Subject: draft-ietf-policy-req-01.txt

From: Hugh Mahon <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 17:51:25 -0600 (MDT)

Hi Folks,

        On Friday (10/22) a new revision of the Policy Requirements 
draft was submitted.  It contains new text from Yoram Bernet and Shai 
Herzog, as well as other changes.  The major differences include: 

        - a better explanation of WHY policy management is a Good Thing
        - discussion of signaled vs. provisioned QoS 
        - additional usage cases

I have placed a version with change bars (relative to revision 00) at: 
    
  http://www.users.uswest.net/~hmahon/draft-ietf-policy-req-01-diffs.txt 

(there is no link to this document, so you need to use the full URL 
above).

        I did not get to incorporate all feedback, so I intend to 
continue working on the draft.  

        Hugh Mahon                              |__|     
        Hewlett-Packard Company                 |  |     
        e-mail: [email-masked]                  |\  /|
        Phone: (970) 898-BITS (898-2487)           | \/ |

---

From: "Jon Sjoberg" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 06:56:11 -0400

The following paragraph in the updated requirements draft, to me, seems to
be incorrect and could afford to be stricken:
      The stength of signaling, simply put, is  that  it  enables |
      parts  of the network to offer high quality guarantees, and |
      to simultaneously be used efficiently.  Without  signaling, |
      it  is  necessary  either  to compromise the quality of the |
      guarantees, or to over-provision parts of the network.   In |.....

Unless I'm mistaken, without siganalling guarantees can be met through
policing without the use of overprovisioning.

The following paragraph provides a strong enough argument for signalling
(the additional information that signalling includes).  It might be
important to note the implicit security implications of this paragraph as
well.

The following paragraph also, to me, seems a little wrong:
      Related to the provisioned vs. signaled models is  the  use |
      of  outsourcing  vs.  pre-configuration.   Signaling  lends |
      itself to outsourcing of policy based decisions better than |
      provisioned because of the granularity provided by the sig- |
      nal ...

Signaling provides more information for both outsourcing and
pre-configuration models.  A pre-configured model based on user/group
allocations and application/service usages could easily benifit from the
granularity of user and application information that could be offered by
signalling.  I think it is important to consider that routers are getting
significantly smarter than the old "filter on this" model and can now do
more with packets than the information within the packet can support (if
that makes sense).  To make a short story long, more information about the
traffic is better for everybody.

What signalling also gives you is an explicit knowledge that your request
has been confirmed/refused.  Policing can give a strong indication (dropping
packets with an ICMP error message back) but nothing as clear cut as can be
provided by a signalled method.

Jon
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked]
> [mailto:[email-masked]]On Behalf Of Hugh Mahon
> Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 1999 7:51 PM
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: draft-ietf-policy-req-01.txt
>
>
> Hi Folks,
>