What is ALG

Application-aware networking (AAN) is a framework in which applications can discover services offered by a network and explicitly signal their flow characteristics and requirements to the network. Such framework provides network nodes with knowledge of the application flow characteristics, which enables them to apply the correct flow treatment (e.g., bind the flow to a network slice, bind the flow to a service function chaining, set appropriate quality of service marking, invoke policing and shaping rules) and provide feedback to applications accordingly. This chapter describes how an application enabled collaborative networking framework contributes to solve the encountered problems. The chapter also describes recent proposals such as the PAN (path-aware networking) framework discussed within the IRTF and the APN (application-aware networking) framework that is meant to convey application identification and its network performance in-band.