Cross-Network Open Provisioning Intelligent Network (COPIN) for Bandwidth Transaction Services in the Next Generation Internet Junseok Hwang (
[email protected]) School of Information Studies 4-291, Center for Science and Technology Syracuse University Syracuse, NY 13244-4100 Abstract— Bandwidth transaction service is emerging as a network resource management service among IP network service providers and operators. This paper presents the design of IP-based the transaction-oriented services architecture, called COPIN (Cross-Network Open Provisioning Intelligent Network), and supporting protocols that allow open interfaces and dynamic provisioning across IP QoS interconnections. Keywords: Next Generation Internet, Intelligent Network, Internet QoS interconnection, Transaction Service, Service Provisioning, Dynamic SLA.
I. I NTRODUCTION Thanks to the recent technical development of IP (Internet Protocol) QoS (Quality of Service) and network policy management mechanisms, network operators and service providers are taking steps to seek for additional network intelligence for managing internetworking infrastructure in the next generation Internet. Recently, such technical advances created many new motivations and opportunities for e-commerce (electronic commerce) in networking. Newer technologies and optimized network costs based on IP QoS are providing means driving traffic from a circuit infrastructure to a packet-switched telecommunications infrastructure. This technical and economic activity signals the acceleration of the shift to IP-based networks and increases demand for bandwidth. Today, the recently emerged bandwidth market is estimated to be around $8 billion in the United States alone and expected to continue to grow for network service bandwidth. Many of such e-commerce market services for network bandwidth will eventually require forms of B2B (Businessto-Business) transaction-oriented services and infrastructure. Those transaction oriented service will promote more dynamic market activities and mechanisms such as interprovider aggregation, auction and exchange of networking resources for IP network interconnection. A dynamic transaction service will reduce the time to complete the transaction, settlement, and provisioning process dramatically quicker. Such dynamic service is beneficial to reduce the transaction costs of interconnection among operators and service providers for managing their critical network service bandwidth needs. An important issue realizing ubiquitous bandwidth transaction services among network service users, network service providers and operators is to achieve common interface, architecture and mechanisms for dynamic cross-network provisioning of interconnecting networks.
This paper proposes the bandwidth transaction service architecture and supporting protocols that facilitate dynamic open provisioning and bandwidth transaction interface at the network interconnection points for the next generation Internet. Section 2 includes the discussion of the proposed COPIN architecture model, and the supporting transaction service protocols are presented in Section 3. Section 3 and Section 4 will conclude this paper with an implementation design and a summary, respectively. II. COPIN A RCHITECTURE
USING
BMP
We present the proposed transaction service network architecture, COPIN (Cross-Network Open Provisioning Intelligent Network) using Bandwidth Management Point (BMP) [3], [2], that allows cross-network networking resource transaction and provisioning. The proposed COPIN architecture model is market-based. We present the use of market signal (interfaced data from bandwidth markets to BMSPs (Bandwidth Management Switching Points)) with the IP bandwidth transaction services. The signaling interfaces within the architecture use the market information from bandwidth markets. The mechanisms of bandwidth transaction IN (Intelligent Network) services are modeled based on the proposed COPIN architecture. A BMSP runs on top of the processors interfaced to the network interconnection pooling points to perform QoS and bandwidth allocation; configuration; inter-network signaling; and transaction. In the proposed service architecture, we define key functional elements as illustrated in Figure 1; Bandwidth Management Switching Point (BMSP); Bandwidth Management Point (BMP); Bandwidth Measurement Base (BMB); Interior-BMP (I-BMP); Exterior-BMP (E-BMP); ServiceProvisioning-Points (S-P-P); SLS-Enforcement-Points (S-E-P); Management-Creation-Points (MCP) and various Interconnection Interfaces. Bandwidth Management Switching Point (BMSP) The exchange point for the inter-network transactions. The network of BMSPs is the space for the BMPs (Bandwidth Management Points) of interconnecting networks to conduct bandwidth transactions. The functions of BMSPs include the processes of interaction, pairing or peering, transaction and settlement among BMPs involved in interconnection transaction services. Bandwidth Management Point (BMP) The intelligent man-
