none                                                              S. Yan
Internet-Draft                                                    Huawei
Intended status: Informational                         P. Martinez-Julia
Expires: May 3, 2018                                          NICT/Japan
                                                    A. Cabellos-Aparicio
                                       Technical University of Catalonia
                                                        October 30, 2017


        A General Considerations of Intelligence Driven Network
                     draft-yan-idn-consideration-00

Abstract

   This document aims to pinpoint the work scope of Intelligence Driven
   Network (IDN) and mine the potential standardization work.  Firstly,
   the problems and new requirements for the existing methods are
   analyzed.  Numbers of high value use-cases are proposed as examples
   to instantiate them.  A benchmark framework design is proposed, which
   is important during the machine learning and inference process.
   Finally, a reference model of IDN is proposed, based on which the
   potential standardization work is analyzed.

Requirements Language

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
   [RFC2119] when they appear in ALL CAPS.  When these words are not in
   ALL CAPS (such as "should" or "Should"), they have their usual
   English meanings, and are not to be interpreted as [RFC2119] key
   words.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."




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   This Internet-Draft will expire on May 3, 2018.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2017 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 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  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Scope and use cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     2.1.  Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     2.2.  High Value Use Cases  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
       2.2.1.  Traffic Prediction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
       2.2.2.  QoS management  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
       2.2.3.  Deep Reinforcement-Learning Control of the Network  .   6
       2.2.4.  QoE Management via Supervised Learning  . . . . . . .   9
       2.2.5.  TBD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   3.  Measurement and Data Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     3.1.  Measurement Tools and Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     3.2.  Data Format Analysis  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   4.  Benchmarking Framework  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   5.  References Model and Potential Standardization Points . . . .  12
     5.1.  References Model  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
     5.2.  Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
     5.3.  Data representation, transport and aggregation  . . . . .  15
     5.4.  Legacy Device Route control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
     5.5.  TBD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   6.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   7.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   8.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   9.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
     9.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
     9.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18






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1.  Introduction

   Recently, AI technology has made a great achievement and become more
   and more popular.  The combination of AI and network is also a hot
   topic.  The concept of Intelligence Driven Network (IDN) has been
   proposed.  This concept is intended to describe the schemes that
   introducing AI into network and provide new solutions for the current
   and future network problems.  There has been quite a lot of
   discussions about the AI application in the network in both academic
   and industrial area.  However, the detail works, especially the
   potential standard points are still not clear.

   In this document, we want to summerize the valuable content in the
   idnet maillist and make clear about the following.

   o  What are the requirements?  In network area, what problems need AI
      to solve?  It always makes misunderstanding that AI is almighty.
      But it is factual that AI has both advantages and disadvantages.
      The work scope and scenarios, which AI may be useful and perform
      well, will be discussed and analyzed.

   o  What are the gap when combining AI and network?  The modern AI
      algorithms are proposed by image processing area but not network.
      Most of the algorithms cannot be migrated and used directly.  Take
      the data format as an example.  The input and output of the AI
      algorithm may be just numerical matrix or vector.  The network
      data are not entirely formatted and regular.  They need to be
      translated or converted before and after the algorithm.  The gaps,
      like the data format, data orchestration and etc., will be
      analyzed.

   o  What are the potential and new standard points?  The intruduction
      of AI will bring new requirements for the current network.  For
      example, the AI engine may need high frequency and high accuracy
      data to feed.  Moreover, these data needs to be captured and
      transmitted in real-time and continuously.  What improvements
      should be accomplished for the existing protocols?  Whether there
      are new protocol requirements?  What communication processes are
      universal and what kinds of data format that can be utilized in
      most of the scenarios?

   This document aims to become the blueprint for the future work.  The
   structure is organized as following.  Section 2 describes the work
   scope of idnet and summerize the use cases.  Section 3 indicates the
   analysis of measurement and data format.  Section 4 discusses about
   the benchmark of data.  Section 5 abstracts the IDN architecture and
   gives a brief analysis of potential standard points.  Section 6




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   points out the new security challenge which AI brings to the network.
   Section 7 to 9 are IANA, Acknowledgements and References.

