Internet DRAFT - draft-li-rtgwg-apn-framework

draft-li-rtgwg-apn-framework







Network Working Group                                              Z. Li
Internet-Draft                                                   S. Peng
Intended status: Standards Track                     Huawei Technologies
Expires: 5 September 2024                                       D. Voyer
                                                             Bell Canada
                                                                   C. Li
                                                           China Telecom
                                                                  P. Liu
                                                            China Mobile
                                                                  C. Cao
                                                            China Unicom
                                                               G. Mishra
                                                            Verizon Inc.
                                                            4 March 2024


              Application-aware Networking (APN) Framework
                    draft-li-rtgwg-apn-framework-00

Abstract

   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 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-aware information (i.e.  APN
   attribute) including APN identification (ID) and/or APN parameters
   (e.g.  network performance requirements) is encapsulated at network
   edge devices and carried in packets traversing an APN domain in order
   to facilitate service provisioning, perform fine-granularity traffic
   steering and network resource adjustment.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.




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   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on 5 September 2024.

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   document authors.  All rights reserved.

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   3.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   4.  APN Framework and Key Components  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   5.  APN Requirements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     5.1.  APN Attribute Conveying Requirements  . . . . . . . . . .   8
       5.1.1.  Protocol Extensions Requirements  . . . . . . . . . .   9
     5.2.  APN attribute Handling Requirements . . . . . . . . . . .  11
       5.2.1.  Fine granular SLA Guarantee . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
       5.2.2.  Fine granular network slicing . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
       5.2.3.  Fine granular deterministic networking  . . . . . . .  12
       5.2.4.  Fine granular service function chaining . . . . . . .  12
       5.2.5.  Fine granular network measurement . . . . . . . . . .  13
   6.  Illustration  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
     6.1.  Example use case description  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
     6.2.  User Group and Application Group Design . . . . . . . . .  14
     6.3.  Derive the User Group and User Group at APN Edge  . . . .  16
     6.4.  Access Right Check at the edge of the backbone network  .  16
     6.5.  SLA Guarantee in the backbone network . . . . . . . . . .  17
       6.5.1.  Network Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
       6.5.2.  Traffic Steering  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
   7.  Benefits  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
   8.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  19
   9.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  19
   10. Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20



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   11. Co-authors  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20
   12. Contributors  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
   13. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  22
     13.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  22
     13.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  22
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  22

1.  Introduction

   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 and therefore
   require special treatment 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 fine
   granularity.  Therefore, it is difficult to provide truly fine-
   granularity traffic operations for the applications and guarantee
   their SLA requirements accordingly.
   [I-D.li-apn-problem-statement-usecases] describes the challenges of
   traditional differentiated service provisioning methods, such as five
   tuples used for ACL/PBR causing coarse granularity as well as
   orchestration and SDN-based solution causing long control loops.

   This document proposes a new framework, named Application-aware
   Networking (APN), where application-aware information (APN attribute)
   including application-aware identification (APN ID) and application-
   aware parameters (APN Parameters), is encapsulated at network edge
   devices and carried along with the encapsulation of the tunnel used
   by the packet when traversing the APN domain.  By APN domain we
   intend the operator infrastructure where APN is used from edge to
   edge (ingress to egress) and where the packet is encapsulated using
   an outer header incorporating the APN information.  The APN attribute
   will facilitate service provisioning and provide fine-granularity
   services in the APN domain.

   The APN attribute is acquired at the ingress of the APN domain based
   on the existing information in the incoming packet header (i.e.
   source and destination addresses, incoming L2 (or) MPLS
   encapsulation, incoming physical/virtual port information, the other
   fields of the 5-tuple if they are not encrypted) in the edge devices.
   The APN information is then added to the data packets along with the
   tunnel encapsulation.  The packet traverses the domain and, when
   exiting the domain, the outer header along with the APN information
   is removed.






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   APN aims to leverage the ability to apply policies to traffic flows
   entering into the infrastructure (APN domain).  For example, at the
   headend (ingress) traffic is steered into a given path/policy, at a
   midpoint node the corresponding performance measurement data is
   collected, and at a service node a given function is executed.

   APN assumes traffic is tunnel encapsulated edge-to-edge tunnel
   encapsulation within a limited trusted domain.  It means that the
   source and destination addresses of the packet are the endpoints of
   the tunnel (i.e. the domain edges), and nothing about the payload
   source and destination can be deduced, which substantially reduces
   the privacy concerns.  Typically, an APN domain is defined as a
   Network Operator controlled limited domain (see Figure 1), in which
   MPLS, VXLAN, SR/SRv6 and other tunnel technologies are adopted to
   provide network services.

