| Networking Working Group | Q. Wu, Ed. |
| Internet-Draft | Huawei |
| Intended status: Informational | M. Boucadair, Ed. |
| Expires: May 20, 2020 | Orange |
| D. Lopez | |
| Telefonica I+D | |
| C. Xie | |
| China Telecom | |
| L. Geng | |
| China Mobile | |
| November 17, 2019 |
A Framework for Automating Service and Network Management with YANG
draft-ietf-opsawg-model-automation-framework-00
Data models for service and network management provides a programmatic approach for representing (virtual) services or networks and deriving (1) configuration information that will be communicated to network and service components that are used to build and deliver the service and (2) state information that will be monitored and tracked. Indeed, data models can be used during various phases of the service and network management life cycle, such as service instantiation, service provisioning, optimization, monitoring, and diagnostic. Also, data models are instrumental in the automation of network management. They also provide closed-loop control for the sake of adaptive and deterministic service creation, delivery, and maintenance.
This document provides a framework that describes and discusses an architecture for service and network management automation that takes advantage of YANG modeling technologies. This framework is drawn from a network provider perspective irrespective of the origin of a data module; it can accommodate even modules that are developed outside the IETF.
The document aims to exemplify an approach that specifies the journey from technology-agnostic services to technology-specific actions.
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Copyright (c) 2019 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.
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The service management system usually comprises service activation/provision and service operation. Current service delivery procedures, from the processing of customer's requirements and order to service delivery and operation, typically assume the manipulation of data sequentially into multiple OSS/BSS applications that may be managed by different departments within the service provider's organization (e.g., billing factory, design factory, network operation center, etc.). In addition, many of these applications have been developed in-house over the years and operating in a silo mode:
Software Defined Networking (SDN) becomes crucial to address these challenges. SDN techniques [RFC7149] are meant to automate the overall service delivery procedures and typically rely upon (standard) data models that are used to not only reflect service providers'savoir-faire but also to dynamically instantiate and enforce a set of (service-inferred) policies that best accommodate what has been (contractually) defined (and possibly negotiated) with the customer. [RFC7149] provides a first tentative to rationalize that service provider's view on the SDN space by identifying concrete technical domains that need to be considered and for which solutions can be provided:
Models are key for each of these technical items. Service and network management automation is an important step to improve the agility of network operations and infrastructures. Models are also important to ease integrating multi-vendor solutions.
YANG module developers have taken both top-down and bottom-up approaches to develop modules [RFC8199], and also to establish a mapping between network technology and customer requirements on the top or abstracting common construct from various network technologies on the bottom. At the time of writing this document (2019), there are many data models including configuration and service models that have been specified or are being specified by the IETF. They cover many of the networking protocols and techniques. However, how these models work together to configure a device, manage a set of devices involved in a service, or even provide a service is something that is not currently documented either within the IETF or other SDOs (e.g., MEF).
This document provides a framework that describes and discusses an architecture for service and network management automation that takes advantage of YANG modeling technologies and investigates how different layer YANG data models interact with each other (e.g., service mapping, model composing) in the context of service delivery and fulfillment.
This framework is drawn from a network provider perspective irrespective of the origin of a data module; it can accommodate even modules that are developed outside the IETF.
The document also identifies a list of use cases to exemplify the proposed approach, but it does not claim to be exhaustive.
The following terms are defined in [RFC8309][RFC8199] and are not redefined here:
The document makes use of the following terms:
As described in [RFC8199], layering of modules allows for better reusability of lower-layer modules by higher-level modules while limiting duplication of features across layers.
The data modules developed by IETF can be classified into service level, network level and device level modules. Different service module at service level may rely on the same set of network level or device level modules.
Service level modules usually follow top down approach and are mostly customer-facing modules providing a common model construct for higher level network services (e.g., L3VPN), which can be further mapped to network technology-specific modules at lower layer (e.g., tunnel, routing, QoS, security). For example, the service level can be used to characterise the network service(s) to be ensured between service nodes (ingress/egress) such as the communication scope (pipe, hose, funnel, ...), the directionality, the traffic performance guarantees (one-way delay (OWD), one-way loss, ...), etc.
