Explainable Application Intent for Zero-Touch Networking: An Incorporation of Hypergraph and Transformer

Abstract

The autonomous interpretation of application intent (APPI) represents the primary step towards achieving closed-loop autonomy in zero-touch networking (ZTN) and also a prerequisite for intent-based networking (IBN). However, understanding APPIs and invoking the corresponding network resources require network professionals with extensive technical expertise to customize network service requests (NSRs), which presents significant challenges for the large-scale deployment of ZTN. This paper investigates an interesting problem of autonomous interpretation of APPIs for ZTN, where a novel mechanism integrating hypergraph and transformer with completeness assurance (HyperTrans-CA) is proposed. In particular, we first involve the Bayesian theory to model APPIs interpretability as maximizing the correct transition probability, where hypergraph is used to describe the complex relationship between application characteristics (e.g., scenario function, and performance) and NSRs, including network devices, virtual network functions (VNFs), and resources. Then, the hypergraph is integrated into the encoder, decoder, and attention mechanisms of Transformer, and a completeness assurance mechanism is designed to improve the prediction accuracy. The convergence of HyperTrans-CA and the corresponding convergence speed of the hypergraph-boosted Transformer in the graph search process are also analyzed. Comprehensive simulations and empirical measurements regarding industrial internet demonstrate that HyperTrans-CA can effectively explain/understand APPIs. Compared to the state-of-the-art Transformer and ChatGPT3.5 models, HyperTrans-CA improves the prediction accuracy of APPIs mapped to VNFs by 23% and 46%, respectively, while raising the prediction accuracy of VNF locations by 8.6 and 17.3 times.