2.  Requirements Language

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP
   14 RFC 2119 [RFC2119] RFC 8174 [RFC8174] when, and only when, they
   appear in all capitals, as shown here.

3.  Terminology

   ACL: Access Control List

   APN: Application-aware Networking

   APN6: Application-aware Networking for IPv6/SRv6

   LB: Load Balancing

   MPLS: Multiprotocol Label Switching

   PBR: Policy Based Routing

   QoE: Quality of Experience

   SDN: Software Defined Networking

   SLA: Service Level Agreement

   SR: Segment Routing

   SR-MPLS: Segment Routing over MPLS dataplane




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   SRv6: Segment Routing over IPv6 dataplane

4.  APN Framework and Key Components

   The APN framework is shown in Figure 1.  The key components include
   App-aware Edge Device (APN-Edge), App-aware-process Head-End (APN-
   Head), App-aware-process Mid-Point (APN-Midpoint), App-aware-process
   End-Point (APN-Endpoint), and APN-Controller.  The key interfaces
   include both the Northbound Interface (NBI) and the Southbound
   Interface (SBI) of the APN-Controller.

   Packets carry application characteristic information (i.e.  APN
   attribute) which includes the following information:

   *  Application-aware identification (APN ID): identifies the set of
      attributes, indicating that all packets belonging to the same flow
      will be given the same treatment by the network.  APN ID is
      mandatory.

   *  Application-aware parameters (APN parameters): The typical
      application-aware parameters are the network performance
      requirement parameters including bandwidth, delay, delay
      variation, packet loss ratio, etc.  APN parameters are optional.



                          +------------------+
                          |   APN-Customer   |
                          +------------------+
                                   |
                                   | NBI
                                   |
                          +------------------+
                   -------|  APN-Controller  |--------
                  /       +------------------+        \
Client           /       /         |          \        \           Server
+-----+         /       /          | SBI       \        \          +-----+
|App x|-\      |       |           |            |        |      /->|App x|
+-----+ |   +-----+ +-----+   +---------+   +--------+ +-----+  |  +-----+
         \->|APN  | |APN  |-A-|APN      |-A-|APN     | |APN  |->/
User side   |-    |-|-    |-B-|-        |-B-|-       |-|-    |
         /->|Edge | |Head |-C-|Midpoint |-C-|Endpoint| |Edge |->\
+-----+ |   +-----+ +-----+   +---------+   +--------+ +-----+  |   +-----+
|App y|-/      |------------------APN Domain--------------|      \->|App y|
+-----+                                                             +-----+

                Figure 1: Framework and Key Components




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   The key components are introduced as follows.

   *  App-aware Edge Device (APN-Edge): this network device receives
      packets from applications and obtains the APN attribute based on
      the configuration on this device according to the existing
      information in the packet header, such as 5-tuple, VLAN or double
      VLAN tagging (C-VLAN and S-VLAN).  The APN-Edge device adds the
      APN attribute in the tunnel encapsulation.  The packets carrying
      the APN attribute will be sent to the APN-Head, and the APN
      attribute will be used to apply various policies in different
      nodes along the network path onto the traffic flow, e.g., at the
      headend to steer into corresponding path satisfying SLAs, at the
      midpoint to collect corresponding performance measurement data, at
      the service function to execute particular policies.  When the
      packets leave the APN domain, the APN attribute will be removed
      together with the tunnel encapsulation.

   *  App-aware-process Head-End (APN-Head): This network device
      receives packets from the APN-Edge, obtains the APN attribute, and
      initiates the corresponding process.  Generally, in order to
      satisfy different SLA requirements, a set of paths, tunnels or SR
      policies, are set up between the APN-Head and the APN-Endpoint.
      These multiple parallel paths have different SLA guarantees.  The
      APN-Head maintains the matching relationship between the APN
      attribute and the paths between the APN-Head and the APN-Endpoint.
      The APN-Head determines the path between the APN-Head and the APN-
      Endpoint according to the APN attribute carried in the packets and
      the matching relationship with it, which satisfies the service
      requirements of the applications.  The APN-Head forwards the
      packets along the path.  The APN attribute conveyed by the packet
      received from the APN-Edge can also be copied or be mapped to the
      outgoing packet header.

   *  App-aware-process Mid-Point (APN-Midpoint): the APN-Midpoint
      provides the path service and enforces various policies according
      to the APN attribute carried in the packets.  The APN-Midpoint may
      also adjust the resource locally to guarantee the service
      requirements depending on a specific policy and the APN attribute
      conveyed by the packet.  Policy definitions and mechanisms are out
      of the scope of this document.

