Subject: Re: [midcom] Current status

From: Mark Duffy <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 00:21:39 -0500

>Framework: There have been *no* comments on the recent revision
>of the framework draft.  I'm not sure I want to start WG last call
>on it until I have some sense of whether or not more than a few
>people have given it a good going-over already.  Have you?

I have some minor documentation comments I'll send separately.  More
substantively, what if any resolution to the topology question can we
reach?  This is both a technical and political question.  Whatever the
resolution surely the framework should reflect it.

The framework draft basically decides not to address this (section 5.0
first paragraph, and section 9 first paragraph).  We have the Aoun/Sen,
Penfield, and Molitor drafts from August that seem to support about that
same conclusion: the ability to support complex topologies is basically
limited by the topology knowledge the agent has available.  

We have the in-and-out proposal from Scott which allows some use of
topology knowledge the middlebox might have, but does not address middlebox
discovery by agents.  And then there is the "friendly" RSVP-like proposal
from Melinda which seems to address the topology and discovery questions
although it lies somewhat "outside the box" of the framework and
requirements work to date in the wg.

- Mark

P.S. apologies in advance for any mangling I have done in attempting to
summarize the drafts in one sentence each.

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From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 10:30:50 -0500

>limited by the topology knowledge the agent has available.  

The guidance from above right now seems to be "punt."  This is
likely to come up during the rechartering discussions; more on
that later.

In the meantime, many many many thanks to those who have gone
through the framework document and provided feedback.  We need
to get this thing closed.

Melinda

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From: "Bob Penfield" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 10:57:15 -0500

Mark & Melinda,

I am satisfied with our current requirement (R82) which does not preclude
additional information/criteria in the filtering rules.

cheers,
(-:bob

Robert F. Penfield
Chief Software Architect
Acme Packet, Inc.
130 New Boston Street
Woburn, MA 01801
[email-masked]

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From: Mark Duffy <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 11:30:46 -0500

Hi Bob,

R82 makes the ruleset extensible.  I think your point is that this allows
extension to specify interfaces/realms/in/out/etc.  Of course that does not
help the agent with knowing what middleboxes are there and which to talk to. 

AFAIK discovery has never been in the charter and Melinda's message below
seems to confirm this now.  Ok with me for the time being, I just wanted to
verify that this was still the case, as it was not abundantly obvious to me
after we had the whole "topology issue" going on.  :-)

-Mark

>additional information/criteria in the filtering rules.
...

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 12:29:58 -0500

>help the agent with knowing what middleboxes are there and which to talk to. 

Exactly.  The whole topology thing is fundamentally out-of-
scope.  It came up because of what were probably unnecessarily
detailed discussions about precisely what information is known
by which element, etc.  That's not to say that those discussions
were unimportant or irrelevant - they weren't, and whether the
topology discussions are reflected in the deliverables for this
iteration of the working group or not they'll bear on the
deliverables for the rechartered working group.

Melinda