   TBD

2.  Scope and use cases

   TBD

2.1.  Scope

   A general description about what should be focused during the IETF
   work and what should not.  Clarify the work boundary.  TBD

2.2.  High Value Use Cases

   There are numbers of use cases, which have been discussed in the
   idnet mail list.  Describe the scenarios that may be useful and
   valuable.  A details analysis may be helpful for the data and
   protocol design.

2.2.1.  Traffic Prediction

   Collect the history traffic data and external data which may
   influence the traffic.  Predict the traffic in short/long/specific
   term.  Avoid the congestion or risk in previously.

   The process, data format and message needs are:

   Process: 1.  Data collection (e.g. traffic sample of physical/logical
   port ); 2.  Training Model; 3.  Real-time data capture and input; 4.
   Predication output; 5.  Fix error and go back to 3.

   Data Format:

      Time : [Start, End, Unit, Number of Value, Sampling Period]

      Position: [Device ID, Port ID]

      Direction: IN / OUT

      Route : [R1, R2, ..., RN] (might be useful for some scenarios)

      Service : [Service ID, Priority, ...] (Not clear how to use it but
      seems useful)

      Traffic: [T0, T1, T2, ..., TN]




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      Message :

         Request: ask for the data

         Reply: Data

         Notice: For notification or others

         Policy: Control policy

2.2.2.  QoS management

   It is worthy to predict the traffic change for avoiding the
   congestion and ensuring QoS.  As the following figure shown, the AI
   system continuously collects link status data from the network.  This
   AI system is responsible for two things.  One is monitoring and
   predicting the traffic on each link and the other one is calculating
   the usable route for any pair of nodes according to the prediction
   and current link status.  Assume that there is a VPN named VPN_S_D
   from node S to D which pass through S-A-B-C-D.  According to the
   prediction, there will be a huge traffic flow from node A to C in the
   future 10 min.  The traffic will increase the end-to-end delay from S
   to D so that the QoS will not be ensured.

                x     x
          _ A ---- B ---- C._      link status   +----------+
        ,'    \        /      `.   =============>|IDN Engine|
      -'        \    /          `-               +----------+
    S ------I ---- J ----  K ----  D
      .          /   \          ,'
       `.      /       \      ,'
         '  O ---- P ----  Q '

   There are at least two solutions. one is modifying the object's
   configuration to avoid the potential congestion.  For example, we
   modify the VPN_S_D route from S-A-B-C-D to S-I-J-K-D.  The other one
   is restricting non-object's transmission so that to protect the
   object's QoS.  For example, we increase the reserved bandwidth of
   VPN_S_D or modify the route of non-object flows from S-A-B-C-D to
   S-I-J-K-D therefore most of the traffic will not affect VPN_S_D.

   Here we may have some challenges.  Challenge 1 is the AI prediction
   and autonomic decision should be a quick response.  The whole process
   must be finished before the congestion happens meanwhile the AI
   system is meaningless.  The question is how to implement such quick
   response?  Challenge 2 is whether there is existing protocols which
   can support high frequency measurement?  Because AI system needs to
   be fed with continuous link status data.  And the real-time data need



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   to be captured frequently otherwise the route change will be
   worthless.  I think the protocols that support high frequency
   measurement and data collection may become one of our focus point.

   The process, data format and message needs are:

   Process: 1.  Data capture (e.g. traffic sample of physical/logical
   port ); 2.  Training Model; 3.  Real-time data capture and input; 4.
   Output percentages; 5.  Fix error and go back to 3.

   Data Format:

      Time : [Timestamp, Value type (Delay/Packet Loss/...), Unit,
      Number of Value, Sampling Period]

      Position: [Link ID, Device ID]

      Value: [V0, V1, V2, ..., VN]

      Message :

         Request: ask for the data

         Reply: Data

         Notice: For notification or others

         Policy: Control policy

2.2.3.  Deep Reinforcement-Learning Control of the Network

   Recently important breakthroughs have been achieved in the area Deep-
   Reinforcement Learning (DRL) [REF1] architectures where agents can be
   trained online to operate complex environments and achieve quasi-
   optimal configurations.  In this context, a DRL can be used to
   control the routing of the network and achieve the target policy set
   by the administrators (e.g., [REF2, REF3, REF4]).

