Network Working Group A. Clemm Internet-Draft Huawei Intended status: Informational L. Ciavaglia Expires: January 19, 2019 Nokia L. Granville Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) July 18, 2018 Clarifying the Concepts of Intent and Policy draft-clemm-nmrg-dist-intent-01 Abstract Intent and Intent-Based Networking are taking the industry by storm. At the same time, those terms are used loosely and often inconsistently, in many cases overlapping with other concepts such as "policy". This document is therefore intended to clarify the concept of "Intent" and how it relates to other concepts. The goal is to contribute towards a common and shared understanding of terms and concepts which can then be used as foundation to guide further definition of valid research and engineering problems and their solutions. 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 Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." This Internet-Draft will expire on January 19, 2019. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2018 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents Clemm, et al. Expires January 19, 2019 [Page 1] Internet-Draft July 2018 (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must 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. Key Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3. Definitions and Acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4. Introduction of Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4.1. Service Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4.2. Policy and Policy-Based Management . . . . . . . . . . . 6 4.3. Intent and Intent-Based Management . . . . . . . . . . . 7 5. Distinguishing between Intent, Policy, and Service Models . . 8 6. Items for Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 9. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 9.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 9.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 1. Introduction Traditionally in the IETF, interest with regard to management and operations has focused on individual network and device features. Standardization emphasis has generally been put on management instrumentation that needed to be provided by a networking device. A prime example for this is SNMP-based management and the 200+ MIBs that have been defined by the IETF over the years. More recent examples include YANG data model definitions for aspects such as interface configuration, ACL configuration, or Syslog configuration. There is a sense that managing networks by configuring myriads of "nerd knobs" on a device-by-device basis is no longer sustainable in modern network environments. Big challenges arise with keeping device configurations not only consistent across a network, but consistent with the needs of services they are supposed to enable. At the same time, operations need to be streamlined and automated wherever possible to not only lower operational expenses, but allow for rapid reconfiguration of networks at sub-second time scales. Accordingly, IETF has begun to address end-to-end management aspects that go beyond the realm of individual devices in isolation. Clemm, et al. Expires January 19, 2019 [Page 2] Internet-Draft July 2018 Examples include the definition of YANG models for network topology [RFC8345] or the introduction of service models used by service orchestration systems and controllers [RFC8309]. In addition, a lot of interest has been fueled by the discussion about how to manage autonomic networks as discussed in the ANIMA working group. Autonomic networks are driven by the desire to lower operational expenses and make management of the network as a whole exceptionally easy, putting it at odds with the need to manage the network one device and one feature at a time. However, while autonomic networks are intended to exhibit "self-management" properties, they still require input from an operator or outside system to provide operational guidance and information about the goals, purposes, and service instances that the network is to serve. It is in this context that the term "intent" was coined for the first time. This vision has since caught on with the industry in a big way, leading to countless offerings that tout "intent-based management" that promise network providers to manage networks holistically at a higher level of abstraction and as a system that happens to consist of interconnected components, as opposed to a set of independent devices (that happen to be interconnected). Those offerings include SDN controllers (offering a single point of control and administration for a network) as well as network management and Operations Support Systems (OSS). However, it has been recognized for a long time that comprehensive management solutions cannot operate only at the level of individual devices and low-level configurations. In this sense, the vision of "intent" is not entirely new. In the past, ITU-T's model of a Telecommunications Management Network, TMN, introduced a set of management layers that defined a management hierarchy, consisting of network element, network, service, and business management. High- level operational objectives would propagate in top-down fashion from upper to lower layers. The associated abstraction hierarchy was key to decompose management complexity into separate areas of concerns. This abstraction hierarchy was accompanied by an information hierarchy that concerned itself at the lowest level with device- specific information, but that would, at higher layers, include, for example, end-to-end service instances. Similarly, the concept of "policy-based management" has for a long time touted the ability to allow users to manage networks by specifying high-level management policies, with policy systems automatically "rendering" those policies, i.e. breaking them down into low-level configurations and control logic. What is missing, however, is putting these concepts into a more current context and defining a reference model that goes beyond a TMN. This document attempts to clarify terminology and explain how Clemm, et al. Expires January 19, 2019 [Page 3] Internet-Draft July 2018 intent relates to other, similar concepts, in hope that a common and shared understanding of terms and concepts can be used as a foundation to articulate research and engineering problems and their solutions. 