[apps-discuss] proposal for Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) work in APP area

[Bhumip Khasnabish <[e-mail]>]

 Dear All,

Based on multiple discussions that we had in [e-mail] and suggestions
/ recommendations
from IETF APP area AD (Peter), we plan to focus former CloudApps work in the
proposed
virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) area.

Below pls find the draft charter we are developing based on participation
and contribution of those
who are interested in this.


The clear and present trend of end-user device convergence merges multiple
information processing devices, communication devices, and entertainment
devices into a single unit.  This highly converged device is supported by
the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) in the virtual on-demand computing
and networking environment (commonly referred to as Cloud environment). VDI
consists of the following three basic functional components:  Virtual
Desktop Client (VDC, the converged end-user device), the Virtual Desktop
Agent (VDA, the control software residing in a virtual machine hosted in a
data center), and a set of protocols connecting them together to deliver the
desired services.





                                     +---------------------------+

                                     | +-----------------------+ |

        +-----------+  VDI protocol  | | +------------------+  | |

        | VDI Client|----------------+ + | Virtual Desktop  |  | |

        +-----------+                | |       Agent        |  | |


                                     | | +------------------+  | |

                                     | |      Guest OS         | |

                                     | +-----------------------+ |

                                     |   Virtual Machine         |

                                     | Hosted in a Data Center   |

                                     +---------------------------+



Currently there are no standard VDI protocols.  This lack of standard
protocol creates friction and barrier in solution development, deployment,
and service management.  In addition, the limited available proprietary
solutions do not fully address the issues caused by service mobility
and   access
(both nomadic and wireless).  Furthermore, many critical functional
requirements for VDI such as service availability/distribution, scalability,
security, and manageability are not addressed in a way to support
interoperability.



The proposed VDI WG focuses on the requirements and protocol development
activities that are directly associated with virtual desktop infrastructure.
The background materials related to SDO survey, reference framework, work
items gap, and security gap can be found in the already
published/work-in-progress (to be completed soon) drafts as cited at the end
of this document.

The proposed work items for the VDI WG are as listed below.





1) Produce a VDI Problem Statement and Resolution document listing the
technical issues of the existing VDI systems, proposing reference
architecture, and defining the scope of VDI protocol standard.



2) Produce a VDI Requirements document that defines the functional and
operational requirements of the VDI protocol.



3) Produce a detailed VDI Protocol Specification.



4) Once the base protocol specification is complete, re-charter the WG to
produce various VDI protocol extensions to support application-specific
areas such as access security, additional video/audio compression mechanism,
service mobility, profile/personality adjustment, and context-awareness.





*References and VDI-related drafts:*

Ø  http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-wang-clouds-vdi-problem-statement-00.txt

Ø  http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-cloud-log-00.txt

Ø
http://trac.tools.ietf.org/area/app/trac/attachment/wiki/Clouds/Johnston-IETF-78-Clouds-bar-BoF-Std-Gap-28July10.pdf

Ø
http://trac.tools.ietf.org/area/app/trac/attachment/wiki/Clouds/Protocol%20Considerations%20for%20Workload%20Mobility%20in%20Clouds.txt

Ø
http://trac.tools.ietf.org/area/app/trac/attachment/wiki/Clouds/draft-rfc-seamless-Cloud-masum-01.txt

Ø  Karavettil-et-al-IETF-VDI-Draft-v1-03042011



*Background References and drafts:*

Ø  http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-ma-clouds-vdi-survey-00.txt

Ø  http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-khasnabish-cloud-sdo-survey-00.txt

Ø
http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-khasnabish-cloud-reference-framework-00.txt

Ø
http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-khasnabish-cloud-industry-workitems-survey-00.txt

Ø  http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-so-vepc-01.txt

Ø
http://trac.tools.ietf.org/area/app/trac/attachment/wiki/Clouds/Karavettil-et-al-IETF-Cloud-Security-Framework-11Feb2011_v2.pdf



All of the drafts and presentations are available at the following site:

http://trac.tools.ietf.org/area/app/trac/wiki/Clouds

We  look forward to your further comments and suggestions.

Many thanks.
Best Regards.

Bhumip Khasnabish (Mobile:[phone], [e-mail])
http://www.linkedin.com/in/bhumipkhasnabish