   *  App-aware-process End-Point (APN-Endpoint): the process of the
      specific service path will end at the APN-Endpoint.  If the outer
      tunnel header for the path between the APN-Head and the APN-
      Endpoint exists, it will be removed by the APN-Endpoint.  If the
      APN attribute is copied or mapped to the outer tunnel header by
      the APN-Head, it will also be removed along with the outer tunnel
      header.



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   Note that, the APN-Edge can co-exist with the APN-Head or APN-
   Endpoint, that is, one network device can implement the
   functionalities of both APN-Edge and the APN-Head/APN-Endpoint.

   *  APN-Controller: the APN-Controller is a functional block
      responsible for planning and execution of how the APN attribute
      are allocated and maintained.  It collects the service
      requirements using a NBI (northbound interface) and signals the
      APN related policies to the network devices using SBI (southbound
      interfaces).  To be more specific, the APN related policies
      include the APN-marking policy (i.e., the matching state in order
      for the node to classify and encapsulate the incoming packet with
      the desired APN Information) being pushed on the APN-Edge, and the
      APN-servicing policy (i.e., the APN state in order to fulfill the
      service requirements using e.g. traffic steering and performance
      measurement) on the APN-Head, APN-Midpoint, APN-Endpoint.

   *  APN-Customer: the APN-Customer manages the APN network services
      [I-D.li-apn-problem-statement-usecases] using the APN customer
      service model, which describes the requirements on the APN network
      services from the point of view of the APN customer.

   The key interfaces are introduced as follows.

   *  The Northbound Interface (NBI) of the APN-Controller: the
      requirements described in the APN service model by the APN-
      Customer is enforced via this interface to the APN-Controller,
      which will be translated into the APN policies, i.e., the APN-
      marking policy and the APN-servicing policy, in the APN-
      Controller.

   *  The Southbound Interface (SBI) of the APN-Controller: the APN-
      marking policy and the APN-servicing policy are enforced via this
      interface from the APN-Controller to the relevant network devices.
      The candidate protocols for this interface are PCEP, BGP, YANG-
      based protocols (NETCONF/RESTCONF), etc.

   These interfaces also include the operational status and monitoring
   information.

5.  APN Requirements

   This section specifies the requirements for supporting the APN
   framework, including the requirements for conveying and handling the
   APN attribute.






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5.1.  APN Attribute Conveying Requirements

   The APN attribute consists of APN ID and APN parameters.

   APN ID includes the following identifiers (IDs),

   *  Application Group ID: identifies an application group of the
      traffic.

   *  User Group ID: identifies the user group of the traffic.

   APN ID can be acquired through different ways.  In the APN framework
   it MUST be acquired according to the existing available information
   in the packet header without inspection of the payload.

   The different combinations of the IDs can be used to provide
   different granularity of the service provisioning and SLA guarantee
   for the traffic.

   The APN parameters are the network performance requirement
   parameters.  The network service requirement can include the
   following parameters:

   *  Bandwidth: the bandwidth requirement

   *  Latency: the latency requirement

   *  Packet loss ratio: the packet loss ratio requirement

   *  Jitter: the jitter requirement

   The different combinations of the parameters are for further
   expressing the more detailed service requirements, conveyed together
   with the APN ID, which can be used to match to appropriate tunnels/SR
   Policies and queues that can satisfy these service requirements.

   APN attribute MUST be encapsulated within tunnels in the network
   layer.  The tunnels include but not limit to MPLS, VxLAN, SR-MPLS,
   and SRv6.  It can be extended according to requirements in the
   future.

   [REQ 1a].  APN ID SHOULD include Application Group ID to indicate the
   application group that the packet belongs to.

   [REQ 1b].  APN ID SHOULD include User Group ID to indicate the user
   group that the packet belongs to.





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   [REQ 1c].  APN ID MUST include either Application Group ID or User
   Group ID.

   [REQ 1d].  APN ID MUST be acquired from the existing available
   information of the packet header without interference into the
   payload.

   [REQ 1e].  APN parameters is OPTIONAL.

   [REQ 1f].  APN attribute MUST be carried by the outer tunnel
   encapsulation.

   [REQ 1g].  All the nodes along the path SHOULD be able to process the
   APN attribute if needed.

   [REQ 1h].  The APN attribute is generated by the APN-Edge though
   local policy.

   [REQ 1i].  The APN attribute SHOULD be kept intact when directly
   copied at the APN-Head and carried in the tunnel encapsulation.

   [REQ 1j].  The APN attribute MUST be removed along with the tunnel
   encapsulation by the APN-Edge when the packets leave the APN domain.

   [REQ 1k].  The APN attribute MUST NOT be encrypted when the APN
   packet is itself encrypted (e.g., the APN tunnel across the APN
   domain uses IPsec).

