Network Management (nmrg) Internet Drafts


      
 Network Digital Twin: Concepts and Reference Architecture
 
 draft-irtf-nmrg-network-digital-twin-arch-05.txt
 Date: 04/03/2024
 Authors: Cheng Zhou, Hongwei Yang, Xiaodong Duan, Diego Lopez, Antonio Pastor, Qin WU, Mohamed Boucadair, Christian Jacquenet
 Working Group: Network Management (nmrg)
Digital Twin technology has been seen as a rapid adoption technology in Industry 4.0. The application of Digital Twin technology in the networking field is meant to develop various rich network applications and realize efficient and cost effective data driven network management, and accelerate network innovation. This document presents an overview of the concepts of Digital Twin Network, provides the basic definitions and a reference architecture, lists a set of application scenarios, and discusses the benefits and key challenges of such technology.
 Research Challenges in Coupling Artificial Intelligence and Network Management
 
 draft-irtf-nmrg-ai-challenges-03.txt
 Date: 04/03/2024
 Authors: Jerome Francois, Alexander Clemm, Dimitri Papadimitriou, Stenio Fernandes, Stefan Schneider
 Working Group: Network Management (nmrg)
This document is intended to introduce the challenges to overcome when Network Management (NM) problems may require to couple with Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions. On the one hand, there are many difficult problems in NM that to this date have no good solutions, or where any solutions come with significant limitations and constraints. Artificial Intelligence may help produce novel solutions to those problems. On the other hand, for several reasons (computational costs of AI solutions, privacy of data), distribution of AI tasks became primordial. It is thus also expected that network are operated efficiently to support those tasks. To identify the right set of challenges, the document defines a method based on the evolution and nature of NM problems. This will be done in parallel with advances and the nature of existing solutions in AI in order to highlight where AI and NM have been already coupled together or could benefit from a higher integration. So, the method aims at evaluating the gap between NM problems and AI solutions. Challenges are derived accordingly, assuming solving these challenges will help to reduce the gap between NM and AI.
 Challenges and Opportunities in Management for Green Networking
 
 draft-irtf-nmrg-green-ps-02.txt
 Date: 30/12/2023
 Authors: Alexander Clemm, Cedric Westphal, Jeff Tantsura, Laurent Ciavaglia, Carlos Pignataro, Marie-Paule Odini
 Working Group: Network Management (nmrg)
Reducing humankind's environmental footprint and making technology more sustainable are among the biggest challenges of our age. Networks play an important part in this challenge. On one hand, they enable applications that help to reduce this footprint. On the other hand, they contribute to this footprint themselves in no insignificant way. Methods to make networking technology itself "greener" and to manage and operate networks in ways that reduces their environmental footprint without impacting their utility therefore need to be explored. This document outlines a corresponding set of opportunities, along with associated research challenges, for networking technology in general and management technology in particular to become "greener", i.e., more sustainable, with reduced greenhouse gas emissions and less negative impact on the environment.