Hi Toerless
You are absolutely right about two things: - first, indeed, I meant our research work, not any kind of production work or deployments; - second, I meant a "distributed system setups" rather than pure networking setups (not limited to switches and routers, let's put it this way). In this sense, generic algorithms with a set of tunable parameters exist for many areas, e.g. routing (including multipath), load balancing, congestion control, scheduling, caching, replica placement, consensus, flow control, resource allocation, TE, clock sync. Regards Artur > -----Original Message----- > From: Toerless Eckert <[email protected]> > Sent: Friday, July 17, 2026 6:48 PM > To: Artur Hecker <[email protected]> > Cc: [email protected]; Anima WG <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [Anima] Re: I-D Action: draft-eckert-anima-ai4an-00.txt > > +1 except that i somewhat doubt the "often" in your first sentence wrt. > networking. > but you didn't say networking, and there may be other domains where this is > more common. > > For example, whenever there is an NP complete problem such as calculating an > optimum set of loose steering path for capacity optimization in an ISP > network, > LLM with probabilistic approximations of "optimum" can save a lot of time - we > hope. But i am not even sure how much that is already used in networks. > > What networking examples do you have in mind ? They might make good > material for the draft... > > Cheers > Toerless > > On Fri, Jul 17, 2026 at 10:00:12AM +0000, Artur Hecker wrote: > > Hi Toerless > > > > > > (Top-posting to shorten it). > > > > We are in a broad agreement here. > > > > On this bit: "Supporting better agent communication is an important topic > > that > would be great for the IETF to pick up." - agreed, but we need to see which > bit > of it needs to be supported by the network/ the system between the agents. > > > > Two things: > > - we often used AI models in an "indirect" fashion close to what you > > ask for below. Concretely, we were using AI/ML, even RL, to select the > > best parameterization for an otherwise deterministic, flexible > > distributed mechanisms. This is close to "the best of the two worlds": > > you deterministically get a correct response regardless of how badly > > your AI model was trained + you can improve the efficiency to the > > optimum, including in situations where no closed formula / one > > algorithmic run optimization can be used. [It can be formulated a bit > > broader of course: instead of asking an LLM to solve a problem (e.g., > > a shortest path in a graph), constrain it to use the best available > > Tools, Symbolic Solvers, etc. (e.g. Dijkstra).] > > > > - The last part seems particularly important to me. Given that LLM/FM are > naturally prone to errors, it would be good to point the community to the fact > that we need not just a network OS, but precisely this protected mode OS. > > > > > > Regards > > Artur > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: Toerless Eckert <[email protected]> > > > Sent: Friday, July 17, 2026 11:31 AM > > > To: Artur Hecker <[email protected]> > > > Cc: Brian E Carpenter <[email protected]>; > > > draft-eckert-anima- [email protected]; Anima WG <[email protected]> > > > Subject: Re: [Anima] Re: I-D Action: draft-eckert-anima-ai4an-00.txt > > > > > > Inline > > > > > > On Wed, Jul 08, 2026 at 01:22:19PM +0000, Artur Hecker wrote: > > > > Hi Brian, hi Alex, hi Toerless > > > > > > > > +1, I am also all for what you are writing there. > > > > > > > > I agree that it could be presented at DAWN or agent2agent > > > > lists/meetings. > > > However, maybe slightly differently from Brian, I think that most of > > > the current efforts somehow concentrate on discovery of agents, yet > > > I tend to see a bigger issue elsewhere. I do not mind discovery, > > > but, a bit like Toerless, I fail to see what is so new about it, agents > > > or not. > > > > > > Supporting better agent communication is an important topic that > > > would be great for the IETF to pick up. We did suggest aspects for > > > it at last IETFs CATALIST non-WG forming BoF. I think the group that > > > will best look into it so far is DMSC, not DAWN. > > > > > > > The document below essentially says: go away with the SDN > > > > controller and put > > > an LLM on top, which will auto-program the network from the > > > high-level intents expressed by the owner. For this to work, the > > > ACP, BRSKI and GRASP serve as the required and potentially sufficient > foundation. > > > > > > More like the lowest common denominator. More would be better, but i > > > think you can't build something reliable without them. So definitely > > > if we can't agree on nothing else of how to do network management > > > with the help of agentic AI, we hopefully do at least agree that > > > it's a good opportunity to highlight the importance of the ANI to do it > reliably. > > > > > > > Personally, I agree with this vision, I would have loved that to > > > > happen way > > > earlier, but somehow community lost interest in that... Now, the > > > whole story about agents jump-starts the next chapter of the same story. > > > > > > Router software infrastructure is highly ossified, and even when > > > it's being re- implemented, then folks who do it have no clue what they're > missing out on. > > > > > > > Some remarks: > > > > - maybe instead of "heuristic" we should talk about probabilistic > > > > behaviour? As > > > per its definition, a heuristic is an approach to