Subject: [nsc] Questions to "draft-boucadair-network-function-chaining":

From: Linda Dunbar <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2013 23:52:39 +0000

Mohamed, et al

The examples in your draft for "Network Located Functions" are called  by many people as Layer 4 to 7 services, such as Firewall, Security services, NAT, etc.
What does "Located" mean in your context?

How different is the term "DiffForward"  (differentiated forwarding procedure) from traditional router's differentiated forwarding based on some priority bits?

Your draft touches upon "Network Located Function Map", are you advocating that this "Map" should be dynamically formed or adjusted from heartbeat messages sent from all the "Network Located Functions" scatted in the network?

It seems to me that your draft tries to cover three major categories:

-        Dynamic formulating the "Network Located Function Map"

o   i.e. monitoring all the network service functions scattered in the network, and create a dynamic map of all those functions.

o   It is almost like "Topology discovery of all network functions". Correct?

-        Automatically create chronology of service functions based on user demand and network resource availability:

o   For example, client demand could be: "Traffic-Filtering-Criteria <-> a sequence of service modules {S1, S2}, where Si is generic function like Firewall or IPS.

o   Your draft states that there should be automation system that dynamically locate "Service Modules" for S1 and S2, and determine where traffic should be steering to S1, and where traffic should be steering to S2. Is it correct?

-        Proper enforcement of selective traffic to go through their designated "Service Functions" through the network.

Linda Dunbar