Bandwidth Market
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Fig. 1. A COPIN Network Architecture using BMP
agement point that manages both internal and external network resources. It makes decisions or sets a policy for admission control, network resource provisioning, SLS configuration, and bandwidth marketing. A BMP configure inter- and intra-domain paths with the interaction of the routing mechanism. The BMP can be a host, a router, or a software agent on edge and border routers which work as dynamic resource controllers. Bandwidth Measurement Base (BMB) A form of MIB (Management Information Base) which measures the traffic load and demand statistics of the BMP domain. Management Creation Point (MCP) relates BMB with the SLAs of interconnections. Interior-BMP (I-BMP) A processor which provides a mechanism for managing the network resources within a BMP domain. Network provisioning among different service classes and different users within a BMP domain using market information is one of the key tasks of the I-BMP. Processing local user requests for end-to-end services, and computing and allocating network resources while satisfying user requirements are the tasks of the I-BMP. Exterior-BMP (E-BMP) A processor which provides a mechanism to manage the interconnection SLS (Service Level Specification) with other BMP domains and interconnection points. Therefore, it is concerned with resource allocation and provisioning at the network boundary among multiple domains. SLS requests, configurations, and updates with multiple interconnection points should be handled by this E-BMP. Service-Provisioning-Points (S-P-P) Network nodes and interfaces at which the I-BMP and E-BMP can configure using their own management information and decisions. The ingress and egress border routers of its own network or outsourced network capacity from the bandwidth commodity market could be such provisioning points. These configurations include the
capacity constraint and queue depth adaptation parameters for each class. SLS-Enforcement-Points (S-E-P) Network nodes and interfaces involved in inter-domain resource allocation (admission) based on the SLS. The I-BMP and E-BMP configure these points and have them perform the admission tasks (where SLS is enforced). User-BMP-Interconnection-Points (UBIP) Network interconnection interface points at which user interconnection-access networks (such as those in the IntServ) subscribe the aggregation network with BMP (such as those in DiffServs using BMP). Individual service flows are generated and terminated by the end hosts connected to the user network. User signaling such as RSVP will communicate with S-E-P or directly with BMP for interconnection subscription management. Large user networks may employ the BMPs for resource management and aggregation purposes, especially those involved in multiple subscriptions to multiple networks. Private BMP-BMP-Interconnection-Points (BBIP) Network interconnection interface points at which the bilateral SLS is negotiable and configurable through inter-BMP communication. Public BMP Interconnection Points (PBIP) Independent interconnection peering and pooling points at which a BMP domain can negotiate and configure multilateral SLS with multiple networks through a single point. Since it is a public peering providers requires coninterconnection, interconnecting nections to the peering point. The interconnection and network providers are visible to each other in this public peering. Commodity Market Interconnection (CMI) Signaling and interconnection achieved through the concept of a public market for network and capacity expansion. The aspects of interconnection in the CMI are a virtual list of transactions from different providers with different interconnection locations. Each BMP negotiates, contracts, and configures its interconnection through this CMI with the information provided by the MIP (Market Information Provider). Using a standard benchmark index, the actual providers can be hidden for neutralization when trading. In addition, introducing standard contract terms into the bandwidth market can enhance the management scalability of the BMP process. Market Information Provider (MIP) An information manager which is concerned with the bandwidth commodity market, gathering timely market data, and making it available for trading and transactions. The MIP can provide value added service and information to the BMPs through signaling to allow interBMP transaction and interconnection. For example, a MIP can offer a bandwidth interconnection which concatenates multiple service providers for the common duration of the service time to possible buyers. Market Information Interface (M-I-I) An interface process of the BMP to be connected to the MIPs and the other BMPs’ MII. This interface allows the BMP to signal other market players about market status (benchmark, availability, and price) and statistics (global market trends such as bandwidth index).