2. Key Words 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. 3. Definitions and Acronyms ACL: Access Control List Intent: An abstract, high-level policy used to operate a network [RFC7575]. Policy: A rule, or set of rules, that governs the choices in behavior of a system. PDP: Policy Decision Point PEP: Policy Enforcement Point Service Model: A model that represents a service that is provided by a network to a user. 4. Introduction of Concepts The following subsections provide an overview of the concepts of service models, of policies respectively policy-based management, and of intent respectively intent-based management. While the descriptions are intentionally kept brief and do not provide detailed tutorials, they should convey the bigger picture of the purpose of each concept and provide a sense where those concepts are similar and where they differ. With this background, the differences between them are subsequently summarized in in another section. 4.1. Service Models A service model is a model that represents a service that is provided by a network to a user. Per [RFC8309], a service model describes a service and its parameters in a portable way that can be used independent of the equipment and operating environment on which the service is realized. Two subcategories are distinguished: a Clemm, et al. Expires January 19, 2019 [Page 4] Internet-Draft July 2018 "Customer Service Model" describes an instance of a service as provided to a customer, possibly associated with a service order. A "Service Delivery Model" describes how a service is instantiated over existing networking infrastructure. An example of a service could be a Layer 3 VPN service [RFC8299], a Network Slice, or residential Internet access. Service models represent service instances as entities in their own right. Services have their own parameters, actions, and lifecycles. Typically, service instances can be bound to end users, who might be billed for the service. Instantiating a service typically involves multiple aspects: o Resources need to be allocated, such as IP addresses, interfaces, bandwidth, or memory. o How to map services to the resources needs to be defined. Multiple mappings are often possible, which to select may depend on context (such as which type of access is available to connect the end user with the service). o Bindings need to be maintained between upper- and lower-level objects. They involve a system, such as a controller, that provides provisioning logic. Orchestration itself is generally conducted using a "push" model, in which the controller/manager initiates the operations as required, pushing down the specific configurations to the device. The device itself typically remains agnostic to the service or the fact that its resources or configurations are part of a service/concept at a higher layer. Instantiated service models map to instantiated lower-layer network and device models. Examples include instances of paths, or instances of specific port configurations. The service model typically also models dependencies and layering of services over lower-layer networking resources that are used to provide services. This facilitates management by allowing to follow dependencies for troubleshooting activities, to perform impact analysis in which events in the network are assessed regarding their impact on services and customers Services are typically orchestrated and provisioned top-to-bottom, which also facilitates keeping track of the assignment of network resources. Service models also associate with other data that does not concern the network but provides business context. This includes things such as customer data (such as billing information), service orders and Clemm, et al. Expires January 19, 2019 [Page 5] Internet-Draft July 2018 service catalogues, tariffs, service contracts, and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) including contractual agreements regarding remediation actions. 4.2. Policy and Policy-Based Management Policy-based management (PBM) is a management paradigm that separates the rules that govern the behavior of a system from the functionality of the system. It promises to reduce maintenance costs of information and communication systems while improving flexibility and runtime adaptability. It is today present at the heart of a multitude of management architectures and paradigms including SLA- driven, Business-driven, autonomous, adaptive, and self-* management [Boutaba07]. The interested reader is asked to refer to the rich set of existing literature which includes this and many other references. In the following, we an only provide a much-abridged and distilled overview. At the heart of policy-based management is the concept of a policy. Multiple definitions of policy exist: "Policies are rules governing the choices in behavior of a system" [Sloman94]. "Policy is a set of rules that are used to manage and control the changing and/or maintaining of the state of one or more managed objects" [Strassner03]. Common to most definitions is the definition of a policy as a "rule". Typically, the definition of a rule consists of an event (whose occurrence triggers a rule), a set of conditions (that get assessed and that must be true before