SFC WG                                                     CJ. Bernardos
Internet-Draft                                                      UC3M
Intended status: Experimental                                  A. Mourad
Expires: January 13, 2022                                   InterDigital
                                                           July 12, 2021


              Distributed SFC control for fog environments
               draft-bernardos-sfc-distributed-control-04

Abstract

   Service function chaining (SFC) allows the instantiation of an
   ordered set of service functions and subsequent "steering" of traffic
   through them.  In order to set up and maintain SFC instances, a
   control plane is required, which typically is centralized.  In
   certain environments, such as fog computing ones, such centralized
   control might not be feasible, calling for distributed SFC control
   solutions.  This document introduces the role of SFC pseudo-
   controller and specifies solutions to select and initialize such new
   logical function.

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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   This Internet-Draft will expire on January 13, 2022.

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   publication of this document.  Please review these documents



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   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  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Problem statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   4.  Distributed SFC control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     4.1.  SFC pseudo controller initialization  . . . . . . . . . .   7
   5.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   6.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   7.  Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   8.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12

1.  Introduction

   Virtualization of functions provides operators with tools to deploy
   new services much faster, as compared to the traditional use of
   monolithic and tightly integrated dedicated machinery.  As a natural
   next step, mobile network operators need to re-think how to evolve
   their existing network infrastructures and how to deploy new ones to
   address the challenges posed by the increasing customers' demands, as
   well as by the huge competition among operators.  All these changes
   are triggering the need for a modification in the way operators and
   infrastructure providers operate their networks, as they need to
   significantly reduce the costs incurred in deploying a new service
   and operating it.  Some of the mechanisms that are being considered
   and already adopted by operators include: sharing of network
   infrastructure to reduce costs, virtualization of core servers
   running in data centers as a way of supporting their load-aware
   elastic dimensioning, and dynamic energy policies to reduce the
   monthly electricity bill.  However, this has proved to be tough to
   put in practice, and not enough.  Indeed, it is not easy to deploy
   new mechanisms in a running operational network due to the high
   dependency on proprietary (and sometime obscure) protocols and
   interfaces, which are complex to manage and often require configuring
   multiple devices in a decentralized way.

   Service Functions are widely deployed and essential in many networks.
   These Service Functions provide a range of features such as security,
   WAN acceleration, and server load balancing.  Service Functions may
   be instantiated at different points in the network infrastructure
   such as data center, the WAN, the RAN, and even on mobile nodes.



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   Service functions (SFs), also referred to as VNFs, or just functions,
   are hosted on compute, storage and networking resources.  The hosting
   environment of a function is called Service Function Provider or
   NFVI-PoP (using ETSI NFV terminology).

   Services are typically formed as a composition of SFs (VNFs), with
   each SF providing a specific function of the whole service.  Services
   also referred to as Network Services (NS), according to ETSI
   terminology.

   With the arrival of virtualization, the deployment model for service
   function is evolving to one where the traffic is steered through the
   functions wherever they are deployed (functions do not need to be
   deployed in the traffic path anymore).  For a given service, the
   abstracted view of the required service functions and the order in
   which they are to be applied is called a Service Function Chain
   (SFC).  An SFC is instantiated through selection of specific service
   function instances on specific network nodes to form a service graph:
   this is called a Service Function Path (SFP).  The service functions
   may be applied at any layer within the network protocol stack
   (network layer, transport layer, application layer, etc.).

   The concept of fog computing has emerged driven by the Internet of
   Things (IoT) due to the need of handling the data generated from the
   end-user devices.  The term fog is referred to any networked
   computational resource in the continuum between things and cloud.  A
   fog node may therefore be an infrastructure network node such as an
   eNodeB or gNodeB, an edge server, a customer premises equipment
   (CPE), or even a user equipment (UE) terminal node such as a laptop,
   a smartphone, or a computing unit on-board a vehicle, robot or drone.