5.1.1.  Protocol Extensions Requirements

   The APN attribute is conveyed with the tunnel encapsulation.  There
   are two typical types of tunnels:

   *  MPLS-based tunnel: LDP tunnel, RSVP-TE tunnel, SR-MPLS tunnel or
      policy, etc.

   *  IPv6-based tunnel: IPv6-based VxLAN tunnel, IPv6-based UDP tunnel,
      IPv6-based GRE tunnel, SRv6 tunnel or policy, etc.

   In order to support encapsulation of APN attribute, the MPLS data
   plane and IPv6 data plane need to be extended.










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   In order to support acquiring the APN attribute according to the
   existing available information in the packet header, YANG models
   should be defined to configure the mapping between the application/
   user group ID and the existing information in the packet header and
   configure the corresponding APN attribute for the application/user
   group.  It can also be implemented with protocol extensions such as
   BGP/BGP-LS and PCEP which can advertise the information from the
   central controller to the APN-Edge.

   In addition, in the APN domain, the above-mentioned mapping and
   applying APN parameters may also be advertised from the APN-Edge/APN-
   Head to other devices or from the network devices to the central
   controller in the APN domain.  IGP extensions or BGP-LS extensions
   should be introduced to achieve the purposes.

   [REQ 1-1a] MPLS encapsulation SHOULD be extended to be able to carry
   the APN attribute for MPLS-based tunnels.

   [REQ 1-1b] IPv6 encapsulation SHOULD be extended to be able to carry
   the APN attribute for IPv6-based tunnels.

   [REQ 1-1c] YANG models SHOULD be defined to implement the mapping
   between the application/user group ID and the existing available
   information in the packet header and configure the corresponding APN
   parameters.

   [REQ 1-1d] BGP extensions SHOULD be defined to advertise the mapping
   between the application/user group ID and the existing available
   information in the packet header and the corresponding APN parameters
   from the central controller to the APN-Edge in the APN domain.

   [REQ 1-1e] PCEP extensions SHOULD be defined to advertise the mapping
   between the application/user group ID and the existing available
   information in the packet header and the corresponding APN parameters
   from the central controller to the APN-Edge in the APN domain.

   [REQ 1-1f] IGP extensions SHOULD be defined to advertise the mapping
   between the application/user group ID and the existing available
   information in the packet header and the corresponding APN parameters
   from the APN-Edge to the network devices in the APN domain.

   [REQ 1-1g] BGP-LS extensions SHOULD be defined to advertise the
   mapping between the application/user group ID and the existing
   available information in the packet header and the corresponding APN
   parameters from the network devices to the central controller in the
   APN domain.





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5.2.  APN attribute Handling Requirements

   The APN Head and APN-Midpoint perform matching operation against the
   APN attribute, that is, to match IDs and/or service requirements to
   the corresponding network resources such as tunnels/SR policies and
   queues.

5.2.1.  Fine granular SLA Guarantee

   In order to achieve better Quality of Experience (QoE) of end users
   and engage customers, the network needs to be able to provide fine-
   granularity SLA guarantee [I-D.li-apn-problem-statement-usecases].

   [REQ 2-1a].  With the APN attribute, the APN-Head SHOULD be able to
   steer the traffic to the tunnel/SR policy that satisfies the matching
   operation.

   [REQ 2-1b].  With the APN attribute, the APN-Head SHOULD be able to
   trigger the setup of the tunnel/SR policy that satisfies the matching
   operation.

   [REQ 2-1c].  With the APN attribute, the APN-Head and APN-Midpoint
   SHOULD be able to steer the traffic to the queue that satisfies the
   matching operation.

   [REQ 2-1d].  With the APN attribute, the APN-Head and APN-Midpoint
   SHOULD be able to trigger the configuration of the queue that
   satisfies the matching operation.

   [REQ 2-1e].  If the tunnels are used to satisfy the performance
   requirements, the APN-Head SHOULD be able to copy or map the APN
   attribute conveyed by the packet received from the APN-Edge to the
   outer tunnel header.

   [REQ 2-1f].  If the tunnels are used to satisfy the performance
   requirements and the APN attribute are conveyed along with the outer
   tunnel, the APN-Endpoint MUST remove the APN attribute along with the
   outer tunnel.

5.2.2.  Fine granular network slicing

   Network Slicing provides the ability to define a number of isolated
   network slices having different set of requirements.

   APN is to help the operator of a network to steer some of the traffic
   tagged with an APN attribute to a certain network slice based on the
   SLA agreement with its customer.




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   [REQ 2-2a].  With the APN attribute, the APN-Head SHOULD be able to
   steer the traffic to the slice that satisfies the matching operation.

