Applicability of Abstraction and Control of Traffic Engineered Networks (ACTN) to Network Slicing

Introduction The principles of network resource separation are not new. For years, the concepts of separated overlay and logical (virtual) networking have existed, allowing multiple services to be deployed over a single physical network comprised of single or multiple layers. However, several key differences exist that differentiate overlay and virtual networking from network slicing. A network slice is a virtual (that is, logical) network with its own network topology and a set of network resources that are used to provide connectivity that conforms to a specific Service Level Agreement (SLA) or set of Service Level Objectives (SLOs). The network resources used to realize a network slice belong to the network that is sliced. The resources may be assigned and dedicated to an individual slice, or they may be shared with other slices enabling different degrees of service guarantee and providing different levels of isolation between the traffic in each slice. provides a definitions for network slicing in the context of IETF network technologies. In particular, that document defines the term "IETF Network Slice" to be the generic network slice concept applied to a network that uses IETF technologies. An IETF Network Slice could span multiple technologies (such as IP, MPLS, or optical) and multiple administrative domains. The logical network that is an IETF Network Slice may be kept separate from other concurrent logical networks each with independent control and management: each can be created or modified on demand. Since this document is focused entirely on IETF technologies, it uses the term "network slice" as a more concise expression. Further discussion on the topic of IETF Network Slices and details of how an IETF Network Slice service may be requested and realized as an IETF Network Slice can be found in . At one end of the spectrum, a virtual private wire or a virtual private network (VPN) may be used to build a network slice. In these cases, the network slices do not require the service provider to isolate network resources for the provision of the service - the service is "virtual". At the other end of the spectrum there may be a detailed description of a complex service that will meet the needs of a set of applications with connectivity and service function requirements that may include compute resource, storage capability, and access to content. Such a service may be requested dynamically (that is, instantiated when an application needs it, and released when the application no longer needs it), and modified as the needs of the application change. This type of service is called an enhanced VPN and is described in more detail in . It is often based on Traffic Engineering (TE) constructs in the underlay network. Abstraction and Control of TE Networks (ACTN) is a framework that facilitates the abstraction of underlying network resources to higher-layer applications and that allows network operators to create and supply virtual networks for their customers through the abstraction of the operators' network resources. ACTN is a toolset capable of delivering network slice functionality. This document outlines the application of ACTN and associated enabling technologies to provide network slicing in a network that utilizes IETF TE-based technologies. It describes how the ACTN functional components can be used to support model-driven partitioning of resources into variable-sized bandwidth units to facilitate network sharing and virtualization. Furthermore, the use of model-based interfaces to dynamically request the instantiation of virtual networks can be extended to encompass requesting and instantiation of specific service functions (which may be both physical or virtual), and to partition network resources such as compute resource, storage capability, and access to content. Finally, this document highlights how the ACTN approach might be extended to address the requirements of network slicing where the underlying network is TE-capable.

Terminology As far as is possible, this document re-uses terminology from and .

Service Provider:: See "Provider" in .
Consumer:: See .
Service Functions (SFs):: Components that provide specific functions within a network. SFs are often combined in a specific sequence called a service function chain to deliver services .
Resource:: Any feature including connectivity, bufferage, compute, storage, and content delivery that forms part of or can be accessed through a network. Resources may be shared between users, applications, and clients, or they may be dedicated for use by a unique customer.
Infrastructure Resources:: The hardware and software for hosting and connecting SFs. These resources may include computing hardware, storage capacity, network resources (e.g., links and switching/routing devices enabling network connectivity), and physical assets for radio access.
Service Level Agreement (SLA):: See .
Service Level Expectation (SLE):: See .
Service Level Objective (SLO):: See .
IETF Network Slice Service:: See .

Requirements for Network Slicing According to the customer expresses requirements for a particular network slice by specifying what is required rather than how the requirement is to be fulfilled. That is, the customer's view of a network slice is an abstract one expressed as a network slice service request. The concept of network slicing is a key capability to serve a customer with a wide variety of different service needs expressed as SLOs/SLEs in term of latency, reliability, capacity, and service function specific capabilities. This section outlines the key capabilities required to realize network slicing in a TE-enabled IETF technology network.

Resource Slicing Network resources need to be allocated and dedicated for use by a specific network slice, or they may be shared among multiple slices. This allows a flexible approach that can deliver a range of services by partitioning (that is, slicing) the available network resources to make them available to meet the customer's SLA.

Network Virtualization Network virtualization enables the creation of multiple virtual networks that are operationally decoupled from the underlying physical network, and are run on top of it. Slicing enables the creation of virtual networks as customer services.