   In fog computing, the functions composing an SFC are hosted on
   resources that are inherently heterogeneous, volatile and mobile
   [I-D.bernardos-sfc-fog-ran].  This means that resources might appear
   and disappear, and the connectivity characteristics between these
   resources may also change dynamically.  These scenarios call for
   distributed SFC control solutions, where there are SFC pseudo
   controllers, enabling autonomous SFC self-orchestration capabilities.
   This document introduces this concept and presents first ideas on
   mechanisms to select and initialize a service-specific SFC pseudo
   controller among host nodes which are participating in the SFC.

2.  Terminology

   The following terms used in this document are defined by the IETF in
   [RFC7665]:





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      Service Function (SF): a function that is responsible for specific
      treatment of received packets (e.g., firewall, load balancer).

      Service Function Chain (SFC): for a given service, the abstracted
      view of the required service functions and the order in which they
      are to be applied.  This is somehow equivalent to the Network
      Function Forwarding Graph (NF-FG) at ETSI.

      Service Function Forwarder (SFF): A service function forwarder is
      responsible for forwarding traffic to one or more connected
      service functions according to information carried in the SFC
      encapsulation, as well as handling traffic coming back from the
      SF.

      SFI: SF instance.

      Service Function Path (SFP): the selection of specific service
      function instances on specific network nodes to form a service
      graph through which an SFC is instantiated.

3.  Problem statement

   [RFC7665] describes an architecture for the specification, creation,
   and ongoing maintenance of Service Function Chains (SFCs) in a
   network.  It includes architectural concepts, principles, and
   components used in the construction of composite services through
   deployment of SFCs.

   The SFC architecture assumes there is a control plane that configures
   and manages the SFC components.  This role is typically assumed to be
   played by a centralized controller/orchestrator.  This implies that
   dynamic changes on the SFC (composition, function migration, scaling,
   etc) can only be performed by the centralized controller, which needs
   to always have connectivity with the functions, and have updated
   information on the status of all the nodes hosting the functions.
   Also, multiple services are managed by the same controller/
   orchestrator, even if they provide different functionalities with
   disparate requirements.

   In a fog environment, with current management and orchestration
   solutions, SFCs cannot operate if the nodes hosting the functions get
   disconnected from the infrastructure.  This implies that the
   lifecycle management of an SFC cannot be managed if disconnected from
   the centralized controller, which means that important actions (e.g.,
   scaling, migrating a function or updating the data plane) might not
   take place due to the lack of connectivity with the controller/
   orchestrator (even if connectivity issues are just temporal ones).
   Additionally, lifecycle management of SFCs require up-to-date



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   monitoring information, with a refresh frequency that is service-
   specific and might involve a very high overhead with the controller.
   This severely limits the capability of fast reacting to events local
   to the nodes hosting the functions, as the SFC cannot autonomously
   self-orchestrate (decisions can only be taken by the centralized
   controller/orchestrator).

   Figure 1 shows an exemplary scenario where a drone makes use of a
   network service composed of the chain of functions F1-F2-F3.  F1 runs
   on the drone itself (node A), F2 runs in another drone (node B) and
   F3 runs in a gNB on the ground (node D).  The service might be, for
   example, an autonomous video surveillance activity in which a couple
   of drones with different types of cameras make use of image
   recognition to decide where to go next.  If the drones move out of
   the coverage of the node D, the service chain needs to be
   reconfigured (for example migrating F3 to node C) so it can remain
   operative (as node D is hosting one function of the SFC).  Since node
   D is also providing the drones with connectivity to the network
   infrastructure where the SFC controller is located, this type of
   events cannot be resolved by the SFC controller, as the nodes hosting
   the functions would be disconnected from the controller.

