[alto] Proposed Path Aware Networking Research Group in Prague

["Brian Trammell (IETF)" <[e-mail]>]

Greetings, all, and apologies for the cross-posting,

We'll be having a first meeting of the proposed Path Aware Networking
(PAN) RG at IETF 99 in Prague next week, 13:30 Wednesday in Congress
Hall 3. It's been suggested The scope of this RG might be of interest
to your working group, research group, or BoF, so I hope you'll have
a chance to drop by. Olivier Bonaventure will give a review and overview
of research to date in this space, and Adrian Perrig will present a
fully path-aware Internet architecture, as an illustration of what is
possible when path-awareness is promoted to a first-order goal.

From our proposed charter (https://datatracker.ietf.org/group/panrg/about):

The Internet architecture assumes a division between the end-to-end
functionality of the transport layer and the properties of the path between the
endpoints. The path is assumed to be invisible, homogeneous, singular, with
dynamics solely determined by the connectivity of the endpoints and the Internet
control plane. Endpoints have very little information about the paths over which
their traffic is carried, and no control at all beyond the destination address.

Increased diversity in access networks, and ubiquitous mobile connectivity, have
made this architecture's assumptions about paths less tenable. Multipath
protocols taking advantage of this mobile connectivity begin to show us a way
forward, though: if endpoints cannot control the path, at least they can
determine the properties of the path by choosing among paths available to them.

This research group aims to support research in bringing path awareness to
transport and application layer protocols, and to bring research in this space
to the attention of the Internet engineering and protocol design community.

The scope of work within the RG includes, but is not strictly limited to:

- communication and discovery of information about the properties of a path on
local networks and in internetworks, exploration of trust and risk models
associated with this information, and algorithms for path selection at
endpoints based on this information.

- algorithms for making transport-layer scheduling decisions based on
information about path properties.

- algorithms for reconciling path selection at endpoints with widely deployed
routing protocols and network operations best practices.

The research group's scope overlaps with existing IETF and IRTF efforts, and
will collaborate with groups chartered to work on multipath transport protocols
(MPTCP, QUIC, TSVWG), congestion control in multiply-connected environments
(ICCRG), and alternate routing architectures (e.g. LISP), and is related to
the questions raised in the multiple recent BoF sessions that have addressed
path awareness and multiply-connected networks (e.g. SPUD, PLUS, BANANA).

The PAN(P)RG intends to meet at each IETF meeting until a
determination is made whether or not to charter it. Afterward, the RG intends to
meet at 1-3 IETF meetings per year, and hold one workshop per year, collocated
with a related academic conference.

Thanks, cheers

Brian (as co-chair PAN PRG)