One document matched: draft-so-network-aware-application-problem-00.txt


Network Working Group                                     Ning So (UTD) 
Internet Draft                                        Young Lee (Huawei) 
Intended status: Informational                   Dave McDysan (Verizon) 
                                                 Greg Bernstein (Grotto) 
                                                    Tae Yeon Kim (ETRI) 
                                                    Kohei Shiomoto (NTT) 
                                     Oscar Gonzalez de Dios (Telefonica) 
                                          
                                                                        
                                    
                                                       October 13, 2010 
                                      
    Problem Statement for Network Aware Application Resource Assignment 
            and Mobility (NA-ARAM) in Data Center Environments 


             draft-so-network-aware-application-problem-00.txt 


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Internet-Draft Network Aware Application Resource Assignment & Mobility 
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Abstract 

   Data Centers offer various application services to end-users such as 
   video gaming, cloud computing and others. As the data centers used to 
   provide application services are distributed geographically around a 
   network many decisions made in the control and management of 
   application services such as where to instantiate another service 
   instance or to which server a new client is assigned, should be made 
   jointly with knowledge of the underlying network resources that are 
   available and with knowledge of the application resources (e.g., 
   server load conditions.  

   Currently such decisions are made with very little or no information 
   concerning the underlying network used to deliver those services. 
   Hence such decisions are inherently sub-optimal. In addition the lack 
   of network awareness may result in not meeting the end-user 
   application service objectives.  

Table of Contents 

    1. Introduction..................................................3 
      1.1. Terminology...............................................3 
   2. Network Contexts...............................................4 
   3. Problem Statement..............................................7 
   4. High-level requirements........................................8 
      4.1. End-User to Application/DC Provider Communication.........9 
      4.2. Inter DC communication....................................9 
      4.3. Data Center-Network Stratum Communication (NS Query)......9 
         4.3.1. Application Profile.................................10 
         4.3.2. Network Load Data to be queried.....................10 
         4.3.3. Responses to NS Query from network to application...11 
   5. Security Considerations.......................................11 
   6. References....................................................11 
   Author's Addresses...............................................14 
   Intellectual Property Statement..................................14 
   Disclaimer of Validity...........................................15 
    



     

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1. Introduction 

   Data Centers offer application services to end-users such as video 
   gaming [WoWAct], [WoWHrs], [GameServ] and [GroupGame], cloud 
   computing [CostCloud], grid application [GFD-122] and others. Many 
   application services offered by Data Center to end-users make 
   significant use of the underlying networks resources in the form of 
   bandwidth consumption used to carry the actual traffic between a data 
   center and the end-users. 

   It is a common practice for the same application stratum service to 
   be offered by multiple geographically dispersed.  One of the major 
   drivers for operating multiple Data Centers is allowing the 
   application to be closer to the end-users, so that the overall 
   service performance and the user experience can be enhanced.    

   As the application servers are distributed geographically across many 
   Data Centers for various reasons (e.g., load balancing), the decision 
   as which server to select for an application request from end-users 
   can negatively affect the quality of experience (QoE) of the users if 
   not done correctly.  

   In addition, the internal infrastructure supporting the applications 
   (e.g., virtual machines) may be actively distributed within and/or 
   between data centers.  This practice can improve the utilization of 
   the servers, and prevent service performance degradation during the 
   peak usage time period, and during equipment failures. When 
   instantiating new virtual machines or migrating existing virtual 
   machines across data centers, the underlying network loading 
   conditions within a data center (LAN) or between data centers 
   (MAN/WAN) need to be considered in the decision making process.   

   This document describes problems encountered by distributed 
   applications and provides the motivation for the coordinated resource 
   allocation and management across application stratum and network 
   stratum.  

          1.1. Terminology  

   This section describes key terminology used in this document. 

   Application Stratum -- The functional block which manages and 
   controls application resources and provides application resources to 
   a variety of clients/end-users.  



     

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   Application Profile -- The characteristics of the application from a 
   network traffic perspective and the QoS requirements that the 
   application service will require from the network. 

   Application Resources -- Non-network resources critical to achieving 
   the application service functionality. Examples include: caches, 
   mirrors, application specific servers, content, large data sets, and 
   computing power.  

   Application Service -- A networked application offered to a variety 
   of clients.  

   Network Stratum -- The functional block which manages and controls 
   network resources and provides transport of data between clients/end-
   users and application sources. 

   Network Resources -- Resources of any layer 3 or below network such 
   as bandwidth, links, paths, path processing (creation, deletion, and 
   management), network databases, path computation, admission control, 
   resource reservation, etc. 

2. Network Contexts 

   This section discusses the network contexts and the key components 
   that will help understand problems that will be discussed in the 
   subsequent section. Figure 1 below depicts overarching network 
   architecture in which to show the key components.  




















