| Internet-Draft | KG for traffic Monitoring and Analysis | November 2025 |
| Pang, et al. | Expires 9 May 2026 | [Page] |
This document extends the knowledge graph framework specifically to the traffic management domain, illustrating how semantic integration and automated reasoning can resolve long-standing traffic management challenges in multi-domain network environments.¶
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.¶
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.¶
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."¶
This Internet-Draft will expire on 9 May 2026.¶
Copyright (c) 2025 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.¶
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.¶
Network traffic monitoring and analysis are crucial for ensuring service quality, detecting anomalies, and optimizing network performance. However, modern networks face increasingly severe challenges in managing traffic data from different sources, each with its own formats and schemas. These challenges align with broader operational issues identified in [I-D.mackey-nmop-kg-for-netops], such as data silos, loss of context, and complex correlation requirements.¶
While YANG models provide standardized data definitions within individual domains, their cross-domain application faces significant challenges. Model heterogeneity and terminology disparities impede the creation of logical relationships. Furthermore, the inherent rigidity of its static tree structure is ill-suited for representing complex network dependencies. Crucially, the lack of formal semantic annotations prevents automated correlation and reasoning, leading to high operational overhead for integration and analysis.¶
These limitations correspond precisely to the problems that knowledge graphs are designed to address. The knowledge graph framework for network operations [I-D.mackey-nmop-kg-for-netops], based on semantic web technologies, provides a structured approach to integrating, correlating, and reasoning over heterogeneous data. By applying knowledge graph technology, operators can implement comprehensive network traffic monitoring and analysis systems that overcome these cross-domain integration challenges.¶
This document extends the knowledge graph framework specifically to the traffic management domain, illustrating how semantic integration and automated reasoning can resolve long-standing traffic management challenges in multi-domain network environments.¶
Operators' networks typically consist of multiple network domains, including home broadband networks, mobile networks, IP bearer networks, and application domains. These domains interconnect to form diverse end-to-end communication paths. Data from different network domains are managed by independent network management systems, resulting in heterogeneous formats and semantic inconsistencies that create data silos.¶
Service traffic typically traverses multiple network domains, creating inherent relationships between these distributed data sources. A single network event is often recorded with different dimensions and terminologies across separate systems. The absence of a semantic association mechanism severely limits operators' ability to perform global network issue localization and root-cause analysis.¶
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Network Traffic Monitoring and Analysis System |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Knowledge Graph for Traffic Monitoring and Analysis |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| | | |
| | | |
+-------------------------------+ +--------------------+ +---------------------+ +-------------+
| Home Broadband Network | | Mobile Network | | IP Bearer Network | | Application |
+-------------------------------+ +--------------------+ +---------------------+ +-------------+
| | | |
| | | |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Network |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
To address these challenges, operators require capabilities for cross-domain and multidimensional correlation analysis and intelligent reasoning, specifically:¶
End-to-End Quality Degradation Identification: Detect and localize quality issues across concatenated network domains¶
Internet Traffic Flow Analysis: Trace and analyze traffic flow patterns and directions through the network infrastructure¶
Performance Optimization through Reasoning: Enable network performance optimization through knowledge-based inference¶
CDN Optimization Support: Facilitate content delivery network layout optimization through rule-based inference mechanisms¶
These requirements necessitate a semantic framework that can unify disparate data sources while preserving domain-specific context and enabling cross-domain correlation.¶
TBD.¶
To enable comprehensive monitoring and analysis of overall network status, operators require a unified semantic representation framework that bridges data barriers across network domains.¶
Knowledge graph technology can construct a unified ontology model to semantically align and associate network entities, events, and their relationships, thereby enabling global knowledge integration of network data.¶
The integration of a knowledge graph fundamentally transforms conventional network monitoring and analysis systems into a Knowledge-Based System (KBS) architecture. This transformation centers on two core components: the knowledge base and the inference engine, which work in tandem to overcome traditional limitations in traffic analysis.¶
This KBS architecture effectively transforms fragmented data sources into an intelligent system capable of semantic reasoning and automated analysis, significantly enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of network traffic monitoring and management operations.¶
TBD.¶
Several approaches exist for constructing the knowledge base for network traffic monitoring:¶
FAIR Principles-Based Construction: Building knowledge graphs based on the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles, ensuring that data assets are systematically organized and semantically enriched. Further details on knowledge graph construction methodologies can be found in [I-D.marcas-nmop-kg-construct].¶
YANG Model Conversion: Transforming YANG models into knowledge graph representations, maintaining compatibility with existing management systems while enabling semantic technology benefits. This approach leverages existing standardization efforts while extending them with semantic capabilities.¶
other...¶
TBD.¶
TBD.¶