Intent Based Orchestration for Applications Dave Lenrow dlenrow@gmail.com

Background for discussing “Intent Based” An IMPERATIVE interface explicitly prescribes the technology features, configuration and state of devices that deliver services An DECLARATIVE interface defines a desired end-state in a way that is independent of technology and device specifics Declarative interfaces deliver benefits including portability, vendor-independence, interoperability, linear scale-out, ease of use, automation of complex logic, and more.

Defining an Intent Based System Note this picture was published the ONF NBI groups principles technical recommendation. Note that mappings can come from anywhere in the system. Intent can’t refer to things unless they existin in mapping DB so they are tightly coupled. The intent engine is the imperative control point for driving imperative interfaces to infrastructure and devices The intent engine is the brain of the control system Intent based systems include a controller (the Intent Engine) with two distinct north-bound interfaces: The Intent API is declarative, describing desired system behavior The Mapping API updates state of dynamic system elements

Migrating to Intent Based Systems Today Applications include knowledge of and analytics for infrastructure devices and behaviors. They harvest proprietary infrastructure telemetry, analyze it and drive imperative changes to infrastructure elements. Imperative and Declarative interfaces are combined in a way that makes for big, complicated, non-interoperable applications and infrastructure interfaces After Intent Project Closed loop monitoring of infrastructure state and imperative control lives exclusively in the infrastructure controller layer. Applications express desired end state and behavior (they are not aware of infrastructure details) using interoperable declarative interfaces. End-user of intent can introduce new terms and grammatical constructions via the mapping interface (this requires a developer) Imperative get deprecated as control loops migrate

Application Programming Model Examples Programable Network App On Device Cloud Service Telemetry ST Data LSO Intent NBI Inference Intent Model ST App & Proxy Intent API Analytics Direct Application Intent Model Application Proxy App Intent API Analytics Programable Network App On Device Cloud Service Telemetry Application Data LSO Intent NBI DPI Intent Model DPI App & Proxy DPI Intent API Analytics Telemetry Application Data Telemetry Application Data LSO Intent NBI App On Device Cloud Service Programable Network

Mixed Imperative/Declarative Migrating to Intent Mixed Imperative/Declarative Intent Based Application/ Proxy Application/ Proxy Analytics I M P E R A T V D E C L A T I V I N T E M A P I N G S Analytics Analytics Telemetry Application Data Telemetry Data Telemetry Application Data Telemetry Data LSO NBI LSO Intent NBI Infrastructure State Talk about migrating to some intent vs migrating to all intent. Goal is consolidation of infrastructure state and analytics outside of the application layer. This means migrating the control logic and closed-loop monitoring into the intent engine and leaving only intent and mapping in the application layer. App On Device Cloud Service App On Device Cloud Service Programable Network Programable Network

Imperative out of applications layer Application Layer Application Analytics I N T E M A P I N G S Application Telemetry Data Infrastructure Demarcation Point Infrastructure Layer N Analytics Mixed Imperative & Declarative I M P E R A T V I N T E M A P I N G S Infrastructure State Point of this slide is intent may exist inside the infra stack. What matters is imperative is out of the apps. Goal is consolidation of infrastructure state and analytics outside of the application layer. This means migrating the control logic and closed-loop monitoring into the intent engine and leaving only intent and mapping in the application layer. Beneath the application layer there can be various mixtures of imperative and declarative up and down the infra stack. Infrastructure Layer N + 1 Analytics Infra Telemetry Data Infra Telemetry Data Infrastructure State Device device Programable Network

LSO Closed Loop Analytics with Application APIs MEF LSO Framework Cloud Applications Application Events and Telemetry LEGATO (BUS:SOF) AI Analytic Applications Service Orchestration Functionality Events Data Analytics Platform PRESTO (SOF:ICM) Infrastructure Control and Management ADAGIO (ICM:ECM) Observe that this picture is essentially identical to the intent migration endpoint Element Control Management & Data Aggregation Network Events Events Logs Metrics Netflow Network Telemetry Network Infrastructure

Excerpts from MEF SD-WAN proposal To meet customer demand for agile, economical end to end services and application delivery, Service Providers (SPs) need standards of inter-operator and multi-vendor interoperability. Having interoperablity and quality standards will enable the industry to capitalize on the opportunities offered by this transition while underpinning innovation. SPs who can offer a service that is certified against a recognised industry standard will have a competitive advantage. Show SD-WAN and combination of control loops with mixed i/d Show migration to segregated with consolidated analytics Talk about data lake

Intent as SD-WAN Interoperability Foundation Declarative component is inherently portable and implementation agnostic. Common API or translation between similar levels of abstraction is possible for interoperability in the declarative domain. Mapping ties declarative abstractions to the implementation details and needs a more formalized approach to agreeing on interface details per-use- case. Intent Group under MEF Application Committee will initially work on refactoring/defining SD-WAN as intent and mappings, after refining and prioritizing use cases

MEF Intent based SD-WAN Work Deliverables: 2H2018 SD-WAN intent and mapping interface definition V1.0 2H2018 Open Source POC/Reference V1.0 Need volunteers to lead work items Immediate Work Items Recruit and identify contributors Agree on use case priorities Define use cases (already done by SD-WAN project?) Identify and define intent based SD-WAN POC 1.0 Begin software development Will refine dates and deliverables as a group once up and running

Intent Based Orchestration Weekly GTM To Be Announced