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III. COPIN S ERVICE P ROTOCOLS This section focuses on the signaling and transaction service aspects of the proposed architecture. We present the transaction semantics and protocols of signaling for the IP interconnection bandwidth resource transaction. The bandwidth transaction service requires the proposed BMP architecture to have the communication protocols. The following is examples use of BMP signaling protocol (supporting Intra-domain BMP and Inter-domain BMP communications) by implementing existing protocols discussed in the Internet 2 Qbone project study [4] and the study by Terzis et al. [5]: Intra-domain BMP communication: Intra-domain communication can be composed of user-application communications and BMP-device communication. Each communication requires different objects to carry since they are used for different purposes. There should be a protocol for handling user/application requests within the BMP domain. Bandwidth requests can be exchanged internally through user signaling such as RSVP between users and networks. Also, a protocol will be necessary for a BMP to communicate with routers in the BMP’s domain. A BMP uses this protocol to communicate QoS configuration parameters with routers, and with policy enforcement agency in the same domain. A BMP can communicate with network devices through standard protocol called COPS [1] which allows service Request, Decision and Report messages. Inter-domain BMP communication: An inter-domain protocol is used to communicate with transacting BMPs about resource allocation. Data interfaces used for the BMP protocols include routing tables, required to obtain inter-domain routing information in order the BMP to make a decision about the resource requests. A BMP keeps a data repository for the information about network management, policy, router configurations, SLSs, current resource allocations, DSCP mappings, authorization, authentication information, etc. The inter-domain protocol can deal with policy information exchange; reservation process; edge-to-edge admission control; and peer-to-peer access control across the network domains. For inter-BMP communications, the protocol deals with complex interactions between various interconnection bandwidth management needs. Typical messages exchanged for inter-BMP can be resource allocation requests (RAR), resource allocation answers (RAA), cancels (CANCEL), and cancel acknowledgements (CANCEL ACK), as recommended by the Internet2 Qbone bandwidth broker working group [4]. Practical implementation of the BMP will require more types of messages to be exchanged such as SLA negotiation, update and access control. We further investigate the supporting protocols for negotiation and transaction in this section. In the proposed BMP architecture, the following bandwidth transaction service protocols allow interactions between BMPs and BMSPs. A E-BMP runs on top of the processors interfaced to the network interconnection pooling points to perform calculation of performance index; bandwidth allocation; internetwork signaling, transactions, access control and configurations. Below, we present the negotiation and transaction semantics and protocols of signaling for the IP interconnection bandwidth transaction.
A. Negotiation Signaling Protocol In the proposed COPIN architecture, the BMP agents will negotiate the characteristics and prices of bandwidth interconnection on behalf of their users. The design of negotiation communication protocol and the definition of the behaviors and objects of agents are essential for the implementation of the transaction services In the bandwidth transaction interconnection market, the market-based SLA (Service Level Agreement) between interconnecting network’s agents will define the negotiable price range (minimum price, maximum price) for different service interconnection and other SLA specifications. The negotiation protocol process is initiated by exchanging the SLA offer template and reply for specific interconnection service between negotiating E-BMPs and transacting BMSPs. The BMP agents would propose a price schedule that maximize their payoffs for the given market opportunity and their service demands. Objectives function models for the decisions on the price schedules are studied in [3]. The negotiating BMPs will use the objects (volatility and discount) representing the uncertainty signal of market and the impatience of the negotiating network agents, respectively. The negotiating agents for the bandwidth transaction service in the bandwidth market will have an interest in how the SLA (Service Level Agreements) of network interconnections are set, processed and implemented among interconnecting network domains. An agent will be provided with the information about the intentions of its HOST or HOME entity and negotiate with other agents to detect and resolve conflicts. The negotiation mechanism should ensure that the resulting SLAs are within the negotiating agents’ acceptable preference and patience levels. The description of agent behavior can be characterized by defining objects used by the negotiation messages and corresponding agents. The negotiating BMPs for the proposed bandwidth transaction service architecture require the functional components described in Table I. Components
Bandwidth Transaction Negotiation Process
Entities
HOST E-BMP, BMSP, NON-HOST E-BMP
Parameters
Price, Availability, Schedule, Commitment, Capability)
Processes
Message, Passing, Processing, Response
Messages
Information, Request, Offer, Commit, Decline, Delay
Constraints
Volatility, Discount
TABLE I F UNCTIONAL C OMPONENTS OF BANDWIDTH T RANSACTION S ERVICE N EGOTIATION P ROTOCOL
Using above functional components, we illustrate an example process for bandwidth transaction negotiation service. The following example involves three agents: Host BMP (H agent), Non-Host BMP (N agent), and BMSP (S agent): H to S: Please inform me recent BW market information on the set of following interconnection points. S to H: Yes, you are a registered BMP and this is current market updates on the query interconnections with the proposed constraints (volatility and discount).
