Network Management Operations                                    X. Zhao
Internet-Draft                                                     CAICT
Intended status: Informational                                   M. Wang
Expires: 1 September 2025                                   China Mobile
                                                           D. Ceccarelli
                                                                   Cisco
                                                                   B. Wu
                                                                   C. Yu
                                                                  Huawei
                                                        28 February 2025


   AI based Network Management Agent(NMA): Concepts and Architecture
              draft-zhao-nmop-network-management-agent-01

Abstract

   With the development of AI(Artificial Intelligence) technology, large
   model have shown significant advantages and great potential in
   recognition, understanding, decision-making, and generation, and can
   well match the self-intelligent network management requirements for
   the goal of autonomous network or Intent-based Networking, and can be
   used as one of the potential driving technologies to drive high-level
   autonomous networks.  When introducing AI for network management, how
   to integrate AI technology and deal with the relationship with the
   existing network management entity (such as network controller) is
   the focus of research and standardization.

   This document presents the concept of AI based network management
   agent(NMA), provides the basic definition and reference architecture
   of NMA, discusses the relationship of NMA with traditional network
   controller or other network management entity by exploring the
   delpoyment mode of NMA, and proposes the comman processing flow and
   typical application scenarios of NMA.

Discussion Venues

   This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.

   Discussion of this document takes place on the Network Management
   Operations Working Group mailing list (nmop@ietf.org), which is
   archived at https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/nmop/.

   Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at
   https://github.com/ietf-wg-nmop/draft-ietf-nmop-digital-map-concept.






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Status of This Memo

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     1.1.  Background  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     1.2.  Introduction of Network Management Agent (NMA)  . . . . .   4
   2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     2.1.  Acronyms and Abbreviations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     2.2.  Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   3.  Reference architecture of NMA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     3.1.  Function Requirements of NMA  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     3.2.  Reference Architecture of NMA . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     3.3.  Related Interfaces  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   4.  Network Automation Architecture Based on NMAs . . . . . . . .  10
     4.1.  Deployment modes considerations and requirements  . . . .  12
       4.1.1.  Single Agent Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
       4.1.2.  Multi Agents Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
   5.  Common processing flow of NMA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14



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   6.  Typical Application Scenarios after Introducing NMA . . . . .  16
   7.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
   8.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
   9.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
     9.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
     9.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18

1.  Introduction

1.1.  Background

   As the types of operator services become increasingly diverse, the
   complexity and difficulty of network operations and maintenance
   continue to grow.  On one hand, new service scenarios such as
   industrial internet, vehicle-road collaboration, and 5GtoB for
   vertical industries are constantly emerging, and customer services
   like Extended Reality (XR), Virtual Reality (VR), and smart home are
   becoming more abundant, with a continuous increase in network access
   volume.  On the other hand, with the popularization of 5G and gigabit
   optical networks, operators' networks are facing a situation where
   networks from 2G to 5G coexist.  The network protocols and
   characteristics vary across different network domains, leading to a
   continuous increase in the difficulty and complexity of network
   operations and maintenance.  Relying solely on traditional manual
   operations and maintenance methods can no longer meet the
   increasingly complex network operations and maintenance demands.  The
   level of network intelligence has become a key factor directly
   affecting network performance and user experience.  Against this
   backdrop, enhancing the level of network intelligence and creating
   Autonomous Networks (AN)[TMF-IG1230] or Intent-based Networking
   [RFC9315] has become a global consensus among operators

   Autonomous Networks provide an architecture for the delivery of
   services and capabilities with “Zero-X” (Zero-wait, Zero-trouble,
   Zero-touch) experience for the users of vertical industries and
   consumers and “Self-X” experience (Self-configuration, self-healing,
   self-optimizing) for network operators.  In particular, the AN
   framework defines 6 automation levels, spanning from Level 0 (L0)
   where operations and maintenance are fully manual, to Level 5 (L5)
   where the network is fully automated, managed by the AI and the human
   intervention is reduced to the minimum.

