Subject: [GROW] Proposal to close grow working group

From: David Kessens <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 21:45:30 -0700

Hi,

Recently, the Operations and Management Area Directors and Geoff
discussed the future of the grow working group since Geoff had
indicated to us that he would like to step down as working group
chair.

After review of recent activity and the milestones, it was quite clear
that the working group has concluded all the milestones on the
charter.

We understand that, as with some of the deployment oriented working
groups in the the Operations Area, that it is not uncommon to have new
issues and topics arise that could fit in the charter despite the fact
that all current milestones have been achieved.

On the other hand, as with all IETF working groups, there comes a time
to conclude a working group and we believe that we have reached that
point now. We plan on effectuating this plan on Wed, March 21 if we
don't receive any comments that will change our mind. We would also
like to close the mailing list as we believe that the ops-area wide
mailing list is a good place to do any follow up discussion if
necessary.

As mentioned earlier, we do want to stress that the fact that there is
no working group any longer that deals with operational issues
regarding scaling in the routing system doesn't mean that the
Operations Area is not a good place to discuss such issues. In fact,
we would like to emphasize that we are quite open to sponsor
individual submissions when the need arises (eg. we are happy to take
on draft-ietf-grow-mrt as an individual submission), or even spin up a
new working group if we are dealing with a bigger project.

In addition, we are bringing up a proposal to the Operations and
Management Open Area meeting that it is perhaps time to form an
"Operations and Management" working group that can fulfill a last
resort role for documents that are considered important but that don't
necessarily fit in any of our working groups. We envision that some of
the contributions that would have fit in the grow working group can be
taken up by such a working group.

Also, the IETF as whole is now giving extra attention to the topic of
routing and addressing, which might very well lead to new working
groups that will be active in this or other areas. We obviously
hope that many of you will participate in these discussions as well.

Finally, we would like to thank Geoff, all the former chairpeople and
obviously all the document authors and contributors to this working
group for all the time they have given to this effort.

Thanks!

David & Dan
---

_______________________________________________
GROW mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/grow

---

From: Henk Uijterwaal <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 13:11:50 +0100

David, Dan, others,

> that the working group has concluded all the milestones on the

While this is probably correct, there is still one outstanding work
item for the group: draft-ietf-grow-mrt-04.txt.  I think it is very
important for people working with BGP dumps to have this document
finished, as MRT dumps are a widely used format and should be
documented somewhere.

The good thing is that I believe that this document is almost finished.
There haven't been many comments recently.  We are using the latest
version internally for BGP dumps and, except for one or two typos, there
aren't any issues.  So, as far as I'm concerned it can be LC'd and
processed.

I suggest that before the WG is closed, we establish a path how to
finish this document.

Henk

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---

From: Henk Uijterwaal <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 13:11:50 +0100

David, Dan, others,

Henk

---

From: Lucy Lynch <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 06:07:37 -0700 (PDT)

> that the working group has concluded all the milestones on the
<snip>

> group for all the time they have given to this effort.

Ijust want to take a moment to say, I still miss Abha Ahuja.

good work all -

-Lucy

---

From: Lucy Lynch <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 06:07:37 -0700 (PDT)

<snip>

good work all -

-Lucy

---

From: Geoff Huston <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2007 07:29:32 +1100

I was of the personal opinion that the ops area was a suitable place 
and that the outcome be passed to the IESG as a AD-sponsored work item

regards,

   Geoff

---

From: Geoff Huston <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2007 07:29:32 +1100

regards,

   Geoff

---

From: David Kessens <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2007 05:01:02 -0700

Henk,

On Thu, Mar 15, 2007 at 01:11:50PM +0100, ext Henk Uijterwaal wrote:
> [ ... stuff deleted ... ]
> 

As I wrote in my mail:

"In fact, we would like to emphasize that we are quite open to sponsor
 individual submissions when the need arises (eg. we are happy to take
 on draft-ietf-grow-mrt as an individual submission), or even spin up
 a new working group if we are dealing with a bigger project."

To summarize: this draft did not fall off our radar screen and we are
happy to take it on as an individual submission sponsored by AD. 

David Kessens
---

---

From: David Kessens <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2007 05:01:02 -0700

Henk,

As I wrote in my mail:

David Kessens
---

---

From: Henk Uijterwaal <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 14:19:29 +0100

David,

> happy to take it on as an individual submission sponsored by AD. 

Yes, I read the original mail.  I was trying to make it a bit stronger:
we agree on who does what and when in order to finish the draft NOW,
then proceed to work accordingly.  Lots of people use this format so
the draft is needed.

