<pre>Internet Research Task Force (IRTF)                             S. Jiang
Request for Comments: 7576                  Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd
Category: Informational                                     B. Carpenter
ISSN: 2070-1721                                        Univ. of Auckland
                                                            M. Behringer
                                                           Cisco Systems
                                                               June 2015


             <span class="h1">General Gap Analysis for Autonomic Networking</span>

Abstract

   This document provides a problem statement and general gap analysis
   for an IP-based Autonomic Network that is mainly based on distributed
   network devices.  The document provides background by reviewing the
   current status of autonomic aspects of IP networks and the extent to
   which current network management depends on centralization and human
   administrators.  Finally, the document outlines the general features
   that are missing from current network abilities and are needed in the
   ideal Autonomic Network concept.

   This document is a product of the IRTF's Network Management Research
   Group.

Status of This Memo

   This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
   published for informational purposes.

   This document is a product of the Internet Research Task Force
   (IRTF).  The IRTF publishes the results of Internet-related research
   and development activities.  These results might not be suitable for
   deployment.  This RFC represents the consensus of the Network
   Management Research Group of the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF).
   Documents approved for publication by the IRSG are not a candidate
   for any level of Internet Standard; see <a href="./rfc5741#section-2">Section&nbsp;2 of RFC 5741</a>.

   Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
   and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
   <a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7576">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7576</a>.










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Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2015 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to <a href="https://www.rfc-editor.org/bcp/bcp78">BCP 78</a> and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (<a href="http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info">http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info</a>) 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.

Table of Contents

   <a href="#section-1">1</a>.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   <a href="#page-3">3</a>
   <a href="#section-2">2</a>.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   <a href="#page-3">3</a>
   <a href="#section-3">3</a>.  Automatic and Autonomic Aspects of Current IP Networks  . . .   <a href="#page-3">3</a>
     <a href="#section-3.1">3.1</a>.  IP Address Management and DNS . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   <a href="#page-3">3</a>
     <a href="#section-3.2">3.2</a>.  Routing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   <a href="#page-5">5</a>
     <a href="#section-3.3">3.3</a>.  Configuration of Default Router in a Host . . . . . . . .   <a href="#page-5">5</a>
     <a href="#section-3.4">3.4</a>.  Hostname Lookup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   <a href="#page-5">5</a>
     <a href="#section-3.5">3.5</a>.  User Authentication and Accounting  . . . . . . . . . . .   <a href="#page-6">6</a>
     <a href="#section-3.6">3.6</a>.  Security  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   <a href="#page-6">6</a>
     <a href="#section-3.7">3.7</a>.  State Synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   <a href="#page-7">7</a>
   <a href="#section-4">4</a>.  Current Non-autonomic Behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   <a href="#page-7">7</a>
     <a href="#section-4.1">4.1</a>.  Building a New Network  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   <a href="#page-7">7</a>
     <a href="#section-4.2">4.2</a>.  Network Maintenance and Management  . . . . . . . . . . .   <a href="#page-8">8</a>
     <a href="#section-4.3">4.3</a>.  Security Setup  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   <a href="#page-9">9</a>
     <a href="#section-4.4">4.4</a>.  Troubleshooting and Recovery  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   <a href="#page-9">9</a>
   <a href="#section-5">5</a>.  Features Needed by Autonomic Networks . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-10">10</a>
     <a href="#section-5.1">5.1</a>.  More Coordination among Devices or Network Partitions . .  <a href="#page-11">11</a>
     <a href="#section-5.2">5.2</a>.  Reusable Common Components  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-11">11</a>
     <a href="#section-5.3">5.3</a>.  Secure Control Plane  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-12">12</a>
     <a href="#section-5.4">5.4</a>.  Less Configuration  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-12">12</a>
     <a href="#section-5.5">5.5</a>.  Forecasting and Dry Runs  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-13">13</a>
     <a href="#section-5.6">5.6</a>.  Benefit from Knowledge  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-13">13</a>
   <a href="#section-6">6</a>.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-14">14</a>
   <a href="#section-7">7</a>.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-14">14</a>
   Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-17">17</a>
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-17">17</a>











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<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-1" href="#section-1">1</a>.  Introduction</span>

   The general goals and relevant definitions for Autonomic Networking
   are discussed in [<a href="./rfc7575" title="&quot;Autonomic Networking: Definitions and Design Goals&quot;">RFC7575</a>].  In summary, the fundamental goal of an
   Autonomic Network is self-management, including self-configuration,
   self-optimization, self-healing, and self-protection.  Whereas
   interior gateway routing protocols such as OSPF and IS-IS largely
   exhibit these properties, most other aspects of networking require
   top-down configuration, often involving human administrators and a
   considerable degree of centralization.  In essence, Autonomic
   Networking is putting all network configurations onto the same
   footing as routing, limiting manual or database-driven configuration
   to an essential minimum.  It should be noted that this is highly
   unlikely to eliminate the need for human administrators, because many
   of their essential tasks will remain.  The idea is to eliminate
   tedious and error-prone tasks, for example, manual calculations,
   cross-checking between two different configuration files, or tedious
   data entry.  Higher-level operational tasks, and complex
   troubleshooting, will remain to be done by humans.

