Subject: ForCES Requirements Last Call - ends Tuesday, November 5, 2002

From: "Putzolu, David" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 14:56:26 -0800

All,

In response to AD & other feedback (appended to
this email) the ForCES requirements document has
been updated.  A new version, draft-ietf-forces-requirements-07.txt,
has been uploaded to the drafts repository. URL:

http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-forces-requirements-07.txt

This email begins a last call for the ForCES
requirements document. Given that the changes
are focused and localized and that this draft
has previously passed last call, this last call
is one week in length and ends on Tuesday,
November 5th.

Please send to the list any suggested changes
and/or comments on this document.

Thanks,
David & Patrick

--- AD Feedback ---

Section 6.5 Requirement 5) Vendor-Specific Functions

The ADs believe that the IESG will be very hesitant to
approve this part of the draft as worded.  This is due
to a concern that vendors would simply use the
extensibility mechanisms in the protocol to do everything
in a proprietary fashion, including "common" functions.

The ADs suggested rewording the section to talk about
extensibility to support new, currently unknown functions.
Make sure that it is clear that one is *not* compliant
with ForCES if one controls all the standard/common
functions in a proprietary manner.

Section 7 Requirement 6) Reliability

The ADs where confused by the mention of non-IP networks.
Recommend breaking up the one long reliability
paragraph into three paragraphs: Para 1: Talks about IP
networks. Essentially the same content. Para 2: Elaborates
what non-IP networks are (FastEth, GigE, cell fabric
between control and forwarding elements). Para 3: Take the
last sentence and expand on it to make clear that the
ability to acknowledge the *content* and execution of
messages, rather than just their delivery. I.e., TCP may
guarantee delivery, but it tells you nothing about whether
the forwarding entry add operation succeeded or not. It is
the latter function that is required for all types of
networks (IP and non-IP).

Section 7 Requirement 9) Packet Redirection

The ADs where concerned that as written this seems more like
a requirement on the FEs/CEs rather than on the protocol.
Suggest rewriting it to say that ForCES must define a way to
deliver packets from FE's that are destined to the CE (i.e.
RIP packets from other routers) and vice versa. This makes
it a protocol requirement instead of a CE or FE requirement.

--- Other Feedback ---

Other feedback based on
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-rfc-editor-rfc2223bis-02.txt

* Looks like 58 or more lines per page. Reduce this to 55 lines
  per page as per section 3.1 item 3.
* Table of contents should go directly after abstract per section 4.
* References should appear before security considerations per section 4
* Make normative and informative references subsections rather than
  top level sections.

--- end ---