any actions are actually "fired"), and finally a set of one or more actions that are carried out when the condition holds. Policy-based management can be considered an imperative management paradigm: Policies specify precisely what needs to be done when. Using policies, management can in effect be defined as a set of simple control loops. This makes policy-based management a suitable technology to implement autonomic behavior that can exhibit self-* management properties including self-configuration, self-healing, self-optimization, and self-protection. In effect, policies define simple control loops typically used to define management as a set of simple control loops. Policies typically involve a certain degree of abstraction in order to cope with heterogeneity of networking devices. Rather than having a device-specific policy that defines events, conditions, and actions in terms of device-specific commands, parameters, and data models, policy is defined at a higher-level of abstraction involving a canonical model of systems and devices to which the policy is to be applied. A policy agent on the device subsequently "renders" the policy, i.e., translates the canonical model into a device-specific Clemm, et al. Expires January 19, 2019 [Page 6] Internet-Draft July 2018 representation. This concept allows to apply the same policy across a wide range of devices without needing to define multiple variants. This enables operational scale and allows network operators and authors of policies to think in higher terms of abstraction than device specifics. Policy-based management is typically "push-based": Policies are pushed onto devices where they are rendered and enforced. The push operations are conducted by a manager or controller, which is responsible for deploying policies across the network and monitor their proper operation. That said, other policy architectures are possible. For example, policy-based management can also include a pull-component in which the decision regarding which action to take is delegated to a so-called Policy Decision Point (PDP). This PDP can reside outside the managed device itself and has typically global visibility and context with which to make policy decisions. Whenever a network device observes an event that is associated with a policy, but lacks the full definition of the policy or the ability to reach a conclusion regarding the expected action, it reaches out to the PDP for a decision (reached, for example, by deciding on an action based on various conditions). Subsequently, the device carries out the decision as returned by the PDP - the device "enforces" the policy and hence acts as a PEP (Policy Enforcement Point). Either way, PBM architectures typically involve a central component from which policies are deployed across the network, and/or policy decisions served. 4.3. Intent and Intent-Based Management In the context of Autonomic Networks, Intent is defined as "an abstract, high-level policy used to operate a network" [RFC7575]. According to this definition, an intent is a specific type of policy. However, to avoid using "intent" simply as a synonym for "policy, a clearer distinction needs to be introduced that distinguishes intent clearly from other types of policies. Autonomic networks are expected to "self-manage" and operate with minimal outside intervention. However, autonomic networks are not clairvoyant and have no way of automatically knowing particular operational goals nor what instances of networking services to support. In other words, they do not know what the "intent" of the network provider is that gives the network the purpose of its being. This still needs to be communicated by what informally constitutes "intent". More specifically, intent is a declaration of high-level operational goals that a network should meet, without specifying how to achieve them. Those goals are defined in a manner that is purely declarative Clemm, et al. Expires January 19, 2019 [Page 7] Internet-Draft July 2018 - they specify what to accomplish or what the desired outcome for the network operator is, not how to achieve it. This encompasses abstraction from low-level device configurations, as well as abstraction from particular management and control logic such as when to spring into action. In an autonomic network, intent should be rendered by the network itself, i.e. translated into device specific rules and courses of action. Ideally, it should not even be orchestrated or broken down by a higher-level, centralized system, but by the network devices themselves using a combination of distributed algorithms and local device abstraction. Because intent holds for the network as a whole, not individual devices, it needs to be automatically disseminated across all devices in the network, which can themselves decide whether they need to act on it. This facilitates management even further, since it obviates the need for a higher-layer system to break down and decompose higher-level intent, and because there is no need to even discover and maintain an inventory of the network to be able to manage it. Intent thus constitutes declarative policy with a network-wide scope. A human operator defines 'what' is expected, and the network computes a solution meeting the requirements. This computation can occur in distributed or even decentralized fashion by auonomic functions that reside on network nodes. Other definitions of intent exist such as [TR523] and will be investigated in future revisions of this document. Likewise, some definitions of intent allow for the presence of a centralized function that renders the intent into lower-level policies or instructions and orchestrates them across the network. While to the end user the concept of "intent" appears the same regardless of its method of rendering, this