   This document represents the consensus of the IRTF's Network
   Management Research Group (NMRG).  It first provides background by
   identifying examples of partial autonomic behavior in the Internet
   and by describing important areas of non-autonomic behavior.  Based
   on these observations, it then describes missing general mechanisms
   that would allow autonomic behaviors to be added throughout the
   Internet.

<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-2" href="#section-2">2</a>.  Terminology</span>

   The terminology defined in [<a href="./rfc7575" title="&quot;Autonomic Networking: Definitions and Design Goals&quot;">RFC7575</a>] is used in this document.

<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-3" href="#section-3">3</a>.  Automatic and Autonomic Aspects of Current IP Networks</span>

   This section discusses the history and current status of automatic or
   autonomic operations in various aspects of network configuration, in
   order to establish a baseline for the gap analysis.  In particular,
   routing protocols already contain elements of autonomic processes,
   such as information exchange and state synchronization.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-3.1" href="#section-3.1">3.1</a>.  IP Address Management and DNS</span>

   For many years, there was no alternative to completely manual and
   static management of IP addresses and their prefixes.  Once a site
   had received an IPv4 address assignment (usually a Class C /24 or
   Class B /16, and rarely a Class A /8), it was a matter of paper-and-
   pencil design of the subnet plan (if relevant) and the addressing
   plan itself.  Subnet prefixes were manually configured into routers,



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   and /32 addresses were assigned administratively to individual host
   computers and configured manually by system administrators.  Records
   were typically kept in a plain text file or a simple spreadsheet.

   Clearly, this method was clumsy and error-prone as soon as a site had
   more than a few tens of hosts, but it had to be used until DHCP
   [<a href="./rfc2131" title="&quot;Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol&quot;">RFC2131</a>] became a viable solution during the second half of the
   1990s.  DHCP made it possible to avoid manual configuration of
   individual hosts (except, in many deployments, for a small number of
   servers configured with static addresses).  Even so, prefixes had to
   be manually assigned to subnets and their routers, and DHCP servers
   had to be configured accordingly.

   In terms of management, there is a linkage between IP address
   management and DNS management, because DNS mappings typically need to
   be appropriately synchronized with IP address assignments.  At
   roughly the same time as DHCP came into widespread use, it became
   very laborious to manually maintain DNS source files in step with IP
   address assignments.  Because of reverse DNS lookup, it also became
   necessary to synthesize DNS names even for hosts that only played the
   role of clients.  Therefore, it became necessary to synchronize DHCP
   server tables with forward and reverse DNS.  For this reason, IP
   address management tools emerged, as discussed for the case of
   renumbering in [<a href="./rfc7010" title="&quot;IPv6 Site Renumbering Gap Analysis&quot;">RFC7010</a>].  These are, however, centralized solutions
   that do not exhibit autonomic properties as defined in [<a href="./rfc7575" title="&quot;Autonomic Networking: Definitions and Design Goals&quot;">RFC7575</a>].

   A related issue is prefix delegation, especially in IPv6 when more
   than one prefix may be delegated to the same physical subnet.  DHCPv6
   Prefix Delegation [<a href="./rfc3633" title="&quot;IPv6 Prefix Options for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) version 6&quot;">RFC3633</a>] is a useful solution, but it requires
   specific configuration so cannot be considered autonomic.  How this
   topic is to be handled in home networks is still in discussion
   [<a href="#ref-Pfister" title="&quot;Distributed Prefix Assignment Algorithm&quot;">Pfister</a>].  Still further away is autonomic assignment and delegation
   of routable IPv4 subnet prefixes.

   An IPv6 network needs several aspects of host address assignments to
   be configured.  The network might use stateless address
   autoconfiguration [<a href="./rfc4862" title="&quot;IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration&quot;">RFC4862</a>] or DHCPv6 [<a href="./rfc3315" title="&quot;Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for IPv6 (DHCPv6)&quot;">RFC3315</a>] in stateless or
   stateful modes, and there are various alternative forms of Interface
   Identifier [<a href="./rfc7136" title="&quot;Significance of IPv6 Interface Identifiers&quot;">RFC7136</a>].