   As of today, the industry sees quite different levels of automation
   from operator to operator, but the average level is considered to be
   between L2 and L3.  Mainstream operators are releasing goals and
   plans to achieve Level 4 (L4) autonomous networks by 2025.  L4+ AN
   sets higher requirement in intention, decision-making, analysis,



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   perception, and execution.  Artificial Intelligence (AI) large model
   technology has shown significant advantages and great potential in
   identification, understanding, decision-making, and generation.  It
   has technical features such as multimodal fusion perception
   capabilities, more user-friendly human-computer interaction and
   knowledge Q&A capabilities, and content generation capabilities,
   which can well match the new requirements of Level 4 Autonomous
   Networks and already be one of the core driving technologies to
   achieve high-level autonomous networks.

   While the key issues after the introduction of AI in network include:

   1) The application architecture and deployment methods of AI in
   network management are still unclear, that is in what form AI can
   help network management?

   2) The relationship between AI and the existing network controllers
   is not clear.

   3) New interface capability requirements after AI is introduced are
   not clear either.

   Therefore, it is necessary to define the general architecture and
   application form of AI in network management.

1.2.  Introduction of Network Management Agent (NMA)

   The concept of Network Management Agent (NMA) draws inspiration from
   the “AI Agent”. According to the framework proposed in the
   blog[LLM-powered-autonomous-agents]by OpenAI's Lilian Weng, the
   functions of an LLM-powered Agent include several key components:
   planning, memory and using tools to complete actions.  Following the
   mainstream definition widely accepted in the industry, an AI Agent
   refers to “an intelligent entity with the ability to perceive the
   environment, make decisions, and execute actions, and can gradually
   achieve set goals through independent thinking and tool invocation”.
   In Google's latest Agent white paper[Agents], “a Generative AI agent
   can be defined as an application that attempts to achieve a goal by
   observing the world and acting upon it using the tools that it has at
   its disposal.  Agents are autonomous and can act independently of
   human intervention, especially when provided with proper goals or
   objectives they are meant to achieve.”









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   The key features of AI agents include reasoning and decision-making
   abilities, goal-orientation, and autonomy.  Among these, autonomy
   means that once the appropriate goals are provided, it can act
   independently without human intervention.  As the concept of AI agent
   becomes widely accepted in the industry, it’s expected to become one
   of the most feasible application forms of AI.

   Similarly, the network management agent (NMA) which can be understood
   as the AI Agent for network management, refers to a network
   management entity built based on ML/AI and equipped with the
   autonomous closed-loop task processing capabilities.  It can
   automatically carry out network status perception, task intent
   interpretation, task planning, decision-making and task execution
   operations based on user task intentions or preset goals, so as to
   achieve closed-loop processing of scenarios-oriented network
   management tasks.

   This document is trying to give a standardized common architecture
   for the use of AI in network management, which can be in the form of
   NMA.  The following chapters will propose the concept of AI-based
   NMA, define the reference architecture of NMA and functional
   requirements of NMA for different scenarios, clarify the relationship
   of NMA with existing controller or other control systems, and discuss
   the general task processing workflow and typical application
   scenarios of NMA.

2.  Terminology

2.1.  Acronyms and Abbreviations

   AI: Artificial Intelligence

   LLM: Large Language Model

   NMA: Network Management Agent, refers to AI based network management
   agent

2.2.  Definitions

   The document defines the following terms:

   Network Management Agent (NMA):  A network management entity built









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      based on ML/AI and equipped with the autonomous task processing
      capabilities.  It can automatically carry out network status
      perception, task intent[RFC9315]interpretation, task planning,
      decision-making and task execution operations based on user task
      intentions or preset goals, so as to achieve closed-loop
      processing of scenarios-oriented network management tasks.  For
      different application scenarios, NMA can be subdivided into
      multiple scenario-oriented agents.

3.  Reference architecture of NMA

   In this section we’ll analyze the functional requirements and
   reference architecture of the NMA.

3.1.  Function Requirements of NMA

   The NMA should support the following capabilities:

   1.  Support receiving task requests initiated by network operators or
       users through natural language.  It should be noted that natural
       language interaction is not the only way to use NMA, network
       operators can also use GUI (Graphical User Interface) to operate
       NMA.  But NMA should have the capability of understanding natural
       language and translate into task intents through the build-in
       Large Language Models (LLMs) reasoning capability.