H to S: Please inform me with the list of potential N agents having the potential transaction bandwidth fitting with my query that I am sending. S to H: The interconnection #1 is available now with (W, X, Y, Z). W is price, X is schedule from agent N, Y is BW and Z is QoS class. The interconnection #2 will be available from the proposed date with (W’, X’, Y’, and Z’) from agent M. The interconnection #3 + #4 from agent N’... H to N: H processes its own preferential schedule for the list and contacts the first N agent. Please reserve #1 from X” for me. N to H: No, we cannot reserve it for you from X”. However, we can offer reservation from X’ with following modified price W”. You have to confirm your reservation within Z period. H to N: Please reserve it from X”. I’ll get back to you for confirmation before time K. N to H: It is done for #1. H to N’: Please reserve #3 + #4 from X” for me. N’ to S: Please let me know H’s Role and Access. S to N’: Here is the information of H’s Role and Access Permit. N’ to H: You do not have Role and Permissions to reserve this #3 + #4 interconnection. Please update your Role and Permission if you want. H to M: Please reserve #2 for me. M to H: Sorry #2 is not available any more. H to S: Please update and upgrade my Role and Permission to interconnect through N’. S to H: OK it is done. H to N’: Please process my reservation for #3 + #4. N’ to H: It is done. Please confirm by time K’. H to N’: At time K’, Please confirm my reservation for #3 + #4. N’ to H: OK. Here is your confirmation ID. Let’s start our transaction process after time L. Finally, the negotiation process for reserving the BW transaction is closed between H and N’ from the above example. Even though the negotiation process is done between H and N’, there could be another BMP agents in the following bandwidth transaction process because the reserved bandwidth involves two separate interconnections #3 and #4 that has separate BMP agents for bandwidth management. As we see above, the agent negotiation involves communications of request, inform, offer, permit, commit, delay and decline. Depending on the more selection of constraints and objects, the negotiating process can be more complicated. The negotiation can be seen as a peering process for bandwidth transaction among network domains. Currently, there is no signaling protocol standardized for this inter-domain SLA (Service Level Agreement) negotiation protocol. For the practical implementation of the bandwidth transaction service, BMSP agents often can be implemented as online Web-based third party transaction support agent. For such purpose, above message types and objects are proposed to be a semantics in XML-based form that can be stacked on top of the protocols of HTTPS and TCP/IP. The BMSP will standardize the SLA template (i.e. (W, X, Y, Z)) among negotiating EBMP agents. To support above proposed objects and messages for transaction negotiation, the following general fields are suggested for the transaction service negotiation protocol.
Sender Identifier: Used to describe the sending E-BMP agents associated with the processing negotiation. Receiver Identifier: Used to describe the receiving E-BMP agents associated with the processing negotiation. Negotiation Identifier: Used to identify the processing negotiation. Format: Used to describe the format of the field. Message Type: Used to describe the negotiation message types. Multiple Value Field: Values associated with the message types. It can be flexible to support for various number of fields. Control Field: Used when the control of BMP is permitted and processed. Time Stamp: Message and negotiation time stamp. The involving E-BMPs’ transaction service access can be assigned based on the field of three proposed Identifiers (Sender, Receiver, Negotiation) and the Time Stamp of the negotiations.
B. Transaction Service Signaling Protocol By closing a negotiation, the BMPs and BMSP initiate transaction process on the term of negotiation by exchanging SLS information. COPIN Bandwdith Transaction Service Community
Other BMSP MIPs Transaction Support Systems
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Trader Policy Enforcement
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Fig. 2. BMP Bandwidth Transaction Service System (BTS) Model
The bandwidth transaction services involve the management and coordination of the orders of various transacting BMPs for bandwidth market. Once the negotiation is closed, the involving agents connect to the bandwidth transaction service system (BTS). Figure 2 provides an example BTS system model of bandwidth transaction. Through the negotiation process, the buying agents (importing), selling agents (exporting) and trader agents (trader) need to be defined for transaction service in the BTS system. In addition, the pooling points and carrier networks (UBIP, PBIP, and BBIP) of involving agents for bandwidth transaction service should be identified in the BTS system. The transaction service also involves actions on the financial behaviors such as payments. The payment terms and conditions of negotiated for specific negotiation case do not need to be unique. Trader agents (BMSP agents) relate the negotiated transact to the payments and process the transaction. Through the transaction service process between transacting trader agents and financial institutions involved in the bandwidth transaction service market should approve the transactions to be processed.
