Re: [6lowapp] Proposed charter for 6LoWAPP BOF

[Vlad Trifa <[e-mail]>]

Hi,

>> As soon as we say there is a proxy or gateway required, we will get  
>> pushback
>> from device manufacturers who don't want the added cost on their  
>> devices.
>
> This definitely should not require a proxy, but as pointed out in  
> other mails, there are reasons you may use proxy technology. Even if  
> you would implement this with plain HTTP/1.1 you would use a proxy  
> in most cases. But this isn't an issue for device manufacturers by  
> any means! As we are dealing with IP, a proxy may be located on the  
> backend network somewhere e.g. as a component on  any application  
> server.

I think we shouldn't oblige people to use gateways, and manufacturers  
that want their device to plug-and-play should not need to hope for  
gateway. In our work, we see gateways as good to have goodies that can  
help adding nice features that shouldn't be supported at the device- 
level (access control, caching, masking failures, request buffering  
and caching). HTTP wouldn't necessarily mean UI - just API access.  
Gateways could serve as simple intermediaries to enable more  
meaningful interaction with device for end-users (think of home wifi  
routers that could offer nice management and mobile control/access to  
home networks, what nokia control center kind of does).

On the other hand it's hard to think that "gateways" will hardly ever  
disappear, if not for protocol translation at least for routing across  
physical interfaces. If gateways can do some distributed processing  
besides just routing packets, one could build more scalable  
infrastructures.

The thing for the proprietary protocols imho is that each manufacturer  
wants a little part of the market pie but also due to constraints on  
devices optimized solutions were needed for different solutions/apps,  
just like IP on devices didn't make sense 7 years ago. As an  
illustration more and more devices have already tiny web servers  
nowadays, so not much would be needed to RESTify them.

Based on our tests, I hardly see the functional limitations of http  
for interacting with devices, other than extra verbosity/latency,  
which in many scenarios doesn't have a huge impact on user experience  
(especially, for many scenarios we're considering here, if we get data  
in 0.5 seconds instead of 0.1 second doesn't hurt much). Please let me  
know some counter examples you would have.

Vlad

>
> On the flip-side, if we require embedded devices to speak directly  
> with unmodified HTTP/1.1 web servers, then we really will be adding  
> cost, if it even works at all. This is the situation today, and the  
> reason for so many proprietary protocol and field-bus solutions.
>
> It sounds like we basically agree here?
>
> Zach
>
>>
>> Don
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Zach Shelby [mailto:[e-mail]]
>> Sent: Sunday, November 01, 2009 5:52 AM
>> To: [e-mail]
>> Cc: [e-mail]
>> Subject: Re: [6lowapp] Proposed charter for 6LoWAPP BOF
>>
>> On Nov 1, 2009, at 2:15 , Don Sturek wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Cullen,
>>>
>>> One important use case to consider:
>>> 1)  Devices to manage are running on 6LowPAN (using some 6LowAPP
>>> defined
>>> protocol).   Controlling devices are running someplace on the wider
>>> internet.
>>
>> This is common in building management and most M2M applications as  
>> well.
>>
>>> 2)  Does this mean that the scope of protocol work in 6LowAPP  
>>> needs to
>>> identify this type of control as a valid use case?
>>
>> Definitely! However we don't need to require the controlling device  
>> to
>> speak CoAP (although it could). More likely there is a proxy  
>> somewhere
>> between.
>>
>>> 3)  Does the use of 6LowAPP protocols on the wider internet need to
>>> then be
>>> in the scope of 6LowAPP?
>>
>> Yes. This is IP, so the CoAP protocol can be used over any IP
>> networks. If you need a proxy, it can be located anywhere. We should
>> assume that CoAP will mainly be used in the constrained or  
>> application-
>> specific domain.
>>
>> Zach
>>
>>>
>>> Don
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] On
>>> Behalf
>>> Of Cullen Jennings
>>> Sent: Saturday, October 31, 2009 10:29 AM
>>> To: Jukka Manner
>>> Cc: Don Sturek; [e-mail]
>>> Subject: Re: [6lowapp] Proposed charter for 6LoWAPP BOF
>>>
>>>
>>> On Oct 29, 2009, at 8:20 , Jukka Manner wrote:
>>>
>>>> 1. This seems to indicate that 6lowapp will not be tied to any
>>>> existing work, it will work on its own goals, but in collaboration
>>>> with others (which is somewhat open as what it means). I would have
>>>> expected that 6lowapp would specifically look at existing work in
>>>> related WGs and see how build on top of that.
>>>
>>> My mistake - I did not mean to imply that it was not layered on  
>>> top of
>>> closely related existing work. I think most people assumed that this
>>> would run on top of a LoPAN but it seemed they also wanted it to be
>>> able to run on top of a other things including a normal IP LAN and
>>> WAN. Clearly this is all about same use cases as 6LoPAN and ties
>>> closing with 6LoPAN and ROLL as well as work going on at many other
>>> SDOs. However, I'm not sure what needs to be said. Are WG drafts  
>>> with
>>> use case / requirements from other WG that we should be referencing?
>>> Give me ideas on what things you were thinking here. Clearly the  
>>> IESG
>>> would not be keen on chartering a new WG to do something another WG
>>> was already charted to do - repeating work in two places seldom ends
>>> well :-) Can you suggest some specific text for the charter that you
>>> think would have fairly wide consent and captures what you are  
>>> looking
>>> for here?
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
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>>
>> -- 
>> http://www.sensinode.com
>> http://zachshelby.org - My blog "On the Internet of Things"
>> Mobile: [phone]
>>
>> Zach Shelby
>> Head of Research
>> Sensinode Ltd.
>> Kidekuja 2
>> 88610 Vuokatti, FINLAND
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>
> -- 
> http://www.sensinode.com
> http://zachshelby.org - My blog “On the Internet of Things”
> Mobile: [phone]
>
> Zach Shelby
> Head of Research
> Sensinode Ltd.
> Kidekuja 2
> 88610 Vuokatti, FINLAND
>
> This e-mail and all attached material are confidential and may  
> contain legally privileged information. If you are not the intended  
> recipient, please contact the sender and delete the e-mail from your  
> system without producing, distributing or retaining copies thereof.
>
>
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