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+=======================
+Use cases and scenarios
+=======================
+
+Resource reservation is a basic feature in any virtualization-based network
+operation. In order to perform such resource reservation from NFVO to VIM, NFVI
+capacity information is also necessary at the NFVO side. Below, four use cases
+to show typical requirements and solutions for capacity management and resource
+reservation is presented. A typical use case as considered for the Brahmaputra
+release is described in :ref:`uc-brahmaputra`.
+
+#.  Resource capacity management
+#.  Resource reservation for immediate use
+#.  Resource reservation for future use
+#.  Co-existence of reservations and allocation requests without reservation
+
+Resource capacity management
+============================
+
+NFVO takes the first decision on in which NFVI it would instantiate a VNF. Along
+with NFVIs resource attributes (e.g. availability of hardware accelerators,
+particular CPU architectures etc.), NFVO needs to know available capacity of an
+NFVI in order to make an informed decision on selecting a particular NFVI. Such
+capacity information shall be in a coarser granularity than the respective VIM,
+as VIM maintains capacity information of its NFVI in fine details.  However a
+very coarse granularity, like simply the number of available virtual CPU cores,
+may not be sufficient. In order to allow the NFVO to make well founded
+allocation decisions, an appropriate level to expose the available capacity may
+be per flavor. Capacity information may be required for the complete NFVI, or
+per partition or availability zone, or other granularities. Therefore, VIM
+requires to inform the NFVO about available capacity information regarding its
+NFVI at a pre-determined abstraction, either by a query-response, or in an
+event-based, or in a periodical way.
+
+Resource reservation for immediate use
+======================================
+
+Reservation is inherently for the future. Even if some reserved resources are to
+be consumed instantly, there is a network latency between the issuance of a
+resource reservation request from the NFVO, a response from the VIM, and actual
+allocation of the requested resources to a VNF/VNFM. Within such latency,
+resource capacity in the NFVI in question could change, e.g., due to failure,
+allocation to a different request. Therefore, the response from a VIM to the
+NFVO to a resource reservation request for immediate use should have a validity
+period which shows until when this VIM can hold the requested resources. During
+this time, the NFVO should proceed to allocation if it wishes to consume the
+reserved requested. If allocation is not performed within the validity period,
+the response from VIM for a particular resource reservation request becomes
+invalid and VIM is not liable to provide those resources to NFVO/VNFM anymore.
+Reservations requests for immediate use do not have a start time but may have
+an end time.
+
+Resource reservation for future use
+===================================
+
+Network operators may want to reserve extra resources for future use. Such
+necessity could arise from predicted congestion in telecom nodes e.g. due to
+local traffic spikes for concerts, natural disasters etc. In such a case, the
+NFVO, while sending a resource reservation request to the VIM, shall include a
+start time (and an end time if necessary). The start time indicates at what
+time the reserved resource shall be available to a designated consumer e.g. a
+VNF/VNFM. Here, the requirement is that the reserved resources shall be
+available when the start time arrives. After the start time has arrived, the
+reserved resources are allocated to the designated consumer(s). An explicit
+allocation request is needed. How actually these requested resources are held
+by the VIM for the period in between the arrival of the resource reservation
+request and the actual allocation is outside the scope of this requirement
+project.
+
+Co-existence of reservations and allocation requests without reservation
+========================================================================
+
+In a real environment VIM will have to handle allocation requests without any
+time reference, i.e. time-unbound, together with time-bound reservations and
+allocation requests with an explicitly indicated end-time. A granted
+reservation for the future will effectively reduce the available capacity for
+any new time-unbound allocation request. The consequence is that reservations,
+even those far in the future, may result in denial of service for new
+allocation requests.
+
+To alleviate this problem several approaches can be taken. They imply an
+implicit or explicit priority scheme:
+
+* Allocation requests without reservation and which are time-unbound will be
+  granted resources in a best-effort way: if there is instant capacity, but the
+  resources may be later withdrawn due to the start time of a previously
+  granted reservation
+* Both allocation requests and reservation requests contain a priority which
+  may be related to SLAs and contractual conditions between the tenant and the
+  NFVI provider. Interactions may look like:
+
+  * A reservation request for future use may cancel another, not yet
+    started, reservation with lower priority
+  * An allocation request without reservations and time-unbound [#unbound]_
+    may be granted resources and prevent a future reservation with lower
+    priority from getting resources at start time
+  * A reservation request may result in terminating resources allocated to a
+    request with no reservation, if the latter has lower priority
+
+.. [#unbound] In this case, the consumer (VNFM or NFVO) requests to immediately
+              instantiate and assign virtualized resources without having
+              reserved the resources beforehand