   2.  Support perception of network status through querying the data of
       controller and other network management tools.  Network status
       include network topology, service configuration, alarms,
       performance and other information needed for processing the task.

   3.  Support task planning and breaking down task intent into specific
       operations based on the user input and network status perception.
       The task planning process can also utilize the reasoning
       capability of LLMs.

   4.  Support selecting appropriate tools and automatically invoking
       corresponding tools or APIs to complete the execution of each sub
       operation.  The toolkit includes management functions from
       existing controller as well as other standalone management tools
       like Network Digital Twin (NDT)
       [I-D.irtf-nmrg-network-digital-twin], etc.

   5.  Support generating the task execution results based on the output
       of each operation and sending back to network operators or users.






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   6.  Support analysis and self-assessment of execution results, and
       enable autonomous or human intervention optimization based on
       evaluation results to continuously improve the accuracy of task
       execution.

   7.  Supporting collaboration among multiple intelligent agents to
       complete complex tasks.

3.2.  Reference Architecture of NMA

   In order to achieve above capabilities, by referring to the common AI
   agent framework, this document presents the reference functional
   architecture of NMA as shown in Figure 1.

                        +--------------------------------------------+
                        |        Network Management Agent (NMA)      |
                        | +---------------------+ +----------------+ |
                        | |  Intent Management  | |     Memory     | |
                        | +---------------------+ | +------------+ | |
                        | +---------------------+ | |  Long-term | | |
                        | | Network Paerception | | +------------+ | |
                        | +---------------------+ | +------------+ | |
              Tool      | +---------------------+ | | Short-term | | |
           invocation   | |     Task Planning   | | +------------+ | |
                        | +---------------------+ +----------------+ |
     Controller<---+    | +---------------------+ +----------------+ |
                   |    | |  Orchestration and  | |                | |
            NDT<---+----+->      Execution      | |                | |
                   |    | +---------------------+ |  Multi-agents  | |
         Other <---+    | +---------------------+ |  Collaboration | |
     external tools     | |   Reflection and    | |                | |
                        | |  Self-optimization  | |                | |
                        | +---------------------+ +----------------+ |
                        +----------------------^---------------------+
                                               |
                        +----------------------v---------------------+
                        |         Common AI Service Layer            |
                        | +----------------++------------++--------+ |
                        | | Large language || Multimodal || Small  | |
                        | |  Models(LLMs)  ||   Models   || Models | |
                        | +----------------++------------++--------+ |
                        | +----------------------------------------+ |
                        | |             Knowledge Base             | |
                        | +----------------------------------------+ |
                        +--------------------------------------------+


              Figure 1: Reference function architecture of NMA



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   The main function components of NMA include:

   Intent Management:  Basic capability provided by AI models,
      responsible for collecting the input task information and
      translate into intents through AI model reasoning.

   Network Perception:  Achieve real-time query for network status
      information related to the task intent.  Network status
      information is not limited to network topology, service
      configurations, device status, alarms, performances, etc.  The
      query source can be controller, ENO, etc.

   Task Planning:  Based on the reasoning ability of AI models, break
      down the task intention into multiple sub operations.

   Orchestration and execution:  Select the appropriate tools based on
      the specific operation, and automatically call the relevant tools
      or interfaces to perform the operation.  After each sub operation
      is completed, the execution results of each operation are formed
      into task execution results.

   Reflection and self-optimization:  Select the appropriate tools based
      on the specific operation, and automatically call the relevant
      tools or interfaces to perform the operation.  After each sub
      operation is completed, the execution results of each operation
      are formed into task execution results.

      Additionally, artificial evaluation methods can be integrated to
      further optimize the NMA's performance through human supervision,
      enhancing the NMA's intention understanding and task execution
      capabilities.

   Memory:  Responsible for storing and processing various types of
      information during the operation of NMA, including long-term
      memory (LTM) and short-term memory (STM).  STM stores information
      that NMA is currently aware of and needed to carry out complex
      cognitive tasks such as learning and reasoning.  LTM can store
      information for a remarkably long time, ranging from a few days to
      months or years.  To summarize, STM is for in-context learning
      which is short and finite, as it is restricted by the finite
      context window length of Transformer.  LTM is for the external
      vector store that the NMA can attend to query time, accessible via
      fast retrieval.

