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<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang='en'> <head> <meta charset='utf-8'> <meta content='width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0' name='viewport'> <title>IRTF Network Management Research Group (NMRG)</title> <link href='bootstrap-5.3.1-dist/css/bootstrap.css' rel='stylesheet'> <link href='img/favicon.png' rel='icon' type='image/png'> <link href='img/apple-icon.png' rel='apple-touch-icon' type='image/png'> <link href='https://discuss.systems/@irtf' rel='me'> </head> <body class='d-flex flex-column min-vh-100'> <nav class='navbar navbar-expand-sm navbar-light bg-light'> <div class='container'> <a class='navbar-brand' href='./'>IRTF</a> <button class='navbar-toggler' data-bs-target='#collapsibleNavbar' data-bs-toggle='collapse' type='button'> <span class='navbar-toggler-icon'></span> </button> <div class='collapse navbar-collapse' id='collapsibleNavbar'> <ul class='navbar-nav'> <li class='nav-item dropdown'> <a class='nav-link dropdown-toggle' data-bs-toggle='dropdown' href='#' role='button'>Research Groups</a> <ul class='dropdown-menu'> <li> <a class='dropdown-item' href='cfrg.html'>CFRG</a> </li> <li> <a class='dropdown-item' href='coinrg.html'>COINRG</a> </li> <li> <a class='dropdown-item' href='dinrg.html'>DINRG</a> </li> <li> <a class='dropdown-item' href='gaia.html'>GAIA</a> </li> <li> <a class='dropdown-item' href='hrpc.html'>HRPC</a> </li> <li> <a class='dropdown-item' href='iccrg.html'>ICCRG</a> </li> <li> <a class='dropdown-item' href='icnrg.html'>ICNRG</a> </li> <li> <a class='dropdown-item' href='maprg.html'>MAPRG</a> </li> <li> <a class='dropdown-item' href='nmrg.html'>NMRG</a> </li> <li> <a class='dropdown-item' href='panrg.html'>PANRG</a> </li> <li> <a class='dropdown-item' href='pearg.html'>PEARG</a> </li> <li> <a class='dropdown-item' href='qirg.html'>QIRG</a> </li> <li> <a class='dropdown-item' href='rasprg.html'>RASPRG</a> </li> <li> <a class='dropdown-item' href='t2trg.html'>T2TRG</a> </li> <li> <a class='dropdown-item' href='ufmrg.html'>UFMRG</a> </li> <li> <hr class='dropdown-divider'> </li> <li> <a class='dropdown-item' href='groups.html'>All Research Groups</a> </li> </ul> </li> <li class='nav-item dropdown'> <a class='nav-link dropdown-toggle' data-bs-toggle='dropdown' href='#' role='button'>Workshops & Prizes</a> <ul class='dropdown-menu'> <li> <a class='dropdown-item' href='anrp/'>Applied Networking Research Prize</a> </li> <li> <a class='dropdown-item' href='anrw/'>Applied Networking Research Workshop</a> </li> <li> <a class='dropdown-item' href='raim-2015.html'>RAIM 2015</a> </li> </ul> </li> <li class='nav-item dropdown'> <a class='nav-link dropdown-toggle' data-bs-toggle='dropdown' href='#' role='button'>Grants</a> <ul class='dropdown-menu'> <li> <a class='dropdown-item' href='travelgrants/'>Travel Grants</a> <a class='dropdown-item' href='feewaivers.html'>Fee Waivers</a> </li> </ul> </li> <li class='nav-item dropdown'> <a class='nav-link dropdown-toggle' data-bs-toggle='dropdown' href='#' role='button'>People</a> <ul class='dropdown-menu'> <li> <a class='dropdown-item' href='chair.html'>IRTF Chair</a> </li> <li> <a class='dropdown-item' href='irsg.html'>Steering Group</a> </li> </ul> </li> <li class='nav-item dropdown'> <a class='nav-link dropdown-toggle' data-bs-toggle='dropdown' href='#' role='button'>Policies</a> <ul class='dropdown-menu'> <li> <a class='dropdown-item' href='policies/'>Policies and Procedures</a> </li> <li> <a class='dropdown-item' href='policies/#conduct'>Conduct, Diversity, and Inclusion</a> </li> <li> <a class='dropdown-item' href='policies/ipr/'>Intellectual Property Rights</a> </li> <li> <a class='dropdown-item' href='https://ietf.org/privacy-statement/'>Privacy Policy</a> </li> </ul> </li> </ul> </div> </div> </nav> <div class='container mb-5'> <div class='row mt-4 bt-4'> <div class='col-sm-8 col-xs-12 mb-4'> <h1> Network Management Research Group <small>NMRG</small> </h1> </div> <div class='col-sm-4 col-xs-12 text-center mb-4 d-none d-sm-block'> <a href='/'> <img alt='Internet Research Task Force (IRTF)' class='img-fluid' src='img/irtf.png'> </a> </div> </div> <div class='row'> <div class='col-sm-8'> <h2>Charter</h2> <p> The <span class="term">Network Management Research Group</span> (NMRG) provides a forum for researchers to explore new technologies for the management of the Internet. In particular, the NMRG will work on solutions for problems that are not yet considered well understood enough for engineering work within the <a href="https://ietf.org/">IETF</a>. </p> <p> The focus of the NMRG will be on management services that interface with the current Internet management framework. This includes communication services between management systems, which may belong to different management domains, as well as customer-oriented management services. The NMRG is expected to identify and document requirements, to survey possible approaches, to consider new architectural frameworks, to provide specifications for proposed solutions, and to prove concepts with prototype implementations that can be tested in large-scale real-world