Minutes interim-2019-nmrg-08: Mon 11:00
minutes-interim-2019-nmrg-08-201907011100-00

NMRG Virtual Meeting July 2019
Monday 01-07-2019 11:00-13-00 CEST

Participants (11):

     Laurent Ciavaglia (co-chair, Nokia), Jérôme François (co-chair, INRIA),
     Pedro Martinez-Julia (NMRG secretary, NICT), Abdelkader Lahmadi (INRIA),
     Will Liuscheng (Huawei), Minsuk Kim (ETRI), Walter Cerroni (University of
     Bologna), Marinos Charalambides (UCL), Dhruv Dhody (Huawei), Vishnu Ram
     (Technical Consultant, ITU-T ML5G FG), Mehdi Bezahad (Lancaster University)

Useful links:
* Agenda: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/agenda-interim-2019-nmrg-08-nmrg-01/
* Materials:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/interim-2019-nmrg-08/session/nmrg * Webex:
https://ietf.webex.com/ietf/j.php?MTID=mf13f05555e4d7f0502d187f3804c9148 *
Etherpad: https://etherpad.tools.ietf.org/p/nmrg-virtual-20190701

Agenda:

 - 10 min Status of WG and next meetings, Laurent & Jérôme

- 20 min Intent Based Networking, Laurent & Jérôme
        + Status progress on Intent Based Networking
        + Feedback from San Jose meeting
              ++ Minutes will be sent soon
              ++ Potential use cases: Data-Center Networks and interconnect,
              augmented with Enteprise networks, 5G verticals (different 5G use
              cases on the same infra, 5G slicing), more "common"
              digital/communication services provider use case ++ WIP: Propose
              a basic use case template (how to describe and exploit a use
              case) ++ continue work on the terminology
 Marinos: architectural aspects discussed ?
 Laurent: not really. People were not deeply involved in IBN, so we stay at a
 higher level. Marino: how to move this work forward? Laurent: yes, refinement
 of IBN workplan, open call for contributions to follow (no existing document)

        + Intent lifecycle and operating principles (outcome of the discussion
        of Laurent and Alex Clemm)
             ++ different from an architecture
             ++ objective: agree on a lifecycle on IBN (less controversial than
             an architecture), faster confergence time ++ Initial lefecycle
             diagram: will be updated in next days

 Abdelkader: what is the level of automation? seems to be very manual, what is
 the benefit of using intent in that case? Laurent: once the intent is
 provided, then everything should be automated or intent can be extracted from
 the user-related data. Iterative refinement of the intent with the user (work
 from Lisandro and Arthur). In the middle of this diagram, there is also the
 operator to define how the system has to catch the intents. Automation will
 also depend on the capabilities of the system. On the left side, "user" inputs
 are manual, everything else on the right side is/could be automatic.
 Abdelkader: so the user is not necessary a human, can be an application?
 Laurent: here the user is more a human user. So we may extend this diagram.
 user may also be an interface or system a human user is using to interact with
 the IB system (e.g. a vertical industry and 5G network). Abdelkader: regarding
 the work of Arthur, what could be good is to would have a set of labels to
 recognize elements in the intent expressions. Laurent: an interesting area to
 explore. The diagram is incomplete, need to identify inputs/ouputs and also
 supporting elements such as info and data models. In IBN, there is usually a
 restricted language to express intents but in NMRG how can we be more flexible
 with dynamic environment, dynamic mapping of ontologies and system
 capabilities. Walter: need some sort of standardized interface between user
 space and system space, and even at the lower level when applying intents
 (preparation and operation phase). Do you think there could be also
 standardized interfaces between functions ? Laurent: no immediate answer, part
 of our investigation to define what level of standardization we would need but
 the less the better to keep flexibility. If we document external intertfaces,
 it will be a good achivement of the group. The goal is to minimize the
 standardization needed. Jérôme: more backward paths to the intermediate
 functions Laurent: agree, need to improve this, not only through report. Avoid
 to be too much complete/detailed in first shot, in order to avoid entering in
 architectural design, keep as high level bastraction as possible for the
 lifecycle but still being useful in guiding work. Marinos: operator should
 express policies (at the right) and need also to be decomposed. there could be
 operators intents.
  Laurent: agree. consider them as orthogonal dimensions: service intent and
  operation intent. not coming from the same actor, nor targeting the same
  goals. Mehdi: is this presentation recorded? Is the user space only humans?
  Laurent: I don't think there is a video recording but materials is available
  on the nmrg webpage. For second question, this is WIP and diagram incomplete.
  The user is a human user (in the diagram). The user space is where intent are
  expressed. Mehdi: I'm involved in a UK project with BT. Who can ask the
  intents: provider, users.. ? Laurent: question fully valid, work regarding
  use case is in progress (actors, roles)... Medhi: who is "we" Laurent:
  Laurent from Nokia, acting as NMRG co-chair and contributor , what I am
  presetning here is as a contributor.

        + Montreal meeting call for contributions: call for presentations for
        the regular session (topic: IBN) and technical meeting (topic also IBN,
        more deep discussion expected).

- Network AI
        + 15 min: challenge, Jérôme François
  Laurent: should keep/develop link with IETF (but not only): expertise,
  knowledge about protocol issues (operational), presentations on measurement
  and analysis. WG/RG. bidirectional (bring AI/knowledge/novelty)(and beefit
  from feedback, expertise) Will: take the use cases from (?) Jérôme: identify
  existing use cses, document new ones. define the criteria.

        + 20 min: Intelligent Management for Edge-computing, Minsuk kim

  Laurent: we did not give you enough time (sorry), we'll see what we can do as
  next steps for these work in NMRG. Need to discuss with Jérôme.

        + 20 min: Intelligent Reasoning on External Events for Network
        Management: Positioning, Challenges, and Framework, Pedro Martinez-Julia
  Will :

        + 20 min: Self-driving networks, Abdelkader Lahmadi

       Jérôme: Self-driving networks always suppose programmability?
       Abdelkader: yes but of course depends on the level of automation
       Mehdi: if we tweak legacy networks, can we still need programmability
       Abdelkader: hard task to tweak
       Mehdi: do we mean a clean-slate approach or do you think that current
       network with this enabling technology is sufficent Abdelkader: prepare
       for self-driving networks (clean-slate approach), for current approach
       we can have less automation

xxmin. - Any other business?