Aria Networks shows the optimal path
April 2007
In a couple of previous posts,
Path Computation Element (PCE): IETF�s hidden jewel and
MPLS-TE and network traffic engineering I mentioned a company called
Aria Networks who are working in the technology space discussed in those posts. I would like to take this opportunity to write a
little about them.
Aria Networks are a small UK company that have been going for around eighteen months. The company is commercially led by Tony Fallows, the core technology has been developed by Dr Jay Perrett, Chief Science Officer and Head of R&D and Daniel King, Chief Operating Officer and their CTO is Adrian Farrel. Adrian currently co-chairs the IETF Common Control and Measurement Plane (CCAMP) working group that is responsible for GMPLS and also co-chairs of the IETF Path Computation Element (PCE) working groups.
The team at Aria have brought some very innovative software technology the products they supply to network operators and the network equipment vendors. Their raison d'etre, as articulated by Daniel King, is to "to fundamentally change the way complex, converged networks are designed, planned and operated". This is an ambitious goal, so let's take a look at how Aria plan to achieve this.
Aria currently supplies software that addresses the complex task of computing packet constrain-based paths across an IP or an MPLS network and optimising that network holistically and in parallel. Holistic is a key word in respect of understanding Aria products. It means that when an additional path needs to be computed in a network, the whole network and all the services that are running over it are recalculated and optimised in a single calculation. A simple example of why this is so important is shown here.
This ability to compute holistically rather than on a piecemeal basis requires some very slick software as it is a very computationally intensive ('hard') computation that could easily take many hours using other systems. Parallel is the other key word. When an additional link is added to a network there could be a knock-on effect to any other link in the network, therefore re-computing all the paths in parallel - both existing and new - is the only way to ensure a reliable and optimal result is achieved.
Traffic engineering of IP, MPLS or Ethernet networks could quite easily be dismissed by the non-technical management of a network operator as an arcane activity but, as anyone with experience of operating networks can vouch, good traffic engineering brings pronounced benefits that directly affects the reduction of costs while increasing the positive aspects of customers' experience of using services. Of course, lack of appropriate traffic engineering activity has the opposite effect. Only one thing could be put above traffic engineering to better achieve a good brand image and that is good customer service. The irony is that if money is not spent on good traffic engineering, ten times the amount would need to be spent on call centre facilities papering over the cracks!
One quite common view held by a number of engineers is that traffic engineering is not required because they say "we throw bandwidth at our network". If a network has an abundance of bandwidth then in theory there will never be any delays caused by an inadvertent overload of a particular link. This may be true, but it is certainly an expensive and short sighted solution and one that could turn out to risky as new customers come on board. Combine it with the often slow provisioning times often associated with adding additional optical links can cause major network problems. The challenge of planning and optimising if significantly increased in a Next Generation Network (NGN) when traffic is actively segmented into different traffic classes such as real time VoIP and best-effort Internet access. Traffic engineering tools will become an even more indispensable tool than they have in the past.
It's interesting to note that even if a protocol like MPLS-TE, PBT, PBB-TE or T-MPLS has all the traffic bells and whistles any carrier may ever desire, it does not mean they can be used. Using TE extensions such as Fast ReRoute (FRR) need sophisticated tools or they quickly become unmanageable in a real network.
Aria's product family is called intelligent Virtual Network Topologies (iVNT). Current products are aimed at network operators that operate IP and / or MPLS-TE based networks.
iVNT MPLS-TE enables network
operators design, model and optimise MPLS - Traffic Engineered (MPLS-TE) networks that use constraint based point-to-point Labelled Switched Paths (LSPs), constraint based
point-to-multipoint LSPs, Fast-Reroute (FRR) bypass tunnels. One of its real strengths is that it goes to town on supporting any type of constraint that could be placed on a link - delay, hop
count, cost, required bandwidth, link-layer protection, path disjointedness, bi-directionality, etc. Indeed, it quite straight forward to add any addition constraints that an individual carrier
may need.
iVNT IP enables network operators to design, model and optimise IP and Label Distribution Protocol (LDP) networks based on the metrics used in Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) and Intermediate System-to-Intermediate System (IS-IS) Interior Gateway Protocols (IGPs) to ensure traffic flows are correctly balanced across the network. Although not using more advanced traffic engineering capabilities is clearly not the way to go in the future, many carriers still stick with 'simple' IP solutions - however they are far from simple in practise and can be an operational nightmare to manage.
