[Ibnemo] role based intent

[Zhoutianran <[e-mail]>]

Hi Dave, Stuart, Bob and all,



I found many problems raised in the mailing list are coursed by the layered intent thinking. Maybe we are tainted by the ISO model:-)



For the layered intent, intent is a spectrum, very abstract at the top layer, more network specific and less abstract when the layer goes down. The problem is that the boundary of intent and non intent is vague. Or there is no boundary between this two, since one's what may be another one's how. And consequently, it looks like everything is intent and no clear intent definition.



The role based intent will provide only one intent layer. That is always the top layer abstraction for each role, as shown in the following figure. The functions can be layered as the implementation of the intent layer.

[cid:[e-mail]337E90]

With the role based intent, although the end user's intent is much abstracted then the network administrator's intent, they are not related each other. I.e., the end user will not use the administrator's intent. And the admin will not provide additional services/interfaces to the end user.



The essential of layering is that the lower layer will provide interface to the higher layer. In order to fit up layer requirements, the lower layer will provide adequate interfaces/capabilities. That also means too much information for a dedicated up layer user/app.



For role based intent, we can firstly indentify various roles (no need to be complete, but those with attention), and then figure out the intent of each role. In this way, intent can be clear defined. That will also keep the intent of each role to a small set on what they really cares about, without expending to support other one's intent.





Best Regards,

Terence