   [REQ 2-2b].  With the APN attribute, the APN-Midpoint SHOULD be able
   to associate the traffic to the resources in the slice that satisfies
   the matching operation.

5.2.3.  Fine granular deterministic networking

   Along the path each node needs to provide guaranteed bandwidth,
   bounded latency, and other properties relevant to the transport of
   time-sensitive data for the Detnet flows that coexist with the best-
   effort traffic.

   APN is to help the operator of a network to steer some of the traffic
   tagged with an APN attribute to a certain deterministic path based on
   the SLA agreement with its customer.

   [REQ 2-3a].  With the APN attribute, the APN-Head MUST be able to
   steer the traffic to the appropriate path that satisfies the matching
   operation.

   [REQ 2-3b].  With the APN attribute, the APN-Head MUST be able to
   trigger the setup of the appropriate path that satisfies the matching
   operation for the Detnet flows.

   [REQ 2-3c].  With the APN attribute, the APN-Midpoint MUST be able to
   associate the traffic to the resources along the path that satisfies
   the performance guarantee.

   [REQ 2-3d].  With the APN attribute, the APN-Midpoint MUST be able to
   reserve the resources for the Detnet flows along the path that
   satisfies the performance guarantee.

5.2.4.  Fine granular service function chaining

   The end-to-end service delivery often needs to go through various
   service functions, including traditional network service functions
   such as firewalls, LB as well as new application-specific functions,
   both physical and virtual.  SFC is applicable to both fixed and
   mobile networks as well as data center networks.

   APN is to help the operator of a network to steer some of the traffic
   tagged with an APN attribute to a certain service function chain
   based on the SLA agreement with its customer.  On each service
   function along the service function chain, the policy can be enforced
   based on the APN attribute in the outer header.




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   [REQ 2-4a].  With the APN attribute, the App-aware-process devices
   SHOULD be able to steer the traffic to the appropriate service
   function.

   [REQ 2-4b].  The App-aware-process devices including VAS SHOULD be
   able to process the APN attribute carried in the packets.

5.2.5.  Fine granular network measurement

   Network measurement can be used for verifying whether the network
   performance requirements have been satisfied, as well as locating
   silent failure and predicting QoE satisfaction, which enables real-
   time SLA awareness/proactive OAM and potential resource adjustments.

   APN is to help the operator of a network to trigger performance
   measurement for the traffic tagged with an APN attribute based on its
   customer' consent.

   [REQ 2-5a].  The App-aware-process devices SHOULD be able to perform
   IOAM based on the APN attribute.

   [REQ 2-5b].  The network measurement results can be reported based on
   the APN attribute and verify whether the performance requirements are
   satisfied.

6.  Illustration

   In order to better clarify what APN can enable with the introduced
   APN attribute compared to the existing network without APN, we
   illustrate how APN works through an example use case, which is also a
   typical network service being provisioned nowadays, i.e. the Cloud
   Leased Line service.  In order to make the tunnel description much
   easier to understand, we use the recent technology in IETF, i.e.
   SRv6.

6.1.  Example use case description

   We take the "SRv6-based Cloud Leased Line Service" as an illustrative
   example to show how APN is needed and can be beneficial.

   Enterprises usually buy Cloud Leased Line Service to interconnect
   their local sites to Cloud.  Generally, the Cloud Leased Line Service
   needs to go across multiple domains which are owned by the same
   operator and can be controlled by multiple controllers and an
   orchestrator/super-controller.






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   Due to management reasons, the network information in the
   intermediate domain cannot be advertised to other domains, so the
   ingress node cannot set up an appropriate E2E path.  In that case,
   the intermediate domain is treated as a black box, and no fine grain
   traffic steering and other services can be provisioned.

   The example of the network to provide the cloud leased lined service
   reference diagram is shown as the following figure.  The network is
   composed by three network domains including the two metro networks in
   the City A and City B and the backbone network which connects the two
   metro networks.  The cloud leased line services is provided to the
   specific enterprise whose branches located in different cities need
   to access the cloud-based service located in the City B.



