Re: [Actn] charter 1.4

[AshwoodsmithPeter <[e-mail]>]

Thanks Young,

After a very quick reading have things:


1-      Minor point:
       “control multi-subnet, multi-technology, multi-vendor domain networks”

      Suggest that “subnet” is a not the right term given its explicit meaning for L3 .. unless that’s what you meant?
      Perhaps just spell it out “sub-network”


2-      Quick question:

“other emerging network technologies with connection-oriented
behavior.”

Would that include Segment Routing?

Peter


From: ACTN [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Leeyoung
Sent: Monday, December 08, 2014 11:13 PM
To: Zhenghaomian; [e-mail]
Subject: Re: [Actn] charter 1.4

Hi Haomian,

Thanks for your comment. Please see inline my response.

Best regards,
Young

From: Zhenghaomian
Sent: Monday, December 08, 2014 8:42 PM
To: Leeyoung; [e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>
Subject: 答复: [Actn] charter 1.4

Hi, Young and all,

Great to see the updated charter with description on relationship with other WGs. Please find my comments as follow:


1.       Two terms ‘Virtual network coordination function’ and ‘virtual service coordination function’ in ACTN are described in the charter. It seems to me both individual terms were properly described together with their benifits, however it is not clear to me what is the relationship with ACTN. Are we aim on developing such functions? Are these the only function(s) we need to consider (I don’t have other in my mind, just confirm)?



YOUNG>> Yes, these two functions are one of the key functions ACTN solution will develop among other functions. These functions are control functions and the VNC is expected to provide on its interfaces with CNC/PNCs. The core design team is working on the updated framework document and will be made available soon to describe these in details.



2.       It was mentioned “It will clearly show the  interaction between the customer controller and the virtual network controller, and the virtual network controller and the physical network controllers with possibility for recursion”.

I don’t know whether there was a change on the terminology ‘customer network controller (CNC)’, it was mentioned in the charter as ‘customer controller’. May need to revise it or skip if the terminology is already changed. Besides, between CNC and VNC, is it limited to 1-to-1? N-to-1 may also be considered, if so, please consider changing to ‘contollers’, just like ‘between VNC and PNCs’.



YOUNG>> Thanks for pointing this --- it should have been “customer network controller”. It was a typo. CNC-VNC should be N-to-1. Your suggestion clarifies: will change the term to CNCs.



3.       - With the TEAS WG regarding TE architecture and generic TE  Information and Data Model. ACTN will extend these models  for its use cases.

Should better be ‘ACTN may extend these models for its use cases.’



YOUNG>>  I think “will” is a bit more assertive/definitive while “may” is a bit uncertain and ambiguous. I think ACTN “will” most likely extend date models to support its use cases.



4.       - With the PCE WG on uses of a PCE in the ACTN architecture.

Should better be ‘With the PCE WG on the uses of PCEs and PCEP in the ACTN architecture.’ My understanding is PCEP MAY be a candidate protocol on related interfaces if we consider any controller as PCE.



YOUNG>> Good point! Some of the debates are if PCEP can be used to support the interface functionality required on VNC-PNCs. At this moment from a requirement perspective, it looks like we need more than what PCEP can support today. Let put on this hold for now until we see full requirement discussion.

Thanks a lot.

Best wishes,
Haomian


发件人: Leeyoung [mailto:[e-mail]]
发送时间: 2014年12月9日 7:19
收件人: [e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>
主题: [Actn] charter 1.4

Dear all,

Here’s a charter revision (v.1.4) for your comment. Your comment will be appreciated. If there are any key missing items for the WG to work that you feel should be included in the charter or any other discussions on terminology and clarify, please share your views  to the list. We look forward to seeing your active participation.

Best regards,
Young

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last Updated: December 5, 2014

Draft Charter V1.4

Abstraction and Control of Transport Networks (ACTN)

Transport networks are defined as network infrastructure that provides
connectivity and bandwidth for customer services. They are characterized
by their ability to support server layer provisioning and traffic
engineering for client layer services, such that resource guarantees may
be provided to their customers. Transport networks here refer to a set
of different type of connection-oriented networks, which include
Connection-Oriented Circuit Switched (CO-CS) networks and Connection-
Oriented Packet Switched (CO-PS) networks. This implies that at least
the following transport networks are in scope: Layer 1 (L1) and Layer 0
(L0) optical networks (e.g., OTN, ODU, OCh/WSON), MPLS-TP, MPLS-TE, as
well as other emerging network technologies with connection-oriented
behavior.

Transport networks have a variety of mechanisms to:

- Facilitate separation of data plane and control plane,

- Allow for distributed signaling or centralized models (e.g., NMS-
  based or centralized signaling) for path setup and protection, and

- Provide traffic engineering mechanism via centralized path
  computation.

