[Banana] Final(?) BANANA Charter Text

[Margaret Cullen <[e-mail]>]

Hi BANANA Folks,

Based on the meeting in Prague, and the feedback we have received on the BANANA List regarding the charter Google Doc, I have included the current state of the BANANA charter text below.  I believe that all of the issues have been addressed, and that this charter is ready to go to the IESG for review.

We’d like to get this charter to the IESG as soon as possible, in the hope of chartering a WG before the November IETF meeting, so please provide any final feedback you have on this text to the BANANA list no later than next Tuesday, September 19th.  Thank you.  Unless there are any major issues, I will send this charter (with minor tweaks as needed) to the IESG next Tuesday.

The current working version of the charter text also continues to be visible here:  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1byOJ_To6eL1ZBxKSYpTafQbngTBiNwxaK7ReIsld9Ek/edit

Thank you,
Margaret

Charter: BANdwidth Aggregation for Network Access WG

The BANdwidth Aggregation for Network Access (BANANA) Working Group is chartered to develop solution(s) to support dynamic path selection on a per-packet basis in networks that have more than one point of attachment to the Internet.

Bandwidth Aggregation consists of splitting local traffic across multiple Internet links on a per-packet basis, including the ability to split a single flow across multiple links when necessary.

It is the goal of this WG to produce a Bandwidth Aggregation solution that will provide the following benefits:

	• Higher Per-Flow Bandwidth: Many Internet links available to homes and small offices (DSL, Cable, LTE, Satellite, VPNs, etc.) have relatively low bandwidth. Users may wish to run applications (such as streaming video, or content up/downloads) that require (or could benefit from) more bandwidth for a single traffic flow than is available on any of the local links. A Bandwidth Aggregation solution could supply the needed bandwidth by splitting a single traffic flow across multiple Internet links.
	• Reduced Cost: Traffic sharing on a per-packet basis allows the full bandwidth of the lowest-cost link to be used first, only using a higher-cost link when the lowest-cost link is full.
	• Increased Reliability: When one Internet link goes down, ongoing application flows can be moved to another link, preventing service disruption.

Proposed BANANA solutions use different approaches (e.g. tunnels, proxies, etc.) to split and recombine traffic, but at an abstract level, they involve a local (hardware or software) component on the multi-access network, a remote component within the Internet or at the remote end, and mechanisms for those components to find each other, exchange signalling information, and direct traffic to each other.   We refer to the functional components at each end as the Local and Remote “BANANA Boxes”, and we refer to the methods they use to direct traffic to each other as a “BANANA Encapsulations”.  

[Note:  Despite our use of the term “Boxes”, it should be understood that a BANANA Box might be a software component running on a piece of hardware with another primary purpose (e.g. a CPE router).  Similarly, the use of the term “Encapsulation” does not mean that all BANANA Encapsulations will add an explicit encapsulation header.]

The Bandwidth Aggregation solutions developed in this group will be designed to work in multi-provider scenarios (i.e. they will not depend on all of the aggregated links being provided by a single Internet access provider).

The BANANA WG is chartered to complete the following  work items:
	• Informally document/discuss BANANA usage scenarios in a non-archival document (e.g. Wiki, Google Doc, etc.)
	• Determine how Local and Remote BANANA Boxes find each other (i.e. define BANANA provisioning/configuration mechanism(s)).
	• Specify a signalling protocol that can be used to send control information between BANANA Boxes, including:
		• IP Prefixes of access  links
		• Information about link status and properties (including congestion)
		• Information needed by BANANA Encapsulations
		• Determining which flows are/are not eligible for BANANA Encapsulation
	• Select (and extend, if necessary) an existing tunneling encapsulation (e.g. GRE)  for sending traffic between BANANA Boxes.

The BANANA WG will consider existing IETF protocols, where applicable, as the basis for the work items listed above.

The Banana WG will work also with other IETF WGs (and other SDOs, as requested) that define additional BANANA Encapsulations (if any)  to ensure that the protocols defined by the BANANA WG will meet the needs of those additional Encapsulations.

Milestones
	• Apr 2018 Adopt WG draft for provisioning/configuration mechanism
	• Apr 2018 Adopt WG draft for signaling protocol
	• Apr 2018 Adopt WG draft(s) for tunnel encapsulation(s)
	• Feb 2019 WGLC on provisioning/configuration mechanism
	• Feb 2019 WGLC on signaling protocol
	• Feb 2019 WGLC on tunnel encapsulation(s)
	• Aug 2019 Send provisioning/configuration mechanism to the IESG
	• Aug 2019 Send signalling protocol to the IESG
	• Aug 2019 Send tunnel encapsulation(s) to the IESG