Network Working Group W. Liu Internet-Draft Huawei Technologies Intended status: Informational J. Ren Expires: February 10, 2014 J. Wang City University of Hong Kong August 09, 2013 A Unified Framework for Software-Defined Information-Centric Network draft-icn-implementation-sdn-00 Abstract This document aims at discussing some research issues about the implementation of information-centric network (ICN) architectures. Towards this end, we first review the implementation methods employed by various ICNs and discuss the potential problems of these implementations. Then we propose a unified framework for ICN implementation based on Software-Defined Networking (SDN) technique which can facilitate the implementation of any ICN architecture and interoperability among different ICN architectures. 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 http://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 February 10, 2014. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2013 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 (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents Liu, et al. Expires February 10, 2014 [Page 1] Internet-Draft A Unified Framework for SD-ICN August 2013 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. ICN implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.1. ICN over IP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.2. ICN over L2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.3. ICN over virtualized network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3. Software-Defined Networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4. A unified framework for software-defined information-centric network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 7. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 7.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 7.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1. Introduction To provide more efficient information dissemination, many studies are driven to redesign the current Internet architecture. Information- centric network (ICN) is one of these works. In ICN, the information name is unique and independent of locations, applications, storages and distribution approaches, which allows ubiquitous information retrieval. Based on this basic concept, many ICN architectures have been proposed, for example, NDN [NDN], NetInf [NetInf], and the publish- subscribe Internet (PSI) architecture [PSI]. To retrieve named information, various advanced transmission techniques are introduced, including name-based routing, name-based resolution, multicast and etc. To fully support these techniques, dramatic changes to the network devices deployed in current Internet are needed, which may lead to challenge of ICNs implementation. Liu, et al. Expires February 10, 2014 [Page 2] Internet-Draft A Unified Framework for SD-ICN August 2013 Typically, the ICN deployment schemes can be classified into three categories: 1). ICN over IP, which encapsulate ICN protocol data in IP (or UDP/TCP) packets or take ICN protocol information using IP options; 2) ICN over L2, which completely replace IP layer and directly use data link protocol (such as PPP, Ethernet, IEEE 802.x) to deliver data between neighbors; 3) ICN over virtualized network, which exploit network virtualization technologies, such as software- defined networking (SDN), to implement ICNs. Although these schemes have both advantages and disadvantages, most works on ICN implementation focus on how to implement a particular ICN architecture. However, different ICN architecture employ different transmission techniques and packet format, which is not easy for the co-existence and inter-operability of different ICNs. Thus, a unified framework for ICN implementation is needed to fast deploy different ICNs, which may further support the inter- operability among different ICNs. This document first surveys several implementation methods and aims to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of these methods. Then, we propose a unified framework for ICN implementation based on Software-Defined Networking techniques, which can support fast implementation of various ICNs . 2. ICN implementation This section presents several implementation schemes. For each scheme, existing papers are survey to analyze the advantages and disadvantages. 2.1. ICN over IP The most popular way is implementing ICNs as the overlay, in the same way that Internet implement over the telecommunication network. For example, the NDN prototype, CCNx, is implemented in an overlay on existing IP networks. The advantage is that only a few nodes need to be updated for supporting new ICN-related operations, which enables fast deployment. The disadvantage of this scheme is the performance of ICNs is limited as the performance can be affected by the performance of the underlayer network. 2.2. ICN over L2 ICN over L2 means using ICN to replace IP layer. The prototype of PURSUIT, blackadder, is implemented based on CLINK router and can be run over Ethernet. It also design a new forwarding technique to achieve efficient multicast with line speed. CRoWN introduces ICN concept in Vehicular Ad hoc Networks [CRoWN]. It is implemented on Liu, et al. Expires February 10, 2014 [Page 3] Internet-Draft A Unified Framework for SD-ICN August 2013 top of the IEEE 802.11p standard layers. The advantage is that ICN can fully exploit the resource of underlayer networks can achieve better performance. The disadvantage is that it is difficult to widely deployment. 2.3. ICN over virtualized network ICN over virtualized network is to exploit some virtualization techniques for implementation. One of the potential techniques is SDN. The main characteristic of SDN is the decoupling of control plane and data plane, which makes the data plane much more simple and elegant compared to the traditional networks. CONET, one of ICNs, is implemented over OpenFlow (the most popular SDN instantiation) [CONET]. The OpenFlow is extended to support ICN-related operations. The advantage is that the decoupling enables the fast deployment of ICNs with fully supporting ICNs features. However, existing works focus on how to implement a particular ICN architecture. 