These represent key technologies for enabling flexible and dynamic
networking, and efficient control and recovery of resources. Although
these technologies provide significant benefits within a single domain
control boundary, they do not meet the growing need for transport
network virtualization in multi-domain transport networks. More and more
network operators are building and operating on multi-domain transport
networks. These domains (collections of links and nodes) may be each of
a different technology, administrative zones, or vendor-specific
islands. Establishment of end-to-end connections spanning multiple
domains is a perpetual problem for operators because of both operational
concerns (control plane and management plane) and interoperability
issues (control plane and data plane).  Due to these issues, new
services that require connections that traverse multiple domains need
significant planning and often manual operations to interface different
vendor equipment and technology.

The aim of Abstraction and Control of Transport Networks (ACTN) is to
facilitate a centralized virtual network operation: the creation of a
virtualized environment allowing operators to view and control multi-
subnet, multi-technology, multi-vendor domain networks. This will enable
rapid service deployment of new dynamic and elastic services, and will
improve overall network operations and scaling of existing services.
Discussion with operators has also highlighted a need for
virtual network coordination based on the abstraction of underlying
technology and vendor domains as well as virtual service coordination
based on service-related knowledge. Abstraction of transport networks
also allows operators to consolidate their network services into
multi-tenant virtual transport networks.

Virtual network coordination function in ACTN is built on a control
hierarchy where a multi-domain coordinator interacts with the control
mechanism for each domain (e.g., EMS/NMS, GMPLS/PCE control plane, SDN
controller) to represent abstraction of network resources and to provide
control functions for virtual networks. These control functions enable
various services/clients/applications to create and manage their own
virtual networks that share the common transport network resources.

Virtual service coordination function in ACTN incorporates
customer's service-related knowledge in virtual network operation in order to
seamlessly operate virtual networks while meeting customer's service
requirements.

The ACTN facilitates seamless vertical service coordination across
multi-tenant customers (primarily internal service organizations with
respect to a network operator), the control of virtual and physical
network domains, as well as a horizontal E2E service coordination
across multi-domain networks.

The ACTN working group works to develop a high-level architecture that
describes the basic building-blocks necessary to enable the multi-domain
virtual service coordination. It will identify key building components and
the corresponding interfaces among these components. The Key components can
be future building block or legacy components existing today. It will
clearly show the  interaction between the customer controller
and the virtual network controller, and the virtual network controller and
the physical network controllers with possibility for recursion.

The ACTN working group will develop the requirements for these interfaces
and extend existing protocols and data models if necessary with coordination
with other WGs  or to develop new protocols and data models uniquely identified
in scope of ACTN WG.

The ACTN WG will coordinate with the following working groups:

- With the TEAS WG regarding TE architecture and generic TE
   Information and Data Model. ACTN will extend these models
   for its use cases.

- With the CCAMP WG regarding abstraction of technology specific Data
  Models

- With the PCE WG on uses of a PCE in the ACTN architecture.

- With the IDR WG on the use of BGP-LS in ACTN.

In doing this work, the WG will cooperate with external SDOs as
necessary.

The working group will work on the following items:

- Develop an applicability document based on use cases. This work will
  support the architecture and serve as the repository of requirement
  sets that include: support of APIs/protocols and information models.

- Complete architecture that describes the basic building blocks to
  enable virtual network and service coordination.

- Evaluate gap of existing IETF and other protocols, encoding languages
  and data models to fulfill the requirements. Where the need for data
  models is identified, the working group will first examine data models
  already developed by other working groups.

- Work on data models that are uniquely identified in the scope of ACTN.
  It is envisioned to work on issues of security, privacy, and trust in
  mechanisms that provide abstraction across domain boundaries
 (and therefore across trust boundaries) and the abstraction of
  customer's service-specific models.

- Develop protocol extensions as deemed necessary to support unique
  requirements of controller interfaces.

Milestones

May 2015   Adopt the WG draft on the Applicability of ACTN.
Aug 2015   Adopt the WG draft on the ACTN Architecture.
Sep 2015   Adopt the WG draft on Gap Analysis and YANG models.
Nov 2015   Adopt the WG drafts on Protocol Extensions for basic models.
Feb 2016   Submit the Applicability of ACTN to IESG as an informational
           RFC.
                      Adopt the WG drafts on Protocol Extensions for advanced
           models.
Apr 2016   Submit the ACTN Architecture to IESG for review as an
           informational RFC.
May 2016   Submit the Gap Analysis and YANG model(s) document to IESG for
           review as Proposed Standards RFC.
Jul 2016   Submit the Protocol Extensions for basic models to IESG for
           review as Proposed Standards RFCs.
Sep 2016   Submit the Protocol Extensions for advanced models to IESG for
           Review as Proposed Standard RFCs.
Nov 2016   recharter or conclude the WG.