Internet DRAFT - draft-dinh-icnrg-sdnnfvicn

draft-dinh-icnrg-sdnnfvicn



<ICN Research Group>                                       Thanh Dinh
Internet Draft                                             Younghan Kim
Intended status: Informational               Soongsil University, Korea
Expires:   December 2018                                   July 2, 2018



			Considerations for Using SDN/NFV in ICN
              draft-dinh-icnrg-sdnnfvicn-00.txt


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Abstract

   This document provides considerations for using Software-Defined 
   Networking (SDN) / Network Function Virtualization (NFV) in Information-Centric 
   Networking (ICN).
   

Table of Contents


   	1. Introduction..................................................4
	2. Conventions used in this document.............................5
	3. NFV benefits for ICN..........................................5
		3.1. Facilitating ICN deployment.............................5
		3.2. Reducing CAPEX..........................................5
		3.3. Facilitating orchestration..............................6
	4. SDN benefits for ICN..........................................6
		4.1. Facilitating configuration..............................6
		4.2. Quick content hierarchy setup...........................6
		4.3. Cache coordination......................................7
	5. NFV design considerations for ICN.............................7
		5.1. IP-based NFVI...........................................7
		5.2. ICN supported NFVI......................................8
		5.3. Orchestration...........................................8
	6. SDN design considerations for ICN.............................9
		6.1. Application implementation for SDN controller...........9
		6.2. Application implementation for ICN switches.............9
		6.3. Name-based packet matching..............................9
		6.4. Cache coordination......................................9
	7. Security Considerations.......................................10
	8. IANA Considerations...........................................10
	9. Conclusion....................................................10
	10. Informative References.......................................10




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1. Introduction

   Over the last few years, Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) [ETSI-NFV-ARCH] 
   has been becoming one of the most promising study areas for developing new 
   computer network technologies. NFV poses a novel way to develop network services,
   by using software and virtualization aiming the replacement of proprietary hardware
   appliances that run network functions. In NFV, these services, called Virtualized 
   Network Functions (VNFs), are implemented through software and deployed in Virtual 
   Machines (VMs), allowing new and efficient ways of network deployment. NFV allows 
   to manage and customize network services according to business needs, enabling 
   tremendous cost savings and more agility to serve the daily changes that networks 
   are susceptible. In addition, network function virtualization (NFV) is undoubtedly 
   one of the key technologies needed to create a smooth path for migration.
	
	For network management, Software Defined Networking (SDN) [SDN-Survey] aims to 
	manage the network and the functions provided by separating the control plane 
	from the data plane. The SDN controller(s) possess a global view of the network 
	and can therefore simplify the network management as compared to the traditional 
	distributed architectures typical of the Internet.
	
	In ICN, ICN network deployment is challenging. The deployment of a global ICN-based 
	Internet, where an ICN-based protocol takes the networking forwarding role currently 
	occupied by IP, is still a long way [RFC7927]. The interconnection of ICN domains 
	currently involves human intervention to set up IP-encapsulating tunnels, which in 
	the long run implies a tedious and error-prone process that does not scale
	
	We envision that leveraging the power and flexibility of SDN/NFV [NFV-Opp] can help 
	in combating the aforementioned ICN deployment problems, thus enabling ICN based 
	services in future networks. SDN/NFV model allows operators to deploy ICN services 
	more quickly and with more flexibility, because specific hardware is not needed with 
	each service and it can all be done with software.
	
	This draft describes considerations for using Software-Defined Networking 
	(SDN) / Network Function Virtualization (NFV) in Information-Centric 
	Networking (ICN).
 

   




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2. Conventions used in this document

    The terms about ICN is defined in [RFC7927]. The terms about VNF, NFV, NFV-MANO 
	are defined in [ETSI-NFV-ARCH]. The terms about SDN is defined in [RFC7927].

3. NFV benefits for ICN
      
3.1. Facilitating ICN deployment
  
   Creating a smooth migration path from the current IP network to the ICN is a 
   challenging task that must be investigated. Network function virtualization (NFV) 
   is one of the key technologies to achieve this migration because of its flexibility 
   in supporting new network services as software.
   
	Today's network functions are deployed as specific vendor-locked hardware and 
	software components. Since the deployment of new network services always requires 
	a range of new network equipment, it is fairly costly and takes long time to launch
	the service.
	
	In the NFV approach, network functions are separated from specific hardware and 
	run on a virtualized infrastructure called network function virtualization 
	infrastructure (NFVI). NFV also makes it possible to deploy new network protocols 
	and architectures such as ICNs in the virtualized infrastructure.
	
	NFV model allows operators to deploy ICN services more quickly and with more 
	flexibility, because specific hardware is not needed with each service - it can 
	all be done with software.