   Multi-agents collaboration  Responsible for completing collaboration
      between multiple NMAs at different levels or in different
      application scenarios.  The specific collaboration mechanism needs
      further research.



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   In addition, there is a common AI service layer, including various
   large language models (LLMs), multimodal models, small models, and
   knowledge base.  Among them, AI models provide public interactive
   intelligence capabilities as unified agent engine, to simplify NMA
   development.  Knowledge base provides unified search for multi-type
   knowledge bases including vector knowledge base, system online help,
   operation and maintenance data logs), combines AI models to complete
   knowledge fusion and extraction, and improves the accuracy of NMA
   task execution.

   Various NMAs can be constructed based on the common AI service layer.
   During the operation of NMA, it leverages the model reasoning
   capabilities and knowledge base provided by the AI service layer to
   achieve functions such as intent parsing and task planning.  It
   should be noted that, depending on the actual deployment
   requirements, the AI basic service can also be deployed within the
   NMA.

   For different application scenarios, there can be multiple scenario-
   oriented agents (like apps in the phone).  Aimed at the network
   planning, construction, maintenance, optimization, and operation
   scenarios, the main NMAs could include:

   *  Network Fault Handling Agent: This agent can be created by pre-
      training specific AI model based on the network troubleshooting
      guidance documents, network equipment product documents, and other
      materials.  The agent can solidify the fault handling experience
      of experts, and realize fault impact analysis, root cause self-
      diagnosis, and self-repair of network faults by orchestrating and
      calling models or network control APIs.  It also interfaces with
      the work order dispatching system to achieve automated closed-loop
      processing of work orders, etc.

   *  Network Planning Agent: Makes use of the capabilities of AI large
      model to understand the network planning intent (user intent,
      business development goals, network construction plans, etc.), and
      analyzes and forecasts the current network resource usage
      (traffic, performance, user scale, resource utilization, etc.) to
      output planning schemes.

   *  Network Optimization Agent: Understands the network optimization
      goal through natural language, converts the optimization intent
      into network optimization constraint rules, such as network load
      thresholds, service route optimization strategies, etc.  The
      instance can use traffic prediction models to predict the future
      traffic and bandwidth utilization of the entire network,
      automatically generate resource, hidden danger, performance,
      traffic, and other prediction results, and can automatically



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      generate optimization strategies based on the prediction results
      to perform traffic pre-diversion, autonomous decision-making, and
      automatic execution to achieve dynamic energy saving of equipment
      and optimal traffic of the entire network, etc.

   *  Intelligent Assistant Agent: This instance can have open Q&A
      capability based on LLM, providing a dialogue Q&A style operation
      and maintenance.  Users can "one-click" input fault descriptions
      or resource names in natural language, and the instance will
      automatically perform intent recognition and query to
      significantly improve the efficiency of knowledge questioning,
      fault reporting, and maintenance support.

3.3.  Related Interfaces

   To be discussed in the later version.

4.  Network Automation Architecture Based on NMAs

   When deploying an NMA based management/control architecture, it is
   possible to consider two different deployment models, where the NMA
   can be part of an existing network controller, or can be an
   independent system deployed separately and interacting both with the
   controller and the network.  The two deployment modes can be called:
   Independent deployment mode and Integrated deployment mode and are
   shown in Figure 2.

























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      +-----------------------------+         +--------------------+
      |                             |         |                    |
      |          Network            <--C_A_I--> Network Management |
      |        Controller           |         |    Agent(NMA)      |
      |                             |         |                    |
      +--------------^--------------+         +----------^---------+
                     |                                   |
          Southbound Interface(SBI)           Intelligent SBI(I_SBI)
                     |                                   |
      +--------------v-----------------------------------v---------+
      |                        Physical Network                    |
      +------------------------------------------------------------+
                                    (a)

      +------------------------------------------------------------+
      |                     Network Controller                     |
      |                                                            |
      |  +--------------------+           +--------------------+   |
      |  | Original Function  <--Internal-> Network management |   |
      |  |      Modules       | Interface |      Agent(NMA)    |   |
      |  +--------------------+   (I_I)   +--------------------+   |
      |                                                            |
      +------------------------------^-----------------------------+
                                     |
                            Extended SBI(E_SBI)
                                     |
      +------------------------------v-----------------------------+
      |                       Physical Network                     |
      +------------------------------------------------------------+
                                    (b)

