Subject: [alto] WGLC review of draft-ietf-alto-reqs

From: "SCHARF, Michael" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 13:52:21 +0100

Dear all,

Nico and me had a look at draft-ietf-alto-reqs-07 and specifically at
the requirements on service discovery.

In general, we think that the whole document is well written and ready
to move forward as it is.

Concerning service discovery, we have two small comments:

First, according to draft-kiesel-alto-3pdisc-04 and discussions on the
list, configuration by user input is one possible way of discovering
ALTO servers, even though probably not the best one. To our
understanding, the wording of REQ. ARv07-41, as well as subsequent ones,
could imply the mandatory use of a discovery protocol, which is not
necessaily true for local configuration. Perhaps one could mention
somewhere that the term "discovery mechanisms" could also include user
configuration. But this is apparently a wording issue only.

Second, it is unclear if the second sentence of REQ. ARv07-46 is
actually needed ("A single mechanism with a broad spectrum of
applicability SHOULD be preferred over several different mechanisms with
narrower scopes"). Finding a general solution, at least as far as
possible, is a rather straighforward design objective in the IETF and
thus not very specific for the ALTO discovery.

Obviously, these two tiny issues are no show-stoppers for the document.

Best regards

Michael & Nico