3. Software-Defined Networking Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is an emerging paradigm which decouples the control plane that makes decision, including packets routing and procession, from the data plane that forwards packets to the desired destination [SDN]. With this separation, SDN allows network administrators to specify more complex network services (e.g., security, resource control, and prioritization) more easily through the programmable central control of network traffic without reprograming the underlying hardware devices. It also makes network configurations easier to configure, manage, troubleshoot, and debug. SDN has attracted significant attention in both the academia and the industry. Many researches have been proposed to exploit SDN to implement traffic engineering, security and so on, which is more complex in traditional Internet. Many industry group, including Open Networking Foundation (ONF) and IRTF Software-Defined Networking Research Group (SDNRG), has been set up to lead the advancement of SDN and standardizing critical elements of the SDN architecture. There are some SDN pilots in industry. For example, Google has implemented its inter-data center based on SDN. 4. A unified framework for software-defined information-centric network This section describes the unified framework proposed in this paper for enabling ICN implementation. This framework was designed as a flexible solution and capable of modularizing ICN architecture. The most important functions of ICNs are abstracted from various works and modularized in the framework. Liu, et al. Expires February 10, 2014 [Page 4] Internet-Draft A Unified Framework for SD-ICN August 2013 Figure 1 is the overview of our framework. The function modules are extracted from various ICN proposals. Please view in a fixed-width font such as Courier. Please view in a fixed-width font such as Courier. +----------------------+ +----------------------+ | | | | | ICN protocol A | | ICN protocol B | | +------------------+ | | +------------------+ | | | cache management | | | | optimization | | | +------------------+ | | +------------------+ | | | routing | | | | routing | | | +------------------+ | | +------------------+ | | |content management| | | |content management| | Control | +------------------+ | | +------------------+ | Program +----------------------+ +----------------------+ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ +---------------+ +----------------------+ | Protocol | |Network Virtualization| | | +----------------------+ | Recognization | | Topology Management | Controller +---------------+ +----------------------+ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ +------------------+ Switch | +--------------+ | +------------------+ | | Label Mapping| | | +--------------+ | | +--------------+ | | | Cache | | | | Cache | | | +--------------+ | | +--------------+ | | | Forwarding | | | | Forwarding | | | +--------------+ | | +--------------+ | | Switch | | Access Switch | +------------------+ +------------------+ the overview of the unified framework Based on Software-Defined Networking, the proposed framework contains three components: switch, controller and control programs. Switches forward packets according to its flow entries and cache packet following its cache policy. A special switch, called access switch, can encapsulate the original ICN packet according to mapping rules configured by the controller. (to do. The interface between switches and the controller). The controller can collect the topology Liu, et al. Expires February 10, 2014 [Page 5] Internet-Draft A Unified Framework for SD-ICN August 2013 information from switches to form a global map of the network and then slice the network resource for different control program. The controller will receive the packet which cannot be routed by the switches. It can recognize the packet protocol and send the packet to the corresponding control program. (to do). Each control program implements a particular ICN protocol. It will receive the packet from the controller and execute protocol-related operations. (to do). 5. IANA Considerations This document makes no request of IANA. 6. Security Considerations Security issues are not discussed in this memo. 7. References 7.1. Normative References [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. 7.2. Informative References [CONET] L. Veltri, et al., ., "Supporting Information-Centric Functionality in software defined networks", 2012. [CRoWN] M. Amadeo, et al., ., "CRoWN: Content-Centric Networking in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks", 2012. [DON] T. Koponen, et al., ., "A data-oriented (and beyond) network architecture", 2007. [ICN] B. Ahlgren, et al., ., "A survey of information-centric networking", 2012. [NBN] V. Jacobson, et al., ., "Networking named content", 2009. [NDN] V, Jacobson, et al., ., "Networking named content", 2009. [NetInf] C. Dannewitz, ., "NetInf: An Information-Centric Design for the Future Internet", 2011. [PSI] P. Jokela, et al., ., "LIPSIN: line speed publish/ subscribe inter-networking", 2011. Liu, et al. Expires February 10, 2014 [Page 6] Internet-Draft A Unified Framework for SD-ICN August 2013 [SDN] N. McKeown, et al., ., "OpenFlow: enabling innovation in campus networks", 2008. Authors' Addresses Will(Shucheng) Liu Huawei Technologies Bantian, Longgang District Shenzhen 518129 P.R. China Email: liushucheng@huawei.com Jing Ren City University of Hong Kong Tat Chee Avenue Hong Kong P.R. China Email: jingren@cityu.edu.hk JianPing Wang City University of Hong Kong Tat Chee Avenue Hong Kong P.R. China Email: jianwang@cityu.edu.hk Liu, et al. Expires February 10, 2014 [Page 7]