                           node B
                         /       \          F1+-.-.-+F2+-.-.-+F3 SFC
                 <====  /\       /\
                          \-----/
                          |     |
                    +-.-.-.-+F2 |
                   /      /---+-\                       __________
     /       \    .     \/   /   \/                   _(          )_
    /\       /\  /       \  .    /                  _( +----------+ )_
      \-----/   .          /       ( (oo) )        (_  | SFC ctrl |  _)
      |   +-.-./          .           /\             (_+----------+_)
      |  F1 |             |          /\/\ (F3)         (__________)
      /-----\             .         /\/\/\
    \/       \/      /    |  \     /\/  \/\
     \       /      /\    .  /\     node D
      node A          \---|-/
                      |   + |
                      |  F3 |
                      /-----\
             <====  \/       \/
                     \       /
                       node C

                      Figure 1: SFC example scenario





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   Another scenario that cannot be properly tackled with current SFC
   orchestration approaches control appears with highly mobile/volatile
   environments and/or latency-demanding services, in which centralized
   lifecycle management is unfeasible due to its high signaling cost
   (e.g., they require frequent measurements sent from remote nodes to a
   centralized controller, generating too much signaling, and involving
   a delay that might be too long to meet the service requirements).

4.  Distributed SFC control

   The fact that -- in fog computing environments -- SFC functions are
   hosted in heterogeneous, volatile and mobile resources, calls for new
   orchestration solutions able to cope with dynamic changes to the
   resources in runtime or ahead of time (in anticipation through
   prediction) as opposed to today's solutions which are inherently
   reactive and static or semi-static.

   These new orchestration solutions have to enable SFCs to autonomously
   self-orchestrate without having to rely on a centralized controller.
   The idea introduced in this draft is to enable one of the nodes
   involved in a service function chain (i.e., in a specific service) to
   be prepared to take over the control of the SFC and perform network
   service lifecycle management decisions, replacing at least temporary
   and at least partially the centralized SFC controller.

   This draft proposes a new logical entity, complementing the SFC
   controller/orchestrator found in current architectures and
   deployments.  We refer to this new entity as SFC pseudo controller,
   and it is characterized by the following:

   o  It is service-specific, meaning that it is defined and meaningful
      in the context of a given network service.  Compared to existing
      SFC controllers/orchestrators, which manage multiple SFCs
      instantiated over a common infrastructure, pseudo controllers are
      constrained to service specific lifecycle management.  These SFC
      pseudo controllers synchronize with the SFC centralized
      controller/orchestrator to ensure proper resource orchestration.

   o  Potentially, any node involved in a network service might play the
      role of SFC pseudo controller.  But note that it is not mandatory
      that all nodes are willing/capable to play that role.  Therefore,
      we consider that on a given deployment, only a subset of all the
      involved nodes are willing or capable of doing so.  We refer to
      these nodes as candidate pseudo controllers.  During the
      initialization phase, out of the candidates, one will be chosen by
      the SFC controller as selected SFC pseudo controller.  Each
      candidate pseudo controller maintains a local copy of the
      information required to properly perform lifecycle management of



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      the service.  This includes not only information about the network
      service (e.g., the Network Service Descriptor, NSD, and the
      Virtual Network Function Descriptors, VNFDs, as defined by ETSI
      NFV, and the characterization of the resource capabilities of the
      nodes hosting the functions), but also the information related to
      performing an efficient monitoring of the service.  We refer to
      this new descriptor as Operations, Administration and Maintenance
      Descriptor (OAMD).

   o  From the set of available candidate SFC pseudo controllers, one is
      chosen as selected pseudo controllers for a network service.  This
      active pseudo controller performs monitoring activities at service
      and resource level and synchronizes periodically with the
      centralized SFC controller/orchestrator.  Note that this is
      performed in an opportunistic way, if connectivity is available,
      and that disconnected operation is possible.

   Candidate pseudo controller instances might be located at any node
   hosting a service function.  The SFC controller typically runs in the
   network core, at a server (either as a physical or virtual function).
   The SFC controller and the candidate pseudo controller instances
   exchange signaling to initialize the selected SFC pseudo controller.
   This includes signaling to describe the service, signaling to express
   the readiness and preference from the candidates to play the role of
   pseudo controller, and the signaling from the SFC controller to
   indicate the selected one.  This is explained in more detail next.

