Subject: draft GSMP WG minutes

From: "Kenneth Sundell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2000 10:56:42 +0200

Folks,
draft GSMP WG minutes from Adelaide attached.

Regards,
Ken

Minutes GSMP Working Group, Adelaide 3/30/00
--------------------------------------------

   The meeting was co-chaired by Avri Doria and Kenneth
   Sundell and was divided into two sections; the review of
   current documentation and the discussion about future work
   items for the working group.

   Changes to the three standards track documents currently
   being worked on were discussed. While there were several
   editorial and minor technical comments on the drafts, there
   were no major technical objections. The plan is to update
   the documents, fixing known problems by the end of April
   and then to have a WG last call during May.

1.  Review of draft-ietf-gsmp-04

   Avri presented the changes since revision 02. Revision 03
   was issued before the editing session in New Orleans (Feb
   3), while revision -04 was released after that session.
   Since the differences between 02 and 03 has not been
   presented at an IETF meeting, though they had been
   presented on the mailing list, the co-chairs decided to
   present all changes from 02 to 04 in this session. There
   will be at least a revision 05 before the document will
   proceed to working group last call.

   The encapsulation section was, as previously agreed, moved
   to a separate document, draft-ietf-gsmp-encaps-00.txt.

   All failure response messages were gathered and moved to
   appendix A.

   The 04 introduced the notion of TLV Labels, i.e. labels
   that are longer than 28 bits. For clarity, the notion of
   extended label has changed to stacked label.

   The 03 introduced the reservation message which allows for
   resources to be reserved for a connection before the actual
   label mapping is known. Revision -03 also included support
   for redundant adjacencies.

   A proposal for adding output/input service selectors in the
   Add Branch message had been discussed on the list and also
   proposed at the New Orleans editing session. The capability
   was added to 04.

   Other additions to 04 included: a simple mechanism for
   turning of the flow control, a way to do multicast queries
   in order to support those switches that have dedicated
   ranges of labels for multipoint connections, support for
   discontinuous label ranges, the addition of event sequence
   numbers and event flags to the port configuration message.

   Additionally, the service model was updated to include
   support for Circuit Emulation Services (-04).

2.  Review of draft-ietf-gsmp-mib-01 (15)

   Joachim Buerkle presented the updated GSMP MIB that is co-
   authored by Hans Sjostrand and Balaji Srinivasan.

   The GSMP MIB was totally rewritten. The GSMP MIB is focused
   on the protocol and not covering partition issues. Joachim
   pointed at work done in MSF where they are producing a
   protocol independent partition MIB. He went through the
   different GSMP MIB objects (slides will be available in the
   proceedings).

   There was a question about whether the structure of
   multiple controller to a single switch partition should be
   represented in the MIB.  The answer was yes.

   The document will be updated during April. Updates in the
   next version will be mainly changes in wordings, some new
   tables and maybe addition of statistics into the MIB.

3.  Review of draft-ietf-gsmp-applicability-00.txt

   Avri presented the applicability draft. There is a minor
   set of documents that are needed before we can proceed to
   IESG group last call. Apart from the GSMP specification,
   GSMP MIB and GSMP Encapsulation documents, an informational
   RFC for GSMP applicability is needed. The document
   introduces the reader to concepts and notions that are used
   within GSMP e.g. switch partitioning, controller/switch
   interaction and service support.

   A question about the MSF's role in relation to GSMP was
   raised, i.e. where they defining their own version of GSMP.
   Avri answered that IETF is defining the protocol and MSF
   will be referencing the RFC in its implementation
   agreement. Joachim clarified that MSF draft applicability
   documents are not publicly available until they have been
   approved for release by the membership.

   The minimal set of messages needed to support MPLS was
   discussed. The applicability document list the messages
   required for minimal MPLS support.

4.  Security issues in draft-ietf-gsmp-encaps-00

   The main content of the encapsulation draft was moved from
   draft-ietf-gsmp-02.txt. A security section has been added
   to the document. A change that needs to be made to that
   draft involves requiring the support of IPsec when the IP
   encapsulation is used.

5.  Working Group Last Call

   Text revision of the GSMP spec will be due in approximately
   3 weeks. The GSMP MIB co-authors will try to make a new
   revision within the next 3-4 weeks. It is very important
   that people read the documents and send appropriate
   comments on the list. Non technical editorial changes
   should be sent to the authors directly.

   A two weeks WG Last Call will be issued in the beginning of
   May.

6.  Implementation Experience

   Joachim Buerkle of Marconi communications (wireline access
   system) presented on their work with GSMP. They have
   produced I-Ds on resource reservation, move output branch
   and GSMP MIB. In their implementation they are using the
   ATM encapsulation and  implementing the  ATM specific
   features.

   There were questions about interoperability. A lot of
   people say that they are implementing GSMP, but only a few
   have done this in public. Service providers are soliciting
   products.

7.  Discussion of charter update

   The group then spoke about future activities.  Unless the
   charter is redefined, the working group will go dormant
   after the last call until implementations and
   implementation issues crop up. A discussion was held to
   determine whether there was real interest in adding
   additional features to GSMP beyond those currently planned.
   Several different possibilities where discussed.

7.1  Requirements for GSMP support of Optical switching

   A presentation was made on using GSMP for controlling Edge
   nodes, and optical interconnects within an IP over optics
   environment.  This presentation was essentially a
   repetition of one given earlier in the week at the IPO BOF,
   though it did focus more on the changes required in GSMP
   then on the possibilities for optical network control.
   Basically, a controller/router could control an OXC over
   GSMP, either through use of an out of bound network or via
   a dedicated "control" wavelength.

   New label TLVs were introduced to handle label types such
   as fiber bundle, arbitrary number fibers in that bundle, a
   single fiber, arbitrary lambdas in that fiber, a single
   lambda etc.

   Several questions were raised; whether we need a raw
   optical encapsulation for GSMP messages or if we should
   require use of the IP encapsulation, whether we need one
   single TLV or several for accommodating the different types
   of optical labels and whether there was an existing service
   model for optical switches which GSMP could use or would
   the group need to define one.

7.2  Future Requirements for GSMP

   Several other proposals for new work were discussed:

   -  Add support for SDH port types.

   -  Investigate a rework of the flow control mechanisms in
      GSMP.

   -  Add support for switching IP packets (L3 switching).
      Part of the support for this already exists in the
      protocol, but many of the elements which would be
      required, are still lacking. This effort would probably
      require a requirements effort first.

   -  Continue tracking work on QoS service models.

7.3  Conclusion

   There was definite interest in continuing the work of the
   WG. In fact instead of having a passive (i.e. does anyone
   object to continuing work on these and similar items), we
   had an active show of hands on whether folks thought these
   issues were worth pursuing. Of those voting, and
   approximately 2/3 voted, there was a clear consensus for
   continuing the group. The intention is the chairs discuss a
   specific charter amendment on the list before making the
   formal request to the IESG.

   In terms of vendors and service providers interested in
   seeing the work continuing, there was positive interest
   from several companies.

---

From: Peter Newman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2000 13:07:53 -0700

I often get asked (well, occasionally) about public implementations of 
GSMP. Could anyone give me any pointers that I could pass on?

--Peter

>    have done this in public. Service providers are soliciting

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