VIVoNet: Visually-represented, Intent-based, Voice-assisted Networking

Abstract

Networks have become considerably large, complex and dynamic. The configuration, operation, monitoring, and troubleshooting of networks is a cumbersome and time-consuming task for the network administrators as they must deal with the physical layer, underlying protocols, addressing systems, control rules, and many other low-level details. This research paper proposes an Intent-based networking system (IBNS) coupled with voice-assistance that can abstract the underlying network infrastructure and allow administrators to alter its behavior by expressing intents via voice commands. The system also displays the real-time network topology along with the highlighted intents on an interactive web application that can be used for network diagnostics. Compared to traditional networks, the concepts of software-defined networking (SDN) make it easier to integrate a voice assistant that allows configuring the network based on intents.