Proponents of Intent-Based Network Modeling (IBNEMO) held two bar–Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) meetings during IETF 93 in Prague. Many people are interested in standardizing a minimal language capable of expressing intent in networking configurations and work on this topic is ongoing via various projects using the OpenDayLight platform. Our aim is to define a minimal set of commands that can cover 80 percent of the intent expressions needed in network configurations (figure 1). Seehttps://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-hares-ibnemo-overview-00 for an Internet-Draft that includes both an overview of IBNEMO and a problem statement.
The meetings attracted 15–20 people in each of two sessions. Sue Hares gave both an overview and explanation of the aims of IBNEMO and presented her Internet-Draft. Dr. Pedro A. Aranda Gutiérrez from Telefónica, I+D shared an example of IBNEMO at work in the context of the European Union-funded collaborative research project, NetIDE* (figure 2). And Tianran Zhou from Huawei demonstrated an early implementation of IBNEMO.
A number of good questions were raised that in turn encouraged us to help newcomers better understand the technology. We also concluded that there is a need for more awareness and interest in the technology before trying to establish an IETF Working Group.
If you are interested in IBNEMO technology, please join our mailing list at https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ibnemo. A fuller report of the bar-BoF can be found athttps://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ibnemo/69t80ww_gkWuEuxetugQxkgMSlg.
We plan to have presentations or BoFs at the Réseaux IP Européens (RIPE) and North American Network Operators’ Group (NANOG) meetings to spread the word about this interesting new work.
*The NetIDE Project is cofunded by the European Commission DG CONNECT in FP7 under grant agreement 619543.