Internet DRAFT - draft-yang-alto-transport-analysis
draft-yang-alto-transport-analysis
ALTO Working Group Y. Yang
Internet-Draft Yale University
Intended status: Standards Track 24 October 2021
Expires: 27 April 2022
ALTO Transport Analysis
draft-yang-alto-transport-analysis-00
Abstract
Exposing network information to applications can be a basic function
of computer networking. Such network information can be exposed to
applications through either the data path or the control path. This
informational document conducts a survey and analysis of existing
capabilities and performance of protocols transporting network
information to applications.
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 [RFC2119][RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
capitals, as shown here.
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 27 April 2022.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2021 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
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Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/
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Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Transport Designs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1. Data Path Transport: TCP Options . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2. Control Path Transport: ALTO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.3. Control Path Transport: 3GPP NEF . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.1. Information Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.2. Latency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.3. Encoding Efficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
6. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
7. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
7.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
7.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1. Introduction
Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) provides a means for
network applications to obtain network status information so that the
applications can identify efficient application-layer traffic
patterns using the networks. Recently, multiple extensions are
proposed to the ALTO base protocol [RFC7285] to extend the ability of
ALTO to transport network information to applications. The objective
of this document is to put ALTO transport in the general context of
transporting network information to applications, and evaluate ALTO
and related protocols in their transport capabilities and
efficiencies.
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2. Transport Designs
There can be a large design space to transport network information to
applications. Broadly, the designs can be classified into two types:
data path transport and control path transport. An example of data
path transport is TCP ECN options, which allows networks to convey
network information to applications (i.e., endhosts). In a general
data path design, as data packets traverse a network, the network
elements update the field(s) of the data packets to provide network
information. The recent development of in-network telemetry (INT)
focuses on data path transport. This document focuses on TCP options
based data path transport.
ALTO base protocol, on the other hand, is a control path design. In
a general control path design, the network information is collected
by a service and exposed to applications. This document focuses on
ALTO transport and 3GPP NEF.
2.1. Data Path Transport: TCP Options
2.2. Control Path Transport: ALTO
2.3. Control Path Transport: 3GPP NEF
3. Capabilities
3.1. Information Model
The information model includes the following abilities: information
availability, information selection, update control, etc.
3.2. Latency
3.3. Encoding Efficiency
4. Security Considerations
There can be substantial security issues when transporting network
information to applications.
5. IANA Considerations
This informational document does not have IANA consideration.
6. Acknowledgments
The author thanks many reviewers for their comments.
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7. References
7.1. 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>.
[RFC2818] Rescorla, E., "HTTP Over TLS", RFC 2818,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2818, May 2000,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2818>.
[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>.
7.2. Informative References
[Prometheus]
Volz, J. and B. Rabenstein, "Prometheus: A Next-Generation
Monitoring System", 2015.
[Prophet] Gao, K., Zhang, J., and YR. Yang, "Prophet: Fast, Accurate
Throughput Prediction with Reactive Flows", ACM/IEEE
Transactions on Networking July, 2020.
[RFC7285] Alimi, R., Ed., Penno, R., Ed., Yang, Y., Ed., Kiesel, S.,
Previdi, S., Roome, W., Shalunov, S., and R. Woundy,
"Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) Protocol",
RFC 7285, DOI 10.17487/RFC7285, September 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7285>.
[RFC8446] Rescorla, E., "The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol
Version 1.3", RFC 8446, DOI 10.17487/RFC8446, August 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8446>.
Author's Address
Y. Richard Yang
Yale University
51 Prospect St
New Haven, CT 06520
United States of America
Email: yry@cs.yale.edu
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