Network level modules are mainly network resource-facing modules and describe various aspects of a network infrastructure, including devices and their subsystems, and relevant protocols operating at the link and network layers across multiple devices (e.g., Network topology and traffic- engineering Tunnel modules).
Device (and function) level modules usually follow a bottom-up approach and are mostly technology-specific modules used to realize a service (e.g., BGP, NAT).
Each level maintains a view of the supported YANG modules provided by low-levels (see for example, Appendix A).
Figure 1 illustrates the overall layering model.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+ | +-----------------------+ | | | Orchestrator | Hierarchy Abstraction | | |+---------------------+| | | || Service Modeling || Service Model | | |+---------------------+| (Customer Oriented) | | | | Scope: "1:1" Pipe model | | | | Bidirectional | | |+---------------------+| +-+ BW:100M,OWD +-+ | | ||Service Orchestration|| | +---------------+ | | | |+---------------------+| +-+ +-+ | | +-----------------------+ 1. Ingress 2. Egress | | | | | | | | +-----------------------+ Network Model | | | Controller | (Operator Oriented) | | |+---------------------+| +-+ +--+ +---+ +-+ | | || Network Modeling || | | | | | | | | | | |+---------------------+| | o----o--o----o---o---o | | | |+---------------------+| +-+ +--+ +---+ +-+ | | ||network Orchestration| src dst | | |+---------------------+| L3VPN over TE | | | | Instance Name/Access Interface| | +-----------------------+ Proto Type/BW/RD,RT,..mapping | | for hop | | | | | | +-----------------------+ | | | Device | Device Model | | |+--------------------+ | | | || Device Modeling | | Interface add,BGP Peer, | | |+--------------------+ | Tunnel id,QoS/TE config | | +-----------------------+ | +-----------------------------------------------------------------+
Layering and representation
To dynamically offer and deliver service offerings, Service level modules can be used by an operator. One or more monolithic Service modules can be used in the context of a composite service activation request (e.g., delivery of a caching infrastructure over a VPN). Such modules are used to feed a decision-making intelligence to adequately accommodate customer's needs.
Also, such modules may be used jointly with services that require dynamic invocation. An example is provided by the service modules defined by the DOTS WG to dynamically trigger requests to handle DDoS attacks [I-D.ietf-dots-signal-channel][I-D.ietf-dots-data-channel].
Network level modules can be derived from service level modules and used to provision, monitor, instantiate the service, and provide lifecycle management of network resources (e.g., expose network resources to customers or operators to provide service fulfillment and assurance and allow customers or operators to dynamically adjust the network resources based on service requirements as described in service level modules and the current network performance information described in the telemetry modules).
To operate the service, Device level modules derived from Service level modules or Network level modules can be used to provision each involved network function/device with the proper configuration information, and operate the network based on service requirements as described in the Service level module(s).
In addition, the operational state including configuration that is in effect together with statistics should be exposed to upper layers to provide better network visibility (and assess to what extent the derived low level modules are consistent with the upper level inputs).
Note that it is important to correlate telemetry data with configuration data to be used for closed loops at the different stages of service delivery, from resource allocation to service operation, in particular.
To support top-down service delivery, YANG modules at different level or at the same level need to be integrated together to enable function, feature in the network device and get network setup. For example, the service parameters captured in service level modules need to be decomposed into a set of (configuration/notification) parameters that may be specific to one or more technologies; these technology-specific parameters are grouped together to define technology-specific device level models or network level models.
In addition, these technology-specific device level models or network level models can be further integrated with each other using schema mount mechanism [RFC8528] to provision each involved network function/device or each involved administrative domain to support newly added module or features. A collection of device models integrated together can be loaded and validated during implementation time.
Policies provide a higher layer of abstraction. Policy models can be defined at service level, network level, or device level to provide policy-based management and telemetry automation,e.g., telemetry data can trigger a new policy that captures new network service requirements.
Performance measurement telemetry can be used to provide service assurance at service level or at the network level. Performance measurement telemetry model can tie with network level model or service level model to monitor network performance or service level agreement.
