Context Aware Life Cycle for Intent-Based Networking Systems

Traditionally, the configuration and maintenance of networks relied on the manual definition of network policies and misconfigurations troubleshooting. However, modern networks are becoming very complex, heterogeneous and hard to manage. Thus, a more abstracted, agile and autonomous approach for network design, operation and management should be adopted. The Intent-Based Networking (IBN) is such a paradigm that cope with this issue. This paper provides an intent life cycle from an engineering viewpoint that describes the transition of an intent from its definition through its eventual retirement. This work sheds light on contextual awareness, security considerations, AI role and user intervention at each stage. The paper is closed with some of the utmost IBN challenges and research directions.