Subject: Communication between applications and network

From: Dominique Chantrain <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 08:51:29 +0200

Recently a new Internet draft has been submitted
(draft-pham-triggers-and-handles-00.txt, downloadable from
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-pham-triggers-and-handles-00.txt),
which introduces a new concept for communication between applications
and network 
elements. The document defines triggers and handles exchanged between
applications and network elements, and introduces associated
communication mechanisms such as subscription to triggers from a network
element, and discovery of network element interfaces.

This communication interface and framework will allow applications to be
deployed on heterogeneous networks in a vendor-independent way but still
being aware of network events by the mechanism of triggers and being
able to control network resources by the mechanism of handles, i.e.
network awareness of applications will be improved. The work will aim at
reusing as much as possible existing protocols and will 
define extensions or new protocols only when necessary. The targeted
network environment is primarily the broadband access network (user
terminal - DSL modem - DSLAM - BRAS), although also other networks can
be envisaged.

The purpose of this Internet Draft is to stimulate discussion on this
concept. Therefore an associated mailinglist has been created where you
can send your comments and reactions:
Address: [email-masked]
To subscribe, send an email to [email-masked] with in the
body "subcribe triggershandles"

If discussions raise enough interests, a BOF will be requested to
further work on the subject in IETF. Indeed, the topic is today not
really covered in a charter of any working group. Nevertheless, it has
clear links with following areas and working groups:
- the applications area: since the I-D deals with mechanisms to make
applications more network aware.
- the operations and management area: since the mechanism are based on
or similar to concepts used in AAA, in policy framework, etc.
- the resource allocation protocol WG (rap): since the COPS protocol is
currently envisaged to be one of the major cornerstones of the triggers
& handles framework.
- the middlebox communication WG (midcom): as this WG deals with
mechanisms for applications to be able to communicate their needs to the
devices in the network that provide transport policy enforcement. in
other words, very similar to the idea of handles in the I-D.

Looking forward to receiving your comments,

Dominique Chantrain & Hien-Thong Pham