The architectural considerations described in Section 3 lead to the architecture described in this section and illustrated in Figure 1.
+------------------+
Service level | |
----------- V |
E2E E2E E2E
Service -- Service --------> Service --->Service ---+
Exposure Creation ^ Optimization | Diagnosis |
/Modification | | |
| |Diff | V
Multi-layer | | E2E | E2E
Multi-domain | | Service | Service
Service Mapping| +------ Assurance ---+ Decommission
| ^
|<-----------------+ |
Network level | | +----+
------------ V | |
Specific Specific | Specific
Service ----+---> Service ---+--+-> Service --+
Creation ^ Optimization | | Diagnosis |
/Modification | | | V
| |Diff | | Specific
| | Specific----+ | Service
Service | | Service | Decommission
Decomposing | +------Assurance -----+
| ^
| | Aggregation
Device level | +------------+
------------ V |
Service Intent
Fullfillment Config ------> Config ----> Performance -->Fault
Provision Validate Monitoring Diagnostic
Figure 1: Service and Network Lifecycle Management
Service lifecycle management includes end to end service lifecycle management at the service level and specific network lifecycle management at the network level. The end-to-end service lifecycle management is multi-domain or multi-layer service management while specific service lifecycle management is domain specific or layer specific service lifecycle management.
A service in the context of this document (sometimes called a Network Service) is some form of connectivity between customer sites and the Internet or between customer sites across the network operator's network and across the Internet.
Service exposure is used to capture services offered to customers (ordering and order handling). One typical example is that a customer can use a L3SM service model to request L3VPN service by providing the abstract technical characterization of the intended service between cutsomer sites.
Service model catalogs can be created along to expose the various services and the information needed to invoke/order a given service.
A customer is (usually) unaware of the technology that the network operator has available to deliver the service, so the customer does not make requests specific to the underlying technology but is limited to making requests specific to the service that is to be delivered. This service request can be issued using the service model.
The service orchestrator/management system maps such service request to its view. This view can be described as a network model and this mapping may include a choice of which networks and technologies to use depending on which service features have been requested.
In addition, a customer may require to change underlying network infrastructure to adapt to new customer's needs and service requirements. This service modification can be issued in the same service model used by the service request.
Service optimization is a technique that gets the configuration of the network updated due to network change, incident mitigation, or new service requirements. One typical example is once the tunnel or the VPN is setup, Performance monitoring information or telemetry information per tunnel or per VPN can be collected and fed into the management system, if the network performance doesn't meet the service requirements, the management system can create new VPN policies capturing network service requirements and populate them into the network.
Both network performance information and policies can be modelled using YANG. With Policy-based management, self-configuration and self-optimization behavior can be specified and implemented.
Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (OAM) are important networking functions for service diagnosis that allow operators to:
When the network is down, service diagnosis should be in place to pinpoint the problem and provide recommendation (or instructions) for the network recovery.
The service diagnosis information can be modelled as technology-independent RPC operations for OAM protocols and technology-independent abstraction of key OAM constructs for OAM protocols [RFC8531][RFC8533]. These models can provide consistent configuration, reporting, and presentation for the OAM mechanisms used to manage the network.
Service decommission allow the customer to stop the service and remove the service from active status and release the network resource that is allocated to the service. Customer can also use the service model to withdraw the subscription to a service.
Intended configuration at the device level is derived from network model at the network level or service model at the service level and represents the configuration that the system attempts to apply. Take L3SM service model as an example, to deliver a L3VPN service, we need to map L3VPN service view defined in Service model into detailed intended configuration view defined by specific configuration models for network elements, configuration information includes:
This specific configuration models can be used to configure PE and CE devices within the site, e.g., A BGP policy model can be used to establish VPN membership between sites and VPN Service Topology.
Configuration validation is used to validate intended configuration and ensure the configuration take effect. For example, a customer creates an interface "et-0/0/0" but the interface does not physically exist at this point, then configuration data appears in the <intended> status but does not appear in <operational> datastore.