interpretation opens a slippery slope of how to clearly distinguish "intent" from other higher-layer abstractions. Again, these notions will be further investigated in future revisions of this document and in collaboration with NMRG. 5. Distinguishing between Intent, Policy, and Service Models What Intent, Policy, and Service Models all have in common is the fact that they involve a higher-layer of abstraction of a network that does not involve device-specifics, that generally transcends individual devices, and that makes the network easier to manage for applications and human users compared to having to manage the network one device at a time. Beyond that, differences emerge. Service models have less in common with policy and intent than policy and intent do with each other. Summarized differences: Clemm, et al. Expires January 19, 2019 [Page 8] Internet-Draft July 2018 o A service model is a data model that is used to describe instances of services that are provided to customers. A service model has dependencies on lower models (device and network models) when describing how the service is mapped onto underlying network and IT infrastructure. Instantiating a service model requires orchestration by a system; the logic for how to orchestrate/manage/provide the service model and how to map it onto underlying resources is not included as part of the model itself. o Policy is a set of rules, typically modeled around a variation of events/conditions/actions, used to express simple control loops that can be rendered by devices themselves, without requiring intervention by outside system. Policy is used to define what to do under what circumstances, but it does not specify a desired outcome. o Intent is a higher-level declarative policy that operates at the level of a network, not individual devices. It is used to define outcomes and high-level operational goals, without the need to enumerate specific events, conditions, and actions. Ideally, intent is rendered by the network itself; also the dissemination of intent across the network and any required coordination between nodes is resolved by the network itself without the need for outside systems. The TM Forum's Business Process Framework for network service providers [eTOM] categorizes network operations broadly into three categories: Fulfillment, Assurance, and Billing. Intent is generally tied to fulfillment, broadly defined as all activities and processes having to do with configuration of the network to fulfill a given purpose. It is not tied to assurance, broadly defined as all activities and processes having to do with keeping the network and services running (including monitoring, measuring, reporting, assessing compliance of service levels with service level objectives, diagnostics, etc). Policy, on the other hand, aligns more closely with assurance. 6. Items for Discussion Arguably, given the popularity of the term intent, its use could be broadened to encompass also known concepts ("intent-washing"). For example, it is conceivable to introduce intent-based terms for various concepts that, although already known, are related to the context of intent. Each of those terms could then designate an intent subcategory, for example: Clemm, et al. Expires January 19, 2019 [Page 9] Internet-Draft July 2018 o Operational Intent: defines intent related to operational goals of an operator; corresponds to the original "intent" term. o Rule Intent: a synonym for policy rules regarding what to do when certain events occur. o Service intent: a synonym for customer service model [RFC8309]. o Flow Intent: A synonym for a Service Level Objective for a given flow. Whether to do so is an item for discussion by the Research Group. 7. IANA Considerations Not applicable 8. Security Considerations Not applicable 9. References 9.1. 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, . [RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC 2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174, May 2017, . 9.2. Informative References [Boutaba07] Boutaba, R. and I. Aib, "Policy-Based Management: A Historical perspective. Journal of Network and Systems Management (JNSM), Springer, Vol. 15 (4).", December 2007. [eTOM] "GB 921 Business Process Framework, Release 17.0.1.", February 2018. Clemm, et al. Expires January 19, 2019 [Page 10] Internet-Draft July 2018 [RFC7575] Behringer, M., Pritikin, M., Bjarnason, S., Clemm, A., Carpenter, B., Jiang, S., and L. Ciavaglia, "Autonomic Networking: Definitions and Design Goals", RFC 7575, DOI 10.17487/RFC7575, June 2015, . [RFC8299] Wu, Q., Ed., Litkowski, S., Tomotaki, L., and K. Ogaki, "YANG Data Model for L3VPN Service Delivery", RFC 8299, DOI 10.17487/RFC8299, January 2018, . [RFC8309] Wu, Q., Liu, W., and A. Farrel, "Service Models Explained", RFC 8309, DOI 10.17487/RFC8309, January 2018, . [RFC8345] Clemm, A., Medved, J., Varga, R., Bahadur, N., Ananthakrishnan, H., and X. Liu, "A YANG Data Model for Network Topologies", RFC 8345, DOI 10.17487/RFC8345, March 2018, . [Sloman94] Sloman, M., "Policy Driven Management for Distributed Systems. Journal of Network and Systems Management (JNSM), Springer, Vol. 2 (4).", December 1994. [Strassner03] Strassner, J., "Policy-Based Network Management. Elsevier.", 2003. [TR523] "Intent NBI - Definition and Principles. ONF TR-523.", October 2016. Authors' Addresses Alexander Clemm Huawei 2330 Central Expressway Santa Clara, CA 95050 USA Email: ludwig@clemm.org Clemm, et al. Expires January 19, 2019 [Page 11] Internet-Draft July 2018 Laurent Ciavaglia Nokia Route de Villejust Nozay 91460 FR Email: laurent.ciavaglia@nokia.com Lisandro Zambenedetti Granville Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) Av. Bento Goncalves Porto Alegre 9500 BR Email: granville@inf.ufrgs.br Clemm, et al. Expires January 19, 2019 [Page 12]