Subject: [I2nsf] Updated charter for I2NSF

From: Linda Dunbar <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 17:21:55 +0000

Based on comments received so far, we have made some changes to the charter for I2NSF. We have requested a non-working BOF at Honolulu IETF.

Charter for Interface to Network Security Functions (I2NSF)

Enterprises are increasingly consuming network functions, especially the network security related functions that are not running on their premises.  This shift has occurred for a variety of reasons including greater economies of scale, streamlined delivery mechanisms, and the demand of business and applications for more sophisticated security functions that they do not have. Furthermore, residential and mobile customers are becoming more and more aware of the need for security, just to find that security services are hard to operate and become expensive in the case of reasonably sophisticated ones. This general trend has led numerous operators and security vendors to start considering to leverage cloud based models to deliver security solutions. In particular, the methods around Network Function Virtualization (NFV) are meant to facilitate the management of various resources for the benefit of customers, who may not own or physically host those network functions. Here are some examples of network security functions under consideration:

*       Firewall

*       DDOS/Anti-DOS

*       Access control/Authorization/Authentication

*       Remote identity management

*       Secure Key management

*       Intrusion Detection System/ Intrusion Prevention System (IDS/IPS)

The Interface to (Virtual) Network Security Functions (I2NSF) initiative aims at improving the dynamic allocation and operation of network security functions by documenting a global framework that would include protocol-based control and management interfaces, along with adequate data models. The information required for the provisioning, the configuration and the operation of network security functions will be exchanged through the said interfaces and protocols.  The I2NSF initiative will also take into account the need for co-existing with legacy configuration and management systems used to allocate and operate network security functions, whether they are embedded in network devices or virtualized in environments like data centers. The standard Interface to request/negotiate/allocate/operate (Virtual) Network Security Functions (I2NSF) is one of the necessary tools for operators and service providers to offer network security functions as a service to their clients.
It is envisioned that clients of the I2NSF include management applications, service orchestration systems, network controllers, or user applications that may solicit network security resources.
The I2NSF working group aims at documenting a high-level architecture that will describe the functional building blocks for the dynamic negotiation of security service parameters, the dynamic and subsequent allocation of network security resources and the operation of such resources, including means to assess that what has been allocated complies with what has been negotiated. The work to be conducted by the I2NSF WG also includes the documentation of use cases as well as the specification of information and data models that will provide the adequate level of abstraction. In addition, the I2NSF WG will analyze candidate protocols that may carry the information to be exchanged through the various interfaces (e.g., between a customer and a service provider, between the control plane and the data plane, etc.) for the purpose of network security resource negotiation, allocation and operation. Small and well-scoped use cases are critical to constrain the scope of the work and achieve sufficient focus for the working group to deliver successful outcomes.

The intended deliverables will include:

*       Tightly scoped key use cases for operational use of I2NSF

*       Problem statement

*       An analysis of existing IETF and other protocols and encoding
languages against the requirements derived from the problem statement and use case documents.

*       High-level architecture for I2VNSF security policy request/negotiation/validation

*       Abstract information models consistent with the use cases.

More comments and suggestions are appreciated.

Linda