1. Problem Statement and Use Cases of Application-aware Networking (APN)

Publication: IETF Individual Draft

Publication History: 2020-03

Publication URL: https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-li-apn-problem-statement-usecases-00

Description:

Network operators are facing the challenge of providing better network services for users. As the ever developing 5G and industrial verticals evolve, more and more services that have diverse network requirements such as ultra-low latency and high reliability are emerging, and therefore differentiated service treatment is desired by users. However, network operators are typically unaware of which applications are traversing their network infrastructure, which means that only coarse-grained services can be provided to users. As a result, network operators are only evolving their infrastructure to be large but dumb pipes without corresponding revenue increases that might be enabled by differentiated service treatment. As network technologies evolve including deployments of IPv6, SRv6, Segment Routing over MPLS dataplane, the programmability provided by IPv6 and Segment Routing can be augmented by conveying application related information into the network. Adding application knowledge to the network layer allows applications to specify finer granularity requirements to the network operator.

2. Application-aware Networking (APN) Framework

Publication: IETF Individual Draft

Publication History: 2020-03

Publication URL: https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-li-apn-framework-00

Description:

A multitude of applications are carried over the network, which have varying needs for network bandwidth, latency, jitter, and packet loss, etc. Some new emerging applications (e.g. 5G) have very demanding performance requirements. However, in current networks, the network and applications are decoupled, that is, the network is not aware of the applications’ requirements in a fine granularity. Therefore, it is difficult to provide truly fine-granularity traffic operations for the applications and guarantee their SLA requirements.

This document proposes a new framework, named Application-aware Networking (APN), where application characteristic information such as application identification and its network performance requirements is carried in the packet encapsulation in order to facilitate service provisioning, perform application-level traffic steering and network resource adjustment.

3. Use cases of Application-aware Networking (APN) in Edge Computing

Publication: IETF Individual Draft

Publication History: 2020-03

Publication URL: https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-liu-apn-edge-usecase-00

Description:

The ever-emerging new services are imposing more and more highly demanding requirements on the network. However, the current deployments could not fully accommodate those requirements due to limited capabilities. For example, it is difficult to utilize the traditional centralized deployment mode to meet the low-latency demand of some latency-sensitive applications. Moreover, the total amount of centralized service data is growing exponentially, which brings great pressure on the network bandwidth. There has been a clear trend that decentralized sites comprising of computing and storage resources are deployed at various locations to provide services. In particular, when the sites are deployed at the network edge, i.e. the Edge Computing, it can better handle the business needs of the users nearby, which provides the possibilities to provide differentiated network and computing services. In order to achieve the full benefits of the edge computing, it actually implies a precondition that the network should be aware of the applications’ requirements in order to steer their traffic to the network paths that can satisfy their requirements. Application-aware networking (APN) fits as the missing puzzle piece to bridge the applications and the network to accommodate the edge services’ needs, fully releasing the benefits of the edge computing.

This document describes the various application scenarios in edge computing to which the APN can be beneficial, including augmented reality, cloud gaming and remote control, which empowers the video business, users interaction business and user-device interaction business. In those scenarios, APN can identify the specific requirements of edge computing applications on the network, process close to the users, provide SLA guaranteed network services such as low latency and high reliability.

4. Application-aware IPv6 Networking

Publication: IETF Individual Draft

Publication History: 2019-07

Publication URL: https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-li-6man-app-aware-ipv6-network-00

Description:

A multitude of applications are carried over the network, which have varying needs for network bandwidth, latency, jitter, and packet loss, etc. Some applications such as online gaming and live video streaming have very demanding network requirements thereof require special treatments in the network. However, in current networks, the network and applications are decoupled, that is, the network is not aware of the applications’ requirements in a finer granularity. Therefore, it is difficult to provide truly fine-granular traffic operations for the applications and guarantee their SLA requirements.

This document proposes a new framework, named Application-aware IPv6 Networking, and also the solution to guarantee SLA for applications, which makes use of IPv6 extensions header in order to convey the application related information including its requirements along with the packet to the network so to facilitate the service deployment and network resources adjustment. Then, it defines the application-aware options which can be used in the different IPv6 extension headers for the purpose.