        Figure 2: Deployment mode of network management agent (NMA)

   Independent deployment mode:  As shown in Figure 2(a), NMA is
      independently deployed from the original network controller.  NMA
      and controller are independent systems.  A new east-west interface
      needs to be added between the NMA and the controller to achieve
      capability calling and result feedback operations.  This interface
      can be called “C_A_I”. In this deployment mode, controller uses
      southbound interface (SBI) to interact with physical network,
      while an intelligent southbound interface (abbreviated as “I_SBI”)
      needs to be added between NMA and the underlying physical network.

   Integrated deployment mode:  As shown in Figure 2(b), NMA is







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      integrated and deployed with the original network controller, and
      the NMA serves as a function of the controller.  NMA interacts
      with original function modules through internal interface
      (abbreviated as “I_I”).  The enhanced controller interacts with
      the underlay physical network through extended SBI (abbreviated as
      “E_SBI”).

      The specific functional requirements and information model
      definition of interfaces mentioned above will be discussed in the
      following version.

4.1.  Deployment modes considerations and requirements

   While the integrated deployment mode is relatively simple, due to an
   internal communication between the NMA and the controller, the
   independent deployment mode introduces several challenges to be
   analyzed, that can be grouped into “single agent” and “multi agent”
   challenges.

4.1.1.  Single Agent Challenges

   Starting from and architecture with a single NMA, like the one shown
   in Figure 3 below, the challenges that we need to address are:

   *  NMA APIs: Agents use descriptions of APIs and tools in order to
      use them.  A gap analysis against existing tools needs to be
      carried out to understand if the NMA API requirements can be met
      and if we can find an optimal or common way to describe network
      APIs for LLMs.

   *  NMA triggers: Agents need to be triggered with an input, which can
      be “just” a natural language input or something with a more
      structured format.  Is the trigger going to be initiated by a
      controller or is it ”just” a human readable string?

   *  NMA interaction with existing controller: A wide variety of
      protocol and models exist today to interact with different
      components of existing controller.  A gap analysis needs to be run
      to understand if those protocols and models are enough or
      extensions are needed in order to interact no longer with humans/
      UIs and higher order orchestrators/controllers but also by NMAs.










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  User input
   ^
   | Trigger
   +------------>-------+         +-------------------------+
   +------------> Agent |<--------> Common AI Service Layer |
   | Trigger    +---^---+         +-------------------------+
   |                |      Existing interfaces: REST, RESTConf, gRPC
   |            SSH +-------+----------------+---------------+----------+
   |        NetConf |       |                |               |          |
   | gRPC/gNMI/gNOI |       |                |               |          |
   |                | +-----v------+ +-------v-------+ +-----v-----+ +--v--+
   +----------------+-< Controller | | Observability | | Inventory | | ... |
                    | +-----^------+ +-------^-------+ +-----^-----+ +--^--+
                    |       |                |               |          |
                +---v-------v----------------v---------------v----------v--+
                |                     Network Infrastructure               |
                +----------------------------------------------------------+


     Figure 3: Network management architecture with single agent

4.1.2.  Multi Agents Challenges

   Things get a bit more complex when multiple NMAs are deployed and, in
   addition to interacting with existing controller, they need to
   interact with other NMAs as shown in Figure 4.  In this case the
   challenges to consider are:

   *  Inter NMA communication: It is just a natural language “string” or
      we need a more structured format/protocol?  How can we ensure
      agents have a common understanding of context and can interwork?

   *  NMA discovery: How do agents know about each other?  They need to
      advertise their existence and capabilities to other NMAs?  How do
      we describe their capabilities?  How do we do it in a way that
      they can discover each other?















