Internet DRAFT - draft-geng-coms-architecture

draft-geng-coms-architecture







none                                                             L. Geng
Internet-Draft                                              China Mobile
Intended status: Informational                                  L. Qiang
Expires: September 6, 2018                                        Huawei
                                                              J. Ordonez
                                                      O. Adamuz-Hinojosa
                                                           P. Ameigeiras
                                                   University of Granada
                                                                D. Lopez
                                                          Telefonica I+D
                                                            L. Contreras
                                                              Telefonica
                                                           March 5, 2018


                           COMS Architecture
                    draft-geng-coms-architecture-02

Abstract

   This document defines the overall architecture of a COMS based
   network slicing system.  COMS works on the top level network slice
   orchestrator which directly communicates with the network slice
   provider and enables the technology-independent network slice
   management.

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 September 6, 2018.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2018 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.




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   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
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   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Overall Architecture  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  Advanced Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   5.  Integration with NFV  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   6.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   7.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   8.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   9.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11

1.  Introduction

   Network slicing itself is a new concept triggered by vertical
   industry, but that doesn't mean new forwarding technology is needed.
   As an example given by [draft-arkko-arch-virtualization] shows, there
   are multiple existing technologies could be used for network slicing
   - VLAN tags are used in an ethernet segment, MPLS or VPNs across the
   domain.  If the storage and computing resources are considered, there
   will be more available technologies (e.g., SFC).

   Let's follow IETF's routine and image what will happen from the
   bottom-up view.  At first, existing technologies evolve toward
   network slicing at forwarding plane in their own scopes.  Then slice
   management related functions will be patched at management/control
   planes.  When a network slice is going to be deployed inside a
   domain, one of implementation technology will be selected, and the NS
   provider directly operates on the management plane of this selected
   technology.  For example, If VPN is selected as the implementation
   technology, then a network slice is a VPN for the NS provider in this
   domain.  While if SFC is selected in other domain, then a network
   slice is a SFC for NS provider.  What will happen if a network slice
   across both VPN and SFC domains?  There is no uniform management
   manner in this case.





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   Then try to consider from the top-down view.  There is no doubt that
   slicing requirement is generated from NS tenant.  When a NS tenant
   request for NS service, normally he will not specify which
   implementation technology should be used.  Similarly, when the tenant
   operates/manages his purchased slice, he doesn't want to care about
   the technical details.

   We can easily observe that bottom-up and top-down approaches will
   eventually converge on a technology-independent common management
   plane, that is exactly what COMS (Common Operation and Management on
   network Slices) doing.

   This document will explain how COMS works, and define the
   architecture of COMS.  Architecture discussed in this document is
   assumed to be used only inside Transport Network region, and the end-
   to-end network slice/slicing also just refers to the slice/slicing
   across multiple TN domains in this document.

2.  Terminology

   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 [RFC2119].

   Other network slicing related words used in this document are
   interpreted as description in [COMS-PS].

   Notations used in this document are interpreted as follows:

   T(x->y): end-to-end delay from x to y;

   B(x->y): bandwidth from x to y;

   S(x): storage space of x.

3.  Overall Architecture

   This section provides the overall architecture for a COMS based
   network slicing system as shown in Figure 1.  If multiple such kind
   of systems deployed in different domains, these systems may stitches
   together through the method discussed in [Stitching-Management] and
   [Stitching-Data].  COMS works on the top network orchestrator inside
   Transport Network region, which directly receives the network slice
   service profile, operation and management requests for network
   slices.  Based on received information, the network orchestrator will
   select the most appropriate implementation technologies, and map the
   technology independent requests into the technology specific




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   configuration information that will be sent to the corresponding
   network slice controller/orchestrator downwards.

