resources exhausted) such as a large
   collection of people (e.g., parade, sporting event), or such as a
   partial radio network outage (e.g., tower power outage).  During such
   a condition, an alternative network attachment may be available to
   the host (e.g., Wi-Fi).

   Network-to-host signals are useful to put in place adequate traffic
   distribution policies (e.g., prefer the use of alternate paths,
   offload a network).

7.  Operational Considerations

7.1.  Policy Enforcement

   Some metadata requires the network to share some hints with a host to
   adjust its behavior for some specific flows.  However, that metadata
   may have a dependency on the service offering that is subscribed by a
   user.  Let us consider the example of a bitrate for an optimized
   video delivery. *Such bitrate may not be computed system-wide* given
   that flows from users with distinct service offerings (and
   connectivity SLOs) may be serviced by the same network nodes.

7.2.  Redundant Functions & Classification Complications

   If distinct channels are used to share the metadata between a host
   and a network, a network that engages in the collaborative signaling
   approach will require sophisticated features to classify flows and
   decide which channel is used to share metadata so that it can consume
   that information.  Likewise, the network will require to implement
   redundant functions; for each signaling interface.

   As such, application- and protocol-specific signaling channels are
   suboptimal.

7.3.  Metadata Scope

   An operational challenge for sharing resource-quota like metadata
   (e.g., maximum bitrate) is that the network is generally not entitled
   to allocate quota per-application, per-flow, per-stream, etc. that
   delivered as part of an Internet connectivity service.  However, the
   network has a visibility about the overall network attachment (e.g.,
   inbound/outbound bandwidth discussed in

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   [I-D.ietf-opsawg-teas-attachment-circuit]).  As such, hints about
   resource-like metadata is bound by default to the overall network
   attachment, not specific to a given application or flow.

      It is out of the scope of this document to discuss setups (e.g.,
      3GPP PDU Sessions) where network attachments with GBR (Guaranteed
      Bit Rate) for specific flows is provided.

7.4.  Applications Interference

   Applications that have access to a resource-quota information may
   adopt an aggressive behavior (compared to those that don't have
   access) if they assumed that a resource-quota like metadata is for
   the application, not for the host that runs the applications.

   This is challenging for home networks where multiple hosts may be
   running behind the same CPE, with each of them running a video
   application.

7.5.  Abuse and Constraints

   It is important that not every flow be prioritized; otherwise, the
   network devolves into the best-effort network that existed prior to
   metadata signaling.  It is a requirement that mechanisms exist to
   prevent this occurrence.

   Such a mechanism might be simple, for example, a cellular network
   might allow one flow from a subscriber to declare itself as
   important; other flows with that subscriber are denied attempts to
   prioritize themselves.  The mechanism might be more complex where
   authentication and authorization is performed by an enterprise
   network which, itself, decides which flows are important based on its
   policy and only the enterprise network communicates flow priorities
   to the ISP network.  The enterprise might prioritize certain users
   (e.g., IT staff), certain equipment (audio/video equipment in a
   conference room), or whatever its policies it might want.

7.6.  Key Establishment

   Various proposals have suggested establishing a key to validate per-
   packet metadata or to decrypt per-packet metadata.  However, most
   proposals have not specified how this key would be established.  A
   signaling protocol from the receiving host to its ISP could establish
   such a key.  The host can then convey the key to the sending host to
   use to integrity protect or encrypt the per-packet metadata.

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      Note: The CPU overhead of validating or decrypting such per-packet
      metadata needs to be carefully considered (and further assessed
      via experiments) by the signaling protocol proposing such keying.
      Also, the required operational setup should be documented.

7.7.  Metadata Version/Capability Exchange

   The sender has to convey metadata in a way that is understood by the
   various network elements on the path -- each of which might be
   operated by different entities and have different capabilities.  For
   example, the Wi-Fi access point might be operated by an enterprise
   network, hotel, or home user, whereas the upstream router is operated
   by the ISP.  Each of those might support different versions of the
   same metadata, or might need the metadata expressed in different
   ways.

   The signaling protocol would provide a way to learn the needs of
   those networks, and provide metadata signaling satisfying most or all
   of their needs.

7.8.  Forwarding Processing: Slow Path vs. Fast Path

   TBC

7.9.  Impacts of Nested Congestion Controls

   TBC

8.  Requirements Summary

   TODO summary.

   *  The activation of the collaborative signalling MUST NOT lower the
      perceived service of flows during nominal conditions (i.e., when
      the network is not in a reactive policy mode).

9.  Security Considerations

   TODO Security

10.  IANA Considerations

   This document has no IANA actions.

11.  Informative References

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   [ATIS]     "Content Classification for Traffic Optimization", 2023,
              <https://access.atis.org/higherlogic/ws/public/
              download/72240>.

   [I-D.ietf-moq-transport]
              Curley, L., Pugin, K., Nandakumar, S., Vasiliev, V., and
              I. Swett, "Media over QUIC Transport", Work in Progress,
              Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-moq-transport-03, 4 March 2024,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-moq-
              transport-03>.

   [I-D.ietf-opsawg-teas-attachment-circuit]
              Boucadair, M., Roberts, R., de Dios, O. G., Barguil, S.,
              and B. Wu, "YANG Data Models for Bearers and 'Attachment
              Circuits'-as-a-Service (ACaaS)", Work in Progress,
              Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-opsawg-teas-attachment-circuit-
              08, 16 March 2024, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/
              draft-ietf-opsawg-teas-attachment-circuit-08>.

   [IAB]      Arkko, J., Hardie, T., Pauly, T., and M. Kühlewind,
              "Considerations on Application - Network Collaboration
              Using Path Signals", RFC 9419, DOI 10.17487/RFC9419, July
              2023, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9419>.

   [RFC7478]  Holmberg, C., Hakansson, S., and G. Eriksson, "Web Real-
              Time Communication Use Cases and Requirements", RFC 7478,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7478, March 2015,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7478>.

   [RFC8890]  Nottingham, M., "The Internet is for End Users", RFC 8890,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8890, August 2020,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8890>.

   [RFC9049]  Dawkins, S., Ed., "Path Aware Networking: Obstacles to
              Deployment (A Bestiary of Roads Not Taken)", RFC 9049,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9049, June 2021,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9049>.

   [RFC9221]  Pauly, T., Kinnear, E., and D. Schinazi, "An Unreliable
              Datagram Extension to QUIC", RFC 9221,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9221, March 2022,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9221>.

   [RTP]      Schulzrinne, H., Casner, S., Frederick, R., and V.
              Jacobson, "RTP: A Transport Protocol for Real-Time
              Applications", STD 64, RFC 3550, DOI 10.17487/RFC3550,
              July 2003, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3550>.

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Acknowledgments

   Thanks to Hang Shi for the review and comments.

Authors' Addresses

   Sridharan Rajagopalan
   Cloud Software Group Holdings, Inc.
   United States of America
   Email: sridharan.girish@gmail.com

   Dan Wing
   Cloud Software Group Holdings, Inc.
   United States of America
   Email: danwing@gmail.com

   Mohamed Boucadair
   Orange
   France
   Email: mohamed.boucadair@orange.com

   Tirumaleswar Reddy
   Nokia
   India
   Email: kondtir@gmail.com

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