     

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                          --------------- 
    ----------           |         DC 1  | 
   | End-user |. . . . .>|      o o o    | 
   |          |          |       \|/     | 
    ----------           |        O      | 
         |                ----- --|------ 
         |                        | 
         |                        | 
         |       -----------------|----------- 
         |      /                 |           \ 
         |     /        ..........O PE1        \     -------------- 
         |    |       .                         |   | o o o   DC 2 | 
         |    | PE4 .                      PE2  |   |  \|/         | 
          ----|---O.........................O---|---|---O          | 
              |     .                           |   |              | 
              |      .           PE3            |    -------------- 
               \      ..........O   Carrier's  / 
                \               |    Network  / 
                 ---------------|------------- 
                                | 
                        --------|------ 
                       |        O      | 
                       |       /|\     | 
                       |      o o o    | 
                       |          DC 3 | 
                        --------------- 
    
                    Figure 1. Data Center Architecture  
    

   Figure 1 shows three distinct entities: 

     . End-users 

     . Application/Data Center Networks 

     . Carrier Network (access network is not shown for brevity's sake) 

   There are a number of factors that need be considered in choosing the 
   right server in the right data center for an application request or 
   in instantiating new VMs/applications or migrating existing 
   VMs/applications: 

     . Server level load condition in a data center  

     . Intra data center network condition  

     

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     . Carrier MAN/WAN network condition  

     . User Condition 

   Details of potential constraining factors for each of the list above 
   are as follows:  

     . Server level load condition 

          o Virtual Machine (VM) supportability limitations 
          o CPU utilization; 
          o Memory segmentation and consumption; 
          o Application limitations such as max number of simultaneous 
             instances of the application supportability;  
          o Storage access speed (disk, RAM, etc.); 
          o Environment considerations such as server temperature, 
             power load, and electrical cost at the time; 
          o Operational and managerial considerations such as location 
             of peer servers and storages. 
          o VM to NIC switching in a virtual switch  
      

     . Intra-DC network condition 

          o Server NIC to Top of Rack (ToR) Switch; 
          o TOR switch to Layer 2 Switch - link and node level; 
          o Between L2 Switches and L2 switch to L2  core/gateway 
             switch/router - link and node level; 
          o L2 gateway router to provider edge (PE) router - link and 
             node level. 
    

     . Carrier MAN/WAN network condition (the networks that connect the 
        data centers and connect end users to the data centers)  

          o Type of networks and the technical capabilities of the 
             networks; 
          o Bandwidth capabilities and availability; 
          o latency; 
          o jitter;  
          o packet loss; 
          o And other Network Performance Objective (NPO) as defined in 
             section 5 of [ITU-T Y.1541]. 
     

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     . User condition  

          o User access capabilities and limitations (e.g., user 
             terminal information such as codec for video application); 
          o User location; 
          o Optional user preferences (for some application, user may 
             be able to specify its preferences. For example, the 
             preferred server location for gaming).  
 

   It is worth to note that the service performance objectives of many 
   new/emerging applications are real-time and interactive applications 
   that require bandwidth guarantee and/or dynamic bandwidth 
   allocation/modification with a strict latency requirement. Such 
   application examples are real-time video distribution services, 
   conferencing and gaming, grid computing, and etc.  

   The need for the coordinated resource allocation and management in 
   all the factors including server level load condition, intra DC 
   network condition, the underlying carrier network condition, and the 
   user condition is paramount in order to meet increasingly 
   sophisticated end-user service needs.  

    

3. Problem Statement 

   In the current Intra-Data Center network, the server selection for an 
   application/VM is done by load-balancer. The load balancer is aware 
   of a certain level of server usage data (e.g., the number 
   simultaneous instances of the application usage) and distributes the 
   application requests based on that data.  

   However, the current load balancing technology is insufficient in 
   providing an optimal decision across multiple VLANs and multiple Data 
   Centers. This capability is often referred to as global load 
   balancing.  

   First of all, there is no standard solution for the communication 
   exchange among load balancers located in different Data Centers. This 
   implies that load balancers from different vendors cannot communicate 
   to each other.   



     

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   Secondly, load balancers know little about the underlying network 
   conditions listed in the previous section.  Nor is it user condition 
   aware.  

   In some cases, application controllers can estimate network load 
   based on ping latency, and network topology based on trace routes in 
   the Internet, based on the assumption that the underlying transport 
   network is an IP network, and the routing is based on simple IP 
   forwarding.  

   In reality, the carrier's routing schemes are likely to include IP 
   tunneling or MPLS tunneling on top of or in place of IP forwarding. 
   In some cases, the actual network may be VPN, MPLS-TE or GMPLS-TE 
   networks where trace route does not work.  