                                      | Network Slice
                                      | Service Profile
                                      |
           +--------------------------v----------------------------+
           |                                                       |
           |     Top Level Network Orchestrator based on COMS      |
           |                                                       |
           +--------------------------+----------------------------+
                                      |
  +--------+------------------+-------+-----------+----------------+
  |        |                  |                   |                |
  | +------v--------+  +------v--------+  +-------v-------+   +----v----+
  | |               |  |               |  |               |   |         |
  | | NS Ctrlr/Orch |  | NS Ctrlr/Orch |  | NS Ctrlr/Orch |   |   ...   |
  | |               |  |               |  |               |   |         |
  | +-------+-------+  +-------+-------+  +-------+-------+   +----+----+
  |         |                  |                  |                |
  |         |                  |                  |                |
==v=========v==================v==================v================v=====
=                                                                       =
= +------------+ +------------+ +------------+ +------------+ +-------+ =
= |Connectivity| | Computing  | |  Storage   | |Generalized | |  ...  | =
= |            | |            | |            | |Functions   | |       | =
= +------------+ +------------+ +------------+ +------------+ +-------+ =
=                                                                       =
=========================================================================


                  Figure 1: Overall Architecture of COMS

4.  Advanced Architecture

   This section discusses the detailed architecture of a COMS based
   network slicing system through an example shown in Figure 2.  We do
   not intend to design the inner framework of the top level network
   slicing orchestrator but to explain how COMS works.  Four components
   insides the top level network orchestrator are logical components
   that could be converged sometimes.

   o  Common Information Model: can be understood as the template,
      according to which the received network slice service profile is
      translated.

   o  Split Service Profile into Domains: the end-to-end service profile
      is split into the service profiles inside different domains.



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   o  Select Specific Implementation Technologies: there may be multiple
      available implementation technologies inside a domain, select the
      most appropriate one according to the service profile.  As
      Figure 2's example shows, since the end-to-end delay in Domain 1
      is very small, the Flex-E will be selected.  While in Domain 2 two
      storage units are required, the NFV technology will be selected.

   o  Map to Selected Technologies: necessary mapping to the controller/
      orchestrator of selected technologies.

                                   |Network Slice Service Profile
                                   |
**************************************************************************
*Top Level Network Orchestrator based on COMS                            *
*                                  |                                     *
*  +-------------------------------v ---------------------------------+  *
*  |Common Information Model                                          |  *
*  | ................................................................ |  *
*  | . ~~~~~~~   T(A->B)<=10ms; B(A->B)>=10M         ~~~~~~~        . |  *
*  | . ~  A  ~---------------------------------------~  B  ~ S(B)=1G. |  *
*  | . ~~~~~~~                                       ~~~~~~~        . |  *
*  | .     |     T(A->C)<=20ms; B(A->C)>=10M         ~~~~~~~        . |  *
*  | .     +-----------------------------------------~  C  ~ S(C)=2G. |  *
*  | .                                               ~~~~~~~        . |  *
*  | ................................................................ |  *
*  +--------------------------------+---------------------------------+  *
*                                   |                                    *
*  +--------------------------------v---------------------------------+  *
*  |Split Service Profile into Domains                                |  *
*  |................................. ................................|  *
*  |.    Domain 1                   . .Domain 2                      .|  *
*  |.                T(A->D)<=2ms   . .    T(D->B)<=8ms   S(B)=1G    .|  *
*  |.       ~~~~~~~  B(A->D)>=10M ~~~~~~~  B(D->B)>=10M   ~~~~~~~    .|  *
*  |.       ~  A  ~ --------------~  D  ~-----------------~  B  ~    .|  *
*  |.       ~~~~~~~               ~~~~~~~                 ~~~~~~~    .|  *
*  |.           |    T(A->E)<=2ms   . .    T(E->C)<=18ms  S(C)=2G    .|  *
*  |.           |    B(A->E)>=10M ~~~~~~~  B(E->C)>=10M   ~~~~~~~    .|  *
*  |.           +-----------------~  E  ~-----------------~  C  ~    .|  *
*  |.                             ~~~~~~~                 ~~~~~~~    .|  *
*  |..................................................................|  *
*  +---------------------------------+--------------------------------+  *
*                                    |                                   *
*  +---------------------------------v---------------------------------+ *
*  |Select Specific Implementation Technologies                        | *
*  |    .............................   ............................   | *
*  |    .Domain 1                   .   .Domain 2                  .   | *
*  |    .        Flex-E             .   .         VPN+NFV          .   | *
*  |    .............................   ............................   | *



