[Iccrg] Bar BoF on "re-ECN architectural intent"

[Bob Briscoe]

IETF TSVWG, TSV-AREA, IRTF ICCRG,

"The architectural intent of the re-ECN protocol"
In Prague we'll be doing an unofficial Bar BoF on this (see 
<http://www.ietf.org/tao.html>)

Wed 21 March 1510-1640 in Karlin I.

A number of people have asked for this, as they've found the short slots in 
IETF w-gs aren't really suitable to discuss and challenge the intent of 
what is effectively a major architectural change, albeit in one bit.

Proposed Bar BoF agenda:
Start 15:10
1. [ 5mins] Administrivia
2. [30mins] Architectural intent of re-ECN
             (including a simple abstraction of how it works)
3. [20mins] Questions & Answers
4. [10mins] Is there community interest in working in this problem space?
             IETF or IRTF?
             How best to go about architectural change.
             Next Steps.
5. [10mins] I'll try to get cookies & drinks in the room.
6. [15mins (squeezable/stretchable)] More questions & discussion.
End 16:40

Brief background and further links below...

============================================================================
The re-ECN protocol aims to make IP senders (including forwarders) 
accountable for the pain they inflict on others (congestion). The re-ECN 
protocol claims to allow different forms of congestion control to be 
policed in different ways, or not policed at all, depending on policy.

Embodied in re-ECN's design are implicit answers or deliberate non-answers 
to many subtle architectural and policy issues:
- who should decide on fairness?
- how do we expect networks as a whole to police traffic from other networks?
- what fairness policies might ISPs or groups of users want between them?
- not just provider networks, but self-provided (incl. ad hoc) networks?
- re-ECN claims to allow evolvability of congestion control. Assumptions?
- it claims to mitigate DDoS and provide the right incentives to fix it. How?
- it claims to do QoS more simply? Sure?
- how does re-ECN relate to routing?
- what about cheating?
- should we control the sender or the receiver or both?
- doesn't this just move the policing problem up a layer?
- what about layered networks (IP over MPLS, ethernet, IP in IP etc)?
- what likely outcome will we see for the Internet with this?
- what if we do nothing?
- why doesn't it solve world hunger?


Re-ECN: Adding Accountability for Causing Congestion to TCP/IP
<http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-briscoe-tsvwg-re-ecn-tcp-03.txt>

Full list of supporting documentation and papers:
<http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/B.Briscoe/projects/refb/>



Bob



____________________________________________________________________________
Bob Briscoe, <bob.briscoe at bt.com>      Networks Research Centre, BT Research
B54/77 Adastral Park,Martlesham Heath,Ipswich,IP5 3RE,UK.    +44 1473 645196