In-band Network Telemetry: A Survey

Abstract

With the development of software-defined network and programmable data-plane technology, in-band network telemetry has emerged. In-band network telemetry technology collects hop-by-hop network status information through business packets to achieve end-to-end visualization of network services. In-band network telemetry uses the data plane to directly drive the network measurement process, subverting the research idea of traditional network measurement that treats network switching device as an intermediate black box. In-band network telemetry technology has the advantages of flexible programming, strong real-time, less noise and path-level network status perception, etc. It has become an emerging representative of network telemetry technology and has received extensive attention from academia and industry.In this survey, we conduct a comprehensive investigation on the situation of in-band network telemetry technology. Firstly, we review the different development stages of network measurement and give a chronology. And we sort out the development history and research results of in-band network telemetry. Secondly, we introduce in detail several existing representative solutions of in-band network telemetry, including INT, IOAM, AM-PM and ANT, in terms of systems, implementation idea, technical features, standardization, and research results. Thirdly, we analyze several key technologies of the in-band network telemetry system, which runs through data generation, export, storage, and analysis. We summarize the advantages and disadvantages of the existing solutions. Moreover, we investigate the latest applications of in-band network telemetry from two aspects: performance measurement and function measurement. Furthermore, we highlight the technical opportunities brought by in-band network telemetry technology to network measurement and management, as well as several technical challenges and future research directions.