The Role of RDF/OWL in Intent-Based Networking (IBN)

Intent-based networking is about translating high-level, human-readable “intents” (e.g., “provide low latency for video streaming”) into specific network configurations. This process requires a robust and unambiguous way to represent network knowledge. This is where RDF and OWL become vital.

What ontology is used? Domain-specific ontology for RAN network optimization. In the context of IBN for a Radio Access Network (RAN), the ontology models the specific entities and relationships relevant to that domain. This includes things like base stations, user equipment, service types (e.g., video, voice, gaming), quality of service (QoS) metrics (e.g., latency, throughput), and network resources (e.g., spectrum, bandwidth).

Why a custom domain-specific ontology?

Explicit and Structured Knowledge: The network domain is complex, with countless devices, configurations, and dependencies. A domain-specific ontology provides a formal, machine-readable structure to this knowledge, moving beyond simple data tables. This explicit representation is what allows an IBN system, especially one augmented by Large Language Models (LLMs), to “understand” and reason about the network state.

Explainability and Grounding: For an LLM to reliably translate a high-level intent into a low-level network command, it needs a source of truth. The ontology serves as a knowledge graph that grounds the LLM’s understanding, preventing “hallucinations” and ensuring that its decisions are based on the deterministic logic defined in the ontology. It’s the difference between an LLM guessing and an LLM knowing.

Manageable Scope: While the general web is too vast for a single, comprehensive ontology, the scope of a specific domain like RAN is well-defined and manageable. This makes the manual development and maintenance of a custom ontology a feasible task.

Reasoning for Automation: The core of IBN is automation. The OWL-based reasoner can perform complex inferences to automate tasks. For example, if a user intent specifies “high priority for video,” the reasoner can use the ontology to infer the necessary QoS configurations, traffic steering rules, and resource allocations. It can also perform continuous consistency checks to ensure that the network state always aligns with the defined intents.