               Domain 1                Domain 2              Domain 3
            /-------------\         /------------\         /-----------\
         +-/-+   City A  +-\-+   +-/-+   IPv6   +-\-+   +-/-+ City B  +-\-+
Branch---|PE1|           |CR1|---|CR2|          |CR3|---|CR4|         |PE2|--Cloud
         +-\-+    Metro  +-/-+   +-\-+ Backbone +-/-+   +-\-+  Metro  +-/-+
            \-------------/         \------------/         \-----------/

          |<--OSPF/ISIS-->|<-EBGP->|<- IPv6/SRv6 ->|<-EBGP->|<-OSPF/ISIS->|
          |<----------------------- EBGP VPNv4 Peer --------------------->|
          |<----------------------- L3VPN over SRv6 --------------------->|

  Figure 2: Reference diagram for the example use case illustration


6.2.  User Group and Application Group Design

   The user groups can be designed as follows:

                                            User Group
      Enterprise A/Branch 1/Office Users    001001001
      Enterprise A/Branch 1/R&D Users       001001002
      Enterprise A/Branch 1/IT Users        001001003
      Enterprise A/Branch 1/VIP Users       001001004
      Enterprise A/Branch 2/Office Users    001002001
      Enterprise A/Branch 2/R&D Users       001002002
      Enterprise A/Branch 2/IT Users        001002003
      Enterprise A/Branch 2/VIP Users       001002004
      Enterprise A/Branch 3/Office Users    001003001
      Enterprise A/Branch 3/R&D Users       001003002
      Enterprise A/Branch 3/IT Users        001003003
      Enterprise A/Branch 3/VIP Users       001003004




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   In the IP address design, the IPv6 address blocks allocated to the
   branches are as follows :

                                                  IPv6 Address
      Enterprise A/Branch 1/Office Users       2001:DB8:A:11::/56
      Enterprise A/Branch 1/R&D Users          2001:DB8:A:12::/56
      Enterprise A/Branch 1/IT Users           2001:DB8:A:13::/56
      Enterprise A/Branch 1/VIP Users          2001:DB8:A:1D::/56
      Enterprise A/Branch 2/Office Users       2001:DB8:A:21::/56
      Enterprise A/Branch 2/R&D Users          2001:DB8:A:22::/56
      Enterprise A/Branch 2/IT Users           2001:DB8:A:23::/56
      Enterprise A/Branch 2/VIP Users          2001:DB8:A:2D::/56
      Enterprise A/Branch 3/Office Users       2001:DB8:A:31::/ 56
      Enterprise A/Branch 3/R&D Users          2001:DB8:A:32::/56
      Enterprise A/Branch 3/IT Users           2001:DB8:A:33::/56
      Enterprise A/Branch 3/VIP Users          2001:DB8:A:3D::/56

   The application groups provided by the cloud can be designed as
   follows:

                                                  Application Group
      Enterprise A/Office Audio Applications          101001001
      Enterprise A/Office Video Applications          101001002
      Enterprise A/Office Data Applications           101001003
      Enterprise A/R&D Audio Applications             101002001
      Enterprise A/R&D Video Applications             101002002
      Enterprise A/R&D Data Applications              101002003
      Enterprise A/IT Audio Applications              101003001
      Enterprise A/IT Video Applications              101003002
      Enterprise A/IT Data Applications               101003003

   In the address design, the IPv6 address blocks allocated to the
   applications of Enterprise A in the cloud is
   2001:DB8:A1::/48A1::A:/16.  The port number can be used to identify
   different applications.

                                                     IPv6 Address        Port Number
     Enterprise A/Office Audio Applications      2001:DB8:A1:A1::/64     1718, 1719
     Enterprise A/Office Video Applications      2001:DB8:A1:A1::/64     5060, 5061
     Enterprise A/Office Data Applications       2001:DB8:A1:A1::/64       21, 80
     Enterprise A/R&D Audio Applications         2001:DB8:A1:A2::/64     1718, 1719
     Enterprise A/R&D Video Applications         2001:DB8:A1:A2::/64     5060, 5061
     Enterprise A/R&D Data Applications          2001:DB8:A1:A2::/64       21, 80
     Enterprise A/IT Audio Applications          2001:DB8:A1:A3::/64     1718, 1719
     Enterprise A/IT Video Applications          2001:DB8:A1:A3::/64     5060, 5061
     Enterprise A/IT Data Applications           2001:DB8:A1:A3::/64       21, 80





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6.3.  Derive the User Group and User Group at APN Edge

   The cloud leased line service adopts the SRv6-based L3VPN to traverse
   the network.  The following policy can be applied at the APN edges of
   the City A1:

      Match:
        VPN1
        Source Address 2001:DB8:A:11::/56
      Action
        Set user-group 001001001

      Match:
        VPN1
        destination Address 2001:DB8:A1:A1::/64
        destination port 1718,1719
      Action
        Set app-group 101001001


6.4.  Access Right Check at the edge of the backbone network

   The following check can be applied at the edge of the IP backbone
   network:

   Match:
     user-group 001001001
     app-group  101002001, 101002002, 101002003, 101003001, 101003002, 101003003
   Action
     Deny

   Match:
     user-group 001001001
     app-group  101001001, 101001002, 101001003
   Action
     Permit

   The policy means that the office users of the branch 1 can only
   access the office applications.