Henk

---

From: Henk Uijterwaal <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 14:19:29 +0100

David,

Henk

---

From: Lixia Zhang <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 06:54:22 -0700

> then proceed to work accordingly.  Lots of people use this format so

Copying Henk's word, I would like to make it an even bit stronger  
(I've sent a similar msg to the ADs earlier): I see values of keeping  
GROW for another while. In addition to the need of finishing MRT  
work, this group seems appropriate place to help with the coming  
effort (which is supposedly topics of Routing area meeting on  
Thursday) on the need to better understand BGP table growth and on  
what can be done to improve BGP dynamics/churn, topics that have been  
covered by GROW in the past.

taking BGP update dynamics as example, well defined protocol  
mechanisms exist to dampen routing churns (MRAI, flap damping), but  
dampening is probably seeing reduced deployment, and even MRAI is not  
universally turned on (I showed some data at IETF61 GROW meeting,  
http://www3.ietf.org/proceedings/04nov/index.html).  So it seems to  
me these issues are not so much of being on IDR plate but on GROW's.   
We need a clear understanding of deployment status of existing  
protocol mechanisms and the reasons/causes of why some places don't  
do it.  There can be need for new protocol knobs (IDR job), but it  
seems to me a pre-requisite is a good understanding of issues with  
existing knobs.

Lixia

---

From: Lixia Zhang <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 06:54:22 -0700

Lixia

---

From: Joao Damas <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 15:28:38 +0100

On 20 Mar 2007, at 14:54, Lixia Zhang wrote:

> dampening is probably seeing reduced deployment, and even MRAI is  
> not universally turned on (I showed some data at IETF61 GROW  
> meeting, http://www3.ietf.org/proceedings/04nov/index.html).  So it  
> seems to me these issues are not so much of being on IDR plate but  
> on GROW's.  We need a clear understanding of deployment status of  
> existing protocol mechanisms and the reasons/causes of why some  
> places don't do it.

I wonder if you are aware of http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-378.html

joao

---

From: Joao Damas <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 15:28:38 +0100

joao

---

From: David Kessens <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 08:15:40 -0700

Lixia, Henk,

On Tue, Mar 20, 2007 at 06:54:22AM -0700, Lixia Zhang wrote:
> Copying Henk's word,

We have no problem in offering a path forward for the mrt draft,
including timelines - either as individual submission or through a Ops
area working group (although that is a less likely route considering
the desire for quick publication)

> I would like to make it an even bit stronger  

My concern is that I see a working group that has finished it's
charter and where energy levels to do the work as opposed to doing the
easy thing of proposing new work are quite low.

Note that I believe it will be useful to take elements from the grow
charter to a proposed OPs working group. We still need a place in IETF
where we can discuss these kind of issues.

David Kessens
---

---

From: David Kessens <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 08:15:40 -0700

Lixia, Henk,

David Kessens
---

---

From: "Schliesser, Benson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 11:11:17 -0500

I agree with Lixia's comment: there is still important work to be done
in the analysis of routing table growth.
(Very good work has already been done in this area, but some existing
hand-waving needs to be converted to more rigorous models.)

I don't have an opinion of whether this is done in GROW or elsewhere,
but it needs to be done with this community--SP's, vendors, academics,
working together.

Cheers,
-Benson

> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Kessens [mailto:[email-masked]] 
> Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2007 4:16 PM
> To: Lixia Zhang
> Cc: Ron Bonica; [email-masked]; Dan Romascanu
> Subject: Re: [GROW] Proposal to close grow working group
> 
> 
> Lixia, Henk,
>

---

From: "Schliesser, Benson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 11:11:17 -0500

Cheers,
-Benson

---

From: Loa Andersson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 18:05:18 +0100

David,

as I understand Lixia, the issue is not just finding a way forward
for a particular document, the concern is that there is
*lots of non-concluded work* in this area.

I'm afraid that the case is that a working group in with charter
like grow will find new work with every step it takes. Imaging what
could happen if pwe3 starts using OSPF to circulate routing information
for multi-segment (interdomain) pseudowires.

I don't think that closing down grow is a good idea.

/Loa

-- 
Loa Andersson

Principal Networking Architect
Acreo AB                           phone:  +46 8 632 77 14
Isafjordsgatan 22                  mobile: +46 739 81 21 64
Kista, Sweden                      email:  [email-masked]
                                           [email-masked]

---

From: Loa Andersson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 18:05:18 +0100

David,

/Loa

-- 
Loa Andersson

---

From: Geoff Huston <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 08:57:41 +1100

>covered by GROW in the past.

Sadly, the level of contribution to GROW has tapered off over the 
past 2 years to the point that the working group was effectively 
inactive. Wishing it were otherwise is a Fine Sentiment, but actually 
making it happen is very a tough ask.