environments. </p> <p> The <a href="https://ietf.org/">IETF</a> Operations and Management Area Directors are members of the NMRG mailing list and invited to NMRG meetings in order to ensure free flow of information in both directions, and to avoid duplication of work with the various <a href="https://ietf.org/">IETF</a> working groups. </p> <p> The group will report its progress through a publicly accessible web site and presentations at <a href="https://ietf.org/meeting/">IETF meetings</a>. Specifications developed by the NMRG will be submitted for publication as Experimental or Informational RFCs. </p> <h2>Membership</h2> <p> Membership in the NMRG is open to all interested parties. </p> <h2>Meetings</h2> <p> Regular working meetings are held about three to five times per year at locations convenient to the majority of the participants. Working meetings vary from hours-long working sessions (typically when held as part of <a href="https://ietf.org/meeting/">IETF meetings</a>) to days-long meetings when co-located with conferences or events related to network management. </p> <p> Regular virtual meetings are also organized on a monthly or per-need basis. </p> <h2>Research Activities (2017-2022)</h2> <p> The constant evolution of networking technologies, in scale, versatility, and heterogeneity, generates operational complexity and demands novel disruptive management solutions to address it. The NMRG will prioritize investigation of three related topics: 1) self-driving/-managing networks, 2) intent-based networking and 3) artificial intelligence in network management. Note: beyond these three topics, the NMRG remains open to presentation of other topics of interest. </p> <p> While the ultimate goal of self-driving/-managing networks is fully autonomous network operations, there will be intermediate levels where the human users remain “in the loop” and are progressively assisted and replaced by more and more intelligent mechanisms. Interfaces between humans and a self-driving system are important and required to allow bidirectional communications. On one hand, the user must be able to express guidance and its needs without having to handle the full complexity of the underlying infrastructures. On the other hand, users must understand the decisions which were taken and the reasons why, be informed about the future actions the system will initiate and also be provided with recommendations. </p> <p> In this area, Intent-Based Networking (IBN) provides high-level, user-friendly abstractions to describe business and operational goals, and alleviates the need for the user to know and derive the technical details on how to achieve those goals. IBN is an essential component of self-driving networks but requires the introduction of intelligent mechanisms to properly process intents with as little human involvement as possible. </p> <p> Certainly, some of those intelligent mechanisms can rely on advances in (but should not be limited to) Artificial Intelligence (AI). While different forms of AI have been used for decades in network management, the combined progress in amount of data, computing power, AI algorithms and flexible capabilities of networks in recent years makes highly relevant to re-examine in depth the coupling between AI and network management. </p> </div> <div class='col-sm-4'> <h2>Chairs</h2> <p> The NMRG is chaired by <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurentciavaglia">Laurent Ciavaglia</a> and <a href="http://jeromefra.free.fr">Jérôme François</a>. </p> <h2>Mailing List</h2> <p> The NMRG mailing list is <a href="mailto:nmrg@irtf.org">nmrg@irtf.org</a>. To subscribe or access the list archives, visit the <a href="https://mailman.irtf.org/mailman/listinfo/nmrg">mailman page</a>. </p> <h2>Datatracker</h2> <p> Documents and meeting materials for the NMRG can be found on the <a href='https://datatracker.ietf.org/rg/nmrg/about/'>IETF datatracker.</a> </p> <h2>Web Page</h2> <p> Additional NMRG information is available at <a href="https://wiki.ietf.org/group/nmrg">https://wiki.ietf.org/group/nmrg</a>. </p> <h2>Timeline</h2> <p>The NMRG was chartered on 1999-03-14.</p> </div> </div> </div> <footer class='bg-secondary mt-auto'> <div class='container'> <div class='row pb-4 pt-4'> <div class='col-sm-2'> <p> <a class='link-light link-underline-secondary' href='https://www.ietf.org/'> IETF </a> </p> </div> <div class='col-sm-2'> <p> <a class='link-light link-underline-secondary' href='https://www.iab.org/'> IAB </a> </p> </div> <div class='col-sm-2'> <p> <a class='link-light link-underline-secondary' href='https://www.iana.org/'> IANA </a> </p> </div> <div class='col-sm-2'> <p> <a class='link-light link-underline-secondary' href='https://www.rfc-editor.org/'> RFC Editor </a> </p> </div> <div class='col-sm-2'> <p> <a class='link-light link-underline-secondary' href='https://www.ietf.org/about/administration/overview/'> IETF LLC </a> </p> </div> <div class='col-sm-2'> <p> <a class='link-light link-underline-secondary' href='https://trustee.ietf.org/'> IETF Trust </a> </p> </div> </div> </div> </footer> <script src='bootstrap-5.3.1-dist/js/bootstrap.bundle.js'></script> </body> </html>