Subject: [Roll] Border router terminology

From: Zach Shelby <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 07 May 2009 10:44:59 +0300

Hi,

Over in the 6lowpan WG we have been using the following term in 
draft-ietf-6lowpan-nd:

    LoWPAN Edge Router

       An IPv6 router that interconnects the LoWPAN to another network.
       Referred to as an edge router in this document.

However following the ROLL documents it seems that this WG has converged 
on the term "Border Router". We are updated our draft and I am proposing 
to start using Border Router to keep consistency with ROLL as well.

Is Border Router going to continue to be the term used by the design team?

I can find references to Border Router in ROLL here:

draft-ietf-roll-home-routing-reqs
draft-ietf-roll-indus-routing-reqs
draft-ietf-roll-urban-routing-reqs
draft-thubert-roll-fundamentals
draft-tavakoli-hydro

Funny enough the (now expired) draft-ietf-roll-terminology doesn't 
mention it, would be nice if that would be updated.

- Zach

-- 
http://zachshelby.org - My blog “On the Internet of Things”
Mobile: +358 40 7796297

Zach Shelby
Head of Research
Sensinode Ltd.
Kidekuja 2
88610 Vuokatti, FINLAND

This e-mail and all attached material are confidential and may contain 
legally privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, 
please contact the sender and delete the e-mail from your system without 
producing, distributing or retaining copies thereof.

---

From: JP Vasseur <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 12:37:03 +0200

Hi Zach,

On May 7, 2009, at 9:44 AM, Zach Shelby wrote:

> However following the ROLL documents it seems that this WG has  
> converged on the term "Border Router". We are updated our draft and  
> I am proposing to start using Border Router to keep consistency with  
> ROLL as well.
>

This is an excellent suggestion, thanks.

> Is Border Router going to continue to be the term used by the design  

Yes.

> draft-thubert-roll-fundamentals

Good catch. The right term is Low power and lossy border router (LBR),  
used by the urban draft, not used in industrial, should be updated in  
the home automation ID.

> mention it, would be nice if that would be updated.

It was called LBR:

LBR: Low power and lossy network Border Router. The LBR is a device  
that connects the Low power and Lossy Network to another routing  
domain such as a Local Area Network (LAN), Wide Area Network (WAN) or  
the Internet where a possibly different routing protocol is in  
operation. The LBR acts as a routing device and may possibly host  
other functions such as data collector or aggregator.

The ID has been refreshed.

Thanks.

JP.

> This e-mail and all attached material are confidential and may  
> contain legally privileged information. If you are not the intended  
> recipient, please contact the sender and delete the e-mail from your  
> system without producing, distributing or retaining copies thereof.
> _______________________________________________
> Roll mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/roll

---

From: Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 00:10:02 +0200

> domain such as a Local Area Network (LAN), Wide Area Network (WAN)  
> or the Internet where a possibly different routing protocol is in  

This is a great exhibit for explaining why I don't like the term  
"border router" for the Lowpan Edge Router.

The Lowpan Edge Router (let's call that LER for the moment) is just  
that: a router.
It does two things:
1) routing IP (possibly involving one or more routing protocols).
2) running the adaptation layers for its links (including certain  
parts of ND optimization for the 6lowpan, which make it one of the  
*edge* routers).
Every IP router does exactly those two things, except that the LER is  
the only kind of node with that specific role in ND-opt.

The LER is not a processing node.

For some reason, the term "border" seems to cause people to think  
about barbed wire, customs officers, protecting domains and other  
processing like the data collection/aggregation mentioned above.

I know that the history of this term in the IETF RTG area is closer to  
an actual router. with BGP and OSPF ABRs and all that.
But even here, the term "border" is used for something sitting on the  
boundary connecting two equals (domains, areas), not for something  
sitting on the edge of one type of thing and talking to other types of  
things, which is pretty much what the LER does.

Gruesse, Carsten

---

From: Zach Shelby <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 08 May 2009 11:29:34 +0300

Carsten Bormann wrote:
> This is a great exhibit for explaining why I don't like the term "border 
> router" for the Lowpan Edge Router.

For some background, the original suggestion in the 6lowpan WG was that 
Access Router may be a more suitable term than Edge Router. However that 
also makes no sense as it doesn't provide any synchronization with ROLL.

Regarding Edge vs. Border... personally I think we are splitting hairs 
here. The most important thing is that it is understandable and 
consistent for us and especially for newcomers to 6lowpan/roll 
specifications. Considering the ZigBee announcement last week - there 
will be plenty of newcomers coming in.

You can compare this to IPv6 where all documents including RFC4861 and 
routing algorithms use the common term "router". It would make equal 
sense that in ND for 6LoWPAN and routing algorithms (such as roll) we 
will likely use with 6LoWPAN have the same terminology if possible. It 
is messy to have Edge Routers on which implementers need to understand 
are equivalent to Border Routers for the routing algorithm.

I'll bring this back to the 6lowpan WG - seems we need to discuss a bit 
more if this term is really controversial or not.

- Zach

> 2) running the adaptation layers for its links (including certain parts 
> of ND optimization for the 6lowpan, which make it one of the *edge* 
> routers).
> For some reason, the term "border" seems to cause people to think about 
> barbed wire, customs officers, protecting domains and other processing 
> like the data collection/aggregation mentioned above.
> 

Zach Shelby
Head of Research
Sensinode Ltd.
Kidekuja 2
88610 Vuokatti, FINLAND