One way of re-invigorating the effort is to draw a line at where we 
are and say "this working group is done" and setting forth with a new 
charter and a new working group with clearly articulated objectives 
that express what folk are interested in and willing to contribute 
to. This seems to be to be an ideal opportunity to do precisely that.

regards,

    Geoff

---

From: Geoff Huston <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 08:57:41 +1100

regards,

    Geoff

---

From: Vince Fuller <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 15:35:25 -0700

> to. This seems to be to be an ideal opportunity to do precisely that.

FWIW, I agree that the grow wg should remain as a (one of very few) places
where operational coordination occurs. I also agree with Geoff that if it
is to remain, the time is now to re-charter it with new work as described
by Lixia's message excerpt above.

	--Vince

---

From: Vince Fuller <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 15:35:25 -0700

--Vince

---

From: Luca Martini <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 23:46:25 -0600

> for multi-segment (interdomain) pseudowires.
well, I hope it does not , at least not in the way it was described ... ;-)

However GROW is getting marginal. I believe that there is a time for 
every WG to finish and remaining work moved to the area meeting.
we can always find one more things , but that does not mean that the 
working group needs to go on meeting and consuming IETF resources.

Luca

---

From: Luca Martini <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 23:46:25 -0600

Luca

---

From: Lixia Zhang <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 01:26:00 -0700

On Mar 20, 2007, at 10:46 PM, Luca Martini wrote:

> However GROW is getting marginal. I believe that there is a time  
> for every WG to finish and remaining work moved to the area meeting.
> we can always find one more things , but that does not mean that  
> the working group needs to go on meeting and consuming IETF resources.
>
> Luca

Hi Luca, It seems to me that the statement like
    "there is a time for every WG to finish and remaining work
     moved to the area meeting."
is true in general, especially when applied to WGs working on  
protocol development. i.e. after the major development work is done,  
the "tailing" work seems more appropriately moving to area meetings  
instead of dragging on a separate WG for another long while.

The case in hand about GROW, on the other hand, seems to differ from  
the above general statement in 2 aspects:
- GROW: global routing and operations working group (if I remembered  
right).  from my personal view, this type of work does not  
necessarily have distinguished phases as protocol development effort.
- in particular, new efforts that have been on GROW plate are needed  
now.
Yes IESG may decide to close GROW and set up another one, it is just  
unclear to me  what value could be gained from going through the  
steps of BOF->approval->WG one more time.

If we keep GROW, the only work needed is to name a new chair or a  
pair of co-chbairs.

Just my 2 cents.

---

From: Lixia Zhang <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 01:26:00 -0700

Just my 2 cents.

---

From: "Schliesser, Benson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 03:49:12 -0500

> From: Lixia Zhang [mailto:[email-masked]] 

I agree in principle. There is currently lots of attention on this
topic, and spending too much time on process would be a real negative.
Minimizing the timeframe to organized work on this topic would be ideal.
I assume a re-charter is quicker than a new WG formation, correct?

-Benson

---

From: "Schliesser, Benson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 03:49:12 -0500

-Benson

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 10:25:46 +0100

hi

my 2 cents here

that exactly the point, i was at the IEPG on sunday morning and there is a 
need for better understanding the BGP routing operations and evolutions

a couple of crisp points have been identified (that are not linked to the 
usual protocol dev phases) related to the current and future BGP routing 
operations, in addition to the modelling and experimentation aspects

GROW is the place of choice for such investigations, having this group in 
place now, why should IESG demote and then promote again this group in 
another form and not just adapt/re-charter ? 

thanks,
-d.

Lixia Zhang <[email-masked]>
21/03/2007 09:26
 
        To:     Luca Martini <[email-masked]>
        cc:     Ron Bonica <[email-masked]>, [email-masked], Dan 
Romascanu <[email-masked]>
        Subject:        Re: [GROW] Proposal to close grow working group

Just my 2 cents.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 10:25:46 +0100

hi

my 2 cents here

thanks,
-d.

Just my 2 cents.

---

From: Lixia Zhang <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 05:50:50 -0700

On Mar 21, 2007, at 2:39 AM, Romascanu, Dan ((Dan)) wrote:

> Thanks for the inputs (and please continue to send them flowing in).
>
> As co-AD I recognize the overhead involved in shutting down a WG and
> opening a new one in the same problems space, while there seems to  
> be a
> rather widely shared feeling that the work is not done. At the same  
> time
> I would like to draw the attention to the fact that without active
> participation (which we missed in the last year at least) the work  
> will
> continue not to be done, whatever framework the IESG provides. I am
> taking the inputs of the participants in the thread as an  
> expression of
> interest that I appreciate and I hope that it will be backed-up by
> active particpation in this work whatever form we decide to continue.
>
> Dan