Service Isolation A customer may request, through their SLA, that changes to the other services delivered by the service provider do not have any negative impact on the delivery of the service. This quality is referred to as "isolation" . Delivery of such service isolation may be achieved in the underlying network by various forms of resource partitioning ranging from dedicated allocation of resources for a specific slice, to sharing or resources with safeguards. Although multiple network slices may utilize resources from a single underlying network, isolation should be understood in terms of the following three categorizations.

Performance isolation requires that service delivery for one network slice does not adversely impact congestion or performance levels of other slices.
Security isolation means that attacks or faults occurring in one slice do not impact on other slices. Moreover, the security functions supporting each slice must operate independently so that an attack or misconfiguration of security in one slice will not prevent proper security function in the other slices. Further, privacy concerns require that traffic from one slice is not delivered to an end point in another slice, and that it should not be possible to determine the nature or characteristics of a slice from any external point.
Management isolation means that each slice must be independently viewed, utilized, and managed as a separate network. Furthermore, it should be possible to prevent the operator of one slice from being able to control, view, or detect any aspect of any other network slice.

Control and Orchestration Orchestration combines and coordinates multiple control methods to provide a single mechanism to operate one or more networks to deliver services. In a network slicing environment, an orchestrator is needed to coordinate disparate processes and resources for creating, managing, and deploying the network slicing service. Two aspects of orchestration are required:

Multi-domain Orchestration: Managing connectivity to set up a network slice across multiple administrative domains.
End-to-end Orchestration: Combining resources for an end-to-end service (e.g., underlay connectivity with firewalling, and guaranteed bandwidth with minimum delay).

Abstraction and Control of Traffic Engineered (TE) Networks (ACTN) ACTN facilitates end-to-end connectivity and provide virtual connectivity services (such as virtual links and virtual networks) to the user. The ACTN framework introduces three functional components and two interfaces:

Customer Network Controller (CNC)
Multi-domain Service Coordinator (MDSC)
Provisioning Network Controller (PNC)
CNC-MDSC Interface (CMI)
MDSC-PNC Interface (MPI)

RFC 8453 also highlights how:

Abstraction of the underlying network resources is provided to higher-layer applications and customer.
Virtualization is achieved by selecting resources according to criteria derived from the details and requirements of the customer, application, or service.
Creation of a virtualized environment is performed to allow operators to view and control multi-domain networks as a single virtualized network.
A network is presented to a customer as a single virtual network via open and programmable interfaces.

The ACTN managed infrastructure consists of traffic engineered network resources. The concept of traffic engineering is broad: it describes the planning and operation of networks using a method of reserving and partitioning of network resources in order to facilitate traffic delivery across a network (see for more details). In the context of ACTN, traffic engineering network resources may include:

Statistical packet bandwidth.
Physical forwarding plane sources, such as wavelengths and time slots.
Forwarding and cross-connect capabilities.

The ACTN network is "sliced" with each customer being given a different partial and abstracted topology view of the physical underlay network.

ACTN Virtual Network as a Network Slice To support multiple customers, each with its own view of and control of a virtual network constructed using a server network, a service provider needs to partition the network resources to create network slices assigned to each customer. An ACTN Virtual Network (VN) is a customer view of a slice of the ACTN-managed infrastructure. It is a network slice that is presented to the customer by the ACTN provider as a set of abstracted resources. See for a detailed description of ACTN VNs and an overview of how various different types of YANG model are applicable to the ACTN framework. Depending on the agreement between customer and provider, various VN operations are possible:

Network Slice Creation: A VN could be pre-configured and created through static configuration or through dynamic request and negotiation between customer and service provider. The VN must meet the network slice requirements specified in the SLA to satisfy the customer's objectives.
Network Slice Operations: The VN may be modified and deleted based on direct customer requests. The customer can further act upon the VN to manage the their traffic flows across the network slice.
Network Slice View: The VN topology is viewed from the customer's perspective. This may be the entire VN topology, or a collection of tunnels that are expressed as customer end points, access links, intra domain paths and inter-domain links.

describes a set of functional primitives that support these different ACTN VN operations.

ACTN Virtual Network for and Scaling Network Slices Scaling considerations for network slicing are an important consideration. If the service provider must manage and maintain state in the core of the network for every network slice then this will quickly limit the number of customer services that can be supported. The importance of scalability for network slices is discussed in and further in . That work notes the importance of collecting network slices or their composite connectivity constructs into groups of that require similar treatment in the network before realizing those groups in the network. The same consideration applies to ACTN VNs. But fortunately, ACTN VNs may be arranged hierarchically by recursing the MDSCs so that one VN is realized over another VN. This allows the VNs presented to the customer to be aggregated before they are instantiated in the physical network.