   If the address allocation is changed.  For example, one office user
   of the branch1’s IPv6 address is changed to 2001:DB8:A:15::/56
   because of the mobile office.

   We only need to add the following policy at the APN edge:






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      Match:
        VPN1
        Source Address 2001:DB8:A:15::/56
      Action
        Set user-group 001001001

   The policy in the backbone network which is based on the user group
   and the application group is not necessary to change.

6.5.  SLA Guarantee in the backbone network

   Due to management reasons, the network information in the
   intermediate domain cannot be advertised to other domains, so the
   ingress node cannot set up an appropriate TE path, the intermediate
   domain is treated as a black box and no fine grain traffic steering
   can be performed.

   In this case, we consider fine grain traffic steering in Domain 2 on
   top of the SRv6-based Cloud Leased Line Service for the purpose of
   SLA Guarantee.

6.5.1.  Network Measurement

   In order to guarantee SLA for the VIP users, the following network
   measurement policy can be applied in the backbone network:

      Match:
        User-group 001001004 application group 101001002
        User-group 001002004 application group 101002002
        User-group 001003004 application group 101003002
      Action
        Apply IOAM

   The policy is to apply the IOAM as the network measurement for the
   VIP users of the branches to access the video applications.  From the
   above illustration, there is the following observation:

   When there is no APN deployed, at CR2, the 5 tuples of the original
   packets will need to be resolved since they have been encapsulated,
   and then IOAM can be triggered based on the 5 tuples.  This
   resolution process is costly and consumes a lot of hardware
   resources.  If Domain 3 needs to trigger IOAM, the same resolution
   process will have to be done at CR4.








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   When there is APN deployed, at CR1, the APN attribute is tagged.
   When these packets arrive at CR2, only the APN attribute in the outer
   header will be read out, based on which the IOAM can be triggered in
   Domain 2.  That is, no 5-tuple resolution process is needed at CR2
   but only checking the APN attribute in the outer header.

6.5.2.  Traffic Steering

   If the SLA guarantee of the VIP users accessing the video
   applications does not satisfy the requirements through the network
   measurement based on the IOAM, the SRv6 policy can be setup.  For
   example, the SRv6 policy 1 which can satisfy the SLA requirement is
   set up.  Then the following policy can be downloaded to the edge:

      Match:
        User-group 001001004 application group 101001002
        User-group 001002004 application group 101002002
        User-group 001003004 application group 101003002
      Action
        Redirect SRv6 Policy 1

   The policy is to steer the traffic of the VIP users to the SRv6
   policy in the backbone to satisfy the requirement .

   From the above illustration, there is the similar observation as the
   network measurement:

   When there is no APN deployed, at CR2, the 5 tuples of the original
   packets will need to be resolved since they have been encapsulated,
   and then the traffic can be steered into SRv6 policy 2 based on the 5
   tuples.  This resolution process is costly and consumes a lot of
   hardware resources.

   When there is APN deployed, at CR1, the APN attribute is tagged When
   these packets arrive at CR2, only the APN attribute in the outer
   header will be read out, based on which the traffic can be steered
   into SRv6 policy 2 in Domain 2.

7.  Benefits

   The APN attribute allows the network devices to only look at one
   easily-accessible field in the outer header, without having to
   resolve the 5 tuples of the original packets that are deeply
   encapsulated in the tunnel encapsulation.

   The APN attribute allows to simplify the policy control at every
   policy enforcement point within the network.  The APN attribute
   allows to reducing each matching entry of policy filter since it is



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   only one field and hardware resources are saved.  Since APN attribute
   is relatively stable, it introduces the possibilities of eliminating
   the "stale" policy filter entries.  In most cases, the APN attribute
   is centralized configured and distributed to all the policy
   enforcement points, which saves the policy filter configurations per
   node and simplifies the OM.

   The structured APN attribute allows to express fine granular service
   requirements, e.g.  MKT-user-group/app-group, RD-user-group/app-
   group, latency.

   The structured APN attribute allows to match to the evolving fine
   granular differentiated network capabilities, e.g.  SR policy with
   low latency and high reliability guaranteed.

   In a tunnel across multiple domains of the same operator using the
   APN attribute in the outer header the operator can easily support
   multiple services not just a single one in a particular domain as
   illustrated in the use case illustration section.

   When there is no APN, to achieve the same, now the operator may have
   two options: 1.  Add all the policy identifiers at the tunnel headend
   with various further encapsulations and enforce the policies based on
   them at the intermediate policy enforcement nodes along the tunnel,
   2.  Resolve the original 5 tuples being encapsulated inside the
   tunnel which will be very costly and sometimes impossible.