   Another feature is the possibility of Dynamic DNS Update [<a href="./rfc2136" title="&quot;Dynamic Updates in the Domain Name System (DNS UPDATE)&quot;">RFC2136</a>].
   With appropriate security, this is an automatic approach, where no
   human intervention is required to create the DNS records for a host
   after it acquires a new address.  However, there are coexistence
   issues with a traditional DNS setup, as described in [<a href="./rfc7010" title="&quot;IPv6 Site Renumbering Gap Analysis&quot;">RFC7010</a>].






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<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-3.2" href="#section-3.2">3.2</a>.  Routing</span>

   Since a very early stage, it has been a goal that Internet routing
   should be self-healing when there is a failure of some kind in the
   routing system (i.e., a link or a router goes wrong).  Also, the
   problem of finding optimal routes through a network was identified
   many years ago as a problem in mathematical graph theory, for which
   well known algorithms were discovered (the Dijkstra and Bellman-Ford
   algorithms).  Thus, routing protocols became largely autonomic from
   the start, as it was clear that manual configuration of routing
   tables for a large network was impractical.

   IGP routers do need some initial configuration data to start up the
   autonomic routing protocol.  Also, BGP-4 routers need detailed static
   configuration of routing policy data.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-3.3" href="#section-3.3">3.3</a>.  Configuration of Default Router in a Host</span>

   Originally, the configuration of a default router in a host was a
   manual operation.  Since the deployment of DHCP, this has been
   automatic as far as most IPv4 hosts are concerned, but the DHCP
   server must be appropriately configured.  In simple environments such
   as a home network, the DHCP server resides in the same box as the
   default router, so this configuration is also automatic.  In more
   complex environments, where an independent DHCP server or a local
   DHCP relay is used, DHCP configuration is more complex and not
   automatic.

   In IPv6 networks, the default router is provided by Router
   Advertisement messages [<a href="./rfc4861" title="&quot;Neighbor Discovery for IP version 6 (IPv6)&quot;">RFC4861</a>] from the router itself, and all IPv6
   hosts make use of it.  The router may also provide more complex Route
   Information Options.  The process is essentially autonomic as far as
   all IPv6 hosts are concerned, and DHCPv6 is not involved.  However,
   there are still open issues when more than one prefix is in use on a
   subnet, and more than one first-hop router may be available as a
   result (see, for example, [<a href="./rfc6418" title="&quot;Multiple Interfaces and Provisioning Domains Problem Statement&quot;">RFC6418</a>]).

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-3.4" href="#section-3.4">3.4</a>.  Hostname Lookup</span>

   Originally, hostnames were looked up in a static table, often
   referred to as "hosts.txt" from its traditional file name.  When the
   DNS was deployed during the 1980s, all hosts needed DNS resolver code
   and needed to be configured with the IP addresses (not the names) of
   suitable DNS servers.  Like the default router, these were originally
   manually configured.  Today, they are provided automatically via DHCP
   or DHCPv6 [<a href="./rfc3315" title="&quot;Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for IPv6 (DHCPv6)&quot;">RFC3315</a>].  For IPv6 end systems, there is also a way for
   them to be provided automatically via a Router Advertisement option.
   However, the DHCP or DHCPv6 server, or the IPv6 router, needs to be



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   configured with the appropriate DNS server addresses.  Additionally,
   some networks deploy Multicast DNS [<a href="./rfc6762" title="&quot;Multicast DNS&quot;">RFC6762</a>] locally to provide
   additional automation of the name space.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-3.5" href="#section-3.5">3.5</a>.  User Authentication and Accounting</span>

   Originally, user authentication and accounting was mainly based on
   physical connectivity and the degree of trust that follows from
   direct connectivity.  Network operators charged based on the setup of
   dedicated physical links with users.  Automated user authentication
   was introduced by the Point-to-Point Protocol [<a href="./rfc1661" title="&quot;The Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP)&quot;">RFC1661</a>], [<a href="./rfc1994" title="&quot;PPP Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol (CHAP)&quot;">RFC1994</a>]
   and RADIUS protocol [<a href="./rfc2865" title="&quot;Remote Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS)&quot;">RFC2865</a>] [<a href="./rfc2866" title="&quot;RADIUS Accounting&quot;">RFC2866</a>] in the early 1990s.  As long
   as a user completes online authentication through the RADIUS
   protocol, the accounting for that user starts on the corresponding
   Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA) server
   automatically.  This mechanism enables business models with charging
   based on the amount of traffic or time.  However, user authentication
   information continues to be manually managed by network
   administrators.  It also becomes complex in the case of mobile users
   who roam between operators, since prior relationships between the
   operators are needed.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-3.6" href="#section-3.6">3.6</a>.  Security</span>

   Security has many aspects that need configuration and are therefore
   candidates to become autonomic.  On the other hand, it is essential
   that a network's central policy be applied strictly for all security
   configurations.  As a result, security has largely been based on
   centrally imposed configurations.

