Subject: ABR to the Internet pre-BOF collaboration / discussion

From: Michael Welzl <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 15:29:00 +0200

I am a Ph.D. student whose work is basically about bringing an ABR-like
mechanism to the Internet. I identified some data to be transmitted to end
nodes and designed a protocol to carry them (draft-welzl-ptp-03.txt).
Please take a look at http://www.tk.uni-linz.ac.at/~michael/ptp/ to
see the current state of my work; the specification encompasses the
definition of Content Types (the type of data to be transmitted).

However, I am convinced that a more generic approach (like IntServ / RSVP)
would be better:

- Various Content Types could be used, showing different properties - like
  "does the calculation infer per-flow state in routers?". This is not
  necessarily restricted to bandwidth calculations; for instance, a link's
  MTU could also be transmitted to provide more efficient Path MTU
Discovery.
  Once Content Types are identified, it is necessary to discuss
  what should be simulated and/or tested.

- Partly depending on the data to be transmitted, it would make sense not
  only to define a new protocol but also to define extensions to other
  protocols such as RSVP and RTCP.

Actually, the name "ABR to the Internet" is not quite precise; in fact,
it's more like "ABR Explicit Rate Feedback related mechanisms for
the Internet".

In any case, it all needs IETF standardization because it will never
really work without router support. Therefore, I believe parties working
in related areas should request permission to hold a BOF session. I
would personally do so, but I might not be able to attend the next
two IETF meetings due to our departments current financial situation.
I could do it at the London meeting next summer, though. That also
gives us some time to refine the concept.

Be it for a BOF or not, I would really like to get some cooperation
and discussion going. I set up the page at
http://www.tk.uni-linz.ac.at/~michael/ptp/
in support of this mail. If you want to participate, please join
the list (details at the site).

Kind regards,
Michael Welzl

PS: Feel free to forward this to anybody you think might be interested.
Also, if you know the e-mail address of Tim Mangan
( http://www.frforum.com/3000/tim.html ), please forward this to him;
[email-masked] doesn't seem to work - he originally had the
idea of forming a Working Group. David Lapsley should also be interested,
but [email-masked] doesn't work either.