   Moreover, the policy enforcement table in the intermediate policy
   enforcement nodes is significantly reduced.  Because before operator
   needs to resolve the 5 tuple but now with APN, operator only needs to
   read the APN attribute in one field of the outer header.

   Since the 5 tuples of the traffic are changing frequently due to
   service deployment or management issues the policy enforcement table
   in the policy enforcement nodes is not stable and there is always a
   lot of stale entries in the table.  But now since the APN attribute
   is a mapping of the 5 tuples operator will have a relatively stable
   policy enforcement table on their nodes.

8.  IANA Considerations

   This document does not include an IANA request.

9.  Security Considerations

   In the APN work, in order to reduce the privacy and security issues,
   the following specifications are defined:




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   [S1].  The APN attribute MUST be conveyed along with the tunnel
   information in the APN domain.  The APN attribute is encapsulated and
   removed at the APN-Edge.

   [S2].  The APN ID (including the Application Group ID and the User
   Group ID) MUST be acquired from the existing available information in
   the packet header without interference into the payload.

   According to the above specifications, the APN attribute is only
   produced and used locally within the APN domain without the
   involvement of the host/application side.

   In order to prevent the malicious attack through the APN attribute,
   the following policies can be configured at the network devices of
   the APN domain:

   [P1].  If the APN attribute is conveyed without the tunnel
   information, the packet MUST be dropped.

   [P2].  If the APN attribute is not known to the APN domain, it should
   trigger the alarm information.  The packet can be forwarded without
   being processed or dropped depending on the local policy.

   [P3].  If the network service requirements exceed the specification
   for the specific Application Group ID and/or User Group ID, it should
   trigger the alarm information.  The packet should be discarded to
   prevent abusing of the resources.

   [P4].  There should be rate-limiting policy at the APN-Edge to
   prevent the traffic belonging to a specific Application Group ID and/
   or User Group ID from exceeding the preset limit.

10.  Acknowledgements

   The authors would like to acknowledge Robert Raszuk (Bloomberg LP),
   Yukito Ueno (NTT Communications Corporation), and Dhruv Dhody for
   their valuable reviews and comments.

11.  Co-authors

   Kentaro Ebisawa
   Toyota Motor Corporation
   Japan

   Email: ebisawa@toyota-tokyo.tech






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   Stefano Previdi
   Huawei Technologies
   Italy

   Email: stefano@previdi.net

   James N Guichard
   Futurewei Technologies Ltd.
   USA

   Email: jguichar@futurewei.com

12.  Contributors

   Daniel Bernier
   Bell Canada

   Email: daniel.bernier@bell.ca

   Chongfeng Xie
   China Telecom

   Email: xiechf@chinatelecom.cn

   Feng Yang
   China Mobile

   Email: yangfeng@chinamobile.com

   Zhuangzhuang Qin
   China Unicom

   Email: qinzhuangzhuang@chinaunicom.cn

   Chang Liu
   China Unicom

   Email: liuc131@chinaunicom.cn

   Gyan Mishra
   Verizon

   Email: hayabusagsm@gmail.com

   Luis M. Contreras
   Telefonica

   Email: contreras.ietf@gmail.com



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   Luc-Fabrice Ndifor Ngwa
   MTN

   Email: Luc-Fabrice.Ndifor@mtn.com

13.  References

13.1.  Normative References

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

   [RFC8174]  Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.

13.2.  Informative References

   [I-D.li-apn-problem-statement-usecases]
              Li, Z., Peng, S., Voyer, D., Xie, C., Liu, P., Qin, Z.,
              and G. S. Mishra, "Problem Statement and Use Cases of
              Application-aware Networking (APN)", Work in Progress,
              Internet-Draft, draft-li-apn-problem-statement-usecases-
              08, 3 April 2023, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/
              draft-li-apn-problem-statement-usecases-08>.

Authors' Addresses

   Zhenbin Li
   Huawei Technologies
   China
   Email: lizhenbin@huawei.com


   Shuping Peng
   Huawei Technologies
   China
   Email: pengshuping@huawei.com


   Daniel Voyer
   Bell Canada
   Canada
   Email: daniel.voyer@bell.ca





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   Cong Li
   China Telecom
   China
   Email: licong@chinatelecom.cn


   Peng Liu
   China Mobile
   China
   Email: liupengyjy@chinamobile.com


   Chang Cao
   China Unicom
   China
   Email: caoc15@chinaunicom.cn


   Gyan Mishra
   Verizon Inc.
   United States of America
   Email: gyan.s.mishra@verizon.com





























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