   Many aspects of security depend on policy, for example, password
   rules, privacy rules, firewall rulesets, intrusion detection and
   prevention settings, VPN configurations, and the choice of
   cryptographic algorithms.  Policies are, by definition, human made
   and will therefore also persist in an autonomic environment.
   However, policies are becoming more high-level, abstracting
   addressing, for example, and focusing on the user or application.
   The methods to manage, distribute, and apply policy and to monitor
   compliance and violations could be autonomic.

   Today, many security mechanisms show some autonomic properties.  For
   example user authentication via IEEE 802.1x allows automatic mapping
   of users after authentication into logical contexts (typically
   VLANs).  While today configuration is still very important, the
   overall mechanism displays signs of self-adaption to changing
   situations.





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   BGP Flowspec [<a href="./rfc5575" title="&quot;Dissemination of Flow Specification Rules&quot;">RFC5575</a>] allows a partially autonomic threat-defense
   mechanism, where threats are identified, the flow information is
   automatically distributed, and counter-actions can be applied.
   Today, typically a human operator is still in the loop to check
   correctness, but over time such mechanisms can become more autonomic.

   Negotiation capabilities, present in many security protocols, also
   display simple autonomic behaviors.  In this case, a security policy
   about algorithm strength can be configured into servers but will
   propagate automatically to clients.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-3.7" href="#section-3.7">3.7</a>.  State Synchronization</span>

   Another area where autonomic processes between peers are involved is
   state synchronization.  In this case, several devices start out with
   inconsistent state and go through a peer-to-peer procedure after
   which their states are consistent.  Many autonomic or automatic
   processes include some degree of implicit state synchronization.
   Network time synchronization [<a href="./rfc5905" title="&quot;Network Time Protocol Version 4: Protocol and Algorithms Specification&quot;">RFC5905</a>] is a well-established explicit
   example, guaranteeing that a participating node's clock state is
   synchronized with reliable time servers within a defined margin of
   error, without any overall point of control of the synchronization
   process.

<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-4" href="#section-4">4</a>.  Current Non-autonomic Behaviors</span>

   In current networks, many operations are still heavily dependent on
   human intelligence and decision, or on centralized top-down network
   management systems.  These operations are the targets of Autonomic
   Networking technologies.  The ultimate goal of Autonomic Networking
   is to replace human and automated operations by autonomic functions,
   so that the networks can run independently without depending on a
   human or Network Management System (NMS) for routine details, while
   maintaining central control where required.  Of course, there would
   still be the absolute minimum of human input required, particularly
   during the network-building stage, emergencies, and difficult
   troubleshooting.

   This section analyzes the existing human and central dependencies in
   typical networks and suggests cases where they could, in principle,
   be replaced by autonomic behaviors.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-4.1" href="#section-4.1">4.1</a>.  Building a New Network</span>

   Building a network requires the operator to analyze the requirements
   of the new network, design a deployment architecture and topology,
   decide device locations and capacities, set up hardware, design
   network services, choose and enable required protocols, configure



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   each device and each protocol, set up central user authentication and
   accounting policies and databases, design and deploy security
   mechanisms, etc.

   Overall, these jobs are quite complex work that cannot become fully
   autonomic in the foreseeable future.  However, part of these jobs may
   be able to become autonomic, such as detailed device and protocol
   configurations and database population.  The initial network
   management policies/behaviors may also be transplanted from other
   networks and automatically localized.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-4.2" href="#section-4.2">4.2</a>.  Network Maintenance and Management</span>

   Network maintenance and management are very different for ISP
   networks and enterprise networks.  ISP networks have to change much
   more frequently than enterprise networks, given the fact that ISP
   networks have to serve a large number of customers who have very
   diversified requirements.  The current rigid model is that network
   administrators design a limited number of services for customers to
   order.  New requirements of network services may not be able to be
   met quickly by human management.  Given a real-time request, the
   response must be autonomic, in order to be flexible and quickly
   deployed.  However, behind the interface, describing abstracted
   network information and user authorization management may have to
   depend on human intelligence from network administrators in the
   foreseeable future.  User identification integration/consolidation
   among networks or network services is another challenge for Autonomic
   Network access.  Currently, many end users have to manually manage
   their user accounts and authentication information when they switch
   among networks or network services.

   Classical network maintenance and management mainly handle the
   configuration of network devices.  Tools have been developed to
   enable remote management and make such management easier.  However,
   the decision about each configuration detail depends either on human
   intelligence or rigid templates.  Therefore, these are the sources of
   all network configuration errors -- the human was wrong, the template
   was wrong, or both were wrong.  This is also a barrier to increasing
   the utility of network resources, because the human managers cannot
   respond quickly enough to network events, such as traffic bursts,
   that were not foreseen in the template.  For example, currently, a
   light load is often assumed in network design because there is no
   mechanism to properly handle a sudden traffic flood.  It is therefore
   common to avoid performance collapses caused by traffic overload by
   configuring idle resources, with an overprovisioning ratio of at
   least 2 being normal [<a href="#ref-Xiao02" title="&quot;A Practical Approach for Providing QoS in the Internet Backbone&quot;">Xiao02</a>].