There are various electronic payment systems (ex. E-cash, Echeck, Netbill, Digicash...) proposed for e-commerce applications that this BTS system can leverage for this transaction service. The relevant charging and invoice management for transaction are performed in the transaction service process. To support the communications for the transaction services, there should be several key objects and semantics to be added. Some basic form of negotiation protocol presented previously can be shared for modeling transaction service protocol. Following is a summary of key protocol objects for transaction service protocol. Transaction Object Identifier: Used to identify the transacting objects representing the transaction pooling points among transacting agents. Transaction Service Identifier: Used to represent each transaction service. This is used to binding other SLA options and access control roles with the transaction and involving agents. Service Bind (SerBind) Message : SerBind message should be added to support multiple value fields for various binding processes. Transaction Management Message: Several transaction management messages such as Subscribe, Monitor, Evaluate and Achieve should be supported from the transaction protocol. IV. COPIN D ESIGN
AND I MPLEMENTATION
We design and develop a test-bed network in which we can implement the proposed COPIN architecture and signaling protocols. A COPIN (Cross-Network Open Provisioning Interconnection Networks) is designed as a part of QoS and bandwidth transaction service test-bed network for implementing and evaluating the proposed model. A BMSP and four BMPs will be installed in the COPIN network as forms of software agents which will perform the bandwidth transaction services with the proposed architecture. COPIN-Test Bed Main Equipement Four Backbone DiffServ PC Routers One VLAN Switch (24port) Four multiport Fast Ethernet port adapters Four ethernet Switch (6port 100 BaseTx) Four PCs (NT) for BMPs / BMB / Consol One PCs (NT) for MIP / BMSP Twelve Subnetwork DiffServ PC Routers One Video Capturing Device Two VOIP or IP Phone One Digital Fax Machine
VLAN Switch Interconnection Interfaces
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agents for intra and inter-BMP operation. BMPs will be developed and inter-BMP operations will be tested by implementing the proposed transaction service protocols. Cross-network provisioning functionality will be designed and ported in the BMPs by using intra-BMP protocol. Several linux PCs will be used for backbone DiffServ QoS traffic generators. Some specialized softwares will be used for analyze the QoS performance between end terminal systems. Four corresponding DiffServ interconnection routers with BMPs will be mesh-interconnected through a VLAN switch. There will be a higher level transaction service and access control system which is interfaced to each BMP. Example COPIN transaction services as applications for internet telephony service providers will be demonstrated in this implementation test-bed. V. S UMMARY We presented a COPIN (Cross-Network Open Provisioning Intelligent Network) architecture and supporting transaction service protocols. The proposed architecture supports and identifies open interconnection interfaces via cross-network provisioning among multiple interconnection networks. The needs for developing signaling protocols for bandwidth transaction service systems are investigates. We will show the feasibility of the transaction service by using the proposed signaling objectives and implementing them in the proposed test-bed. The key advantages from the proposed open architecture include: The architecture provides neutral interconnection environment among different network domains, which is based on open bandwidth market approach. It supports additional service creation which could extract additional revenues for network service providers and operators from their existing networks. The service model supports the evolving real-time marketplace for bandwidth transaction to buyers and sellers. The COPIN architecture can be used to provide the means of QoS guarantees across multiple domains. The implementation of the open and dynamic transaction service architecture will streamline the bandwidth procuring and provision process among interconnecting networks. R EFERENCES
Three Linux Subnetwork PC Routers Traffic Generators S-P-P
Fax
BMPs MCP/BMB Measurement Consol
BMSP / MIP MCP/BMB Transaction Server
Fig. 3. COPIN Implementation Network
Figure 3 illustrates the configuration of the planned COPIN test-bed. The test-bed will be connected with various interconnection links consisting of several switches and PC routers for QoS services. Also, for the large network scalability test implementation, the DiffServ network PC routers from the test bed will be interfaced with PCs which will run multiple BMP
[1] B OYLE , J., C OHEN , R., D URHAM , D., H ERZOG , S., R AJAN , R., AND S ASTRY, A. The COPS (Common Open Policy Service) protocol. Request for Comments 2748, Internet Engineering Task Force, January 2000. [2] H WANG , J. A Market-Based Model for the Bandwidth Management of IntServ-DiffServ QoS Interconnection: A Network Economic Approach. PhD thesis, University of Pittsburghs, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 2000. [3] H WANG , J., AND K IM , H.-J. Market-based bandwidth management optimization models for dynamic provisioning diffserv interconnection networks. The Third International Conference on Telecommunications and Electronic Commerce. [4] T EITELBAUM , B., AND C HIMENTO , P. Qbone bandwidth broker architecture. , Internet 2, January 2001. Working paper. [5] T ERZIS , A., WANG , L., O GAWA , J., AND Z HANG , L. A two-tier resource management model for the Internet. In Proceedings of Global Internet (December 1999).
