Oz: Towards an Extensible Intent Handler Architecture with Semantic Reasoning

Paul Alcock, Charalampos Rotsos, Nicholas J. P. Race

Abstract: Intent-based networking (IBN) has emerged as a promising paradigm to improve management automation in network infrastructures. At the heart of IBN systems lies the intent handler, an intelligent translation process that transforms declarative network goals into imperative network configurations. Although IBN research has demonstrated the ability to support complex automation scenarios, existing intent handlers have limited scope, targeting specialized use cases and optimizations, and offering limited extensibility. This paper presents Oz, an intent framework baed on Semantic Web technologies. Oz uses an ontology to combine several standardized data models and support the translation of TMForum common intent model expressions into effective infrastructure configurations. Furthermore, Oz implements a semantic web reasoner that allows operators to realize intents using logic rules that interpret intent requirements into configuration and validate intent fulfillment based on the current network state. Using a production network topology, we demonstrate that Oz can plan the deployment of a cache service intent on a busy network in less than 10 seconds, by using a contextual state exploration intent implementation.