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   There are grounds for concern that the introduction of new, more
   flexible, methods of network configuration, typified by Software-
   Defined Networking (SDN), will only make the management problem more
   complex unless the details are managed automatically or
   autonomically.  There is no doubt that SDN creates both the necessity
   and the opportunity for automation of configuration management, e.g.,
   [<a href="#ref-Kim13" title="&quot;Improving Network Management with Software Defined Networking&quot;">Kim13</a>].  This topic is discussed from a service provider viewpoint
   in [<a href="./rfc7149" title="&quot;Software-Defined Networking: A Perspective from within a Service Provider Environment&quot;">RFC7149</a>].

   Autonomic decision processes for configuration would enable dynamic
   management of network resources (by managing resource-relevant
   configuration).  Self-adapting network configuration would adjust the
   network into the best possible situation; this would prevent
   configuration errors from having lasting impact.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-4.3" href="#section-4.3">4.3</a>.  Security Setup</span>

   Setting up security for a network generally requires very detailed
   human intervention or relies entirely on default configurations that
   may be too strict or too risky for the particular situation of the
   network.  While some aspects of security are intrinsically top-down
   in nature (e.g., broadcasting a specific security policy to all
   hosts), others could be self-managed within the network.

   In an Autonomic Network, where nodes within a domain have a mutually
   verifiable domain identity, security processes could run entirely
   automatically.  Nodes could identify each other securely, negotiating
   required security settings and even shared keys if needed.  The
   locations of the trust anchors (certificate authority, registration
   authority), certificate revocation lists, policy server, etc., can be
   found by service discovery.  Transactions such as a download of a
   certificate revocation list can be authenticated via a common trust
   anchor.  Policy distribution can also be entirely automated and
   secured via a common trust anchor.

   These concepts lead to a network where the intrinsic security is
   automatic and applied by default, i.e., a "self-protecting" network.
   For further discussion, see [<a href="#ref-Behringer">Behringer</a>].

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-4.4" href="#section-4.4">4.4</a>.  Troubleshooting and Recovery</span>

   Current networks suffer difficulties in locating the cause of network
   failures.  Although network devices may issue many warnings while
   running, most of them are not sufficiently precise to be identified
   as errors.  Some of them are early warnings that would not develop
   into real errors.  Others are, in effect, random noise.  During a
   major failure, many different devices will issue multiple warnings
   within a short time, causing overload for the NMS and the operators.



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   However, for many scenarios, human experience is still vital to
   identify real issues and locate them.  This situation may be improved
   by automatically associating warnings from multiple network devices
   together.  Also, introducing automated learning techniques (comparing
   current warnings with historical relationships between warnings and
   actual faults) could increase the possibility and success rate of
   Autonomic Network diagnoses and troubleshooting.

   Depending on the network errors, some of them (particularly hardware
   failures) may always require human intervention.  However, Autonomic
   Network management behavior may help to reduce the impact of errors,
   for example, by switching traffic flows around.  Today, this is
   usually manual (except for classical routing updates).  Fixing
   software failures and configuration errors currently depends on
   humans and may even involve rolling back software versions and
   rebooting hardware.  Such problems could be autonomically corrected
   if there were diagnostics and recovery functions defined in advance
   for them.  This would fulfill the concept of self-healing.

   Another possible autonomic function is predicting device failures or
   overloads before they occur.  A device could predict its own failure
   and warn its neighbors, or a device could predict its neighbor's
   failure.  In either case, an Autonomic Network could respond as if
   the failure had already occurred by routing around the problem and
   reporting the failure, with no disturbance to users.  The criteria
   for predicting failure could be temperature, battery status, bit
   error rates, etc.  The criteria for predicting overload could be
   increasing load factor, latency, jitter, congestion loss, etc.

<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-5" href="#section-5">5</a>.  Features Needed by Autonomic Networks</span>

   There are innumerable properties of network devices and end systems
   that today need to be configured either manually, by scripting, or by
   using a management protocol such as the Network Configuration
   Protocol (NETCONF) [<a href="./rfc6241" title="&quot;Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF)&quot;">RFC6241</a>].  In an Autonomic Network, all of these
   would need to either have satisfactory default values or be
   configured automatically.  Some examples are parameters for tunnels
   of various kinds, flows (in an SDN context), quality of service,
   service function chaining, energy management, system identification,
   and NTP configuration, but the list is endless.