   This implies that network status estimation technique made from 
   application stratum cannot be accurate. Thus, application resource 
   allocation to end-users can suffer sub-optimality and fail to meet 
   performance objective for the application.   

   When migrating existing VMs/applications from one data center to 
   another, the underlying network load condition in LAN/MAN/WAN can be 
   constraining factors. Migration of VMs/applications, for instance, 
   typically requires a high-speed data transfer across LAN/MAN/WAN to 
   minimize service impact. Application controllers responsible for this 
   operation is not aware of LAN/MAN/WAN network conditions.  

   Another issue is that there is no standard way for an application 
   controller in Data Center to ask for network stratum in a way 
   suitable for a third party, i.e., an entity "outside the network".  

   Even if the network load information is available, few networks would 
   want to reveal the details of the information, such as topology, link 
   bandwidth availability, latency, packet loss, etc, to the outside 
   entity. This warrants some works on abstraction from network side to 
   preserve the privacy of network stratum details from the application 
   stratum.  

   This capability is referred to as Network Stratum Query (NS Query) in 
   this document.  

4. High-level requirements 

   This section discusses high-level requirements to support network-
   aware application mobility in the data center environments. 


     

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4.1. End-User to Application/DC Provider Communication 
   End-users are the entities that make requests to the Front-end (FE) 
   servers, such as load balancers, proxy servers, and etc. Once 
   resources are allocated or made available, they consume application 
   resources offered by application/Data Center provider.   

   End-users may communicate several things to the FE servers: 

     . Required application: this may be a simple URL request; 

     . Optional user preference about server: examples are  

     .  Specific server identity or location. This is applicable to 
        gaming where gamers can access game server information and can 
        specify server location. 

     .  Additional security requirements; 

     .  Modified application specs.  For example, a mobile user may 
        request a video download with reduced resolution to conserve 
        battery.   

     .  Optional end-user terminal information, e.g., codec for video 
        application.  

    


4.2. Inter DC communication  
   A couple of communication protocols are required in order for the 
   optimal network-aware global load balancing to be achieved.  

     . Server/Application Status Exchange between Data Centers 

     . Ns Query that allows application to factor in network conditions 
        between end-user and the server of choice. (NS Query will be 
        elaborated in detail in Section 4.3) 


4.3. Data Center-Network Stratum Communication (NS Query) 
   The FE server plays the key role in choosing the optimal server for 
   an application request. The FE server can function as an application 
   gateway to network and runs NS Query.  



     

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4.3.1. Application Profile  
   The application Stratum needs to provide the application profile to 
   network.  

   Example service profile information that can be useful to network to 
   understand is as follows: 

     . End user IP address; 

     . User access router IP address; 

     . Authentication Profile: Authentication Key; 

     . Bandwidth Profile: Minimum bandwidth required for the 
        application; 

     . Connectivity Profile: P-P, P-MP, Anycast (Multi-destination); 

     . Directionality of the connectivity: unidirectional, bi-
        directional; 

     . Path Estimation Objective Function: Min latency, etc. 

    

   Additional profile information can be added depending on the network 
   capability.  


4.3.2. Network Load Data to be queried  
   The query should be able to ask all the network condition information 
   listed in Section 1.   

   Note that this can be asked in a different way. For example, the 
   query can simply ask:  

     . Can you route x amount of b/w (in a particular point in network) 
        within y ms of latency?  

     . Can you route x amount of b/w (in a particular point in network) 
        with no packet loss?  





     

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4.3.3. Responses to NS Query from network to application  
  Upon receiving the network query from application, the network should 
  be able to perform the following functions:   
   
     . Using the given location mapping information (e.g., the server 
        location and the end-user location or a set of server locations 
        in different data centers), the network should be able to derive 
        its network condition data. 

   
  Note: How to estimate and generate the network condition data by the 
  network is beyond the scope of this draft, and should be addressed in 
  other pertinent WGs. 
   
     . The network should be able to formulate the abstraction of the 
        requested network condition data in response to the NS Query 
        request from application.  

   
5. Security Considerations  

   TBD 

6. IANA Considerations 

   This informational document does not make any requests for IANA 
   action. 

7. References 

7.1. Informative References 

   [RFC2261] D. Harrington, et al., "An Architecture for Describing SNMP 
             Management Frameworks," January, 1998. 

   [RFC2265] B. Wijnen, et al., "View-based Access Control Model (VACM) 
             for the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)," 
             January, 1998. 

   [Y.2011]  General principles and general reference model for Next 
             Generation Networks, October, 2004.  

   [Y.2012]  Functional Requirements and architecture of the NGN, April, 
             2010. 

