Subject: [Ace] Architecture, terminology and problem statement

From: Göran Selander <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2015 16:11:33 +0000

Dear WG chairs, and all

There is a set of drafts which discuss architecture, terminology and scope
of work on in ACE including:

[1]  draft-greevenbosch-ace-comparison
[2]  draft-gerdes-ace-actors
[3]  draft-seitz-ace-problem-description

We already noted during the use case discussions that it is difficult to
agree more in detail what is the problem statement for ACE, and this
disagreement is slowing down the progress of the work.

I wonder if it could make sense to try to hold a focused discussion about
high-level issues in architecture, terminology and scope of work during
the ACE WG meeting in Dallas? The purpose would be to come to some working
assumption on these - which in its first iteration doesn't have to be at
all on the same level of detail as the drafts.

Maybe this is too naive? Here is the idea anyway:

Comparing the architecture of the different proposals there is a big
overlap in functionality of nodes (although not in terminology, but let's
wait with that). Could we sketch a common denominator, describe what are
the differences, and have a discussion in the WG?

Given the set of nodes and associated functions in the architecture, we
could try to formulate what is the high-level "security objectives" in
terms of interactions between these nodes. This could be expressed for
example like in Section 6 of [2] (Tasks) or like in Section 2, page 5, of
[3] (protecting information flows). Again, what is the common denominator
and what are the differences between different proposals.

NOTE: This first iteration would not be on the level of e.g.
distinguishing between Push and Pull as in Section 4 of [1], but even more
abstract; from what node does the information flow originate and what is
the destination node?

We could progress on terminology as well. On a high level there are two
proposals: design our own terminology or reuse existing terminology. Maybe
we could ask the working group for guidance here?

If we can't reach all the way in the meeting, maybe we can assign a team
to work on that and report back to the list?

Just some loose thoughts.

Best regards,
Göran

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From: Alper Yegin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2015 18:37:58 +0200

I'd say a side-discussion prior to the WG meeting would speed things up. 

On Mar 17, 2015, at 6:11 PM, Göran Selander wrote:

> _______________________________________________
> Ace mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ace

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From: Hannes Tschofenig <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2015 14:58:55 +0100

Hi Goeran,

your proposal makes sense to me.

In fact I made similar observations when advertising the work we do in
ACE to others. Quite naturally, many have a preferred IoT deployment
model in mind and for some of those deployments the features we discuss
aren't even a problem yet or are solved in other ways today. Hence, it
gets tricky to communicate the value proposition of ACE.

Ciao
Hannes

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From: "Kepeng Li" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2015 16:40:13 +0800

Hello all,Please find the agenda for ACE Dallas F2F meeting:http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/92/agenda/agenda-92-acePresenters, please send your slides to Hannes and me before the meeting time (Tuesday afternoon).Thanks,Kind RegardsKepeng