2. When is a Vision Worth Pursuing?
When it:
solves real problems
makes business sense
is technically feasible
offers substantial economic benefits
dramatically improves customers’ lives
opens up possibilities that today seem totally unrealizable
Great! How do we get there?

3. Let’s Talk About Cars!

4. Birth of The Modern Automobile (1885)
Benz Patent-Motorwagen This was patented in 1886 (depicted here is v2)
The car had a 954cc single-cylinder, four-stroke 0.9hp engine with tremblor coil ignition and evaporative carburetor with sleeve valve to regulate speed and a manual leather shoe brake
Very, very manual!
The Bertha Benz Memorial Route:
194km from Mannheim via Heidelberg to Pforzheim
Let’s look to the automotive industry to see what’s next in cars

5. Automation for the Automobile
Manual starting with a crank  electronic starter (1914)
Manual transmission  automatic transmission (1940)
Manual control of engine  cruise control (1948)
 adaptive CC (1997)  intelligent ACC (2015)
Manual braking  antilock brake system (1971)
Manual steering  power steering  active steering
Manual parking  autonomous parking
These are all excellent innovations that make driving easier
The primary goal is mainly convenience and safety
Is that basically it? Are we done with innovation in cars?

6. The DARPA Grand Challenge (1)
Build a fully autonomous ground vehicle
Impact
Programmers, not drivers
No cops, lawyers, witnesses
Quadruple highway capacity (3)
Glitches, insurance? (4, 5, 6)
Ethical Self-Driving Cars? (7)
Goal: Drive a 240km course in the Mojave Desert along I-15
Result:
2004: fail (best < 12km!)
2005: 5/23 completed it
Prize: $1 million
2007: “Urban Challenge”
Drive a 96km urban course following traffic regulations and dealing with other cars
6 cars completed this
Possibilities(2)

7. The Self-Driving Car: Grand Result (2009, 2014)
No steering wheel, no pedals –
a completely autonomous car.
Not just an incremental improvement
This is a disruptive change in automotive technology!
Blog focuses on economic benefits, but mentions in passing some other benefits that could be as important
----
Uber is developing self-driving cars
Many companies want self-driving trucks for goods delivery (with a robot for the last 5 meters!)
Auto Correct – New Yorker (8)
The Massive Economic Benefits of Self-Driving Cars – Forbes (9)

8. Self-Driving Networks

9. The Networking Grand Challenge
Build a Self-Driving Network
Goal:
self-discover
self-configure
self-monitor
self-correct
auto-detect customers
self-analyze
self-optimize
self-report
Impact?
Result: ?
Possibilities?
Prize: ?

10. Five Technologies for Self Driving
Telemetry
Automation
Declarative Intent
Decision Making
Rule-based
Machine Learning
Local vs. Global Views

11. 1. Telemetry – Cars
LiDAR

12. 1. Telemetry – Networks Network Today SNMP info + traps
Interface stats, flaps
Routing info
Netflow/sflow/jflow/…
DPI, IDS
Streaming telemetry
OpenNTI (10), ProtoFiles (11)
Network (Future)
Much more info gathered, processed on-box, streamed
Active telemetry: zoom in as needed, zoom out again
Correlated telemetry across time, geography, network layers
Deep telemetry – device state, customer state, packet state

13. 2. Automation – Networks Network Today Discovering topology
Computing paths
Managing bandwidth
Fast reroute
Root cause analysis
Updating and installing routes
Updating software
Network (Future)
Smart auto-bandwidth
Automatic service placement, service motion
Specific upgrades based on configured services
Inductive network action via machine learning

14. 3. Declarative Statement of Intent – Cars
Say where you want to go
Hints:
fastest time
least distance
most efficient use of battery
Is even this much needed? Can’t the car simply figure out where you need to be, and just take you there?

15. 3. Declarative Statement of Intent – Networks
Network Today
Give path constraints: bandwidth, diversity, # LSPs (Northstar)
Say which “virtual network” (VN) a VM belongs to, and inter-VN policies (Contrail)
Network (Future)
Say what you want the network to do
Economic hints: valued customers, priority applications, peering costs

16. 4. Decision Making – Cars Google's self-driving cars: Quad-core PCs
1.3 million laser measurements/second rendered to a 3D picture 30 meters out
20 driving decisions/second

17. 4. Decision Making – Networks
Network Today
What networking decisions are made today, and on what time-scale?
Network (Future)
What other networking decisions could be made, if they could be done fast, accurately, in real time?

18. Rule-based vs. Machine Learning
Rule-based Learning
If X happens, do Y; avoid big rocks
+ straightforward programming
+ easy to predict and refine
- slow, painstaking work
- plodding machine
Machine Learning
“essence of artificial intelligence” – Alan Turing
+ can become “creative”
+ fastest way to learn complex
behavior
- can come to strange conclusions
- hard to know what it knows

19. 5. Local and Global View – Cars
Lanes, other vehicles
Predictive view
Pedestrians, moving objects
Fixed objects
Upcoming situations
Traffic along path to destination

20. 5. Local and Global View – Networks
Network Today
Neighbors, links
Distant nodes, peers
L0-1 devices (?)
Middle-boxes (?)
Global topology, traffic
Servers, applications
Hackers, flash crowds
Network (Future)
Root cause analysis via supervised learning
Time-based trending to establish baseline
Gyroscopic return to baseline state – or dynamic adaptation
Optimal local decisions based on global state

21. Self-Driving Networks: Grand Possibilities
(your ideas here!)

22. Self-Driving Networks: Grand Impact
(your ideas here!)

23. Conclusion
We need a compelling vision in networking, one really worth pursuing
Current thought reflects the networking industry’s fear of bold ideas
Incremental changes are fine, but they are not enough
Automation is a great first step – but we need much, much more
Providers say that the economics of networking is unsustainable
But my daughters say the network is more important than food, water, sleep!
Here is a vision worth pursuing: Self-Driving Networks!
And the way to get there: The Networking Grand Challenge

24. References https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge
highway-capacity-study-article
future-of-self-driving-cars
driver-dies-in-autopilot-accident.html

25. References
driving-cars-make-ethical-decisions/
massive-economic-benefits-of-self-driving-cars