[nmrg] Cross-RG activity coordination on Intent Based Networking (IBN)

[Laurent Ciavaglia <[e-mail]>]

Dear NMRG,

Intent Based Networking aspires at rising network manageability to a 
higher level.
As such, the various forms of IBN continue to be a compelling area of 
research and technology development.
Yet, the IBN term may convey different meanings and refer to different 
concepts or approaches, e.g. as in ANIMA WG, SUPA (BoF), IBNEMO, or SDN 
RG...
Thus, we believe some coordination among RG/WG can deliver additional 
value to the community.
Jointly with the SDN RG, we would like to impulse an activity on IBN to 
discuss the objectives, scope and kick start this effort.

The items listed below can help to get things started:
     -What are the definitions of Intent/IBN? e.g. in SUPA, ANIMA, SDN, 
NFV, IoT spaces...
     -What are the alignment/commonalities and differences among them, 
and the implications from technology, standard and business perspectives?
     -What are the functionality / components of an intent based system?
     -Is an end-to-end, comprehensive intent based system feasible? Does 
it make sense?
     -How can different techno-specific / heterogeneous sources of 
intent (definitions / blocks) inter-operate, in intra- and inter-domains?
     -What are the (key) areas of research? languages, 
semantics/ontologies, human factors/HNI, model-driven-development, 
policy refinement...
     -What are examples of application: e.g. technology specific or 
generic: e.g. in NFV, SDN, autonomics, IoT...
     -What relationships/consistency among those applications? i.e. 
towards a comprehensive view of a "Generalized IBN"
     -List of representative use cases of IBN.
     -Practical experiences, developments, tools on IBN.

The network management community has extensive knowledge and expertise 
in the area (think policy based management) that can prove very useful 
in the foreseen investigations.
Network management is also transverse to technologies (e.g. SDN, NFV, 
autonomics...), providing a different perspective to the problem at hand.

---
The first outcome of this activity will be discussed in the joint 
meeting between SDN, NFV and NM research groups to be held at 
IETF96/Berlin (TBC).

This topic is part of the NMRG meeting at NOMS 2016 
(http://noms2016.ieee-noms.org, 25-29 April 2016, Istanbul).

Other events are in the pipe, so stay tuned!


Best regards,
Lisandro and Laurent (NMRG chairs), together with Kohei and Dan (SDN RG 
chairs).
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