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Checking references for intended status: Informational ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- == Unused Reference: 'I-D.li-apn-problem-statement-usecases' is defined on line 301, but no explicit reference was found in the text == Outdated reference: A later version (-07) exists of draft-li-apn-framework-01 == Outdated reference: A later version (-08) exists of draft-li-apn-problem-statement-usecases-01 Summary: 0 errors (**), 0 flaws (~~), 5 warnings (==), 1 comment (--). Run idnits with the --verbose option for more detailed information about the items above. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 Network Working Group S. Zhang 3 Internet-Draft C. Cao 4 Intended status: Informational China Unicom 5 Expires: June 17, 2021 S. Peng 6 Z. Li 7 Huawei 8 December 14, 2020 10 Use cases of Application-aware Networking (APN) in Game Acceleration 11 draft-zhang-apn-acceleration-usecase-01 13 Abstract 15 With the development of the Internet, game industry has risen 16 rapidly, from handheld game consoles to PC games and mobile games. 17 The types of games are diversified, while the number of game users is 18 increasing year by year. The game market is maturing quickly. 20 Nowadays, the scale of game users is large and they belong to the 21 easy-to-consume groups. Among all the games, those require frequent 22 interactions and involve video streaming usually have highly 23 demanding requirements on the network in terms of guaranteed network 24 latency and reliability. Therefore, from the aspect of ensuring 25 better gaming experience, it is desirable of differentiating the 26 particular gaming application flows and providing high-priority 27 network services for those demanding gamers. 29 This document describes the game acceleration scenarios using 30 Application-aware Networking (APN) technology. In these scenarios, 31 APN can identify the specific requirements of particular gaming 32 applications, steer the flows to the game processors close to the 33 users, and provide SLA guaranteed network services such as low 34 latency and high reliability. 36 Requirements Language 38 The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", 39 "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this 40 document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119]. 42 Status of This Memo 44 This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the 45 provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. 47 Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering 48 Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute 49 working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- 50 Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. 52 Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months 53 and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any 54 time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference 55 material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." 57 This Internet-Draft will expire on June 17, 2021. 59 Copyright Notice 61 Copyright (c) 2020 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the 62 document authors. All rights reserved. 64 This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal 65 Provisions Relating to IETF Documents 66 (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of 67 publication of this document. Please review these documents 68 carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect 69 to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must 70 include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of 71 the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as 72 described in the Simplified BSD License. 74 Table of Contents 76 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 77 2. Usage Scenarios of APN in Game Acceleration . . . . . . . . . 3 78 2.1. APN for Steering into Dedicated Game Acceleration Channel 3 79 2.2. Fine-granularity Interactive Action Game Acceleration . . 5 80 3. Game Acceleration Business Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 81 4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 82 5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 83 6. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 84 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 86 1. Introduction 88 Online games usually refer to games which use the access terminal PC 89 or smart terminal as the game platform, the Internet as the data 90 transmission medium, the game operator server as the processor, and 91 through the WAN network transmission (e.g. mobile Internet), in which 92 a single user or multiple users simultaneously participate to realize 93 the operation of the game characters or scenes. 95 The number of online game players is large in China, about more than 96 700 million. Gamers usually pursue very high quality of 97 experience(QoE). At present, most gamers are willing to spend extra 98 money to get a better user experience. 