Subject: Re: WG Review: Recharter of Internet Emergency Preparedness (ieprep)

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2006 11:20:31 +0100

Fred Baker wrote:
> On Nov 30, 2006, at 2:29 PM, Sam Hartman wrote:
> 
>> There was very little support outside of those involved in the  ieprep 
>> working group for the ieprep work.
>>
>> I'd have to say that there wasn't really a clear consensus in  either 
>> direction about much of anything.
> 
> 
> I guess I'm confused. Generally, when I see last calls on charters, I  
> see no discussion at all. Generally speaking, the people who want a  
> working group to happen are the ones who want to work in it. The  people 
> who don't expect to work in it don't have much to say on the  topic - 
> the routing people don't comment on network management  charters, and 
> the internet folks don't comment on applications.  Asserting that there 
> is consensus to do or not do anything in such a  case is pretty tough; 
> the point is that there is a body that wants to  do the work, and the 
> IETF does it.
> 
> What is different in this case is that there was some discussion. You  
> stated that you thought it should go to the ITU. Pekka agreed with  you, 
> and Brian stated that he was wondering which way it should go.  Scott 
> brought in the SG13 liaison, who was in the process of sending  a 
> liaison statement to the IETF asking for certain work to be  
> accomplished. Martin pointed out that ATIS has a place for certain  
> aspects of the work. Ken, James, Bob, Janet, and myself tried to  
> present a case that the issues before the house were in fact  
> appropriate to the IETF.
> 
> Am I misremembering?
> 
> What I read is that there were some people who didn't plan to be  
> involved and either wanted to move the work elsewhere or were asking  
> the question, and some people who wanted to do the work and felt it  was 
> appropriate to the IETF because it related to IETF protocols and  to the 
> Internet. In most cases, people that don't plan to be involved  don't 
> respond; in this case a few did.
> 
> I'd hate to hear that the presence of a discussion in the IETF was  
> taken as a lack of consensus on a topic.

Speaking only for myself: I'm now reasonably satisfied that if this work
is to be done, it will be done better in the IETF than in the ITU.
However, looking at the last draft of the charter that I've seen, I am
concerned about two things.

1. There's a presumption that "precedence" and "preemption" are the
mechanisms - but those aren't requirements, they are solutions, and
it isn't clear to me that they can ever be appropriate solutions
in the upper layers of the Internet. The requirement is presumably
that important application level sessions succeed in emergency situations,
even if less important ones fail. The best way to meet that
requirement might be different for each type of application
protocol. Neither the charter text nor the list of deliverables
recognizes such differentiation; they simply assume that precedence
and preemption are the only possible solutions.

2. There's clearly a need, if the work is to be expanded into new
applications areas, for the experts in those applications to be
deeply involved. That is in fact the main argument why the work
should be done in the IETF if it's done at all.  I understand that
this would need a major injection of new blood into the WG. That
won't happen by means of a simple re-charter. It needs an impetus
that would be noticed throughout the IETF.

Again, I am speaking only for myself.

     Brian

_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2006 11:55:33 +0100

Brian,
> and preemption are the only possible solutions.

Forgive me a naive question but what is there other than precedence or 
preemption?

Eliot

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2006 12:16:03 +0100

> Forgive me a naive question but what is there other than precedence or 

Well, if you require both real time and elastic applications to continue
to work simultaneously, because both are carrying emergency material,
you actually need to share the resources between them appropriately.
That is more subtle than either precedence or preemption.

Also, I suspect that if the application concerned is some sort of
Web Services based transactional stuff, the fact that a given XML
document forms part of an emergency communication may be buried
so deep in the document that identifying it externally will be
next to impossible, especially if it's encrypted. If it gets
preempted, bad things may happen.

I don't claim to be an expert. But I don't like the idea that
just because precedence and preemption are the preferred models
for circuit-switched emergency communications, they are therefore
correct for the Internet. It doesn't follow, and I don't like
building it into a charter.

     Brian

---

From: Pekka Savola <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2006 13:16:43 +0200 (EET)

> that would be noticed throughout the IETF.

An alternative to trying to get all the application specialists in a 
RAI WG would be to try to get folks from RAI to other areas. That 
would be similar to what v6ops WG did 3-4 years ago.

-- 
Pekka Savola                 "You each name yourselves king, yet the
Netcore Oy                    kingdom bleeds."
Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2006 12:16:03 +0100

Brian

---

From: Pekka Savola <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2006 13:16:43 +0200 (EET)

---

From: Janet P Gunn <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2006 08:26:29 -0500

> and preemption are the only possible solutions.

I completely agree that, for many circumstances, "precedence and
preemption" are not the appropriate solutions.

In fact, there is a substantial subset of the IEPREP working group which
wants to avoid anything that could be considered "precedence and
preemption", preferring to focus on other approaches.

The way I read the charter, "precedence and preemption" is only one of four
examples. Even then, it does not  specify precedence and preemption" as the
solution/mechanism, but only as the highest level user/organization view.

None the less, I would, as an individual, favor a rewording of the charter
that made it clearer that "precedence and preemption" was not the primary
focus of the WG.

The mis-perception that the WG is focused on "precedence and preemption"
is, unfortunately, reinforced by the list of milestones, which focus on the
"military" environment.

I would also, as an individual,  favor modification to the list of
milestones to include milestones that are clearly not associated with
"precedence and preemption".

Janet

---

From: "Dolly, Martin C, ALABS" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2006 13:05:54 -0600

Janet, See inline, Cheers, Martin  

Janet wrote:
The mis-perception that the WG is focused on "precedence and preemption"
is, unfortunately, reinforced by the list of milestones, which focus on
the
"military" environment. 

>>MCD>> The main authors have a certain focus in their writing, but this
can be moderated with input from others (e.g., those representing the
ETS community, as an example). For this to occur though, the environment
for providing input needs to be a bit more "friendly" (for lack of a
better term).
In addition, as I stated earlier on this topic there is not one forum
that can address all of the industries needs. There is a place for the
IETF, ATIS and the ITU, and we should avoid "forum bashing", as it leads
us no where.

Cheers,

Martin

---

From: Janet P Gunn <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2006 14:22:47 -0500

Martin,

yes, I agree.

Janet