Subject: I-D ACTION:draft-ietf-forces-model-02.txt

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 10:31:36 -0500

A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts directories.
This draft is a work item of the Forwarding and Control Element Separation Working Group of the IETF.

        Title           : ForCES Forwarding Element Functional Model
        Author(s)       : L. Yang
        Filename        : draft-ietf-forces-model-02.txt
        Pages           : 101
        Date            : 2004-2-17

This document defines the forwarding element (FE) model used in the
Forwarding and Control Plane Separation (ForCES) protocol.  The
model represents the capabilities, state and configuration of
forwarding elements within the context of the ForCES protocol, so
that control elements (CEs) can control the FEs accordingly.  More
specifically, the model describes the logical functions that are
present in an FE, what capabilities these functions support, and
how these functions are or can be interconnected. This FE model is
intended to satisfy the model requirements specified in the ForCES
requirements draft [1].  A list of the basic logical functional
blocks (LFBs) is also defined in the LFB class library to aid the
effort in defining individual LFBs.

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From: "Yang, Lily L" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 08:49:27 -0800

Hi, all --

The FE model design team just published v02 of the FE model document.
The entire document has been edited throughout, but most notably some
major progress has been reflected in this revision:
1) 3.2.4 "metadata" section is completely rewritten, with the metadata
model that was published to this list by Zsolt a few weeks ago. We
believe most comments we've received so far are addressed in this
revision.
2) Section 4 "model and schema for LFB classes" is rewritten, with
formal XML schema specified at the end of the section.
3) Section 5 "FE Attributes and Capabilities" now is completed with also
formal XML schema specification, that was also published to the list a
few weeks ago by Joel.
4) The old section 6 in v01 was a place holder for LFB topology and now
gone because the content of LFB topology is merged into "FE attributes
and Capabilities" in Section 5. The comments we received are also
incorporated into this new revision.
5) Section 6 "LFB Class Library" (old section 7 in v01) is also revised
significantly with now 18 LFB classes that include the most commonly
found functions for IP processing, forwarding and QoS.
6) Section 7 "satisfying the requirements" (old section 8 in v01) is
also revised considerably.

With this revision, the major pieces that make up the FE model are now
in place, with the exception of a few minor features here and there
(e.g., class inheritance is not fully flushed out in the LFB schema). We
hope this revision would provide timely input into the protocol
development. In the meantime, we hope the WG and especially the protocol
designers would take time to review and provide feedback on the FE
model, so that we can refine it to the satisfaction of the WG in the
next few months.

Thank you all,

Lily

-----Original Message-----
From: Forwarding and Control Element Separation
[mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of
[email-masked]
Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2004 7:32 AM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: I-D ACTION:draft-ietf-forces-model-02.txt

A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts
directories.
This draft is a work item of the Forwarding and Control Element
Separation Working Group of the IETF.

To remove yourself from the IETF Announcement list, send a message to
ietf-announce-request with the word unsubscribe in the body of the
message.

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---

From: "Cain, Gamil" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 09:10:15 -0800

Lily et all,

Here's my feedback on the latest FE model:

-  Section 2.4, first sentence is a bit confusing and should probably be
broken into two sentences.

- Section 3.2.3, the first paragraph mentions "frame type".  I would
suggest staying consistent with terms.  Either use "frame type" or
"packet
type" but not both.

- Last paragraph before section 3.2.4.3, is this "harmonization" out of
scope for ForCES?  Does ForCES assume this is something that will be
taken up by some external organization (i.e. NPF)?

Section 4.5.3 and 4.5.4 should probably be swapped in the document.
Section 4.5.3 makes use of the <struct> element before it's formally
described in section 4.5.4

Section 4.5.6:  The augmentation concept could be described a bit
clearer.  What advantage does this concept have over using the schema
elements already defined (<struct>, <dataTypeDef>, <typeRef>, etc.)?

Section 4.7, last paragraph:  How useful is a schema for an LFB class
that only contains the name, synopsis, and version?  It might be good to
add some text to this paragraph saying that it is expected that a class
definition will have more then just these three elements.

Section 4.7.2:  Third paragraph is a repeat of the last sentence of the
first paragraph.

Section 4.7.3:  Does the LFB class need to also specify what metadata it
passes through?  I would think not, but it might be good to add a
paragraph describing the LFB classes behavior wrt pass-through metadata.

Section 4.7.5:  Is there (or should there be) a requirement for an
instance of an LFB class to specify capabilities for all attributes it
supports?  If not, should there at least be some guidance in this
document that describes what types of capability information should be
exposed?

Section 6.1:  What is meant by the static attribute "port type"?
Examples would be helpful.

Section 6.1:  In some devices, the physical port link speed is a
configurable, as opposed to static, attribute (e.g. a framer that can do
DS3 and OC-3 or OC-12).  How would one go about modeling such a device,
using the current Port LFB class definition?  Or would you not model
such a device as a single LFB, but rather as multiple LFBs that can be
enabled/disabled (e.g. a DS3 Port LFB, a OC-3 Port LFB, etc. all
managing the same physical device)?

Section 8.6, 2nd paragraph:  There's a reference to a section 9.5 which
does not exist.

Regards,

Gamil Cain
Software Architect
Intel Research & Development
916.356.9153
mailto:[email-masked]
 
>[mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Yang, Lily L
>Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2004 8:49 AM
>Subject: Re: I-D ACTION:draft-ietf-forces-model-02.txt
>
>Hi, all --
>