   The task of Autonomic Networking is to incrementally build up
   individual autonomic processes that could progressively be combined
   to respond to every type of network event.  Building on the preceding
   background information, and on the reference model in [<a href="./rfc7575" title="&quot;Autonomic Networking: Definitions and Design Goals&quot;">RFC7575</a>], this
   section outlines the gaps and missing features in general terms and,
   in some cases, mentions general design principles that should apply.




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<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-5.1" href="#section-5.1">5.1</a>.  More Coordination among Devices or Network Partitions</span>

   Network services are dependent on a number of devices and parameters
   to be in place in a certain order.  For example, after a power
   failure, a coordinated sequence of "return to normal" operations is
   desirable (e.g., switches and routers first, DNS servers second,
   etc.).  Today, the correct sequence of events is either known only by
   a human administrator or automated in a central script.  In a truly
   Autonomic Network, elements should understand their dependencies and
   be able to resolve them locally.

   In order to make right or good decisions autonomically, the network
   devices need to know more information than just reachability
   (routing) information from the relevant or neighbor devices.  Devices
   must be able to derive, for themselves, the dependencies between such
   information and configurations.

   There are therefore increased requirements for horizontal information
   exchange in the networks.  Particularly, three types of interaction
   among peer network devices are needed for autonomic decisions:
   discovery (to find neighbors and peers), synchronization (to agree on
   network status), and negotiation (when things need to be changed).
   Thus, there is a need for reusable discovery, synchronization, and
   negotiation mechanisms that would support the discovery of many
   different types of device, the synchronization of many types of
   parameter, and the negotiation of many different types of objective.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-5.2" href="#section-5.2">5.2</a>.  Reusable Common Components</span>

   Elements of autonomic functions already exist today, within many
   different protocols.  However, all such functions have their own
   discovery, transport, messaging, and security mechanisms as well as
   non-autonomic management interfaces.  Each protocol has its own
   version of the above-mentioned functions to serve specific and narrow
   purposes.  It is often difficult to extend an existing protocol to
   serve different purposes.  Therefore, in order to provide the
   reusable discovery, synchronization, and negotiation mechanisms
   mentioned above, it is desirable to develop a set of reusable common
   protocol components for Autonomic Networking.  These components
   should be:

   o  Able to identify other devices, users, and processes securely.

   o  Able to automatically secure operations, based on the above
      identity scheme.

   o  Able to manage any type of information and information flows.




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   o  Able to discover peer devices and services for various Autonomic
      Service Agents (or autonomic functions).

   o  Able to support closed-loop operations when needed to provide
      self-managing functions involving more than one device.

   o  Separable from the specific Autonomic Service Agents (or autonomic
      functions).

   o  Reusable by other autonomic functions.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-5.3" href="#section-5.3">5.3</a>.  Secure Control Plane</span>

   The common components will, in effect, act as a control plane for
   autonomic operations.  This control plane might be implemented in-
   band as functions of the target network, in an overlay network, or
   even out-of-band in a separate network.  Autonomic operations will be
   capable of changing how the network operates and allocating resources
   without human intervention or knowledge, so it is essential that they
   are secure.  Therefore, the control plane must be designed to be
   secure against forged autonomic operations and man-in-the middle
   attacks and as secure as reasonably possible against denial-of-
   service attacks.  It must be decided whether the control plane needs
   to be resistant to unwanted monitoring, i.e., whether encryption is
   required.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-5.4" href="#section-5.4">5.4</a>.  Less Configuration</span>

   Many existing protocols have been defined to be as flexible as
   possible.  Consequently, these protocols need numerous initial
   configurations to start operations.  There are choices and options
   that are irrelevant in any particular case, some of which target
   corner cases.  Furthermore, in protocols that have existed for years,
   some design considerations are no longer relevant, since the
   underlying hardware technologies have evolved meanwhile.  To
   appreciate the scale of this problem, consider that more than 160
   DHCP options have been defined for IPv4.  Even sample router
   configuration files readily available online contain more than 200
   lines of commands.  There is therefore considerable scope for
   simplifying the operational tools for configuration of common
   protocols, even if the underlying protocols themselves cannot be
   simplified.

   From another perspective, the deep reason why human decisions are
   often needed mainly results from the lack of information.  When a
   device can collect enough information horizontally from other
   devices, it should be able to decide many parameters by itself,
   instead of receiving them from top-down configuration.