I just speak for myself: it is my fault for failing my report
duty for the measurement results we have been continuing to collect,
as I did during '04--'05.
I'll fix it

Lixia

>> From: [email-masked]
>> [mailto:[email-masked]]
>> Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 11:26 AM
>> To: Lixia Zhang
>> Cc: Romascanu, Dan (Dan); [email-masked]; Luca Martini; Ron Bonica
>> that exactly the point, i was at the IEPG on sunday morning
>> and there is a need for better understanding the BGP routing
>> operations and evolutions
>>
>> a couple of crisp points have been identified (that are not
>> linked to the usual protocol dev phases) related to the
>> current and future BGP routing operations, in addition to the
>> modelling and experimentation aspects
>>
>> GROW is the place of choice for such investigations, having
>> this group in place now, why should IESG demote and then
>> promote again this group in another form and not just
>> adapt/re-charter ?
>>
>> thanks,
>> -d.

---

From: Lixia Zhang <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 05:50:50 -0700

Lixia

---

From: Geoff Huston <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 06:05:14 +1100

Dan was spot on when he observed that:

 > At the same  time
 > participation (which we missed in the last year at least) the work  will
 > continue not to be done

Finding meeting presentations focused on on the routing scaling issue 
in terms of measurement and characteristics has been challenging in 
recent times, let alone seeing mailing list discussion or even 
considering documents on this topic.

This particular discussion stream on closing the WG is about the most 
active discussion for many months in the GROW context!

Geoff

---

From: Geoff Huston <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 06:05:14 +1100

Geoff

---

From: Kurt Erik Lindqvist <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 09:51:43 +0100

On 21 mar 2007, at 20.05, Geoff Huston wrote:

> Finding meeting presentations focused on on the routing scaling  
> issue in terms of measurement and characteristics has been  
> challenging in recent times, let alone seeing mailing list  
> discussion or even considering documents on this topic.
>
> This particular discussion stream on closing the WG is about the  
> most active discussion for many months in the GROW context!

I like to add to the voices that believe that there is work to be  
done. That said, I also see Geoff's and the ADs perspective that work  
items alone does not get work done, we also need volunteers that are  
willing to do work between the meetings.

- kurtis -

---

From: Kurt Erik Lindqvist <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 09:51:43 +0100

- kurtis -

---

From: Lixia Zhang <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 06:05:40 -0700

On Mar 22, 2007, at 1:51 AM, Kurt Erik Lindqvist wrote:
> done. That said, I also see Geoff's and the ADs perspective that  
> work items alone does not get work done, we also need volunteers  
> that are willing to do work between the meetings.
>
> - kurtis -

looks like we all agree here: what's needed is to get the work done.
so lets just do that (and don't waste time on process).

Would be great if the ADs can quickly nail done the chair issue (I do  
not know whether Geoff still chairing or has quit), then we all chip  
in our efforts.

there are a number of recent research results regarding BGP dynamics,  
stability, simple fixes, etc.  I looked up GROW page, but did not see  
a place to upload the pointers to some of these literature.

Lixia

---

From: Lixia Zhang <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 06:05:40 -0700

Lixia

---

From: David Kessens <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 01:54:50 -0700

It is clear that the proposal to close the working group has generated
quite a bit of discussion.

Despite the fact that this working group has completed it's
milestones, it is pretty clear to me that there is quite some interest
in keeping this working group alive in one way or the other.

However, interest is not enough to keep a working group. We need to
have a clear understanding what we need to work on, and in addition,
we need commitments to actually complete that work.

So far, we have seen lots of interest but little in terms of concrete and
well defined work items, and even more importantly, commitments from
people to work on these workitems.

In order to give you a chance to actually make a case for items that
need to be worked on, including commitments of individuals to work on
them, I have decided, in consultation with my successor and Dan to
postpone a decision on the future of this working group to 
Monday April the 2nd.

David Kessens
---

---

From: David Kessens <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 01:54:50 -0700

David Kessens
---

---

From: Danny McPherson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 04:27:15 -0600

[top post only]

Two work items that I believe GROW should add to their
Goals & Milestones:

o I-D reviewing implications of routing design on scalability
of intra-domain routing (e.g., impact of hierarchy on paths
and implications on routing system resources, impact of
path vectors, impact on optimizations like update packing,
etc..)

o I-D discussing implications of IPv4 & IPv6 bogon and
special use addresses.  Something like what the v6ops folks
tried to capture in the v6ops routing guidelines ID, though
it applies equally to IPv4 and needs this WGs full
consideration.

Neither of the above items are worded as they likely need
to be, but the general idea is captured there, i believe.

*AND there are 4 operators I know of that have already
agreed to work on these items.

-danny

---

From: Danny McPherson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 04:27:15 -0600

[top post only]

-danny