3.2 Reducing CAPEX

	Using NFV helps reduce CAPEX and OPEX for deploying ICN services by enabling 
	commodity servers to host softwarized network functions. Cost is a top consideration 
	for any operator or service provider these days. Using NFV also helps reduce 
	time-to-market to deploy new ICN services

   

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3.3. Facilitating orchestration
    
	NFV facilitates orchestration for ICN services by exploiting current NFV management 
	and orchestration frameworks, to coordinate the resources and networks needed to set 
	up as well as manage ICN-based services and applications such as service coordination 
	and instantiation, Service chaining, scaling services, Service monitoring and fail 
	recovery/healing.
	
	NFV provides a greater flexibility to scale up, scale down or evolve ICN services. 
	To adapt quickly to users' changing needs on content services or provide new content 
	services, operators must be able to scale their network architecture across multiple 
	servers, rather than being limited by what a single box can do.

	
 

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4. SDN benefits for ICN

4.1. Facilitating configuration

SDN provides a centralized tool to facilitate configuration for ICN nodes, networks, 
applications, and services.

For application level, SDN helps network operators accelerate ICN application deployment 
and delivery, dramatically reducing costs through policy-enabled work-flow automation. 
SDN also increases resource flexibility and utilization for ICN applications and 
reducing costs.

For the service level, SDN helps facilitate service function chaining for ICN services. 
Especially in ICN deployment over IP networks, manual chaining configurations for 
ICN services may be time consuming and inefficient.


4.2. Quick content hierarchy setup
    
	The out-of-band configuration with SDN can enable a quick name template and 
	content hierarchy setup, quick distribution of FIB/RIB entries for switches for 
	fast packet forwarding and content distribution in latency-sensitive scenarios 
	like disaster management applications. 
	
	In conventional method, ICN routing protocols greedily spread routing information 
	and name prefixes through the network, thus incurs high

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overhead and delay. For example, in disaster scenarios, the commander instantiates 
a new name template with new name prefixes for setting up new content and recipient 
hierarchies used for disaster management services in a specific region. If the 
location of the commander (the disaster management center) is far from the target 
region, name prefixes may need to be propagated throughout the network by the 
conventional ICN routing protocol. Therefore, it takes a high delay for the name 
prefix installation and to be effective at the target region. With SDN, the 
commander at the disaster management center can easily and quickly install 
the name prefixes to the network at the target region.

In ICN-based Pub/Sub disaster services, instead of waiting for subscribers to 
subscribe to the publisher or rendezvous point, SDN-based ICN management can 
enable the commander to setup the network quickly, push advertisement/ invitation
 to required subscribers (roles involved in a disaster management), then the subscribers 
just need to accept the invitations. The network and content hierarchy for disaster 
management thus quickly setup.

	  
4.3. Cache coordination

 In ICN nodes, content caching is one of the key features deciding the performance
of ICN. With a global view, SDN can help to optimize cache distribution, cache 
coordination for efficient cache management and caching-based forwarding.

5. NFV design considerations for ICN

5.1. IP-based NFVI

In current NFVI (IP-based networks), when a host receives a packet, the host's OVS routes 
it to the VM running the corresponding network function through TAP device and vNIC. 
Therefore, ICN packets received by NFVI will be forwarded to the corresponding VNFs 
containing the corresponding ICN functions, i.e., an ICN router. Name Forwarding Daemon (NFD)
 at VNF-based ICN nodes will process packets. 

In this case, Tenant domains with ICN protocol stack is decoupled from the NFVI domain 
in which IP still remains the networking substrate carrying all Internet traffic.

Efficient packet encapsulation, decapsulation, and longest prefix matching (LPM) mechanisms 
are time and overhead consuming while processing in VNF.
	

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5.2. ICN supported NFVI

	NFVI like OVS host provides high performance processing, its capability is sufficient to
	handle various kinds of packets in exact match manner. Therefore, a level of ICN packet 
	matching can be implemented in NFVI for a fast packet switching.
	
	Instead of forwarding ICN packets immediately to corresponding ICN functions (i.e., ICN router)
	in VMs, if the FIB table entries can be shared with the NFVI or previous matched name prefixes 
	of ICN routers be inserted to OVS flow table, the OVS at NFVI can perform name prefix exact match 
	processing for ICN packets. The NFVI forwards incoming interest packets directly to the next hop 
	if it finds matched entries at OVS [NFVIICN]. This helps reduce overhead and delay in ICN packet 
	processing. IF there is no entry matched, the NFVI forwards the ICN packets to the NFD of ICN 
	nodes running in guest VMs for further process (i.e., longest prefix matching) as normally.

5.3. Orchestration

	Efficient virtual network functions must be designed and implemented. The stateful and CPU intensive 
	nature of an ICN data-plane is hardly compatible with operations on the fly (spawn, migration, etc.). 
	In addition, novel management and orchestration solutions 
	for virtual ICN network stacks must be entirely designed and implemented.
	