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   It is desired that top-down management is reduced in Autonomic
   Networking.  Ideally, only the abstract Intent is needed from the
   human administrators.  Neither users nor administrators should need
   to create and maintain detailed policies and profiles; if they are
   needed, they should be built autonomically.  The local parameters
   should be decided by distributed Autonomic Nodes themselves, either
   from historic knowledge, analytics of current conditions, closed
   logical decision loops, or a combination of all.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-5.5" href="#section-5.5">5.5</a>.  Forecasting and Dry Runs</span>

   In a conventional network, there is no mechanism for trying something
   out safely, which means that configuration changes have to be
   designed in the abstract and their probable effects have to be
   estimated theoretically.  In principle, an alternative to this would
   be to test the changes on a complete and realistic network simulator.
   However, this is a practical impossibility for a large network that
   is constantly changing, even if an accurate simulation could be
   performed.  There is therefore a risk that applying changes to a
   running network will cause a failure of some kind.  An autonomic
   network could fill this gap by supporting a closed loop "dry run"
   mode in which each configuration change could be tested out
   dynamically in the control plane without actually affecting the data
   plane.  If the results are satisfactory, the change could be made
   live on the running network.  If there is a consistency problem such
   as overcommitment of resources or incompatibility with another
   configuration setting, the change could be rolled back dynamically
   with no impact on traffic or users.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-5.6" href="#section-5.6">5.6</a>.  Benefit from Knowledge</span>

   The more knowledge and experience we have, the better decisions we
   can make.  It is the same for networks and network management.  When
   one component in the network lacks knowledge that affects what it
   should do, and another component has that knowledge, we usually rely
   on a human operator or a centralized management tool to convey the
   knowledge.

   Up to now, the only available network knowledge is usually the
   current network status inside a given device or relevant current
   status from other devices.

   However, historic knowledge is very helpful to make correct
   decisions, in particular, to reduce network oscillation or to manage
   network resources over time.  Transplantable knowledge from other
   networks can be helpful to initially set up a new network or new





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   network devices.  Knowledge of relationships between network events
   and network configuration may help a network to decide the best
   parameters according to real performance feedback.

   In addition to such historic knowledge, powerful data analytics of
   current network conditions may also be a valuable source of knowledge
   that can be exploited directly by Autonomic Nodes.

<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-6" href="#section-6">6</a>.  Security Considerations</span>

   This document is focused on what is missing to allow autonomic
   network configuration, including security settings, of course.
   Therefore, it does not itself create any new security issues.  It is
   worth underlining that autonomic technology must be designed with
   strong security properties from the start, since a network with
   vulnerable autonomic functions would be at great risk.

<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-7" href="#section-7">7</a>.  Informative References</span>

   [<a id="ref-Behringer">Behringer</a>]
              Behringer, M., Pritikin, M., and S. Bjarnason, "Making The
              Internet Secure By Default", Work in Progress,
              <a href="./draft-behringer-default-secure-00">draft-behringer-default-secure-00</a>, January 2014.

   [<a id="ref-Kim13">Kim13</a>]    Kim, H. and N. Feamster, "Improving Network Management
              with Software Defined Networking", IEEE Communications
              Magazine, pages 114-119, February 2013.

   [<a id="ref-Pfister">Pfister</a>]  Pfister, P., Paterson, B., and J. Arkko, "Distributed
              Prefix Assignment Algorithm", Work in Progress,
              <a href="./draft-ietf-homenet-prefix-assignment-07">draft-ietf-homenet-prefix-assignment-07</a>, June 2015.

   [<a id="ref-RFC1661">RFC1661</a>]  Simpson, W., Ed., "The Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP)",
              STD 51, <a href="./rfc1661">RFC 1661</a>, DOI 10.17487/RFC1661, July 1994,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1661">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1661</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC1994">RFC1994</a>]  Simpson, W., "PPP Challenge Handshake Authentication
              Protocol (CHAP)", <a href="./rfc1994">RFC 1994</a>, DOI 10.17487/RFC1994, August
              1996, &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1994">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1994</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC2131">RFC2131</a>]  Droms, R., "Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol",
              <a href="./rfc2131">RFC 2131</a>, DOI 10.17487/RFC2131, March 1997,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2131">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2131</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC2136">RFC2136</a>]  Vixie, P., Ed., Thomson, S., Rekhter, Y., and J. Bound,
              "Dynamic Updates in the Domain Name System (DNS UPDATE)",
              <a href="./rfc2136">RFC 2136</a>, DOI 10.17487/RFC2136, April 1997,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2136">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2136</a>&gt;.



