An Architecture for Personal Broadband. Broadband Working Group Elisabeth Maida, MIT May 25, 2006

Transcription

1 An Architecture for Personal Broadband Broadband Working Group Elisabeth Maida, MIT May 25, 2006

2 Agenda The Vision of Personal Broadband Our Approach Define the potential business models Identify the functional elements Focus on the network selection problem Follow an ontology-based approach Develop the data model The Network Service Profile Ontology Next Steps 2

3 The Vision of Personal Broadband Historical constraints imposed by location, network providers, access devices, applications, and content limit a user s ability to create a consistent, personalized, broadband experience. Personal Broadband is the vision of an environment in which these constraints no longer exist Several use cases provide examples of how Personal Broadband allows users to have ubiquitous access to their applications and content regardless of their location, network provider, or access device 3

4 Use Cases Use Case Decoupled Elements Examples and Comments Being best connected Find me a printer On the road with my music or video library Mobile Office Personalizing the connection of a shared device Network provider from location Network providers from access device Resources from location and network provider Content and applications from device location Content and applications from device location Network provider from location and access device Sales rep is traveling to a meeting and needs to download a presentation now User is visiting another office and needs to print a document PBB connectivity extends access to personal resources independent of location as well as network-based resources User has the same access to their resources regardless of their location User and their family share a network, but have different connectivity depending on their needs 4

5 Agenda The Vision of Personal Broadband Our Approach Define the potential business models Identify the functional elements Focus on the network description problem Follow an ontology-based approach Develop the data model The Network Service Profile Ontology Next Steps 5

6 Defining the Potential Business Models The Personal Broadband architecture should support multiple business models. In order to test the flexibility of the architecture, we identified the following models: The user pays a home provider on an on-going basis (e.g. cell phone roaming). The user pays a 3 rd party aggregator (e.g. ipass, Boingo, Paypal). The user pays on the spot market. The user does not pay for connectivity directly, but the cost is subsidized through other channels (e.g. advertising and equipment purchases). The most relevant difference between the models is the nature of the relationship that allows the user to have connectivity. 6

7 Identifying the Functional Elements Function Description Associated Questions Network Discovery Access Network Selection Authentication and Authorization (optional) Accounting (optional) Revenue Generation (optional) Risk Management Identify which networks are available Select the appropriate network Gain access to the network Track usage of the network Pay for the usage Manage the risk Does the user need to provide their information in order to receive a list of networks? If so, what information does the user need to reveal? Does the user only see a subset of the available networks? What information is the decision based on? What information is available to higher layers? Who performs the authentication and authorization? Are authentication and authorization always required? TBD TBD TBD 7

8 Function Pieces of the Puzzle Existing Systems and Protocols Network Discovery Access Network Selection Authentication and Authorization Accounting Revenue Generation Risk Management Candidate Access Router Discovery (IETF RFC 4066) Service Location Protocol (IETF) Beacon Management Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) CARD (depending on implementation) Personal router Rustling 3G roaming International Roaming Access Protocols (IRAP)/ Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) IRAP/RADIUS and Diameter TBD TBD 8

9 Focusing on Network Description The initial architecture work will focus on the network description or service profile. This description is critical to both network discovery and network selection. Network Discovery Discovery Protocol Selection Logic Network Selection Network Description There were multiple reasons for this decision: Impacts elements which are required for all business models Other aspects of discovery and selection have been examined and, in some cases, defined Description problem has not been solved, but can build on previous work (Personal Router, Candidate Access Router Discovery, rustling) 9

10 Following an Ontology-based Approach We are defining an extensible architecture for network description Most parameters will not be used in practice Difficult to identify critical parameters a priori The ontology will provide a formal, explicit specification of a shared conceptualization [Gruber 1993] Focused on network user s agent Party responsible for selecting the network will vary with the business model, but all parties will need access to the same subset of information Potential Elements Bits per second Usage fee Cost Jitter Performance Objective is to create a data model describing a network service profile 10

11 Developing the Data Model What parameters should be included in a network s service profile? Began by examining related work The Personal Router (MIT) Technical characteristics (bandwidth, average throughput, burst rate, burst ratio) Cost (price per kilobyte, price per time period) Candidate Access Router Discovery (IETF) Definition of capabilities was out of scope for final RFC Earlier versions had illustrative examples Rustling (BT) Tariffs 11

12 Agenda The Vision of Personal Broadband Our Approach Define the potential business models Identify the functional elements Focus on the network selection problem Follow an ontology-based approach Develop the data model The Network Service Profile Ontology Next Steps 12