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*  +---------------+----------------------------------+----------------+ *
*                  |                                  |                  *
*  +---------------v----------------------------------v----------------+ *
*  |Map to Selected Technologies                                       | *
*  +---------+------------------------+--------------------+-----------+ *
**************************************************************************
             |                        |                    |
    *********v***********    *********v********  **********v*********
    * Flex-E Controller *    * VPN Controller *  * NFV Orchestrator *
    *********+***********    *********+********  **********+*********
             |                        |                    |
    *********v***********    *********v********************v*********
    *  Physical/Logical *    *            Physical/Logical          *
    *  Resources inside *    *            Resources inside          *
    *  Domain 1         *    *            Domain 2                  *
    *********************    ****************************************

                  Figure 2: Advanced Architecture of COMS

5.  Integration with NFV

   This section details the integration of the NFV framework [NFV-MANO]
   in the COMS architecture.

   Network slice providers aim to accommodate a myriad of use cases and
   application scenarios from multiple tenants over a common network
   infrastructure.  To that end, network slice providers build up
   multiple network slice instances (NSIs), each customized to serve the
   specific service demands of a particular tenant.  An NSI is a logical
   self-contained network instance that network slice providers offer to
   a tenant, and that a tenant can consume.  Although NSIs may span
   across multiple network segments (e.g., RAN, transport, and core
   network), this document only considers the transport network domain.

   NFV may play a key role in network slicing, enabling its realization
   in a cost-efficient manner.  Using the flexibility and virtualization
   capabilities that the NFV framework brings, a network slice provider
   can create and operate multiple NSIs over a common shared network
   infrastructure with isolation guarantees in terms of performance,
   management, security, and privacy [Ordonez-Network-Slicing].  To
   provide the tenant with the required performance and functionality,
   an NSI includes one or more network services, each consisting of a
   chained set of compassable atomic units called virtualized network
   functions (VNFs).  These VNFs are software-based implementations of
   network functions that rely on computing, storage, and connectivity
   resources for their execution and communication.  To simultaneously
   serve the requirements of multiple NSIs, the network slice provider
   makes use of the resources that are at its disposal, and efficiently



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   orchestrate them across NSIs.  Although the network slice provider
   can own these resources, we consider it rents them from one or more
   infrastructure owners following the Infrastructure-as-a-Service
   (IaaS) paradigm.  In this case, the network slice provider takes the
   role of a network infrastructure tenant.  Note that each of the three
   actors presented here (network infrastructure owner, network slice
   provider, and network slice tenant) defines a different
   administrative domain.

   The NSIs shown in Figure 3 run parallel on a common shared transport
   network infrastructure.  The transport network infrastructure
   consists of connectivity resources that may span across multiple
   administrative domains (i.e., different network infrastructure
   owners).  These resources include WAN nodes and links providing
   reachability across geographically remote data centers, where the
   VNFs from different NSIs run.  In particular, they connect together
   the network connectivity endpoints (e.g., gateways) of those data
   centers.

   To simultaneously serve the connectivity needs of the NSIs using
   resources within its administrative domain, each network
   infrastructure owner has a WAN Infrastructure Manager (WIM).  The WIM
   is a NFV functional block that performs control-management actions
   over the underlying connectivity resources to deploy and operate a
   number of L2/L3 virtual topologies with different levels of
   abstractions.  To enforces the connectivity required by an NSI, the
   WIM abstracts the resources under its management, and creates a
   customized virtual topology that logically connects the data centers
   hosting the NSI's VNFs.  The resources of each data center are
   managed with a Virtual Infrastructure Manager (VIM).  This NFV
   functional block play a similar role to the WIM, but extending their
   management domain to computing and storage resources.

   The transport network resources, managed by the underlying network
   infrastructure owners using their WIMs/VIMs are delivered to the
   network slice provider logically placed on top of them.  The network
   slice provider makes use of these resources to deploy and operate the
   NSIs that are under its management.  For this end, it may rely on the
   NFV Orchestrator (NFVO) functionality.  According to the NFV
   framework, NFVO is a functional block with two well-defined
   functionalities: resource orchestration and network service
   orchestration.  The former focuses on orchestrating network
   infrastructure resources across multiple VIMs/WIMs, while the latter
   performs lifecycle management operations (e.g., instantiation,
   scaling, updating, termination, etc.) over the network service(s)
   built using those resources.  Due to the different scope of these two
   set of functions, the NFVO may be logically split into two functional
   blocks: Resource Orchestrator and Network Service Orchestrator.