   The following figure describes a common architecture of a DRL
   operating a network.  The agent acts upon the network (action) by
   changing the configuration, this results in the network changing its
   fundamental state (e.g, different per-link utilization and a
   different traffic load).  Finally, the reward function is defined by
   the operator and represents the target performance (e.g., load-
   balance the traffic in the network).  The agent will learn how to act
   upon the network to maximize the expected reward function.





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                             +---------------+
          +------------------>               |
          |                  |     Agent     +---------------------+
          |  +--------------->               |                     |
          |  |               +---------------+                     |
          |  |                                                     |
    State |  |                                                     |
          |  |  Reward Function (Policy)                    Action |
          |  |                                                     |
          |  |                                                     |
          |  |                                                     |
          |  |    +------------------------------------+           |
          |  +----+                                    |           |
          +-------+              Network               <-----------+
                  |                                    |
                  +------------------------------------+

   The main operational advantages of DRL agents with respect to
   existing optimization techniques are:

   1.  DRL are able to learn and generalize from past experience to
       provide solutions to unseen scenarios.  This is not possible
       using existing optimization techniques that do not learn from the
       past.

   2.  Once trained, either offline or online, DRL agents can optimize
       in one single step.  On the contrary, existing optimization
       techniques require to run iteratively each time a new scenario is
       found, for instance when a link goes down or the traffic changes
       in a significant way.  It is worth noting that a common practice
       is to run such techniques in advance of common scenarios and
       store their resulting configurations, however it is very complex
       to consider all the potential scenarios.

   3.  DRL agents see the network as a black-box and do no need any
       prior assumption about the system.  However heuristics, very
       commonly used in optimization strategies, are tailored for the
       problem they are trying to optimize.  However, an operator only
       needs to change the reward function to implement a different
       target network policy.

   In what follows we describe the process, data format and messages
   needed assuming a DRL agent that seeks to load-balance the traffic of
   the network that is, to minimize the maximum loaded link.  This is a
   very common optimization strategy.

   Process: 1.- Act upon the network by changing the routing
   configuration, for instance using a standard mechanism. 2.- Receive



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   the state of the network, this is the per-link delay and the current
   traffic load. 3.- Compute the reward function as a function of the
   state. 4.- Deep Reinforcement Learning training. 5.- Go back to step
   1.

   Data Format

      (state) Per-Link Utilization: [link id, utilization, averaging
      time]

      (action) Change on the routing configuration.  This can be done
      through the SDN controller and/or other standard mechanisms.

      (reward) This is an algorithm that has as input the state and as
      output a value that represents how close we are to the target
      policy set by the operator.  More about this can be found in the
      next section.

      Messages:



         State: Measure the per-link utilization

         Action: Change the routing configuration

2.2.3.1.  The Reward Function as the Network Policy

   The agent seek to maximize the expected reward function and it
   represents the target policy that the agent will aim to achieve and
   configure on the network.  In this context the reward function is the
   mathematical representation of the target network policy.  However,
   the entire architecture includes a set of different pieces that may
   come from different vendors but must interoperate, the pieces are:
   the agent itself, the reward function and the state.  This requires
   the following standardization efforts:

   1.  The reward function and its translation from the human-readable
       target network policy.  The operators may want to use different
       vendor DRL agents that need to understand the reward function.
       Please note that the reward function depends on the
       representation of the state.

   2.  The state includes monitoring information about the network, such
       as the per-link utilization or the traffic load.  Since the state
       is an input of the agent and is used in the reward function,
       there is a need for standard representation so that the different
       pieces can interoperate.



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2.2.4.  QoE Management via Supervised Learning

   Networks can measure low-level metrics, such as delay, jitter and
   losses.  However users perceive the performance of the network based
   on QoE metrics, such as Mean Opinion Scores.  Unfortunately, QoE
   metrics cannot be typically directly measured over the wire and as
   such, need the subjective views of the users.  The challenge is then
   to operate the network based on low-level metrics while fulfilling
   non-measurable QoE metrics.  One of the main reason behind this
   challenge is that the relationship between the low-level and the QoE
   metrics are very complex, i.e. multi-dimensional and non-lineal.