13 The Network Service Profile Ontology Identified 8 top-level entities Brand Legal Terms and Conditions Trust and Security Price Physical Interface Network Capabilities Technical Performance TBD Defined a flat hierarchy as the relationships between entities will vary with the implementation Checked against two test cases to ensure the ontology could be used to represent the relevant information CARD and User Agent Profile (UAProf) Revisited the business models to understand how the reasoning process would vary with each model 13

14 Related Ontology Efforts QoS Working Group Distributed Management Task Force Internet Measurement Research Group W3C Composite Capability/Preference Profiles W3C Mobile Web Device Description Working Group Open Mobile Alliance Creative Commons Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) Swisscom presentation at CRN, December 2005 User-centric networking at TISPAN 14

15 Brand Brand in the marketing sense: the elements that impact a user s intangible perception of a network provider The agent cannot make any assumptions about the characteristics of the underlying offer based on Brand. Examples: Network operator name Organizational affiliation or ownership 3rd party verification or approval Reputation 15

16 Legal Terms and Conditions The business conditions of the offer While a network might technically support certain functionality, the terms and conditions of the service will govern its use. Examples: No resale No running servers No tunneling 16

17 Trust and Security The security, privacy, and authentication policies Examples: Policy information Device authentication and authorization Content checking Use of personal information 17

18 Price The fee(s) the user will need to pay in exchange for access to and/or use of the network Not limited to monetary fees Through the combination of Price and Technical Performance, the network can associate different levels of performance and reliability with different prices Examples: Initial price (upfront fee) Usage price Price per kilobytes Price per time unit Flat rate pricing Tiered pricing levels Payment form 18

19 Physical Interface The channel over which the connectivity is available For example, a user might receive an offer for access over a channel that the user has turned off in order to save power. Examples: Protocol Band 19

20 Network Capabilities The network can choose to enumerate either the services it does support or the services it does not support. The user s agent will enumerate which services it would like a network to support. that which is not forbidden is permitted vs. that which is not permitted is forbidden Examples: Supported protocols (e.g., TCP, FTP, etc.) Content filtering Web proxy use Unilateral redirection of application flows (e.g., SMTP connections) Private vs. routed IP addresses Handoff type (seamless, break-before-make ) Firewall traversal NAT traversal Indirection 20

21 Technical Performance Traffic primitives describing the technical characteristics of the network Examples: Bit rate Jitter Latency Existing load Available bandwidth 21

22 Test Case: Candidate Access Router Discovery (IETF RFC 4066) Enable seamless IP-layer handover between access routers Mobile nodes must discover the capabilities of candidate access routers prior to the initiation of the handover Sample Category Sample Capabilities Ontology Entity Administrative parameters ISP name, organizational ownership, device authentication and authorization data, policy information Brand Trust and Security Cost of access Dollar cost per QoS class Price Available radio interfaces Availability of application logic Internet connectivity Resource parameters , WCDMA, GSM Physical Interface Multicast support, playout buffer hosting, TCP performance enhancing proxies, transcoding, header compression NAT traversal Existing load, available bandwidth Network Capabilities Network Capabilities Technical Performance 22

23 Test Case: User Agent Profile (Open Mobile Alliance) Enables the end-to-end flow of a User Agent Profile between the WAP client, intermediate network points, and the origin server The origin server uses the profile information to optimize the content for the device Sample Component Sample Capabilities Ontology Entity Hardware Platform Software Platform BrowserUA Screen size, color capabilities, image capabilities, manufacturer Operating system software, supported video and audio encoders, user s language preference Browser manufacturer and version, markup languages supported, scripting languages supported WAP Characteristics WML script libraries, WAP version Network Capabilities Network Characteristics Latency, reliability Technical Performance Push Characteristics Supported MIME types, device buffer size NA* * These capabilities would only need to be represented in the ontology if the network would impact the content (e.g., content filtering, supported protocols). These exceptions would be included under Network Capabilities. NA* NA* NA* 23

24 Business Models and Agent s Reasoning The decision criteria and reasoning will vary with the business model: Home provider User trusts home provider to select network Agent s reasoning provided in advance by home provider (similar to cell phone roaming) 3 rd party aggregator Same as home provider but the relationship is independent of a specific provider Spot market User determines entire preference structure 24

25 Agenda The Vision of Personal Broadband Our Approach Define the potential business models Identify the functional elements Focus on the network selection problem Follow an ontology-based approach Develop the data model The Network Service Profile Ontology Next Steps 25

26 Next Steps Development of a white paper documenting the proposed ontology Test implementation as part of Living the Future Next steps within organizations 26

27 Related Resources Candidate Access Router Discovery (IETF) Personal Router (MIT) Rustling (BT) G. Corliano and K. Khan, Economic Tussles in the Public Mobile Access Market, BT Technology Journal, Volume 21, Issue 3, 2003, User Agent Profile (Open Mobile Alliance) a.pdf 27