Subject: [Mip4] summary of the ds-mip4 discussion for mip4 rechartering

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2006 09:14:05 +0300

I am summarizing the discussion so that we can conclude and move
forward. Its been a long discussion and there were also some topics
outside the MIP4 chartering question. For instance, at the end there
was a subthread about the scalability of the current DS-MIPv6
solution.

First, a number of question marks were raised about what actually is
proposed. I believe clarifications were received on all questions. The
essence of the proposal is to enable IPv6 usage in scenarios where
MIPv4 is currently deployed. We need to make the charter text clearer
since this was not immediately obvious to everyone.

There were promises to update earlier problem statement drafts that
people asked for.

There was also a discussion of how this work should be divided to
particular documents. In this case I believe a narrowly scoped, small
document is better than attempting to combine everything to a single
document. Given the clarification of the scope of the work above, most
people seemed to agree that the MIPv4 and MIPv6 parts should be in
separate documents.

It is still unclear to me what the best approach is with regards to the
problem statement part, though. From my point of view we need
one, and either that is published as a common document in MIP6
or we need a separate one for MIP4.

A number of concerns were also raised:

- Is there a real-world demand and customers for this? (According to
  George there is).

- That there is overlap for handling both IPv4 and IPv6 traffic.
  (Right, but its hard to get away from that if you intend to allow
  both IPv4 and IPv6 to be used regardless of what MIP infrastructure
  you are running on. Also part of the motivation for DS-MIPv6 is
  making it possible to use IPv4 Internet while still getting the
  benefits of Mobile IPv6 mobility; Personally, I believe we
  should definately keep  IPv4 home address functionality
  in the DS-MIPv6 work.)

- A number of arguments from the earlier MIP4 list discussion were
  pointed to. E.g., it would be better and more desirable to deploy
  MIPv6 at the time that you deploy IPv6, and the impact to market
  demand for MIPv6.

- There is no danger of getting into a v6-only access network (true,
  but DS-MIPv4 is not addressing that; a clarification of the charter
  may be needed here)

A fairly small number of people stated an opinion about the proposed
work. The result is similar to the earlier discussion on the MIP4
list, i.e., there is no agreement but I think there is rough consensus
for doing the work.

Personally, I do think that this extension to MIP4 makes sense and I
am going forward with the rechartering process. But a revised charter
will first need to be written. Also, we should not overemphasize the
significance of the extension. The main problem is not whether MIP4
deployments get to do IPv6 or not. The main question is what happens
to all those current deployments that do not have either mobility or
IPv6. With that in mind, I also do not think we should add a lot of
functionality into DS-MIPv4. The scope of the work needs to be
very constrained.

--Jari

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