4.1.  SFC pseudo controller initialization

   This section describes how SFC pseudo controller candidates are
   determined and selected SFC pseudo controllers are chosen from the
   candidate set.



















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   +--------+    +--------+    +--------+    +--------+     +----------+
   | node A |    | node C |    | node B |    | node D |     | SFC ctrl |
   +--------+    +--------+    +--------+    +--------+     +----------+
       |             |             |             |                |
       | F1@A<->F2@B<->F3@C SFC instance traffic |                |
       |<-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.->|<-.-.-.-.-.->|                |
       |             |             |             |                |
       |             |             |1. Candidate pseudo-controller adv.
       |             |             |----------------------------->|
       |--------------------------------------------------------->|
       |             |             |             |                |
       |             |             |       2. Service description |
       |             |             |<-----------------------------|
       |<---------------------------------------------------------|
       |             |             |             |                |
       |             |             |3. Candidate pseudo-controller req.
       |             |             |----------------------------->|
       |--------------------------------------------------------->|
       |             |             |             |                |
       |             |             |             |        (4. Selection)
       |             |             |             |                |
       |             |             5. Candidate pseudo-controller resp.
       |<---------------------------------------------------------|
       |             |             |             |                |

              Figure 2: SFC pseudo controller initialization

   A detailed message sequence chart is shown in Figure 2.  The
   different steps are described next:

   1.  Among the fog nodes hosting functions of an SFC, several might be
       willing to play the role of SFC pseudo controller.  There is an
       exchange of information between the SFC controller and the SFC
       nodes, where the SFC pseudo controller candidates will be
       determined by fog nodes' willingness/preference for a service.  A
       preference value from the candidate nodes is used by the SFC
       controller as primary value to decide which is the selected SFC
       pseudo controller, but other information can also be used in this
       decision, such as, but not limited to: local policies, volatility
       of the node, known capabilities of the node (monitoring,
       connectivity, available resources, etc) and so on.  Those nodes
       willing to play the role of SFC pseudo controller advertise their
       presence to the SFC controller, through which SFC controller can
       recognize the willingness or readiness of the nodes and will
       enable to inform proper nodes of the detailed service description
       such as NSD and OAMD.  This message includes:





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       *  The service ID, identifying the service (note that multiple
          SFCs might be running in parallel, even with some nodes
          participating simultaneously in more than one).

       *  An ID of the candidate SFC pseudo controller.  This ID
          uniquely identifies the pseudo controller instance.  It might
          be generated using a unique identifier of the node.

   2.  The SFC controller shares information about the service (e.g.,
       service requirement, desired monitoring configuration) with the
       nodes, through which information the nodes can assess the own
       availability as a pseudo controller for the specific service and
       decides some preferences.  This includes:

       *  The service ID, identifying the specific service.

       *  The Network Service Descriptor (NSD) of the service, which
          includes the description of the chain in terms of composing
          functions and logical links connecting them, as well as
          associated requirements (e.g.: compute requirements,
          connectivity, affinity, etc).

       *  The information required to perform an efficient monitoring of
          the service: the Operations, Administration and Maintenance
          Descriptor (OAMD).  Examples of this information are: latency
          constraints for all logical links of the service chain,
          bandwidth requirements for all logical links, maximum
          tolerated packet losses for each of the logical links and the
          whole end-to-end service, tolerated jitter, minimum required
          availability for a given instantiation (i.e., the minimum time
          the functions need to remain instantiated on their hosting
          resources to ensure a minimum consistency for the service),
          battery status/lifetime, periodicity on which each of the
          parameters needs to be monitored, etc.

       *  Security capabilities required to manage the service, which
          include the set of security mechanisms that need to be
          supported for an (pseudo-)orchestrator to be able to manage
          the service.  This set might include a set of alternatives, so
          different solutions can be used.  Examples of these
          capabilities are: authentication algorithms, encryption
          algorithms, supported certificate authorities, etc.

   3.  The candidate SFC pseudo controllers respond to the SFC
       controller, including the following information:

       *  The service ID, identifying the specific service.




