Utilizing semantic policies for managing BGP route dissemination

Abstract

Policies in BGP are implemented as routing configurations that determine how route information is shared among neighbors to control traffic flows across networks. This process is generally template driven, device centric, limited in its expressibility, time consuming and error prone which can lead to configurations where policies are violated or there are unintended consequences that are difficult to detect and resolve. In this paper, we propose an alternate mechanism for policy based networking that relies on using additional semantic information associated with routes expressed in an OWL ontology. Policies are expressed using SWRL to provide fine-grained control where by the routers can reason over their routes and determine how they need to be exchanged. In this paper, we focus on security related BGP policies and show how our framework can be used in implementing them. Additional contextual information such as affiliations and route restrictions are incorporated into our policy specifications which can then be reasoned over to infer the correct configurations that need to be applied, resulting in a process which is easy to deploy, manage and verify for consistency.

A declarative approach for secure and robust routing

“…For example, we can express policies that specify which routes are accepted from neighbors based on the relationship with the neighbor. The relationship itself could be based on multiple factors, including business relations, economic considerations and political constraints [13]. Our framework supports prioritization of policies which becomes useful in the context of resolving conflicts among multiple policies.…”

Rule-Based Network Service Provisioning

“…Various approaches from the former class use network management policies expressed in semantic Web languages (e.g., the Web Ontology Language -OWL, the Web Ontology Language for Web services -OWL-S, and the Semantic Web Rule Language -SWRL) for the self-provisioning of network services such as: firewalls [14], routing protocols [15], and data streams [16], or for top-down policy refinement [17], [18]. The drawbacks of these solutions are the following: (i) OWL and OWL-S ontologies are more adequate for specifying semantic Web content rather than configuration information models for service provisioning; (ii) Web service-based network management approaches assume that devices are managed via Web services (which is not always the case) [18]; and (iii) top-down refinement of network management policies is still an open issue [18], especially at the device configuration level.…”

Enforcing secure and robust routing with declarative policies

“…We support policies that represent preferences, e.g., prefering routes from one AS over another depending on their relationship. The relationship itself could be based on multiple factors such as economical and political [12].…”