When configuration is in effect in the device, <operational> datastore holds the complete operational state of the device including learned, system, default configuraton and system state. However the configurations and state of a particular device does not have the visibility to the whole network or information of the flow packets are going to take through the entire network. Therefore it becomes more difficult to operate the network without understanding the current status of the network.
The management system should subscribe to updates of a YANG datastore in all the network devices for performance monitoring purpose and build full topological visibility to the network by aggregating and filtering these operational state from different sources.
When configuration is in effect in the device, some device may be misconfigured(e.g.,device links are not consistent on both sides of the network connection), network resources be misallocated and services may be negatively affected without knowing what is going on in the network.
Technology-dependent nodes and remote procedure call (RPC) commands are defined in technology-specific YANG data models which can use and extend the base model described in Section 4.1.4can be used to deal with these challenges.
These RPC command recieved in the technology dependent node can be used to trigger technology specific OAM message exchange for fault verification and fault isolation,e.g., TRILL Multicast Tree Verification (MTV) RPC command [I-D.ietf-trill-yang-oam] can be used to trigger Multi-Destination Tree Verification Message defined in [RFC7455] to verify TRILL distribution tree integrity.
Multi-layer/Multi-domain Service Mapping allow you map end to end abstract view of the service segmented at different layer or different administrative domain into domain specific view. One example is to map service parameters in L3VPN service model into configuration parameters such as RD, RT, and VRF in L3VPN network model. Another example is to map service parameters in L3VPN service model into TE tunnel parameter (e.g.,Tunnel ID) in TE model and VN parameters (e.g., AP list, VN member) in TEAS VN model [I-D.ietf-teas-actn-vn-yang].
Service Decomposing allows to decompose service model at the service level or network model at the network level into a set of device/function models at the device level. These device models may be tied to specific device type or classified into a collection of related YANG modules based on service type and feature offered and load at the implementation time before configuration is loaded and validated.
L3SM |
Service |
Model |
+--------------------+----------------------------+
| +-----V- -------+ |
| Orchestrator |Service Mapping| |
| +-----+---------+ |
| | |
+--------------------+----------------------------+
L3NM |
Network|
Model |
+--------------------+----------------------------+
| Controller+--------V-----------+ |
| | Service Decomposing| |
| +-++------------++---+ |
| || || |
| || || |
+-------------++---------- ++--------------------+
|| ||
|| ||
||BGP,QoS ||
|| ||
+----------+|NI,Intf,IP |+-----------------+
+--+--+ +++---+ --+---+ +--+--+
| CE1 |------| PE1 | | PE2 | ---------+ CE2 |
+-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +-----+
Figure 2: L3VPN Service Delivery Example
In reference to Figure 2, the following steps are performed to deliver the L3VPN service within the network management automation architecture defined in this document:
|
VN |
Service |
Model |
+------------------- --|--------------------------+
| Orchestrator | |
| +--------V--------+ +----------+ |
| | Service Mapping | +-+ECA Engine| |
| +-----------------+ | +--------^-+ |
+----------------------+----------+----------+----+
TE | ECA | Telemetry
Tunnel | Policy| Model
Model | | |
+----------------------V----------V----------+----+
| Controller |
| |
+-------------------------------------------------+
+-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +-----+
| CE1 |------| PE1 | | PE2 |---------+ CE2 |
+-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +-----+
Figure 3
In reference to Figure 3, the following steps are performed to deliver the VN service within the network management automation architecture defined in this document:
Security considerations specific to each of the technologies and protocols listed in the document are discussed in the specification documents of each of these techniques.
(Potential) security considerations specific to this document are listed below:
There are no IANA requests or assignments included in this document.
Thanks to Joe Clark, Greg Mirsky, and Shunsuke Homma for the review.