100 The UDP protocol has good real-time performance and its network 101 overhead is also small, through which high communication rate can be 102 reached. So the UDP protocol is mainly used in the real-time game 103 interaction process. Even if the operator uses DPI, it will not 104 recognize UDP packets. 106 Application-aware networking (APN) [I-D.li-apn-framework] enables the 107 network to be aware of the applications' requirements in a fine 108 granularity, and then either steer the corresponding traffic onto the 109 appropriate network path that can satisfy the requirements or 110 establish an exclusive network path which would not be influenced by 111 other applications' traffic flow. 113 2. Usage Scenarios of APN in Game Acceleration 115 This section presents two typical game acceleration scenarios with 116 APN to meet the service requirements and ensure user experience. 118 2.1. APN for Steering into Dedicated Game Acceleration Channel 120 Generally speaking, the network latency requirement of games is less 121 than 30ms. For competitive games, the latency requirement is less 122 than 10ms. According to the statistics of the domestic Steam 123 platform in China (from 2018 Game Industry External Market 124 Observation Report by Tencent PC game platform), overseas games 125 account for a high proportion in TOP10 online games. The traditional 126 way to provide services is to connect with foreign operators through 127 the operators international business network and directly access the 128 game servers. In this case, the latency will generally exceed 200ms. 129 So in order to give users a better game experience, operators need to 130 provide solutions to reduce latency for the gamers oversea. 132 The games which are operated by domestic agents usually connect 133 through a third-party acceleration server forming a dedicated 134 acceleration channel to access the game servers in the Data Center, 135 as shown in the Figure 1. 137 Client 138 +------+ +------------+ +--------------------+ +--------+ 139 | Game |___\ | Operator |___\| Third Party |___\| Data | 140 | Data | / | Network | /|Acceleration channel| /| Center | 141 +------+ +------------+ +--------------------+ +--------+ 143 Figure 1.A Third-party Acceleration Channel for Games 145 If the operator provides services directly, in order to reduce the 146 end-to-end latency, the operator's export gateway (Game Acceleration 147 Router) is connected to the International POP to directly access the 148 game servers in the Data Center,as shown in the Figure 2. In this 149 way, users can achieve quick access from domestic to the game servers 150 overseas. 152 Client 153 +------+ +------------+ +------------+ +--------------+ +--------+ 154 | Game | | Operator | | Game | | International| | Data | 155 | Data |->| Network |->|Acceleration|->| PoP |->| Center | 156 | | | | | Router | | | | | 157 +------+ +------------+ +------------+ +--------------+ +--------+ 159 Figure 2.The Operator Acceleration Channel for Games 161 As shown in the Figure 3, with APN, according to the application- 162 aware information carried in the packets, the game data can be 163 differentiated and steered at the App-aware process Head-end into the 164 dedicated game acceleration channel to achieve the desired low 165 latency. 167 Client 168 +------+ +---------+ +------------+ +---------+ +------+ 169 | Game | |App-aware| | Game | |App-aware| | Data | 170 | Data |->| process |--|Acceleration|--| process |->|Center| 171 | | |Head-end | | Channel | |End point| | | 172 +------+ +---------+ +------------+ +---------+ +------+ 174 Figure 3.APN for Steering into Dedicated Game Acceleration Channel 176 Head-end node in the APN identifies the data flow of games (maybe one 177 or more games), and steers it into a dedicated game acceleration path 178 according to its SLA requirements. 180 Midpoint in the APN forwards game data stream along the path. 182 The end point in the APN receives the game data stream and steers it 183 to the data center for processing the users control instruction or to 184 the user for playing. 186 The whole process requires APN not only to identify the game traffic 187 but also to provide customized network services for it, in order to 188 achieve better gaming experience. 190 2.2. Fine-granularity Interactive Action Game Acceleration 192 In some interactive action games, some flows are more important than 193 others since the packets in these flows are carrying action control 194 instructions. These flows have even lower latency requirement. 196 With APN technology, these important data flows could be further 197 indicated by adding corresponding information in the application- 198 aware information. According to this information, operators can 199 provide paying users a game acceleration tunnel with ultra-low 200 latency to guarantee the gaming experience of the users. 