Management Components for ACTN and Network Slicing The ACTN management components (CNC, MDSC, and PNC) and interfaces (CMI and MPI) are introduced in and described in detail in . The management components for network slicing are described in and are known as the customer orchestration system, the IETF Network Slice Controller (NSC), and the network controller. The network slicing management components are separated by the Network Slice Service Interface and the Network Configuration Interface, modeling the architecture described in . The mapping between network slicing management components and ACTN management components is presented visually in and provides a reference for understanding the material in and .

Mapping Between IETF Network Slice and ACTN Management Components | CNC | | customer network management system) | | +-----+ +---------------------------------------+ ^ A | | IETF Network Slice | | CMI Service Interface | | | V v +---------------------------------------+ | +------+ | IETF Network Slice Controller (NSC) | =====> | MDSC | +---------------------------------------+ | +------+ A ^ Network | | | Configuration | | MPI Interface | | | V v +---------------------------------------+ | +-----+ | Network Controllers | =====> | PNC | +---------------------------------------+ | +-----+ ]]>

Examples of ACTN Delivering Types of Network Slices The examples that follow build on the ACTN framework to provide control, management, and orchestration for the network slice life-cycle. These network slices utilize common physical infrastructure, and meet specific service-level requirements. Three examples are shown. Each uses ACTN to achieve a different network slicing scenario. All three scenarios can be scaled up in capacity or be subject to topology changes as well as changes of customer requirements.

ACTN Used for Virtual Private Line In the example shown in , ACTN provides virtual connections between multiple customer locations (sites accessed through Customer Edge nodes - CEs). The service is requested by the customer (via CNC-A) and delivered as a Virtual Private Line (VPL) service. The benefits of this model include the following.

Automated: The service set-up and operation is managed by the network provider.
Virtual: The private line connectivity is provided from Site A to Site C (VPL1) and from Site B to Site C (VPL2) across the ACTN-managed physical network.
Agile: On-demand adjustments to the connectivity and bandwidth are available according to the customer's requests.

In terms of network slicing concept as defined in , in this example the customer requests a single network slice with two pairs of point-to-point connectivity constructs between the service demarcation points CE1 and CE3, and CE2 and CE3 with each pair comprising one connectivity construct in each direction.

Virtual Private Line Model

ACTN Used for VPN Delivery Model In the example shown in , ACTN provides VPN connectivity between two sites across three physical networks. The requirements for the VPN are expressed by the users of the two sites. The request is directed to the CNC, and the CNC interacts with the network provider's MDSC. The benefits of this model include are as follows.

Provides edge-to-edge VPN multi-access connectivity.
Most of the function is managed by the network provider, with some flexibility delegated to the customer-managed CNC.

In terms of network slicing concept as defined in , in this example the customer requests a single network slice with a pair of point-to-point connectivity constructs (one in each direction) between the service demarcation points at site A and site B. The customer is unaware that the service is delivered over multiple physical networks.

VPN Model ( ) ( ) ( ) < > ==( Physical )==( Physical )==( Physical )== < > ( Network ) ( Network ) ( Network ) < > < > ( ) ( ) ( ) < > < > ------- ------- ------- < > < >-----------------------------------------------< > <______> <______> Key: ... ACTN control connectivity === Physical connectivity --- Logical connectivity ]]>

ACTN Used to Deliver a Virtual Customer Network In the example shown in , ACTN provides a virtual network to the customer. This virtual network is managed by the customer. The figure shows two virtual networks (Network Slice 1 and Network Slice 2) each created for a different customer under the care of a different CNC. There are two physical networks controlled by separate PNCs. Network Slice 2 is built using resources from just one physical network, while Network Slice 1 is constructed from resources from both physical networks. The benefits of this model include the following.

The MDSC provides the topology to the customer so that the customer can control their network slice to fit their needs.
Applications can interact with their assigned network slices directly. The customer may implement their own network control methods and traffic prioritization, and manage their own addressing schemes.
Customers may further slice their virtual networks so that this becomes a recursive model.
Service isolation can be provided through selection of physical networking resources through a combination of efforts of the MSDC and PNC.
The network slice may include nodes with specific capabilities. These can be delivered as Physical Network Functions (PNFs) or Virtual Network Functions (VNFs).