Christian Jacquenet Orange Rennes, 35000 France Email: Christian.jacquenet@orange.com Luis Miguel Contreras Murillo Telifonica Email: luismiguel.contrerasmurillo@telefonica.com Oscar Gonzalez de Dios Telefonica Madrid ES Email: oscar.gonzalezdedios@telefonica.com Chongfeng Xie China Telecom Beijing China Email: xiechf.bri@chinatelecom.cn Weiqiang Cheng China Mobile Email: chengweiqiang@chinamobile.com Young Lee Sung Kyun Kwan University Email: younglee.tx@gmail.com
It is not the intent of this document to provide an inventory of tools and mechanisms used in specific network and service management domains; such inventory can be found in documents such as [RFC7276].
As described in [RFC8309], the service is "some form of connectivity between customer sites and the Internet and/or between customer sites across the network operator's network and across the Internet". More concretely, an IP connectivity service can be defined as the IP transfer capability characterized by a (Source Nets, Destination Nets, Guarantees, Scope) tuple where "Source Nets" is a group of unicast IP addresses, "Destination Nets" is a group of IP unicast and/or multicast addresses, and "Guarantees" reflects the guarantees (expressed in terms of Quality Of Service (QoS), performance, and availability, for example) to properly forward traffic to the said "Destination" [RFC7297].
For example:
Figure 4 depicts a set of Network models such as topology models or tunnel models:
| |
Topo YANG modules | Tunnel YANG modules |
------------------------------------------------|
+------------+ | |
|Network Top | | +------+ +-----------+ |
| Model | | |Other | | TE Tunnel | |
+----+-------+ | |Tunnel| +------+----+ |
| +--------+ | +------+ | |
|---+Svc Topo| | +--------+-+--------+
| +--------+ | +----+---+ +---+----+ +-+-----+
| +--------+ | |MPLS-TE | |RSVP-TE | |SR TE |
|---+L2 Topo | | | Tunnel | | Tunnel | |Tunnel |
| +--------+ | +--------+ +--------+ +-------+
| +--------+ |
|---+TE Topo | |
| +--------+ |
| +--------+ |
+---+L3 Topo | |
+--------+ |
Figure 4: Sample Resource Facing Network Models
Topology YANG module Examples:
Tunnel YANG module Examples:
Other Network Models:
+----------------+
--|Device Model |
| +----------------+
| +------------------+
+---------------+ | |Logical Network |
| | --| Element Mode |
| Architecture | | +------------------+
| | | +----------------------+
+-------+-------+ --|Network Instance Mode |
| | +----------------------+
| | +-------------------+
| --|Routing Type Model |
| +-------------------+
+-------+----------+----+------+------------+-----------+-------+
| | | | | | |
+-+-+ +---+---+ +--+------+ +-+-+ +-----+---+ +---+-+ |
|ACL| |Routing| |Transport| |OAM| |Multicast| | PM | Others
+---+ |-------+ +---------+ +---+ +---------+ +-----+
| +-------+ +----------+ +-------+ +-----+ +-----+
--|Core | |MPLS Basic| |BFD | |IGMP | |TWAMP|
| |Routing| +----------+ +-------+ |/MLD | +-----+
| +-------+ |MPLS LDP | |LSP Ping +-----+ |OWAMP|
--|BGP | +----------+ +-------+ |PIM | +-----+
| +-------+ |MPLS Static |MPLS-TP| +-----+ |LMAP |
--|ISIS | +----------+ +-------+ |MVPN | +-----+
| +-------+ +-----+
--|OSPF |
| +-------+
--|RIP |
| +-------+
--|VRRP |
| +-------+
--|SR/SRv6|
| +-------+
--|ISIS-SR|
| +-------+
--|OSPF-SR|
+-------+
Figure 5: Network Element Modules Overview
Network Element models (Figure 5) are used to describe how a service can be implemented by activating and tweaking a set of functions (enabled in one or multiple devices, or hosted in cloud infrastructures) that are involved in the service delivery. The following figure uses IETF defined models as an example.
Modularity and extensibility were among the leading design principles of the YANG data modeling language. As a result, the same YANG module can be combined with various sets of other modules and thus form a data model that is tailored to meet the requirements of a specific use case. [RFC8528] defines a mechanism, denoted schema mount, that allows for mounting one data model consisting of any number of YANG modules at a specified location of another (parent) schema.
That capability does not cover design time.