Subject: Re: [Anima] ANIMA intent discussion

From: "Toerless Eckert (eckert)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2016 11:57:20 +0000

John:

You say intent does not need to specify target. How then would in the example given, the intent resolution system know that you wantg availability in the core and energy saving on the edge? Instead of other way round. Or both everywhere.

Does intent resolution have to be a good guesser ?

Sent from my Samsung Captivate Glide on AT&T

John Strassner <[email-masked]> wrote:

  Can Intent have targets?
      - Ex: an intent for traffic engineering and an intent for energy consumption optimization may need specific (same or different) targets. the functions could have different objectives per set of targets.
      - Ex: two network segments, core and metro. Then intent should be able to say "on core: optimize on availability"; on access: "optimize on energy saving."
      - Therefore we need scopes.

<jcs>
Policy management theory, dating back to at least 1994, has defined the
concepts of Policy Subjects and Policy Targets. The main difference
between intent and imperative (CA/ECA) policies is that intent should not
need to explicitly specify either, whereas imperative policies do need to
explicitly specify at least targets.
</jcs>

---

From: John Strassner <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2016 08:02:54 -0700

It depends on what the Intent is trying to do.

My example of (CPU) optimization does not specify any one
particular target, yet still works. In the core and edge example,
these could be the default behaviors of those nodes.

I didn't mean that you don't ever specify targets, but I did mean
that you shouldn't have to say "this IP address on this port of this
card of this chassis of this router" as we currently do.

And no, guessing never works.

On Sun, Apr 3, 2016 at 4:57 AM, Toerless Eckert (eckert) <[email-masked]>
wrote:

> John:
>
> You say intent does not need to specify target. How then would in the
> example given, the intent resolution system know that you wantg
> availability in the core and energy saving on the edge? Instead of other
> way round. Or both everywhere.
>
>       - Ex: an intent for traffic engineering and an intent for energy
> consumption optimization may need specific (same or different) targets. the
> functions could have different objectives per set of targets.
>       - Ex: two network segments, core and metro. Then intent should be
> able to say "on core: optimize on availability"; on access: "optimize on
> energy saving."

-- 
regards,
John