The Era of Knowledge Plane (KP) Platforms Driven Networking—Anchor for Federation of Autonomic/Autonomous Networks (ANs) Across Industry Sectors

Future Networks, Beyond 5G and 6G, will continue to expand in scale, complexity and interconnectivity, and will be highly shaped by distributed systems that serve various use cases that go beyond current Use Cases like mMTC (massive Machine Type Communications) and URLLC (Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communications). This will be coupled with an increasing demand for autonomy in self-organization and self-management, automation and interoperability on a very dynamic flexible basis. Systems-of-systems architectures will become more relevant as multiple autonomous/semi-autonomous systems adaptively seek to operate and interact with their peers (including the advent of so-called “symbiotic autonomous systems”). Research on autonomous systems and autonomic networks recognizes the benefits to interacting with other systems when needed and should explore frameworks that will enable this dynamic interactivity under the emerging concept of Federation of Autonomic/Autonomous networks (ANs). Autonomy and Degree of Autonomy in ANs should be subjected to “governance by humans” through ANs exposure of Governance Interfaces to make sure ANs solely serve purposes that humans expect of them and not negatively impact environment and society. The use of Federation and in some cases Governance interfaces and mechanisms is a promising technology for interconnecting systems, innovation and service delivery by the federating AN systems; and allowing asset sharing and extending traditional eco-systems and value-chains with further resources and stakeholders (including new ones that were never involved in the traditional ICT ecosystems but should now be involved in 5G and 6G ecosystems). ETSI has standardized the concept of so-called GANA (Generic Autonomic Network Architecture) Knowledge Plane (KP) Platform that drives closed-control-loops for Autonomic Management and Control (AMC) operations for a specific ICT network segment(s)—making the network management and operation of the network segment autonomous to some degree (as an AN). The paper provides an analysis of the aspects of relevance to the broader picture of ANs in standardization efforts, multi-layer autonomic systems design and operational principles, federation and governance of ANs, progress in standards, so as to provide contributions on what needs to be complemented to ongoing efforts in standardization groups. But the major contribution of this paper is on the aspect of Requirements for Knowledge Plane (KP) Platforms Driven Networking, by which KP Platforms play the role of anchors for Federation of Autonomic/Autonomous Networks (ANs) Across Industry Sectors. Whereby we consider that KP Platforms should be the anchor Functional Entities through which Federation and Governance of ANs should be achieved such that the federated ANs deliver end-to-end services in an agile and on-demand manor in fulfilling various dynamic communication services needs required for consumption by humans and by machines, and through which resilience and survivability of ICT network infrastructures and services should be achieved through collaborative actions and intelligence of the GANA KP Platforms. Requirements we study include the role of KPs in Composable Networks, Composable Services, Enablers such as Cloud Federations APIs, Autonomic Network Formations, How KPs build Knowledge and can exchange Knowledge and negotiated operations/actions for Self-* AMC intelligence within and across federated ANs, e.g., Self-Optimizations, Self-Protection, Self-Diagnosis and Self-Healing, etc.