202 Client A 203 +---------+ 204 |Game Data|-\ 205 +---------+ | +---------+ +------------+ +---------+ +------+ 206 \->|App-aware|-A-| Game |-A-|App-aware| | Data | 207 | process | |Acceleration| | process |->|Center| 208 Clinet B /->|Head-end |-B-| Path |-B-|End point| | | 209 +---------+ | +---------+ +------------+ +---------+ +------+ 210 |Game Data|-/ 211 +---------+ 213 Figure 4.Game Acceleration with APN 215 As shown in the Figure 4, Client A and B are playing an interactive 216 action game. The head-end node in the APN identifies the data flow 217 of an important scene in an action game sent by Client A, and steers 218 it into a specific game acceleration path according to its SLA 219 requirements. 221 Midpoint in the APN forwards game data stream along the path and 222 provides network services enabled by APN. 224 The end point in the APN receives the game data stream and steers 225 into the gaming server in the Data center, while the game server 226 processes the game data and encapsulates the information for 227 identifying the game data stream of the important action scene at the 228 head end node, which forwards it to a dedicated game acceleration 229 path to the involved gamer Client B. 231 During the game, different transmission paths are used to distinguish 232 service effects. In this way, highly customized and guaranteed 233 services can be provided. 235 3. Game Acceleration Business Model 237 With the 5G era evolving, the emerging gaming mode will inject new 238 vitality into the game market. 240 VR, AR and other emerging technologies are widely used in the game 241 field, which provide new human-computer interaction method, improve 242 the immersive and realistic sense, and reshape the expression form 243 and development direction of game products. Based on cloud 244 computing, cloud games emerge. At present, there are 120 million 245 domestic users of cloud games in China, and the number of users 246 continues to increase. 248 Cloud game deploys game applications in data centers, and realizes 249 the functions including the logical process of game command control, 250 video rendering and other tasks that have high requirements for 251 chips, and the tasks of game acceleration. In this way, the terminal 252 is a video player. Users can get a good game experience without the 253 support of high-end system and chips. 255 At present, in most cases, with centralized deployment, the network 256 transmission distance is too long, which is a huge challenge to the 257 network load, so the latency demand can't be met. 259 For cloud games, operators and OTT vendors can cooperate with each 260 other and adopt on-demand edge computing deployment methods. The 261 edge data center sends the game video stream information to the 262 terminal, and receives the user's control instruction information for 263 processing. Users can make corresponding operation instructions 264 according to the received video stream information, and get quick 265 response. 267 At the same time, APN technology is needed to ensure deterministic 268 latency of multi-party network of multiple players. The whole 269 process requires APN not only to identify the cloud game traffic and 270 provide customized network services for it, but also to ensure the 271 deterministic latency of multi-user in the same game and provide 272 better gaming experience. 274 For online games, as mentioned above, operators cooperate with the 275 game agents, by choosing or creating a corresponding network path 276 based on the application information carried in the APN packets, 277 ensuring the corresponding SLA through SR acceleration tunnel, to 278 provide highly customized and flexible services for applications and 279 improve the quality of experience of users. 281 Operators and OTTs cooperate with each other to achieve mutual 282 benefit and win-win, so as to better provide customers with highly 283 customized services and great QoE. 285 4. Security Considerations 287 The security consideration can refer to the [I-D.li-apn-framework]. 289 5. IANA Considerations 291 There are no IANA considerations in this document. 293 6. Normative References 295 [I-D.li-apn-framework] 296 Li, Z., Peng, S., Voyer, D., Li, C., Geng, L., Cao, C., 297 Ebisawa, K., Previdi, S., and J. Guichard, "Application- 298 aware Networking (APN) Framework", draft-li-apn- 299 framework-01 (work in progress), September 2020. 301 [I-D.li-apn-problem-statement-usecases] 302 Li, Z., Peng, S., Voyer, D., Xie, C., Liu, P., Qin, Z., 303 Ebisawa, K., Previdi, S., and J. Guichard, "Problem 304 Statement and Use Cases of Application-aware Networking 305 (APN)", draft-li-apn-problem-statement-usecases-01 (work 306 in progress), September 2020. 308 [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate 309 Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, 310 DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997, 311 . 313 Authors' Addresses 315 Shuai Zhang 316 China Unicom 317 Beijing 100048 318 China 320 Email: zhangs366@chinaunicom.cn 321 Chang Cao 322 China Unicom 323 Beijing 100048 324 China 326 Email: caoc15@chinaunicom.cn 328 Shuping Peng 329 Huawei 330 Beijing 100053 331 China 333 Email: pengshuping@huawei.com 335 Zhenbin Li 336 Huawei 337 Beijing 100053 338 China 340 Email: lizhenbin@huawei.com