        +-------------+            +---------------------+
        |  Supervised |  Extract   |Relation between QoE |
        |  Learning   +-Knowledge-->and low-level network+-------+
        |             |            |metrics              |       |
        +------^------+            +---------------------+       |
               +                                                 |
             Learn                                               |
               |                                     Install Knowledge
               |                                                 |
    +----------+--------------+                +-----------------v-----+
    |    Network Analytics    |                |                       |
    | (including Ground Truth)|                |  Network Management   |
    |                         |                |                       |
    +----------+--------------+                +-----------------------+
               ^                                                 |
               |                                                 |
               |                   +-------------+               |
               |                   |             |               |
               +-----Monitor-------+   Network   <----Operate----+
                                   |             |
                                   +-------------+

   For this a well-established technique (e.g., see [REF5] and the
   references therein) is to follow the architecture depicted in the
   following figure.  First the network low-level metrics are measured
   using telemetry, this information is stored in the Network Analytics
   platform.  In addition to this users and or applications are polled
   to obtain QoE metrics of the network.  The data-set containing both
   the low-level metrics and the QoE metrics is considered the ground
   truth.

   By means of supervised learning (e.g., deep neural networks) we aim
   to learn the relation between the low-level and the QoE metrics.  As
   an example we aim to learn the relation between the amounts of losses
   in different wireless links, the SNR and the utilization with the
   perceived MoS.  Typically it has been shown that such relationship is



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   non-lineal and multi-dimensional and as such, can be understood by a
   neural network.  This relationship is the knowledge that we extract
   from the ground truth and it is used by the Network Management (NM)
   module.  By means of this knowledge, the NM can understand how to
   operate the network based on low-level metrics (e.g., keep losses
   below a certain threshold) to fulfill QoE requirements.

2.2.5.  TBD

3.  Measurement and Data Format

   TBD

3.1.  Measurement Tools and Methods

   The modern AI algorithms are mostly based on data-driven, which means
   that the AI engine needs quite plenty of data to feed and upgrade.
   In other words, higher frequency and accuracy data is required.  The
   high scalability requirement needs distributed measurement tools to
   provide such abilities.  The traditional methods and improvements may
   hardly support.

   Firstly, the current measurement methods mostly orient to the
   service.  For example, the voice service requires the end to end
   delay and jitter in a low level.  Besides that, the AI engine may
   need more data from both network and other sources.  For example, the
   QoE and identity information may influence the AI engine to make
   different decisions.  The current measurement tools and data model
   cannot support this ability.  Thus, the potential usable tools and
   methods, such as high frequency, high precision, new KPIs and so on,
   may need to develop.

   Secondly, the current measurement methods mostly cannot support high
   frequency measurement.  Even though it can, the data feedback scheme
   is commonly closed.  The word "closed" means that the measured data
   is commonly sent to the device which launches the measure action
   rather than the data demander (AI Engine).  The future measurement
   tools require more programmability, especially in the data feedback
   scheme.

   TBD.

3.2.  Data Format Analysis

   There is huge gap between the current network data and algorithm
   data.  The network data, such as IP address, delay, link utilization
   and etc., is mostly semantic.  It means that each data actually
   describe a specific physical or logical entity.  For example, one IP



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   address means a certain location or a certain host in the network.
   However, the input and output data of an algorithm is usually non-
   semantic, which means it is not responding to a specific
   concept/action/device that can be found in the network.  This depends
   on the fundamental design of AI algorithm and is hardly changed in
   the short term.

   Another issue is that the AI engine potentially needs to obtain data
   from external sources.  For the data that can be provided one-off, it
   is easily solved according to the application.  For the data that
   needs to be provided continuously (e.g. the real-time external data),
   it is required to define the data format that satisfy the algorithm.
   Similarly, the output of algorithm may need to be translated into
   specific format that the next step devices can run and execute.
   Otherwise, it is hard to build up the full autonomic close loop of
   the network management.  In other words, the data aggregation process
   is important and it is valuable to build the bridge between the
   network data and algorithm data.

   TBD.