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       ^        +---------------------------------------------------------+
       |        |             Cross-Segment Slice Manager                 |
       |        +-------------------------^-------------------------------+
       |                                  |
       |              +-------------------v------------------------+
       |              |    Transport Network Slice Orchestrator    <------+
       |              +----------------------------------^-----^---+      |
       |                                                 |     |          |
       |           +------------------------------------ | ----+------+   |
       |           |                 NSI M               |            |   |
       |        +--------------------------------------- | --------+  |   |
       |        |                 NSI 1                  |         |  |   |
                | +---------------------------+      +---v---+     |  |   |
    Network     | |   Tenant SDN Controller   <------>  OSS  |     |  |   |
    Slice       | +--^-------^--------^----+--+      +---^---+     |  |   |
    Provider    |    |       |        |    |             |         |  |   |
    Domain      | +--v--+ +--v--+     | +--v--+   +------v-------+ |  |   |
                | | VNF | | VNF |  .. | | VNF |   |   Network    | |  |   |
       |        | +--^--+ +--^--+     | +--^--+   |   Service    | |  |   |
       |        |    |       |        |    |      | Orchestrator | |  |   |
       |        |    | +-----+--------v--+ |      +------^-------+ |  |   |
       |        |    +-> vSwitch/vRouter <-+             |         |-++   |
       |        |      +-----------------+               |         | |    |
       |        +--------------------------------------- | --------+ |    |
       |                                                 |           |    |
       |      +------------------------------------------v-----------v--+ |
       +      |                    Resource Orchestrator                <-+
              +--------^-------------------^-------------------^--------+
   +-------+           |                   |                   |
                 +-----v-----+       +-----v-----+       +-----v-----+
       +         |    WIM    |  ...  |    VIM    |  ...  |    WIM    |
       |         +-----+-----+       +-----+-----+       +-----+-----+
                       |                   |                   |
   Network     +-------+------+   +-----------------+   +------+-------+
Infrastructure | Connectivity |   | +-------------+ |   | Connectivity |
    Owner      |   Resources  |   | |  Computing/ | |   |   Resources  |
    Domain     +--------------+   | |   Storage/  | |   +--------------+
                                  | |Connectivity | |
       |                          | |  Resources  | |
       |                          | +-------------+ |
       |                          |   Data Center   |
       v                          +-----------------+

        Figure 3: Integration of NFV framework in COMS architecture

   To orchestrate the resources that are at its disposal (those provided
   by the underlying network infrastructure owners), the network slice
   provider has a single Resource Orchestrator.  The main role of the



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   Resource Orchestrator is to dispatch this finite set of resources
   across the operative NSIs in an optimal way, with the aim of
   simultaneously satisfying their (potentially diverging) performance
   requirements.  To bring multiplexing gains and cost savings in this
   task, the Resource Orchestrator may take advantage of resource
   sharing.  Resource sharing introduces flexibility and efficiency in
   slice provisioning, as network slice provider's resources can be
   dynamically allocated and released across NSIs according to the time-
   varying resource requirements that their tenants impose.  This
   approach requires an adequate resource management framework for the
   Resource Orchestrator that carefully finds an optimal solution,
   enabling resource sharing among NSIs when necessary, while preserving
   their performance isolation.

   As shown in Figure 3, each of the operative NSIs serving a network
   slice tenant comprises a tenant SDN controller, a Network Service
   Orchestrator, and an Operation Support System (OSS).  On the one
   hand, the tenant SDN controller configures the VNFs at application
   level, and chains them to dynamically build up the network service(s)
   that are required in the NSI.  For VNF configuration management, the
   tenant SDN controller uses southbound configuration protocols such as
   NETCONF.  For VNF chaining management, it leverages the networking
   capabilities provided by virtual switches/routers, sending them
   appropriate forwarding instructions using southbound control
   protocols such as OpenFlow.  On the other hand, the Network Service
   Orchestrator manages the lifecycle of the network service(s).
   Finally, the OSS performs the intra-NSI management, bridging the gap
   between the Network Service Orchestrator and the tenant SDN
   controller, and coordinating their operations and management data.
   The OSS is also the entry point of the NSI, providing management
   capability exposure to external blocks.  By way of example, the
   network slice tenant can use the OSS to gain access to the NSI and
   operate it at its convenience.

