Internet DRAFT - draft-liu-apn-edge-usecase
draft-liu-apn-edge-usecase
Network Working Group P. Liu
Internet-Draft Z. Du
Intended status: Informational China Mobile
Expires: 16 June 2022 S. Peng
Z. Li
Huawei
13 December 2021
Use cases of Application-aware Networking (APN) in Edge Computing
draft-liu-apn-edge-usecase-04
Abstract
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) aims 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.
Requirements Language
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The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].
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
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This Internet-Draft will expire on 16 June 2022.
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Copyright (c) 2021 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Edge Computing and APN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Usage Scenarios of APN in edge computing . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.1. Augmented Reality (AR) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.1.1. Use Case Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.1.2. Augmented Reality Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.1.3. Augmented Reality with Edge Computing and APN . . . . 5
3.2. Cloud Gaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.2.1. Use Case Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.2.2. Cloud Gaming Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.2.3. Cloud Gaming with Edge Computing and APN . . . . . . 7
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3.3. Remote control of industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.3.1. Use Case Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.3.2. Remote control of industry Today . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.3.3. Remote control of industry with Edge Computing and
APN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
7. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1. Introduction
Edge computing is to deploy service sites near the user side to
provide users with better network and computing services. The
services of edge computing can not only be implemented in the edge
data center, but also be integrated in the network equipment, which
brings the possibility for the convergence of network and computing,
and also puts forward the requirements for the technology combining
of different industries. On the one hand, the demand of different
applications for the network need to be exposed; on the other hand,
the network needs to be aware of computing power and steers the
traffic along the appropriate path towards the suitable sites.
The existing network can only identify the application demands in a
coarse granularity. When the application demand is high causing the
heavy network load, it usually fails to guarantee the latency and
reliability of the applications especially the mission-critical
applications. Application-aware networking (APN) faciliates service
provisioning in a fine granularity, and then either steer the
corresponding traffic onto the appropriate network path (if exist)
that can satisfy these requirements or establish an exclusive network
path which wouldn't be influenced by other applications' traffic
flow.
2. Edge Computing and APN
In a whole edge computing network, there are user terminal, edge
gateway and edge data center. The edge gateway can be the UPF In 5G
network. Edge data center is usually close to users and serves a
limited group of users, the network and computing tasks performed by
edge computing are more specific and customized. Both computing
resources and network resources need to be able to provide fine-
grained service guarantee. The goal of APN is to provide fine-
grained network service, including latency, jitter, reliability and
others, which can be well matched with edge computing.
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Appilication-aware networking includes the app-aware edge (APN-Edge),
app-aware process head-end (APN-Head), app-aware process mid-point
(APN-Midpoint) and app-aware process end-point (APN-Endpoint). A
user's request is sent from the client, and then passes through all
the nodes of the APN network to the server. The function of APN-Edge
can be deployed in the edge gateway, so the request traffic of client
can be distinguished by the edge gateway/APN-Edge and sent to the
edge data center through the APN. In some cases, the reply of the
edge data center will not return to the original client, and may be
sent to another client through the APN. The APN network can use the
exsiting technologies such as deterministic network, network slicing,
SR policy, etc. which could coordinate well with the APN-Edge to
garantee the network service by encapsulating the requirement
information in the packets.
+------+ +----------------+ +-------------+ +---------+
| | | Edge Gateway/ | | APN | | Edge |
|Client|<-->| |<-->| |<-->| Data |
| | | APN-Edge | | Network | | Center |
+------+ +----------------+ +-------------+ +---------+
Figure 1: Edge Computing and APN
3. Usage Scenarios of APN in edge computing
This section presents several typical scenarios which require edge
computing to interconnect and to co-ordinate with APN to meet the
service requirements and ensure user experience.
3.1. Augmented Reality (AR)
3.1.1. Use Case Description
Augmented reality is a relatively new application that promotes the
integration of real world information and virtual world information
content. It includes several technologies, such as track
registration, display, virtual object generation, interaction and
merging.
3.1.2. Augmented Reality Today
AR gives users an immersive experience. It is widely used in the
consumer industry presently, and may also be applied in industrial
fields such as health care and education in the future. The general
process of AR / VR is as follows:
* Image acquisition equipment (such as camera) collects image or
video information and sends it to data center.
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* Data center carries out identification, feature extraction and
template rendering, and sends them to AR terminal.
* The AR terminal plays the synthesized information.
Considering the user experience, AR usually needs a high bandwidth of
100mbps due to multi-channel acquisition of image or video data, and
a low end-to-end latency less than 60ms. With centralized
deployment, the network transmission distance is too long, so the
latency demand can't be met; the large volume of traffic load also
imposes high challenge on the network bandwidth.