4.  Benchmarking Framework

   A standard benchmarking framework is required to assess the quality
   of an AI mechanism when it is used to resolve a specific problem in
   the network management and control area.  It comprises a reference
   set of procedures, methods, models, and boundary values that *must*
   be enforced to the benchmarked mechanism, so that its operation can
   be comparable to other mechanisms and users can easily understand
   what to expect from each one.

   Moreover, both the metrics included as a reference within the
   benchmarking framework and the results obtained from its application
   to a new mechanism must follow a standard format.  Therefore, the
   standard formats must be enforced to all data, either being
   introduced to the benchmarking application or system (consumed), or
   obtained from its application (produced).

   A common and decentralized "data market" can (and would) arise from
   the inclusion, dependency, and the general relation of all data,
   considering it is represented using the same concepts (ontology) and
   the standard format mentioned here.  As a reference, it is worth to
   mention that a similar approach has been already applied to genome
   and protein data to build standardized and easily transferable data
   banks [PMJ1][PMJ2] [PMJ3], and they have demonstrated to be key
   enablers in their respective work areas.





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   The initial scope of input/output data would be the datasets, but
   also the new knowledge items that are stated as a result of applying
   the benchmarking procedures defined by the framework, which can be
   collected together to build a database of benchmark results, or just
   contrasted with other existing entries in the database to know the
   position of the solution just evaluated.  This increases the
   usefulness of IDNET.

5.  References Model and Potential Standardization Points

5.1.  References Model

   A three layers reference model of IDN has been proposed as follow.
   This architecture can cover, explain and support most of the current
   use cases and scenarios.

            +-----------+                          +----------+
            |Open       |------------------------->|          |
            |Application|    +---------------------+3rd Party |-+
            |Interface  |    | IDN Engine          |Algorithm | |
            +-----------+    | +---------+ +-----+ |Interface | |
            +------------+   | |Algorithm| |Model| |          | |
            |Data Refiner+-->| +---------+ +-----+ +----------- |
            +------------+   +----------------------------------+
                  ^          |    Training   |    Inference     |
    Intelligent   |          +----------------------------------+
    Layer         +-----------------+                  |
                  |                 |                  v
            +-------------+  +-------------+     +-------------+
            |External Data|  |Internal Data|     |  Policy     |
            |Interface    |  |Interface    |     |  Generator  |
            +-------------+  +-------------+     +-------------+
                  ^                 ^                  |
                  |                 |                  v
              +----------+   +-------------+    +----------------+
    Control   |3rd Party |   |Aggregating  |--->|Control Function|
    Layer     |Dataset   |   |Dataset      |    +----------------+
              +----------+   +-------------+    |   Inference    |
                  ^                  ^          +----------------+
                  |                  |                 |
                  |                  |                 |
                  |                  |                 v
            +-------------+    +-----------+      +------------+
    Infras- |Terminal/User|    |Measurement|      | Network    |
    tructure|Device       |--->|Function   |<-----| Function   |
    Layer   +-------------+    +-----------+      +------------+





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   The under layer is Infrastructure layer, which contains network
   function, measurement function and terminal/user device.  The network
   function stands for the traditional routers, switches and other
   network devices, which are responsible for constructing the network
   foundations and forwarding data.  The Measurement function stands for
   devices that can collect information from the network and various
   devices.  A popular option are probe system, which is deployed
   distributed among the network.  Besides that, some of the network
   devices integrate the measure function and play two roles.  The
   information may involve but not limited the content listed in
   following table.  The Terminal/User Device stands for the device that
   produces and consumes data, which may include PC, smart phone,
   datacenter, content storage server, cloud and etc.  Some of the data
   produced by terminal/user devices is measurable.  This type of data
   will be captured by the measurement function.  Other types of data
   that cannot be measured directly by network measurement functions is
   represented as 3rd party datasets, which hopefully can be utilized in
   the future via 3rd party integration at the intelligence layer.

   -----------------------------------------------------------------
       Type                               Content
   -----------------------------------------------------------------
     Network Data        Delay, Jitter, Packet Lose Rate,
                         Link Utilization, ...
     Device Data         Device Configuration, VPN Configuration,
                         Slicing Configuration, ...
     User Data           QoE Feedback, User Information, ...

     Data Packet         Packet Sample, Packet Character, ...