problem solving, > > > which might not be optimal or rationalized yet good enough [cmp. > > > Wikipedia]. I am not sure LLM's answers are, in that sense, good > > > enough, as they often turn out to be awfully wrong at times. That's > > > the reason we can't work with that in critical systems (yet?). > > > > > > Good point on terminology. And the core proposal of the draft > > > effectively is to not let agents directly do arbitrary changes to > > > the network directly, but instead let them program automation and > > > control exhaustive testing of the automation programming. All the stuff we > would do without agentic AI too. > > > > > > Or said differently: Letting an AI agent directly reconfigure a > > > network every router one-by-one instead of writing a program to do > > > it is just like a human doing it manually - becoming exhausted and > > > erraneous and unpredictable when it has to happen over and over. > > > > > > Obviously, we need to find good distinctions between this "LLM level > problem" > > > and e.g.: > > > the use of specific DNN for problems that can perfectly live with > > > probabilistic solutions - such as traffic engineering. > > > > > > > - if we are serious about ACP/GRASP/BRSKI as foundation, we would > > > > need to > > > show that, even in spite of potential misjudgments by LLM or > > > programming errors done by it, ACP would always remain "the last > > > Mohican": ACP should be the last to fail, i.e. in presence of a > > > potentially unverified programs produced at will by the > > > LLM/foundation model, the ACP must act like an implementation of a > > > protected mode in an OS, like an OS kernel if you will, preserving > > > the possibility to repair/remove/terminate misbehaving programs. > > > Such that we can have a bunch of simple yet reliable tools on top of > > > ACP to clean away any nonsense introduced by LLM/foundation models, > > > and, also very important, to be able to isolate the effects of such > > > programs > by separating concerns and enforcing "control app manifests" in a distributed > system. > > > > > > Indeed. And maybe we should use the opportunity to write this up > > > anew for the agentic AI crows to also come up with new better > > > terminology. Instead of or in addition to ANI maybe call it the > > > "Network wide OS kernel" - aka: more good marketing suggestions more > than welcome! > > > > > > Cheers > > > Toerless > > > > > > > > Regards > > > > Artur > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > From: Brian E Carpenter <[email protected]> > > > > Sent: Monday, July 6, 2026 3:50 AM > > > > To: [email protected]; Anima WG <[email protected]> > > > > Subject: [Anima] Re: I-D Action: draft-eckert-anima-ai4an-00.txt > > > > > > > > Hi, > > > > > > > > I'm all for what you are saying in this draft, but I think you > > > > also have to address > > > it to the DAWN people and everybody working on agentic communications. > > > Look at draft-he-dawn-ipv6-agent-aware-framework, for example; it > > > has very little to do with IPv6. Maybe you should ask for a slot at > > > the DAWN BOF? (DAWN = Discovery of Agents, Workloads, and Named > > > Entities.) At least point out that ANIMA/GRASP has been working on > > > discovery of agents since the dawn of time (pun intended). > > > > > > > > Also, the trust boundary issue we just discussed re > > > > draft-soulard-anima-grasp- > > > router-problem-statement is going to be relevant. I see a clear > > > clash between the type of trust boundary that BRSKI provides and how > > > the agentic community is looking at trust. > > > > > > > > Nit: s/autonomous/autonomic/ globally > > > > > > > > (We chose "autonomic" at the beginning of ANIMA, by analogy with > > > > the autonomic nervous system, so I think we need to be > > > > consistent.) > > > > > > > > Regards/Ngā mihi > > > > Brian > > > > > > > > On 06-Jul-26 11:28, [email protected] wrote: > > > > > Internet-Draft draft-eckert-anima-ai4an-00.txt is now available. > > > > > > > > > > Title: AI for Autonomous Networking > > > > > Authors: Toerless Eckert > > > > > Alexander Clemm > > > > > Name: draft-eckert-anima-ai4an-00.txt > > > > > Pages: 17 > > > > > Dates: 2026-07-05 > > > > > > > > > > Abstract: > > > > > > > > > > This document builds on the architectural foundation of the IETF > > > > > ANIMA "Autonomous Network Infrastructure" to propose an > architecture > > > > > for in-network intelligence in support of network automation. > > > > > > > > > > The key aspect of this architecture is the use of AI programmed > > > > > and > > > > > validated software running decentralized on the network. > > > > > > > > > > The IETF datatracker status page for this Internet-Draft is: > > > > > https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-eckert-anima-ai4an/ > > > > > > > > > > There is also an HTMLized version available at: > > > > > https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-eckert-anima-ai4an-0 > > > > > 0 > > > > > > > > > > Internet-Drafts are also available by rsync at: > > > > > rsync.ietf.org::internet-drafts > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > > I-D-Announce mailing list -- [email protected] To > > > > > unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > Anima mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email > > > > to [email protected] > > > > > > -- > > > --- > > > [email protected] > > -- > --- > [email protected] _______________________________________________ Anima mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