3.1.3. Augmented Reality with Edge Computing and APN
If the deployment mode of edge computing is adopted, the following
functions can be realized:
* The collected image or video information can be encoded/decode and
compressed by the edge equipment to reduce the bandwidth requirements
of data transmission.
* The edge data center can process the collected image or video data
nearby and send it to the AR terminal equipment, which reduces the
distance of network transmission and greatly reduces the latency.
Although edge computing can reduce the overall latency of services
and reduce the demand for network bandwidth, it still needs
differentiated network services to provide the ultimate guarantee for
application with high SLA requirements. APN can achieve:
* Edge device obtains and encapsulates AR application feature
information and sends it to the headend node.
* Headend node in the APN identifies the AR data flow and steers it
into a specific transmission path according to the demanded
bandwidth, latency and reliability.
* Mid point in the APN forwards the data stream along the specific
path.
* End point in the APN receives AR data stream and forwards it either
to Data Centre for processing or to the AR player for playing.
In the whole process, because APN identifies the traffic of AR
application, it can provide corresponding network services to provide
customized high reliability, low latency and other SLA guarantee.
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+------+ Camera +------+
|Source| ->| AR |
|data |-\ / |Player|
+------+| +-----+ +-------+ +---------+ +-------+ / +------+
\->|APN | | APN | | Edge | | APN |-/
|- |-->| |-->| Data |-->| |
/->|Edge | |Network| | Center | |Network|-\
+------+ | +-----+ +-------+ +---------+ +-------+ \ +------+
|Source|-/ \ | AR |
|data | ->|Player|
+------+ Camera +------+
Figure 2: Augmented Reality with Edge Computing and APN
3.2. Cloud Gaming
3.2.1. Use Case Description
Cloud gaming is to deploy the game application in the data center,
and realize the functions includes the logical process of game
command control, as well as the tasks of game acceleration, video
rendering and other tasks with high requirements for chips. In this
way, the terminal is a video player. Users can get a good game
experience without the support of high-end system and chips.
Compared with the traditional game mode, there are several advantages
of cloud game, such as no installation, no upgrade, no repair, quick
to play and reduce the terminal cost, so it will have stronger
promotion.
3.2.2. Cloud Gaming Today
The biggest feature of cloud games is that users interact with each
other through the network. The general process is as follows:
* The data center sends game video streaming information to the
terminal, including game background picture, characters, etc.
* The user makes corresponding operation instructions according to
the received game video stream information and sends them to the data
center.
* The data center constantly updates the video stream and other data
of the game according to the user's operation instructions.
Game users usually pursue consumption experience. Currently, most
users are willing to spend extra money in order to obtain better user
experience. Generally speaking, the network latency of game is
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required to be less than 30ms. For competitive game, the latency
will be required to be less than 10ms, because professional players
usually can feel the millisecond level latency difference. With
centralized deployment, the network transmission distance is too
long, which is a huge challenge to the network load, so the latency
demand can't be met; the large volume of traffic load also imposes
high challenge on the network bandwidth.
3.2.3. Cloud Gaming with Edge Computing and APN
If the deployment of edge computing is adopted, the following
functions can be realized with the deployment of edge data center:
* The edge data center sends the game video stream information to the
terminal, and receives the user's control instruction information for
processing.
* users can make corresponding operation instructions according to
the received video stream information, and get quick response.
Edge computing can reduce the latency of game data transmission as a
whole, but it should be noted that cloud games usually have multiple
players playing a game together, which requires the deterministic
latency of multi-party network path, which needs to be realized with
APN:
* Multiple edge devices obtain and encapsulate cloud game application
feature information and send it to the head end node.
* Headend node in the APN identifies the data flow of cloud games
(maybe the same game), and steers it into a specific transmission
path according to its requirements for bandwidth, delay, reliability,
etc., which needs to ensure that the latency of multi-user control
instructions arriving at the edge data center is consistent.
* Midpoint in the APN forwards game data stream according to the
predetermined path.
* The endpoint in the APN receives the cloud game data stream and
steers it either to the data center for processing the users' control
instruction or to the user for playing.
The whole process requires APN not only to identify the cloud game
traffic and provide customized network forwarding services for it,
but also to ensure the deterministic latency of multi-user in the
same game and provide better game experience.
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Client A
+---------+
|Game data|
+---------+-\ +----------+ +-----------+ +-----------+
|<->| APN- |-A-| APN |-A-| |
| Edge A | | Network A | | |
+----------+ +-----------+ | Edge Data |
+----------+ +-----------+ | Center |
| APN- | | APN | | |
|<->| Edge B |-B-| Network B |-B-| |
+---------+-/ +----------+ +-----------+ +-----------+
|Game data|
+---------+
Client B
Figure 3: Cloud Gaming with Edge Computing and APN
3.3. Remote control of industry
3.3.1. Use Case Description
Industrial remote control refers to the remote control of field
equipment in areas that are not convenient for manual field control,
such as high-temperature and high-risk areas. In the past, signaling
was usually transmitted through industrial private networks and
protocols. With the development of industrial Internet, the industry
also gradually has the demand of network interconnection. Its
network tends to adopt L3 protocol and flat architecture, which makes
it possible for cross distance remote control service.