     Other Type          TBD
   -----------------------------------------------------------------

   The middle layer is Control Layer, which contains Control Function,
   Dataset Aggregation (Function) and 3rd Party Dataset.  The control
   function stands for entities that can control, configure and operate
   devices, especially network devices.  In SDN, controller and
   orchestrator are control functions.  Classical network devices such
   as routers integrate the forwarding and control functions (although
   as of today not with many instances of intelligent control
   functions).  Classical routers therefore include functions from two
   layers.  We foresee that the control function will most likely only
   perform intelligent inference, but not learn.  For example, to
   execute neural networks, but do not train them.  This is only an
   assumption at this time though and may prove to be wrong in the
   future when training becomes something easier defined into the
   control layer.




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   The aggregated dataset function owns the ability to gather and tidy
   the data.  The database or database cluster is the typical example.
   Some of the control devices, such as SDN controller, integrate this
   function.  Distributed instances aggregate data have also been
   defined.  The network data can be directly sent back to the control
   function in support of network policies.  For example, the controller
   can adjust the flow table according to the local cache which collects
   the network data periodically from the devices in its controlled
   area.  The 3rd party dataset involves the data that may be provided
   by all kinds of applications or services.  For example, the content
   provider may own social contact data and the map service provider may
   own the geographic data.  This information does not belong to the
   network but could be very helpful for intelligent analytics and
   decision making in the network - which is why we device in the
   architecture the ability to communicate it between 3rd parties and
   the network.

   The high layer, which is also the main body of IDN, is the
   Intelligence Layer.  This layer is commonly deployed in the
   datacenter, or large scale computing centre that can support massive
   storage and computing resources.  To the south direction, there are
   two interfaces which provides external data (3rd party data oriented)
   and internal data (network data oriented) access.  We define a data
   refiner component to emphasize the need to adopt format and structure
   of various types of collected information to the needs of the IDN
   Engine.

   The core of the IDN Engine are algorithm and model.  The IDN Engine
   can be built based on the result of the large body of research and
   platform development work that already exists (albeit mostly
   developed for and deployed with non-network data).  The platform
   should be agile extensible for future services, therefore we define a
   3rd party Algorithm Interface to provide an adaptive developing
   ability.  The user (or a 3rd party) may develop his/her own
   algorithms and upload then onto the IDN Engine via a northbound Open
   Application Interface.  Additional Northbound Open Application
   interfaces can also be used to connect other software platforms to
   the IDN Engine to create a cooperation between multiple systems (not
   shown).

   The output of IDN Engine is transmitted to the Policy Generator.
   Since the policy language might be machine readable or unreadable,
   the Policy Generator is responsible for generating the executable
   commands and connect to the control devices.  This process refers to
   the interactions of northbound interface of control devices - which
   is what often gets standardized.  Therefore, some of the potential
   standardization points will be mentioned in the following.




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5.2.  Measurement

   In IDN, the intelligent system (or database) needs frequent and
   repeat measurement to obtain the link information.  A fast measure
   and feedback protocol is needed to meet the requirement of
   measurement and data collecting.  It may be based on SNMP or an
   absolutely new protocol.  The intelligent system needs massive data
   to feed and support to formulate the policy and decision.  Therefore,
   the measurement must be satisfy the data requirement of IDN.
   Firstly, there may be higher-level requirement for the existing
   measuring technology.  The high timeliness is one of the potential
   point.  The IDN's control function needs accurate, global and highly
   real-time network data support.  The current measure technology can
   only satisfy at least two characters of the three.  Secondly, the IDN
   may need more kinds of data type to measure.  Not only the delay,
   jitter and packet loss rate, but also the link utilization and other
   necessary parameters.

5.3.  Data representation, transport and aggregation

   The data representation is significant.  Most of the current AI
   algorithms were born in the pattern recognition area, especially the
   image processing.  The advantage of these algorithms is that they are
   very good at dealing with complex problems, especially mining and
   modeling the hidden relationship among the non-semantic data.  One of
   the disadvantages is that almost all the algorithms require the
   training data has a high concordance.  Fortunately, the image file
   instinctively owns this character.  All the images can be expressed
   as uniform binary vectors or can be easily transformed into uniform
   format.  But this condition is hardly satisfied in network area.

