diff --git a/core/api/src/main/java/org/onosproject/net/resource/DiscreteResourceCodec.java b/core/api/src/main/java/org/onosproject/net/resource/DiscreteResourceCodec.java
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index 0000000..3ea27c6
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+++ b/core/api/src/main/java/org/onosproject/net/resource/DiscreteResourceCodec.java
@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+/*
+ * Copyright 2016-present Open Networking Laboratory
+ *
+ * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+ * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+ * You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+package org.onosproject.net.resource;
+
+import com.google.common.annotations.Beta;
+
+/**
+ * Represents the common interface to encode a discrete resource to an integer,
+ * and to decode an integer to a discrete resource.
+ * This class is intended to be used only by the ResourceService implementation.
+ */
+@Beta
+public interface DiscreteResourceCodec {
+    /**
+     * Encodes the specified discrete resource to an integer.
+     *
+     * @param resource resource
+     * @return encoded integer
+     */
+    int encode(DiscreteResource resource);
+
+    /**
+     * Decodes the specified integer to a discrete resource.
+     *
+     * @param parent parent of the returned resource
+     * @param value encoded integer
+     * @return decoded discrete resource
+     */
+    DiscreteResource decode(DiscreteResourceId parent, int value);
+}