     

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   [GameMirror]   S.D. Webb, S. Soh, and W. Lau, "Enhanced mirrored 
             servers for network games," Proceedings of the 6th ACM 
             SIGCOMM workshop on Network and system support for games,  
             Melbourne, Australia: ACM, 2007, pp. 117-122. 

   [GameServ]P. Quax, J. Dierckx, B. Cornelissen, G. Vansichem, and W. 
             Lamotte, "Dynamic server allocation in a real-life 
             deployable communications architecture for networked 
             games," Proceedings of the 7th ACM SIGCOMM Workshop on 
             Network and System Support for Games,  Worcester, 
             Massachusetts: ACM, 2008, pp. 66-71. 

   [GameTrf] J. Farber, "Network game traffic modeling," Proceedings of 
             the 1st workshop on Network and system support for games, 
             Braunschweig, Germany: ACM, 2002, pp. 53-57. 

   [GroupGame] K. Vik, C. Griwodz, and P. Halvorsen, "Applicability of 
             group communication for increased scalability in MMOGs," 
             Proceedings of 5th ACM SIGCOMM workshop on Network and 
             system support for games, Singapore: ACM, 2006, p. 2. 

   [IPTV]   A.A. Mahimkar, Z. Ge, A. Shaikh, J. Wang, J. Yates, Y. 
             Zhang, and Q. Zhao, "Towards automated performance 
             diagnosis in a large IPTV network," Proceedings of the ACM 
             SIGCOMM 2009 conference on Data communication, Barcelona, 
             Spain: ACM, 2009, pp. 231-242. 

   [MPSel]  S. Gargolinski, C.S. Pierre, and M. Claypool, "Game server 
             selection for multiple players," Proceedings of 4th ACM 
             SIGCOMM workshop on Network and system support for games,  
             Hawthorne, NY: ACM, 2005, pp. 1-6. 

   [PartState] P.B. Beskow, K. Vik, P. Halvorsen, and C. Griwodz, 
             "Latency reduction by dynamic core selection and partial 
             migration of game state," Proceedings of the 7th ACM 
             SIGCOMM Workshop on Network and System Support for Games,  
             Worcester, Massachusetts: ACM, 2008, pp. 79-84. 

   [ServVoD] N. Carlsson and D.L. Eager, "Server selection in large-
             scale video-on-demand systems," ACM Trans. Multimedia 
             Comput. Commun. Appl.,  vol. 6, 2010, pp. 1-26. 

   [ServMulti] Zongming Fei, M. Ammar, and E. Zegura, "Multicast server 
             selection: problems, complexity, and solutions," Selected 
             Areas in Communications, IEEE Journal on, vol. 20, 2002, 
             pp. 1399-1413. 

     

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   [WoWHrs] P. Tarng, K. Chen, and P. Huang, "An analysis of WoW 
             players' game hours," Proceedings of the 7th ACM SIGCOMM 
             Workshop on Network and System Support for Games,  
             Worcester, Massachusetts: ACM, 2008, pp. 47-52. 

   [WoWAct] M. Suznjevic, M. Matijasevic, and O. Dobrijevic, "Action 
             specific Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games 
             traffic analysis: case study of World of Warcraft," 
             Proceedings of the 7th ACM SIGCOMM Workshop on Network and 
             System Support for Games, Worcester, Massachusetts: ACM, 
             2008, pp. 106-107. 

   [GFD-122] Tiziana Ferrari (editor), "Grid Network services Use Cases 
             from the e-Science Community", GFD-I-122, Open Grid Forum, 
             December 12, 2007. 

   [CostCloud] A. Greenberg, J. Hamilton, D. Maltz, and P. Patel, "The 
             cost of a cloud: research problems in data center 
             networks," ACM SIGCOMM, Vol. 39, Number1, January 2009. 

 


























     

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Author's Addresses 

    
   Ning So (Editor) 
   Univerity of Texas at Dallas  
   Email: ningso@yahoo.com 
    
   Young Lee (Editor) 
   Huawei Technologies 
   1700 Alma Drive, Suite 500 
   Plano, TX 75075 
   USA 
   Phone: (972) 509-5599 
   Email: ylee@huawei.com 
 
   Dave McDysan 
   Verizon Business 
   Email: dave.mcdysan@verizon.com 
    
   Greg M. Bernstein 
   Grotto Networking 
   Fremont California, USA 
   Phone: (510) 573-2237 
   Email: gregb@grotto-networking.com 
    
   Tae Yeon Kim 
   ETRI 
   tykim@etri.or.kr 
 
   Kohei Shiomoto 
   NTT 
   Email : shiomoto.kohei@lab.ntt.co.jp 
 
   Oscar Gonzalez de Dios 
   Telefonica 
   Email : ogondio@tid.es 
    
    
    
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