Subject: Re: [aqm] Last Call: <draft-ietf-aqm-eval-guidelines-11.txt> (AQM Characterization Guidelines) to Informational RFC

From: Dave Täht <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2016 13:31:58 -0700

My basic objection to this entire draft is that it needs to be made
executable in some benchmarking suite before being considered as a
standard.

While it has many seemingly desirable stats and figures
few have been demonstrated as useful or used in the real world, nor have
any of the aqms under evaluation already been tested under it.

This has been my steady objection to it from day one, and as a
co-developer of a benchmark suite (flent.org) that *does* rigorously
explore some of the complexities aqm and fq technologies introduce,
with suitably complex tests, topologies, and graphs, I have long been
doubtful that the simple metrics and models used here were useful or
sufficient.

I have given detailed critiques of each metric to the wg before, and
could again, but my main point remained:

Rough consensus *and* Running Code is needed here.

And with that, I'd stopped paying attention to it, until code materialized.

On 4/20/16 5:47 AM, The IESG wrote:
> 
> The IESG has received a request from the Active Queue Management and
> Packet Scheduling WG (aqm) to consider the following document:
> - 'AQM Characterization Guidelines'
>   <draft-ietf-aqm-eval-guidelines-11.txt> as Informational RFC
> 
> The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits
> final comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the
> [email-masked] mailing lists by 2016-05-04. Exceptionally, comments may be
> sent to [email-masked] instead. In either case, please retain the
> beginning of the Subject line to allow automated sorting.
> 
> Abstract
> 
> 
>    Unmanaged large buffers in today's networks have given rise to a slew
>    of performance issues.  These performance issues can be addressed by
>    some form of Active Queue Management (AQM) mechanism, optionally in
>    combination with a packet scheduling scheme such as fair queuing.
>    This document describes various criteria for performing precautionary
>    characterizations of AQM schemes.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The file can be obtained via
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-aqm-eval-guidelines/
> 
> IESG discussion can be tracked via
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-aqm-eval-guidelines/ballot/
> 
> 
> No IPR declarations have been submitted directly on this I-D.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> aqm mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/aqm
>

---

From: Wesley Eddy <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2016 16:48:05 -0400

Hi Dave, just to provide context for the IETF list, I wanted to say that 
I'm the document shepherd for this, and we had noted in the writeup in 
the tracker this lack of "running code" that you raised earlier in the 
working group, so I think it will be understood by the IESG.

As the shepherd, the reason I believe this is okay (though obviously 
code is always desirable) is that this is going to be Informational 
guidance (not a "standard", as you mentioned), and the hope is that it 
provides some helpful advice for someone wondering how to determine if 
an AQM will be appropriate for deployment in their operational 
environment, or otherwise evaluate AQMs.

So, it isn't really intended to describe how to write a piece of code, 
similar to many other Informational RFCs.