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  User input
   ^                                   +-----------+
   | Trigger                       +--->  Agent B  <--------------+
   +------------>---------+        |   +-----^-----+        +-----v-----+
   +------------> Agent A |<-------+-------- |-------------->  Agent C  |
   | Trigger    +---^--^--+                  |              +---- ^-----+
   |                |  |                     |                    |
   |                |  |                     |                    |
   |            SSH +  +----+                |               +----+-----+
   |        NetConf |       |                |               |          |
   | gRPC/gNMI/gNOI |       |                |               |          |
   |                | +-----v------+ +-------v-------+ +-----v-----+ +--v--+
   +----------------+-< Controller | | Observability | | Inventory | | ... |
                    | +-----^------+ +-------^-------+ +-----^-----+ +--^--+
                    |       |                |               |          |
                +---v-------v----------------v---------------v----------v--+
                |                     Network Infrastructure               |
                +----------------------------------------------------------+


     Figure 4: Network management architecture with multi agents

5.  Common processing flow of NMA

   The embedded AI model within NMA serves as the interface for user
   information input, and NMA instance uses the large model as the
   interface to clarify problems through multiple rounds, analyze
   positioning, generate plans, invoke interfaces/tools to handle
   problems, and complete closed-loop processing of problems, so as to
   build end-to-end problem processing assistance capabilities.





















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            User/Network
  +-----> Management Task
  |               |
  |               v
  |       Intent Analysis <-------+            +-- Service Configuration
  |               |               |            |         API/Tool
  |               |               v            |
  |               |       Model Reasoning      |      Alarm Monitor
  |               |               ^            |         API/Tool
  |               v               |            |
  |       Task Decomposition <----+            |   Performance Monitor
  |               |                            |         API/Tool
  |               v                            |
  |      Tool/API Invocation-----> Toolkit ----+   Network Optimization
  |               |                  |  ^      |         API/Tool
  |               v                  |  |      |
  |     Process Encapsulation        |  |      |   Topology Management
  |               |                  |  |      |         API/Tool
  |               v                  |  |      |
  +---Executive Result Analysis      |  |      +-- other APIs/Tools
                                     |  |
                                     |  |
                                     |  |
                                     |  |
             +-----------------------v--+-----------------------------+
             |                   Physical Network                     |
             +--------------------------------------------------------+

                 Figure 5: Common processing flow of NMA

   The common processing flow of NMA instance are shown in Figure 3.
   The processing steps include:

   1.  User/Network Management Task Input: Input the user’s task
       information Through multiple rounds of natural language
       interaction.

   2.  Intent Analysis: Analysis user task intent through AI model
       reasoning provided by the AI based basic services within NMA.

   3.  Task Decomposition: Split the task into detailed operations to be
       performed based on the analyzed intent of the task.

   4.  Tool/API Invocation: Call the corresponding tool or function API
       to complete the execution of each operation listed in step 3).
       The toolkit refers to the collection of all tools that can be
       used directly to manage and operate physical networks, which can
       include management functions from existing controller, EMS, or



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       standalone other management tools.  The toolkit can include
       service configuration API/Tool, alarm monitor API/Tool,
       performance monitor API/Tool, network optimization API/Tool,
       topology management API/Tool, etc.

   5.  Process Encapsulation: Encapsulate each execution step.
       According to the order or dependency of all the operations,
       package the individual operation results into the execution
       result of the entire task.

   6.  Executive result analysis: Analyze the task processing results
       and return to the user.

   Through above processing flow, NMA can achieve closed-loop automated
   processing of tasks and constructing end-to-end intelligent network
   maintenance assistance capabilities.  For example, in the intelligent
   troubleshooting scenario, NMA can identify the cause of the fault and
   call the corresponding interfaces to handle it, such as creating a
   troubleshooting order, automatically initiating rerouting/optical
   power optimization, and other troubleshooting operations, and
   automatically verifying the progress of the order execution, with
   feedback on the troubleshooting results after the job order is
   completed.

   The introduction of NMA can effectively improve the level of
   intelligent operation and maintenance of network, thus promoting the
   continuous evolution of communication network towards higher-level
   self-intelligence.

6.  Typical Application Scenarios after Introducing NMA

   Typical applications of NMA in networks can cover network operation
   and maintenance and operation processes:

   Network management and maintenance scenarios, including:
      *  Intelligent planning and construction: such as broadband
         installation, resource/capacity planning, intelligent
         acceptance, site selection, etc.

      *  Intelligent maintenance: such as intelligent fault diagnosis,
         quality analysis, operation and maintenance/cutting assistant,
         broadband maintenance assistant, etc.

