ACM SIGCOMM 2022 Workshop on Network-Application Integration (NAI 2022)

Call for Papers

Some emerging applications are sophisticated enough and then challenging the prevalent best effort delivery mode of the public Internet. Conventional approaches, such as capacity overprovisioning, are a non-sustainable approach of addressing the constraints imposed by such applications to the underlying networks (including, ensuring service performance expectations). The underlay network should deal with a large set of requirements (usually, structured as Service Level Objectives (SLOs)), targeting multi-service support in an efficient, optimized, and scalable manner.

In such a context, a tighter Network-Application Integration (NAI) is foreseen as the way to enable information-driven management of the application needs consistent with the changing network circumstances at a given point of time. Different NAI approaches are being considered at different levels (protocol development, in-band and out-of-band capabilities interchange, etc.) and their deployment considerations in operational networks are motivating extensive work within standardization developing bodies for both specification and feasibility prototyping.

This workshop builds on the two former editions (co-located to SIGCOMM 2020 and SIGCOMM 2021) and intends to accompany the latest NAI advances with the recent developments in both the industry and the academia, including architectural work and experimental implementations in the fields of either application-aware networking (AAN) or network-aware application (NAA), as the two possible approaches to achieve NAI. In addition to workshop paper sessions, selected keynotes will be included to complement and set the research agenda, debate the issues, and share the most recent progress.

Topics of Interest

Service models and interactions
Hurdles for efficient application-network integration
Implementation approaches to ease NAI-enabled applications
Dynamic negotiation models
Network abstraction models (e.g., resource, state)
Exposure of network information and control interfaces
Abstract expression of application needs for consideration by networks
Data collection (e.g., measurement) for network abstraction
Coordination of information and decisions across multiple domains (regions and technology layers)
Data processing techniques to generate network abstraction (e.g., low-level, filtering)
Data distribution techniques (i.e., how, when, and where to make data available for processing/analysis) for real-time network information exposure
Abstractions and architectures for performance-aware/performance-driven routing (e.g., semantic routing)
Validation of network abstractions (e.g., conforming to model)
Privacy analysis of exposing network and application information together with mitigation means
Threats against NAI models
Economical/game-theoretical analysis of network information/service exposure
Stability design and analysis of application-network control loop
Optimality design and analysis of application-network control loop
Condition management and conflict resolution in complex closed-loop systems
Control with multiple dimensional constraints (privacy, policy, beyond networking)
Co-design for specialized applications (e.g., video, IoT)
Integrating learning and big data analytics (e.g., wide area, application, and user)
Experience and deployment of application-network co-design and integration
Application adaptation to network information/service models

Submission Instructions

Submissions must be original, unpublished work, and not under consideration at another conference or journal. Submitted papers must be at most six (6) pages long, including all figures, tables, references, and appendices in two-column 10pt ACM format. We also encourage industrial demos for which a two-page extended abstract must be submitted in the same format as the workshop papers. Papers and extended abstracts must include author names and affiliations for single-blind peer reviewing by the PC. Authors of accepted submissions are expected to present and discuss their work at the workshop.

Please submit your paper via https://nai22.hotcrp.com/.