Application-Responsive Network Framework

With the deployment of increasingly advanced technologies on a large scale, such as SRv6 and network slicing, there is a growing need to expose these new capabilities to applications. The current practice involves using ACLs to classify packets and then map the traffic onto appropriate network resources. This approach results in the application being passively perceived by the network, rather than the application actively interfacing with the network. Furthermore, changes in application characteristics necessitate triggering network configuration adjustments, making it challenging to deploy at scale. The document proposes a new framework called Application Responsive Network (ARN), by encapsulating more network functions into ARN ID, thus it opens up interfaces to applications. The vision is to enable applications to access network resources like they access an operating system.