      *  Intelligent optimization: such as route optimization, coverage
         optimization, topology optimization, and intelligent energy
         saving, etc.

   Network operation scenarios:  including intelligent question and



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      answer, customer service assistant, automatic classification of
      user complaints, customer retention, product recommendation,
      automatic flow of work orders, anti-fraud monitoring and
      identification, intelligent marketing and other value-added
      services.  This part is outside the scope of this document.

   The starting point for the application of NMA in the live network
   should comprehensively consider the scenarios with strong demand,
   feasible technology, and good input-output ratio, and at the same
   time meet the requirements of sufficient data for AI pre-training
   during the construction of NMA instance, perfect data annotations,
   and high fault tolerance rate.  Based on above considerations, the
   broadband installation and maintenance assistant, fault diagnosis,
   operation and maintenance assistant may become the first application
   scenarios.

7.  Security Considerations

   TBD.

8.  IANA Considerations

   This document has no requests for IANA action.

9.  References

9.1.  Normative References

9.2.  Informative References

   [Agents]   Wiesinger, J., Marlow, P., and V. Vuskovic, "Google
              Whitepaper: Agents", 10 September 2024.

   [I-D.irtf-nmrg-ai-challenges]
              François, J., Clemm, A., Papadimitriou, D., Fernandes, S.,
              and S. Schneider, "Research Challenges in Coupling
              Artificial Intelligence and Network Management", Work in
              Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-irtf-nmrg-ai-challenges-
              03, 4 March 2024, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/
              draft-irtf-nmrg-ai-challenges-03>.











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   [I-D.irtf-nmrg-network-digital-twin]
              Zhou, C., Yang, H., Duan, X., Lopez, D., Paster, A., Wu,
              Q., Bouncadair, M., and C. Jacquenet, "Network Digital
              Twin: Concepts and Reference Architecture", Work in
              Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-irtf-nmrg-network-digital-
              twin-arch-09, 24 January 2025,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-irtf-nmrg-
              network-digital-twin-arch-09>.

   [I-D.kdj-nmrg-ibn-usecases]
              Yao, K., Chen, D., Jeong, J., Wu, Q., Yang, C., and L.
              Contreras, "Use Cases and Practices for Intent-Based
              Networking", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-kdj-
              nmrg-ibn-usecases-01, 8 July 2024,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-kdj-nmrg-ibn-
              usecases-01>.

   [LLM-powered-autonomous-agents]
              Weng, L., "LLM Powered Autonomous Agents", 23 June 2023.

   [RFC7575]  Behringer, M., Pritikin, M., Bjarnason, S., Clemm, A.,
              Carpenter, B., Jiang, S., and L. Ciavaglia, "Autonomic
              Networking: Definitions and Design Goals", RFC 7575,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7575, June 2015,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7575>.

   [RFC7576]  Jiang, S., Carpenter, B., and M. Behringer, "General Gap
              Analysis for Autonomic Networking", RFC 7576,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7576, June 2015,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7576>.

   [RFC9222]  Carpenter, B. E., Ciavaglia, L., Jiang, S., and P. Peloso,
              "Guidelines for Autonomic Service Agents", RFC 9222,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9222, March 2022,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9222>.

   [RFC9315]  Clemm, A., Ciavaglia, L., Granville, L. Z., and J.
              Tantsura, "Intent-Based Networking - Concepts and
              Definitions", RFC 9315, DOI 10.17487/RFC9315, October
              2022, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9315>.

   [TMF-IG1230]
              McDonnell, K., Machwe, A., Milham, D., O’Sullivan, J.,
              Clemm, A., and J. Niemöller, "Autonomous Networks
              Technical Architecture", TMF IG1230, December 2022.

Authors' Addresses




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   Xing Zhao
   CAICT
   Beijing
   China
   Email: zhaoxing@caict.ac.cn


   Minxue Wang
   China Mobile
   Beijing
   China
   Email: wangminxue@chinamobile.com


   Daniele Ceccarelli
   Cisco
   Email: dceccare@cisco.com


   Bo Wu
   Huawei
   China
   Email: lana.wubo@huawei.com


   Chaode Yu
   Huawei
   China
   Email: yuchaode@huawei.com






















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