   The description given above focuses on run-time phase, assuming the
   NSIs are operative, and omitting the deployment steps referred in
   Section 1.  To trigger the deployment of a network slice, the network
   slice provider needs other functional blocks.  These functional
   blocks include a Cross-Segment Slice Manager, and one or more Network
   Slice Domain Orchestrators.  The Cross-Segment Slice Manager receives
   a network slice service profile from the tenant.  This profile
   contains the (end-to-end) slice requirements.  The Cross-Segment
   Slice Manager decompose these requirements into one or more network
   slice domain slice requirements, and send them to the respective
   Network Slice Domain Orchestrators (e.g., RAN Slice Orchestrator,
   Transport Network Slice Orchestrator, Core Network Slice
   Orchestrator).  Since the architecture discussed in this document is
   assumed to be inside the transport network domain, we only consider



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   the Network Slice Transport Orchestrator.  The Network Slice
   Transport Orchestrator uses the network slice transport requirements
   to determine which VNFs and network service(s) are required, and what
   are their resource requirements.  Once checked the Resource
   Orchestrator can provision them, the steps for deploying the slice
   begin.  First, the Resource Orchestrator creates the resource slice.
   Then, the OSS takes over the resource slice and configures it,
   resulting in a networking slice.  Finally, the OSS (assisted by the
   Network Service Orchestrator and the Tenant SDN controller),
   instantiates one or more network services (and their constituent
   VNFs) over this networking slice to realize a service slice, making
   it usable for the network slice tenant.

6.  Security Considerations

   There is no security problems introduced by this document.

7.  IANA Considerations

   There is no IANA action required by this document.

8.  Acknowledgements

   TBD

9.  Informative References

   [COMS-PS]  "Problem Statement of Supervised Heterogeneous Network
              Slicing", <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/
              draft-geng-coms-problem-statement/>.

   [draft-arkko-arch-virtualization]
              "Considerations on Network Virtualization and Slicing",
              <https://tools.ietf.org/html/
              draft-arkko-arch-virtualization-00>.

   [I-D.boucadair-connectivity-provisioning-protocol]
              Boucadair, M., Jacquenet, C., Zhang, D., and P.
              Georgatsos, "Connectivity Provisioning Negotiation
              Protocol (CPNP)", draft-boucadair-connectivity-
              provisioning-protocol-15 (work in progress), December
              2017.

   [NFV-MANO]
              ETSI GS NFV-MAN 001, "Network Functions Virtualisation
              (NFV); Virtual Network Functions Architecture",  V1.1.1,
              December 2014.




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   [Ordonez-Network-Slicing]
              Ordonez-Lucena, J., Ameigeiras, P., Lopez, D., Ramos-
              Munoz, J., Lorca, J., and J. Folgueira, "Network Slicing
              for 5G with SDN/NFV: Concepts, Architectures, and
              Challenges", IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 55, no. 5,
              pp. 80-87, May 2017.

   [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>.

   [RFC5440]  Vasseur, JP., Ed. and JL. Le Roux, Ed., "Path Computation
              Element (PCE) Communication Protocol (PCEP)", RFC 5440,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5440, March 2009,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5440>.

   [Stitching-Data]
              "Gateway Function for Network Slicing",
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/
              draft-homma-coms-slice-gateway/>.

   [Stitching-Management]
              "Interconnecting (or Stitching) Network Slice Subnets",
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/
              draft-defoy-coms-subnet-interconnection/>.

Authors' Addresses

   Liang Geng
   China Mobile

   Email: gengliang@chinamobile.com


   Li Qiang
   Huawei

   Email: qiangli3@huawei.com


   Jose Ordonez Lucena
   University of Granada

   Email: jordonez@ugr.es






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   Oscar Adamuz Hinojosa
   University of Granada

   Email: oadamuz@ugr.es


   Pablo Ameigeiras
   University of Granada

   Email: pameigeiras@ugr.es


   Diego Lopez
   Telefonica I+D

   Email: diego.r.lopez@telefonica.com


   Luis Miguel Contreras Murillo
   Telefonica

   Email: luismiguel.contrerasmurillo@telefonica.com





























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