What makes Aria software so interesting?
To cut to the chase, it's the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) when applied to path computation and network optimisation. Conventional algorithms used in network optimisation software are linear in nature and are usually deterministic in that they produce the same answer for the same set of variables every time they are run. They are usually 'tuned' to a single service type and are often very slow to produce results when faced with a very large network that uses many paths and carries many services. Aria's software approach may produce different results but correct, results each time it is run and is able to handle multiple services that are inherently and significant different from a topology perspective e.g. point-to-point (P2P), Point -to-Multipoint (P2MP) based services and mesh-like IP-VPNs etc.
Aria uses evolutionary and genetic techniques which are good at learning new problems and running multiple algorithms in parallel. The software then selects which algorithm is the better at solving the particular problem they are challenged with. The model evolves multiple times and quickly converges on the optimal solution. Importantly, the technology is very amenable to use parallel computing to speed up processing of complex problems such as required in holistic network optimisation.
It generally does not make sense to use the same algorithm to solve all the network path optimisation needs of different services - iVNT runs many in parallel and self selection will show which is the most optimal for the current problem.
Aria's core technology is called DANI (Distributed Artificial Neural Intelligence) and is a "flexible, stable, proven, scalable and distributed computation platform". DANI was developed by two of Aria's Founders, Jay Perrett and Daniel King and has had a long proving ground in the pharmaceutical industry for pre-clinical drug discovery which needs the analysis of millions of individual pieces of data to isolate interesting combinations. The company that addresses the pharmaceutical industry is Applied Insilico.
Because of the use of AI, iVNT is able to compute a solution for a complex network containing thousands of different constraint-based links, hundreds of nodes and multiple services such as P2P LSPs, Fast Reroute (FRR) links, P2MP links (IPTV broadcast) and meshed IP-VPN services in just a few minutes on one of today's norebooks.
What's the future direction for Aria's products?
Step to multi-layer path computation: As discussed in the posts mentioned above, Aria is very firmly supportive of the need to provide automatic multi-layer path computation. This means that the addition of of a new customer's IP service will be passed as a bandwidth demand the MPLS network and downwards to the GMPLS controlled ASTN optical network as discussed in GMPLS and common control.
Path Computation Element (PCE): Aria are at the heart of the development of on-line path computation so if this is a subject of interest to you then give Aria a call.
Two product variants address this opportunity:
iVNT Inside is aimed at Network Management System (NMS) vendors, Operational Support System (OSS) vendors and Path
Computation Element (PCE) vendors that have a need to provide advanced path computation capabilities embedded in their products.
iVNT Element is for network equipment vendors that have a need to embed advanced path computation capabilities in their IP/MPLS routers or optical switches.
Roundup
Aria Networks could be considered to be a rare company in the world of start-ups. It has a well tried technology whose inherent characteristics are admirably matched to the markets and the technical problems it is addressing. Its management team are actively involved in developing the standards that their products are, or will be, able to support. This provides no better basis to get their products right.
It is early days for carriers turning in their droves to NGNs and it is even earlier days for them to adopt on-line PCE in their networks, but Aria's timing is on the nose as most carriers are actively thinking about these issues and are actively looking for tools today.
Aria could be well positioned to benefit from the explosion of NGN convergence as it seems - to me at least - that fully converged networks will very challenging to design, optimise and operate without the new approach and tools from companies such as Aria.
Note: I need to declare an interest as I worked with them for a short time in 2006.