Subject: RE: [midcom] Deleting requirements

From: "Cedric Aoun" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 03:35:32 +0100

Melinda,
Some comments below:

R25: Suggest that we reword to the protocol MUST have assured data transfer
capabilities ---This provides robustness to packet loss, retransmissions
etc..I prefer that we keep it, this provides independence from the chosen
transport protocol
why to take out R27?
R48:This is redundant unless we haven't a requirement somewhere, that the
protocol should have
sufficient syntax to allow a MA to request services on a stream or several
streams (stream=flow), i.e. bundles. I think we have this covered somewhere.
right?
R53  need to check if there is a  statement covering IPv4 and v6 
R54-R57 could be aggregated in one : 
Syntax need to be sufficiently flexible to allow creation of several
matching expressions that depicts certain fields of the IP header, UDP
header or TCP header, and other layer 3 protocols.
R74:This is related to resource auditing and I think it is useful.

Thanks
Cedric

-----Original Message-----
From: Melinda Shore [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2001 8:43 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: [midcom] Deleting requirements

I've received a clear "small is beautiful" message from our ADs,
and with that in mind I'd like to propose deleting the following
requirements as redundant, obvious, or unnecessary (note that some
of these have already been identified as things to be handled by
design teams, but which I think we can kill to no ill effect):

R16 (needs to be deleted or reworded)
R78
R19
R25
R27
R29
R30
R42
R48
R50 (redundant with R40)
R51 (see earlier note from Scott Bradner)
R52 (redundant with R50 and R40)
R53 (ditto - just need to state somewhere that the protocol must support
     both v4 and v6)
R54 
R55
R56
R57
R71
R74

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---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 10:39:42 -0400

On Wed, Aug 15, 2001 at 11:56:49PM -0400, Mark Duffy apparently wrote:
> R52: I don't think we should delete it.  R52 is mostly redundant with R40
> and R50 but adds the additional requirement that masks be supported.
> Perhaps we can reduce R52 to R40b: "all items in the tuple are maskable"
> and then debate that when we come to it.
> 
> I agree with Scott on 50, 56, 57:

I now believe we're in the phase where it's time to consolidate this
pile of requirements into something cohesive.  I hadn't expected to get
here so soon but we're making pretty good progress.  Therefore I suggest
that instead of just listing out all the requirements that any protocol
would have, we assume some intelligence on the part of implementors and
list what requirements are unexpected, or make this protocol special.  

With this in mind, and with the new requirement Melinda proposed: "The
midcom protocol must be able to carry filtering rules, including but not
limited to the 5-tuple, from the midcom agent to the middlebox", I now
agree with Melinda's entire list.

R52 adds masks but that doesn't change anything fundamental about the
protocol.  I think this can be argued out in a few hours in
son-of-midcom, and that we don't need a requirement at this level of
detail.  Again, let's stick to requirements that actually make a
difference.

R50, R40 are subsumed into Melinda's general requirement.  (R40 is
pretty bogus to start with in that it implies that a pinhole is uniquely
identified by a 5-tuple, which blocks extensibility.  But since we're
deleting it anyway, let's not have that discussion.)

> Besides the ones you identified for deletion, I think R11 is a duplicate of
> R40 so can be deleted.

Yup.

This is like DNA research.  We have empty, meaningless sections, and a
lot of redundancy. :-)

..Scott

---

From: "Sanjoy Sen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 16:38:25 -0500

I still think that we need some sort of resource auditing type capabilities
(between the MA & MB) in version 1 of the protocol. Maybe we should replace
the term "discovery" with "auditing" as suggested by Cedric. 

> From: Scott Brim [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 9:43 AM
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: [midcom] Deleting requirements
> 
> 
> On Thu, Aug 16, 2001 at 06:29:39PM -0500, Sanjoy Sen apparently wrote:
> > I would support deletion of all proposed by Melinda except 
> R74. The reason
> > is, the MA should be able to know the 
> capabilities/resources (e.g., # of
> > available NAT ports) of MB after establishing the "communications
> > relationship" with the MB. This would be useful, for 
> example, to allow a SIP
> > call Server (associated with the MA) to make a decision on 
> whether to
> > admit/reject a new call.
> 
> It would be useful.  Personally I'd like to keep it but I'm willing to
> let it get deleted and trust the son-of-midcom group.
>