Navigating intent-based networking: from user descriptions to deployable configurations

Outlet Title

Neural Computing and Applications

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2025

Abstract

Network automation development has accompanied network evolution due to its significant role in speeding up and simplifying network operations. Emerging networking and computing paradigms such as information-centric networks, next generation networks, cloud, and edge computing and recent innovative technologies, such as the Internet of things (IoT), enabled novel network services (such as the Internet of Vehicles (IoV), context-aware applications, virtual reality, and augmented reality) that demand complex configurations and management. Intent-based networking (IBN) is a promising networking paradigm that provides abstract and autonomous network management. IBN promises to simplify configuring networking devices, allowing network engineers and service providers to focus on providing the expected services and continuously verifying that the network operates within the desired status. An IBN process starts by expressing the user requirement in a high-level descriptive format. Then, the IBN system translates these requirements to a low-level deployable format in a process called intent translation. In this work, we formally define the intent translation process and propose a generic intent translation system. Furthermore, we review the research on intent translation published between 2018 and 2022. We analyze and classify the proposed intent translation schemes and discuss the challenges and recent trends in intent translation.

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