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       *  An ID, identifying the SFC pseudo controller instance.

       *  A preference value for the candidate node to play the role of
          active pseudo controller.  This preference is represented with
          an integer that indicates the willingness of the candidate
          node to become an "active" SFC pseudo-controller for the
          running service.  This preference is locally selected by the
          node based on the specifics of the service.  Note that the
          nodes have all the information about the service (contained in
          the NSD) and its monitoring (the nodes also have the OAMD,
          which specifies which aspects need to be monitored, at both
          service and resource level).  Each node decides the local
          preference value based on this service information, as well as
          its own capabilities (e.g., whether it is capable of
          performing the associated control and monitoring tasks and if
          it is willing to assume the associated cost, for example in
          terms of energy consumption -- if the node is battery-
          powered).

       *  A list of other known candidate SFC pseudo-controllers.  A
          node might know this based on local broadcasts from those
          candidate pseudo-controllers (advertising its presence).  This
          allows the SFC controller to discover if there are other
          potential candidate pseudo-controllers available.

       *  A list of the supported security mechanisms.

   4.  With the information received from the candidate SFC pseudo
       controllers, the (centralized) SFC controller decides which node
       becomes the selected SFC pseudo-controller.  The selection is
       based on the preference value indicated by the candidate pseudo
       controllers.  Note that multiple nodes could include the same
       preference value, and in case of a tie, the SFC controller might
       use a policy to select one, or simply use a tie-breaking rule
       (for example selecting the one with a lowest/highest ID).  In
       this example, A is selected to be the SFC pseudo controller.

   5.  The SFC controller responds to the selected SFC pseudo controller
       with a message that includes:

       *  The service ID, identifying the specific service.

       *  The ID of the selected SFC pseudo controller instance.

       *  Security material.  The centralized SFC controller and the SFC
          nodes have pre-established security credentials, allowing the
          controller to perform the required orchestration tasks (they
          have a secure signaling channel).  Since this security



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          relationship does not exist between any pair of the nodes, the
          SFC controller acts as a security "anchor", by providing the
          SFC pseudo controller -- using the secure channel -- with
          security material allowing to securely control all the nodes
          part of the SFC.  One example of approach is to generate a
          certificate, signed by the SFC controller, that can then be
          used by the SFC pseudo controller.  Other approaches are
          possible.

       *  Profiles of all involved nodes in the service.  This includes
          information about the resources of the involved nodes (plus
          additional also considered by the SFC controller in case
          function migration is needed).  Note that once a SFC pseudo
          controller is selected, it could also query and request
          information about the nodes that are part of the SFC.  The
          information included in the profile of a node may contain:
          Virtual machine specification, computation properties (RAM
          size, disk size, memory page size, number of CPUs, number of
          cores per CPU, number of threads per core), storage
          requirements, Scale out/scale in limits, network and
          connectivity properties (number and type of interfaces), etc.

       *  The list of other candidate SFC pseudo-controllers.  This
          allows local synchronization among candidate pseudo
          controllers if needed.

   The new signaling messages described below can be implemented as
   either new protocol messages, e.g., via REST API, or as extensions of
   either inband or outband protocols.  Examples of those include: NSH
   (for inband signaling among SFC nodes), IPv6 (for outband via new
   extension headers).  Details and examples of signaling will be added
   in future revisions of this draft.

5.  IANA Considerations

   N/A.

6.  Security Considerations

   TBD.

7.  Acknowledgments

   The work in this draft has been developed under the framework of the
   H2020 5G-DIVE project (Grant 859881).






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8.  Informative References

   [I-D.bernardos-sfc-fog-ran]
              Bernardos, C. J., Rahman, A., and A. Mourad, "Service
              Function Chaining Use Cases in Fog RAN", draft-bernardos-
              sfc-fog-ran-09 (work in progress), March 2021.

   [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>.

Authors' Addresses

   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/


   Alain Mourad
   InterDigital Europe

   Email: Alain.Mourad@InterDigital.com
   URI:   http://www.InterDigital.com/





















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