3.3.2. Remote control of industry Today
In the process of remote control, workers constantly make control
instructions according to the received image or video information of
field equipment, which requires interaction between personnel and
equipment through the network. Because the field environment that
needs remote control is generally poor, it is also a challenge for
the security of the operation equipment. If the latency is too large
or the reliability is not enough, it may cause the operation failure,
equipment damage and other serious consequences. Therefore, the
remote control service requires low latency and high reliability.
The general process of remote control is as follows:
* Field equipment (such as camera) collects image or video
information and sends it to data center.
* The data center receives the field information of the equipment and
sends it to the workers in the office.
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* Workers send control instructions and control equipment according
to the received field information.
Many industrial enterprises rent public cloud resources to construct
their own data center, but the long distance of network transmission
is not conducive to the timely transmission of image / video data
stream, which will cause large latency and packet loss.
3.3.3. Remote control of industry with Edge Computing and APN
If the deployment mode of edge computing is adopted, and the data
center and edge computing access equipment (such as gateway) are
deployed in a location or enterprise park close to the business site,
the following functions can be realized:
* The collected image or video information can be encoded/ decoded
and compressed by edge access equipment to reduce the bandwidth
requirements.
* The control instruction information can be identified by the edge
equipment, so as to provide exclusive network transmission service.
* The forwarding path of image / video and control information is
shortened, which can greatly reduce the latency.
Although edge computing can reduce the overall delay of services and
reduce the demand of network bandwidth, it still needs to achieve
differentiated network services through APN to provide the ultimate
network guarantee for the services with the highest network
requirements.
For users, APN can realize those functions.
* Edge device obtains and encapsulates the image or video information
of the remote field device, then sends it to the headend node.
* Headend in the APN identifies the information and steers the flow
into a specific transmission path according to its requirements for
bandwidth, delay, reliability, etc..
* Midpoint in the APN forwards along the specific path.
* Endpoint receives image or video data stream of field equipment and
forwards it to users.
For field equipment, APN can realize those functions.
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* Edge device obtains and encapsulates the control instruction
information and sends it to the head end node.
* Headend in the APN identifies the control data flow and steers into
a specific transmission path according to the demand for bandwidth,
latency and reliability.
* Midpoint in the APN forwards along the specific path.
* Endpoint receives control information and forwards to the field
equipment.
In the whole process, APN identifies the traffic of remote control
service, which can provide customized high reliability, low latency
and other network guarantee.
Worker
+------------+
|Control data|
+------------+-\ +----------+ +-----------+ +-----------+
|<->| APN- |-W->| APN |-W->| |
| Edge A |<-C-| Network A |<-C-| |
+----------+ +-----------+ | Edge Data |
+----------+ +-----------+ | Center |
| APN- |-C->| APN |-C->| |
Camera |<->| Edge B |<-W-| Network B |<-W-| |
+------------+-/ +----------+ +-----------+ +-----------+
| Video data |
+------------+
On-site Device
Figure 4: Remote control of industry with Edge Computing and APN
4. Conclusion
APN enables low latency and high reliability network services in
various edge computing scenarios such as AR, cloud gaming, remote
industrial control, etc.
5. Security Considerations
TBD.
6. IANA Considerations
TBD.
7. Normative References
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[I-D.li-apn-framework]
Li, Z., Peng, S., Voyer, D., Li, C., Liu, P., Cao, C.,
Mishra, G., Ebisawa, K., Previdi, S., and J. N. Guichard,
"Application-aware Networking (APN) Framework", Work in
Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-li-apn-framework-04, 25
October 2021, <https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-li-
apn-framework-04.txt>.
[I-D.li-apn-problem-statement-usecases]
Li, Z., Peng, S., Voyer, D., Xie, C., Liu, P., Qin, Z.,
Mishra, G., Ebisawa, K., Previdi, S., and J. N. Guichard,
"Problem Statement and Use Cases of Application-aware
Networking (APN)", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft,
draft-li-apn-problem-statement-usecases-04, 16 June 2021,
<https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-li-apn-problem-
statement-usecases-04.txt>.
[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>.
Authors' Addresses
Peng Liu
China Mobile
Beijing
100053
China
Email: liupengyjy@chinamobile.com
Zongpeng Du
China Mobile
Beijing
100053
China
Email: duzongpeng@chinamobile.com
Shuping Peng
Huawei
Beijing
100053
China
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Email: pengshuping@huawei.com
Zhenbin Li
Huawei
Beijing
100053
China
Email: lizhenbin@huawei.com
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