FDSR-INT: A Flexible On-Demand In-Band Telemetry Approach for Aerial Computing Networks

In-band network telemetry (INT) is a new network measurement technique that provides real-time, fine-grained packet-level network measurements. However, standard INT lacks the flexibility to perform configurable on-demand network measurements. In this work, we propose a flexible on-demand network measurement mechanism (FDSR-INT) based on a dual bitmap by combining the programmability of segment routing based on IPv6 (SRv6) and the telemetry efficiency of the INT to achieve customizable network measurements. By designing the dual bitmap, the telemetry information of personalized probe nodes is supported, and the telemetry efficiency is improved. SRv6 is employed to direct measurement probe packets, ensuring coverage of a specified set of network targets. Its inherent programmability enables INT to conduct customized per-hop network measurements. The designed flexible INT field structure, which appends traceability information along with telemetry information, reduces the information traceability overhead in the control plane and improves the network compatibility of the mechanism. We solve the optimal probing path by solving a traveler problem in an auxiliary graph and design a greedy path-cutting algorithm to maximize the number of nodes for single packet probing while satisfying the packet length constraints to improve the success rate of the probing task. Finally, we implemented FDSR-INT using P4 and verified its performance experimentally in the constructed space-air–ground integrated simulation dynamic environment. FDSR-INT saves 30% of the data plane bandwidth and 54% of the data plane bandwidth on north-south interfaces compared with SONM-SR-INT, etc. Furthermore, it has low control plane processing overhead and probe path transmission overhead.