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   [<a id="ref-RFC2865">RFC2865</a>]  Rigney, C., Willens, S., Rubens, A., and W. Simpson,
              "Remote Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS)",
              <a href="./rfc2865">RFC 2865</a>, DOI 10.17487/RFC2865, June 2000,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2865">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2865</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC2866">RFC2866</a>]  Rigney, C., "RADIUS Accounting", <a href="./rfc2866">RFC 2866</a>,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2866, June 2000,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2866">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2866</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC3315">RFC3315</a>]  Droms, R., Ed., Bound, J., Volz, B., Lemon, T., Perkins,
              C., and M. Carney, "Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
              for IPv6 (DHCPv6)", <a href="./rfc3315">RFC 3315</a>, DOI 10.17487/RFC3315, July
              2003, &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3315">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3315</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC3633">RFC3633</a>]  Troan, O. and R. Droms, "IPv6 Prefix Options for Dynamic
              Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) version 6", <a href="./rfc3633">RFC 3633</a>,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC3633, December 2003,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3633">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3633</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC4861">RFC4861</a>]  Narten, T., Nordmark, E., Simpson, W., and H. Soliman,
              "Neighbor Discovery for IP version 6 (IPv6)", <a href="./rfc4861">RFC 4861</a>,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC4861, September 2007,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4861">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4861</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC4862">RFC4862</a>]  Thomson, S., Narten, T., and T. Jinmei, "IPv6 Stateless
              Address Autoconfiguration", <a href="./rfc4862">RFC 4862</a>,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC4862, September 2007,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4862">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4862</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC5575">RFC5575</a>]  Marques, P., Sheth, N., Raszuk, R., Greene, B., Mauch, J.,
              and D. McPherson, "Dissemination of Flow Specification
              Rules", <a href="./rfc5575">RFC 5575</a>, DOI 10.17487/RFC5575, August 2009,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5575">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5575</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC5905">RFC5905</a>]  Mills, D., Martin, J., Ed., Burbank, J., and W. Kasch,
              "Network Time Protocol Version 4: Protocol and Algorithms
              Specification", <a href="./rfc5905">RFC 5905</a>, DOI 10.17487/RFC5905, June 2010,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5905">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5905</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC6241">RFC6241</a>]  Enns, R., Ed., Bjorklund, M., Ed., Schoenwaelder, J., Ed.,
              and A. Bierman, Ed., "Network Configuration Protocol
              (NETCONF)", <a href="./rfc6241">RFC 6241</a>, DOI 10.17487/RFC6241, June 2011,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6241">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6241</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC6418">RFC6418</a>]  Blanchet, M. and P. Seite, "Multiple Interfaces and
              Provisioning Domains Problem Statement", <a href="./rfc6418">RFC 6418</a>,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6418, November 2011,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6418">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6418</a>&gt;.



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   [<a id="ref-RFC6762">RFC6762</a>]  Cheshire, S. and M. Krochmal, "Multicast DNS", <a href="./rfc6762">RFC 6762</a>,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6762, February 2013,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6762">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6762</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC7010">RFC7010</a>]  Liu, B., Jiang, S., Carpenter, B., Venaas, S., and W.
              George, "IPv6 Site Renumbering Gap Analysis", <a href="./rfc7010">RFC 7010</a>,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7010, September 2013,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7010">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7010</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC7136">RFC7136</a>]  Carpenter, B. and S. Jiang, "Significance of IPv6
              Interface Identifiers", <a href="./rfc7136">RFC 7136</a>, DOI 10.17487/RFC7136,
              February 2014, &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7136">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7136</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC7149">RFC7149</a>]  Boucadair, M. and C. Jacquenet, "Software-Defined
              Networking: A Perspective from within a Service Provider
              Environment", <a href="./rfc7149">RFC 7149</a>, DOI 10.17487/RFC7149, March 2014,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7149">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7149</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC7575">RFC7575</a>]  Behringer, M., Pritikin, M., Bjarnason, S., Clemm, A.,
              Carpenter, B., Jiang, S., and L. Ciavaglia, "Autonomic
              Networking: Definitions and Design Goals", <a href="./rfc7575">RFC 7575</a>,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7575, June 2015,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7575">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7575</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-Xiao02">Xiao02</a>]   Xiao, X., Telkamp, T., Fineberg, V., Chen, C., and L. Ni,
              "A Practical Approach for Providing QoS in the Internet
              Backbone", IEEE Communications Magazine, pages 56-62,
              December 2002.























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Acknowledgements

   The authors would like to acknowledge the valuable comments made by
   participants in the IRTF Network Management Research Group.  Reviews
   by Kevin Fall and Rene Struik were especially helpful.

Authors' Addresses

   Sheng Jiang
   Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd
   Q14, Huawei Campus, No.156 Beiqing Road
   Hai-Dian District, Beijing, 100095
   China

   EMail: jiangsheng@huawei.com


   Brian Carpenter
   Department of Computer Science
   University of Auckland
   PB 92019
   Auckland  1142
   New Zealand

   EMail: brian.e.carpenter@gmail.com


   Michael H. Behringer
   Cisco Systems
   Building D, 45 Allee des Ormes
   Mougins 06250
   France

   EMail: mbehring@cisco.com

















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