   A uniform data format is required, which can implement the
   justification, correlation and affiliation of the data.  Which may
   obtain the best performance of AI algorithm to mine the valid pattern
   hidden in the data.  Since the intelligent system is data-driven, and
   the data resources are from different kind of vendors and device
   types, the data representation SHALL be consistent so that the
   intelligent system could merge the data and do the analysis/learning.
   Also, the data collection interface might also need to be
   standardized so that the interface is able to get the data the
   intelligent system needs.

   Moreover, it is significant to standard the policy representation.
   Since there may multiply SDN controller system, a readable and
   uniform policy representation is valuable to improve the policy
   deploying efficiency and simplify the communication between
   controllers on the East-West direction.




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5.4.  Legacy Device Route control

   Similar with IPv4/IPv6 transition, the IDN potentially faces to the
   legacy problem, which means that the new devices and functions will
   co-work with the legacy devices.  Therefore, it is potentially
   required to design the control protocols to solve the transition
   problems.

5.5.  TBD

   TBD

6.  Security Considerations

   When security relevant decisions are made based on the use of
   intelligent analytics or automated intelligent decision making, care
   must be taken to understand the new security challenges.  When for
   example more intelligent decisions are enabled through the collection
   of ever more data, it needs to be analyzed how that potentially
   enables attackers to easier feed data that derails the intelligent
   system ability to distinguish good from bad behavior.

   TBD

7.  IANA Considerations

   There is no IANA action required by this document.

8.  Acknowledgements

   TBD

9.  References

9.1.  Normative References

   [ISO_IEC10589]
              "Intermediate system to Intermediate system intra-domain
              routeing information exchange protocol for use in
              conjunction with the protocol for providing the
              connectionless-mode Network Service (ISO 8473), ISO/IEC
              10589:2002, Second Edition.", Nov 2002.

   [RFC1195]  Callon, R., "Use of OSI IS-IS for routing in TCP/IP and
              dual environments", RFC 1195, DOI 10.17487/RFC1195,
              December 1990, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1195>.





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   [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>.

   [RFC5301]  McPherson, D. and N. Shen, "Dynamic Hostname Exchange
              Mechanism for IS-IS", RFC 5301, DOI 10.17487/RFC5301,
              October 2008, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5301>.

   [RFC5304]  Li, T. and R. Atkinson, "IS-IS Cryptographic
              Authentication", RFC 5304, DOI 10.17487/RFC5304, October
              2008, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5304>.

   [RFC5305]  Li, T. and H. Smit, "IS-IS Extensions for Traffic
              Engineering", RFC 5305, DOI 10.17487/RFC5305, October
              2008, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5305>.

   [RFC5308]  Hopps, C., "Routing IPv6 with IS-IS", RFC 5308,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5308, October 2008,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5308>.

9.2.  Informative References

   [PMJ1]     , <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/>.

   [PMJ2]     , <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/>.

   [PMJ3]     , <https://www.rcsb.org/pdb/home/home.do>.

   [REF1]     "Human-level control through deep reinforcement learning.
              Nature, 518(7540), pp.529-533.", 2015.

   [REF2]     "A Deep-Reinforcement Learning Approach for Software-
              Defined Networking Routing Optimization. arXiv preprint
              arXiv:1709.07080.", September 2017.

   [REF3]     "A roadmap for traffic engineering in SDN-OpenFlow
              networks.  Computer Networks, 71(C):1&#150;30", October
              2014.

   [REF4]     "Packet routing in dynamically changing networks: A
              reinforcement learning approach. In Advances in neural
              information processing systems, pages 671&#150;678,",
              1994.

   [REF5]     "A machine learning approach to classifying YouTube QoE
              based on encrypted network traffic. Multimedia Tools and
              Applications", January 2017.



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Authors' Addresses

   Shen Yan
   Huawei
   Beiqing
   Beijing, Haidian  100095
   China

   Email: yanshen@huawei.com


   Pedro Martinez-Julia
   NICT/Japan

   Email: pedro@nict.go.jp


   Albert Cabellos-Aparicio
   Technical University of Catalonia

   Email: albert.cabellos@gmail.com






























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