Network Slicing ( Network ) ------------- ( Slice 2 ) ^ (___________) | ___________ ^ | ------------- ( ) : | | CNC |-------->( Network ) : | ------------- ( Slice 1 ) : | ^ (___________) : | | ^ ^ : Boundary | | : : : Between .|. . . .|. . . . . . . . . . . : . .:. . : . . . Customer & | | : : : Network | | : : : Provider v v : : : ------------- : :....: | MDSC | : : ------------- : : ^ ------^-- : | ( ) : v ( Physical ) : ------- ( Network ) : | PNC |<------------>( ) ---^----- ------- | ------- ( ) | PNC |- ( Physical ) | |<-------------------------->( Network ) ------- ( ) ------- Key: --- ACTN control connection ... Virtualization/abstraction through slicing ]]>

YANG Models

Network Slice Service Mapping from TE to ACTN VN Models The role of the TE-service mapping model is to create a binding relationship across a Layer 3 Service Model (L3SM) , Layer 2 Service Model (L2SM) , and TE Tunnel model , via the generic ACTN Virtual Network (VN) model . The ACTN VN model is a generic virtual network service model that allows customers to specify a VN that meets the customer's service objectives with various constraints on how the service is delivered. A request for a network slice service may be mapped directly to a request for a VN. The TE-service mapping model is used to bind the L3SM with TE-specific parameters. This binding facilitates seamless service operation and enables visibility of the underlay TE network. The TE-service model developed in that document can also be extended to support other services including L2SM, and the Layer 1 Connectivity Service Model (L1CSM) L1CSM network service models. shows the relationship between the models discussed above.

TE-Service Mapping | ACTN VN | --------------- | Augmented | reference ----------- | L2SM |<=========| Service | --------------- augment | Model | ----------- --------------- | |...........>| TE-topo | | L1CSM |<=========| | reference ----------- --------------- augment | | --------------- | | ----------- | TE & Service |--------->| |...........>| TE-tunnel | | Mapping Types | import ----------- reference ----------- --------------- ]]>

Interfaces and Yang Models shows the three ACTN components and two ACTN interfaces as listed in . The figure also shows the Device Configuration Interface between the PNC and the devices in the physical network. That interface might be used to install state on every device in the network, or might instruct a "head-end" node when a control plane is used within the physical network. In the context of , the Device Configuration Interface uses one or more device configuration models. The figure also shows the Network Slice Service Interface. This interface allows a customer to make requests for delivery of the service, and it facilitates the customer modifying and monitoring the service. In the context of , this is a customer service interface and uses a service model. When an ACTN system is used to manage the delivery of network slices, a network slice resource model is needed. This model will be used for instantiation, operation, and monitoring of network and function resource slices. The YANG model defined in provides a suitable basis for requesting, controlling, and deleting, network slices.

The Yang Interfaces in Context

ACTN VN Telemetry The ACTN VN KPI telemetry model provides a way for a customer to define performance monitoring relevant for its VN/network slice via the NETCONF subscription mechanisms , , or using the equivalent mechanisms in RESTCONF , . Key characteristics of include the following.

An ability to provide scalable VN-level telemetry aggregation based on a customer subscription model for key performance parameters defined by the customer.
An ability to facilitate proactive re-optimization and reconfiguration of VNs/network slices based on autonomic network traffic engineering scaling configuration mechanisms.

IANA Considerations This document makes no requests for action by IANA.

Security Considerations Network slicing involves the control of network resources in order to meet the service requirements of customers. In some deployment models using ACTN, the customer is able to directly request modification in the behaviour of resources owned and operated by a service provider. Such changes could significantly affect the service provider's ability to provide services to other customers. Furthermore, the resources allocated for or consumed by a customer will normally be billable by the service provider. Therefore, it is crucial that the mechanisms used in any network slicing system allow for authentication of requests, security of those requests, and tracking of resource allocations. It should also be noted that while the partitioning or slicing of resources is virtual, as mentioned in the customers expect and require that there is no risk of leakage of data from one slice to another, no transfer of knowledge of the structure or even existence of other slices. Further, in some service requests, there is an expectation that changes to one slice (under the control of one customer) should not have detrimental effects on the operation of other slices (whether under control of different or the same customers) even within the limits allowed within the SLA. Thus, slices are assumed to be private and to provide the appearance of genuine physical connectivity. Some service providers may offer secure network slices as a service. Such services may claim to include edge-to-edge encryption for the customer's traffic. However, a customer should take full responsibility for the privacy and integrity of their traffic and should carefully consider using their own edge-to-edge encryption. ACTN operates using the NETCONF or RESTCONF protocols and assumes the security characteristics of those protocols. Deployment models for ACTN should fully explore the authentication and other security aspects before networks start to carry live traffic.

Acknowledgements Thanks to Qin Wu, Andy Jones, Ramon Casellas, Gert Grammel, and Kiran Makhijani for their insight and useful discussions about network slicing. This work is partially supported by the European Commission under Horizon 2020 grant agreement number 101015857 Secured autonomic traffic management for a Tera of SDN flows (Teraflow).

Contributors The following people contributed text to this document.