Subject: WG Proposal - RAMA

From: Cheng-Yin Lee <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 11:39:39 -0400

FYI,
We have submitted the proposed RAMA WG charter to the ADs/IESG.

cheers,
cyl

=====================================================
Proposed WG:
Root Addressed Multicast Architecture (RAMA)

Co-chairs
Jon Crowcroft <[email-masked]>
Christophe Diot <[email-masked]>
Cheng-Yin Lee <[email-masked]>

Description of Working Group:

The primary goal of the group is to develop specifications that will ease  the
scaling (in the longer term) of current multicast routing protocols  targeted for
these type of applications:

* Internet wide information distribution (eg 'webcast', content
subscription/distribution)
* Internet wide interactive information exchange (eg  conferencing/discussion,
games).

The approach taken will allow the root (source or core) of the multicast
distribution tree to allocate logical  addresses that can be used to address
multicast groups. Since address management is local to the root, it  will not
require Internet wide coordination and will also facilitate applications to use the
address space in a creative and application specific manner (eg content
filtering/naming, layered data) where  applicable.

The scope of work is as follows:

* extend the current multicast API to use this new addressing
 - the group multicast address will consist of both the root (source or  core) of
the multicast tree and   multicast address.

* extend the current multicast data forwarding to forward based on  <root, multicast
address>.
The address encoding should allow :

- routers which do not understand this new addressing to forward packets non
natively (unicast)
- current hardware to forward packet with this new addressing when the  root is the
source of the multicast  group in the initial implementation and deployment,
- for hardware to be upgraded to forward packet with the core as root.

* changes to control messages will be defined generically in TLV format.
The group will coordinate with the respective WGs for these extensions to be
implemented in PIM/CBT/BGMP and expect to liase with the respective WGs on the
following documents:
- PIM with RAMA extensions
- BGMP with RAMA extensions
- CBT with RAMA extensions

* migration/interoperability issues related to the above. (Please see
http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/research/rama/interop.txt for more details)

Goals and Milestones:

    Jul 99  Specify goals and deliverables
    Oct 99  Issue first Internet-Drafts (Host API, IGMP change, RAMA routing) on
extensions to
                 IP multicast
    Dec 99  Achieve concensus on the extensions
    Mar 00  Issue detailed specifications on host and router extensions
    Apr  00  Liason work with other WGs
    Nov  00  Submit specifications to IESG as proposed standards

Internet-Drafts:

* "Multicast Requirements for the Definition of New IP Multicast Services"
  Christophe Diot, Bryan Lyles, Brian Neil Levine (Consultant),  Sprint ATL,
  Ramanan Shanmugam, Amir Tabdili, Hassan Kassem, Sprintlink
* Simple Multicast, draft-perlman-simple-multicast-02.txt, Perlman et al.
* Express , H Holbrook, D. Cheriton, Sigcomm Paper