	In ICN nodes, content caching is one of the key features providing the advantages of ICN. Current cache 
	management and coordination are mostly done by routers. A challenge is that how to efficiently utilize 
	the cache memories across different routers so that the network cache performance of the whole system can 
	be optimized. With NFV, caching management and coordination can be implemented in the orchestrator level 
	for optimization based on global view and offline computation. Caching policy (cache decision, cache 
	replacement, cache capacity scaling, cache resource allocation...) can also be implemented by the orchestrator
	for efficient caching distribution and coordination for routers.



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6. SDN design considerations for ICN

6.1. Application implementation for SDN controller

	Applications for ICN management at SDN controller are required. The applications can be responsible for 
	processing data received from ICN switches, matching rules, and computing new routes.

6.2. Application implementation for ICN switches

	Applications for ICN switches/ routers to communicate with the SDN controller are required for i) 
	propagating RIB table (name prefixes, routing info) to controller, ii) when receiving an Interest 
	and has no entry in FIB, the applications should forward the Interest to the 
	controller iii) processing commands from the controller to update local forwarding rules.

6.3. Name-based packet matching

	Current matching in SDN (i.e, OpenFlow) uses pre-defined fields like ingress port, MAC address, 
	source/destination address, source/destination port while ICN interest and data packets are transmitted 
	based on the content name. Therefore, an efficient name-based packet matching scheme is required for SDN.
	
	ICN interest and data packets are transmitted based on the content name while SDN (OpenFlow) consists 
	of forwarding IP packets based on IP addresses [SDNICN-Matching]. In additions, content consumers and 
	producers communicate based on name prefixes. One of benefits of SDN for ICN is to facilitate tunneling 
	setups for chaining ICN services between consumers and providers. Efficient mapping between name 
	prefixes and IP addresses, and efficient ICN packet encapsulation and decapsulation with IP packets 
	are in consideration.
	

6.4. Cache coordination

	For cache coordination, caching distribution rules can be installed and updated by SDN controller for 
	efficient in-network memory space usage. Caching coordination rules can be installed and updated by SDN 
	controller for efficient cache-based routing to reduce routing overhead and improve the network performance.


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7. Security Considerations

TBD.

8. IANA Considerations

TBD.

9. Conclusion
	This draft offers a comprehensive view of the benefits and considerations of SDN/NFV for ICN. The draft 
	begins by motivating the need for SDN/NFV-ICN by highlighting benefits of SDN/NFV in different ICN scenarios, and 
	then discuss possible research directions from networking and application perspective.


10. Informative References

	[ETSI-NFV-ARCH]
             Network Function Virtualisation (NFV): architectural
             Framework
	[NFV-Opp]
	      B. Han, V. Gopalakrishnan, L. Ji, and S. Lee, "Network function virtualization: Challenges and opportunities for innovations," 
		  IEEE Commun. Mag., vol. 53, no. 2, pp. 90-97, Feb. 2015.
	[SDN-Survey]
	      D. Kreutz, F. M. V. Ramos, P. E. Veranssimo, C. E. Rothenberg, S. Azodolmolky, and S. Uhlig, "Software-defined networking: 
		  A comprehensive survey," Proc. of the IEEE, 103(1):14-76, Jan 2015.
	[RFC7927]
			D. Kutscher, Ed., S. Eum, K. Pentikousis, I. Psaras, D. Corujo, D. Saucez, T. Schmidt, M. Waehlisch, "Information-Centric 
			Networking (ICN) Research Challenges" IETF RFC 7927, July 2016.



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	[RFC7927]
			E. Haleplidis, Ed., K. Pentikousis, Ed., S. Denazis, J. Hadi Salim, D. Meyer, and O. Koufopavlou, "Software-Defined Networking 
			(SDN): Layers and Architecture Terminology," IETF RFC 7426, January 2015.
	[NFVIICN]
			Kazuaki Ueda, Kenji Yokota, Jun Kurihara, and Atsushi Tagami, "Towards the NFVI-Assisted ICN: Integrating ICN Forwarding into 
			the Virtualization Infrastructure," IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), Washington, DC, USA, 2016.
	[SDNICN-Matching]
			P. Zuraniewski, N. van Adrichem, D. Ravesteijn, W. IJntema, C. Papadopoulos, C. Fan, "Facilitating icn deployment with an 
			extended openflow protocol", Proceedings of the 4th ACM Conference on Information-Centric Networking, 2017.

			

			
			
			

			
			
			
			
			
			
			
			
			
			


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Authors' Addresses

   Thanh Dinh
   Soongsil University
   4F Hyungnam Engineering Bldg. 424,
   (156-743) 511 Sangdo-Dong, Dongjak-Gu, Seoul, Korea

   Phone: +82 10 3284 8442
   Email: thanhdcn@dcn.ssu.ac.kr


   Younghan Kim
   Soongsil University
   4F Hyungnam Engineering Bldg. 424,
   (156-743) 511 Sangdo-Dong, Dongjak-Gu, Seoul, Korea

   Phone: +82-2-820-0904
   Email: younghak@ssu.ac.kr


   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
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