Network Working Group Z. Du
Internet-Draft P. Liu
Intended status: Standards Track L. Geng
Expires: September 10, 2020 China Mobile
March 9, 2020
Auto-adjustment of Encapsulation Information in APN6
draft-du-apn6-auto-encapsulation-adjustment-00
Abstract
This document introduces a method to adjust the encapsulation
information in Application-aware IPv6 Networking.
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].
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Auto-adjustment of Encapsulation Information . . . . . . . . 3
2.1. Current Mechanism in APN6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2. Comparisons of Data Plane and Control Plane Programming . 3
2.3. Potential Solutions for Auto-adjustment . . . . . . . . . 4
3. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
5. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
6. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
6.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
6.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1. Introduction
As the development of 5G and new emerging Internet services, such as
live video streaming, the network are facing a larger and larger SLA
difference between two different kinds of traffic. For better
bearing of the user's traffic, the network needs to be intelligent
and be aware of the user traffic's demand. An innovation method
called APN6 is introduced in [I-D.li-apn6-problem-statement-usecases]
and [I-D.li-apn-framework].
In the mechanism of APN6, the packet can carry the ID information and
SLA requirements of the traffic, and the network equipment can get
them in each packet and handle the packet accordingly. It is one
kind of network programming mechanisms in the data plane.
As encapsulation information increases in an APN packet, some
bandwidth is kindly wasted in APN6 which uses a larger overhead in
every packet. On one aspect, it is believed that it is necessary for
the evolution to the intelligent network; on the other aspect, it is
recommended that after the network has known the requirements of the
traffic and associated it with a proper policy, the traffic needs not
to resend the same information in every packet again and again. This
document mainly talks about the process of the later.
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2. Auto-adjustment of Encapsulation Information
2.1. Current Mechanism in APN6
As shown in Figure 1, the APN framework [I-D.li-apn-framework]
includes Service-aware App, App-aware Edge Device, App-aware-process
Head-End, App-aware-process Mid-Point, and App-aware-process End-
Point.
Client Server
+-----+ +-----+
|App x|-\ /->|App x|
+-----+ | +-----+ +---------+ +---------+ +---------+ | +-----+
\->|App- | |App-aware|-A-|App-aware|-A-|App-aware|-/
User side |aware|-|process |-B-|process |-B-|process |
/->|Edge | |Head-End |-C-|Mid-Point|-C-|End-Point|-\
+-----+ | +-----+ +---------+ +---------+ +---------+ | +-----+
|App y|-/ \->|App y|
+-----+ --------- Uplink ----------> +-----+
Figure 1: Framework and Key Components in APN6
The data-driven process of APN6 is described below.
The APP or the APP-aware Edge will generate an APN packet which
carries the application characteristic information in the
encapsulation.
App-aware-process Head-End can read that information and steer the
packet into a given policy which satisfies the application
requirements. It is supposed that a set of paths, tunnels or SR
policy, exist between the App-aware-process Head-End and the App-
aware-process End-Point. App-aware-process Head-End can find one
existing path or establish a new one for the traffic.
2.2. Comparisons of Data Plane and Control Plane Programming
We can realize the same traffic steering in the control plane. The
control-plane based process, which is described below, includes three
key components: the identity of the traffic, policies in Head-End,
and the interface to notify the user requirements.
The APP or the Edge knowing the application characteristic
information, needs to report that information to the controller of
the Head-End by some means.
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The controller needs to know the traffic requirements and the status
of the network, and generate a policy for the Head-End. The policy
SHOULD include the identity of the traffic and the path that the
traffic should follow.
The Head-End needs to implement the policy, and steer the traffic to
the proper path.
In this mechanism, we do not need to carry extra information in each
packet, but need to generate control messages between the Edge and
the controller, and between the Head-End and the controller.
If the traffic is not that large, and simple to handle, a control-
layer decision-loop is not that necessary. By comparison, a date-
driven method is more flexible. Of course, the Head-End after
steering the traffic needs to report the (summarized) change to the
controller.
2.3. Potential Solutions for Auto-adjustment
We can find that after the Head-End has enabled the policy, the extra
information carried in the following APN6 packets has little use.
Therefore, an auto-adjustment of encapsulation information mechanism
may be helpful for the simplification of the following APN6 packets.
According to [I-D.li-apn-framework], the information may include
application-aware identification, such as SLA level, application ID,
user ID, flow ID, etc., and network performance requirements, such as
bandwidth, latency, jitter, packet loss ratio, etc. Hence, at least,
we can send only the application-aware identification information in
the following APN6 packets without network performance requirements
information.
Two methods are talked about below.
One straightforward method is that we firstly send full information
in APN6 packets, and after 3 seconds, we send APN6 packets that only
contains the necessary information, such as the application-aware
identification information. In this method, we believe that the
Head-End can handle the policy mapping in 3 seconds. Of courses, the
"3 seconds" is just an example here, which can be adjusted according
to the situation of each network.
Another method is that after enabling the policy, the Head-End needs
to notify the encapsulation point by some means. However, we do not
have a notification mechanism between different nodes in the data-
plane network programming now. We need to notify by using the
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control plane again. The control plane sends a message to the
encapsulation point to adjust the encapsulation degree.
This document suggests to enable a simple notification method for the
data-plane network programming if the information is not that
complicated. For example, we can send a "ping" message with a
specific flag to the encapsulation point. The advantage is easy to
inter operate.
In future, with the technical development of network equipments, the
bandwidth may not be the bottle neck anymore, so that a full APN6
encapsulation packet may be used widely to enable the data plane
intelligence. However, the auto-adjustment of encapsulation
information method can help the adoption of the APN6 mechanism by
providing a transit solution. Meanwhile, this document also provides
a feedback mechanism for the data plane programming to enable the
coordination between different nodes.
.
3. IANA Considerations
TBD.
4. Security Considerations
TBD.
5. Acknowledgements
TBD.
6. References
6.1. Normative References
[I-D.li-apn-framework]
Li, Z., Peng, S., Voyer, D., Li, C., Geng, L., Cao, C.,
Ebisawa, K., Previdi, S., and J. Guichard, "Application-
aware Networking (APN) Framework", draft-li-apn-
framework-00 (work in progress), March 2020.
[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>.
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6.2. Informative References
[I-D.li-apn6-problem-statement-usecases]
Li, Z., Peng, S., Voyer, D., Xie, C., Liu, P., Liu, C.,
Ebisawa, K., Previdi, S., and J. Guichard, "Problem
Statement and Use Cases of Application-aware IPv6
Networking (APN6)", draft-li-apn6-problem-statement-
usecases-01 (work in progress), November 2019.
Authors' Addresses
Zongpeng Du
China Mobile
No.32 XuanWuMen West Street
Beijing 100053
China
Email: duzongpeng@foxmail.com
Peng Liu
China Mobile
No.32 XuanWuMen West Street
Beijing 100053
China
Email: liupengyjy@chinamobile.com
Liang Geng
China Mobile
No.32 XuanWuMen West Street
Beijing 100053
China
Email: gengliang@chinamobile.com
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