Re: [Banana] Charter

[David Sinicrope <[e-mail]>]

Hi All,

From the initial discussions of this work a concern was raised (with the authors, ADs, and IAB) that BANANA proposed work overlapping with the Hybrid Access work in the Broadband Forum (BBF) (See TR-348, and WT-378) which deals with both fixed and mobile provider (not solely single provider) multiple access. 
 
There was accommodation of the point of view that it could be useful to explore the multi provider, over the top cases, but the pursuit of any work that would compete with or be considered to overlap the BBF Hybrid Access project, which was well underway at the time BANANA started, would potentially jeopardize IETF's relations with the BBF and was therefore discouraged.   
 
Subsequent to the concerns noted above, the BBF has embarked on a project in cooperation with 3GPP to converge fixed access and the 5G core which would include hybrid access scenarios and fixed wireless access.  BBF and 3GPP currently have work underway and are looking to produce documents in the 3GPP Rel 16 timeframe.  
 
Over the course of the BANANA charter creation this positioning (i.e., BANANA = multi provider, OTT, not in conflict with the BBF) seems to have been increasingly diluted, resulting in the existing charter which, as noted below, gives license to deal with the entire space and seemingly casts aside the previous scope positioning and concerns.  In doing so, the charter has BANANA overlapping the work of the BBF creating a potentially adversarial situation, and jeopardizing what is otherwise a cordial and productive working relationship between BBF and the IETF.

I would suggest:
- clearly address the remaining substantive concerns about the clarity of the problem, scope and requirements, etc.
- Explicitly scope the work to deal with only the multi provider, over the top environment.  This clearly shows it is out of scope for BBF.
- liaise the charter and milestones/work plan to the BBF asking for their input - given the subtle differences in the work and plans, even with the non-overlapping scope, it would greatly help relations to ask before completing the charter process.
 
Best Regards,
Dave Sinicrope
BBF/IETF Liaison Manager


On 9/18/17, 2:06 AM, "Banana on behalf of David Allan I" <[e-mail] on behalf of [e-mail]> wrote:

    I have to admit, my original expectation of the outcome of the discussions was what the focus would be on configuration of the end points for a non-carrier-integrated OTT scenario.
    
    What I am reading in the charter is license to explore the whole space, and invent additional solutions even in the presence of suitable work by other WGs....
    
    Dave
    
    
    
    -----Original Message-----
    From: Banana [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Margaret Cullen
    Sent: Friday, September 15, 2017 12:03 AM
    To: Sri Gundavelli (sgundave) <[e-mail]>
    Cc: Alexandre Petrescu <[e-mail]>; Muley, Praveen (Nokia - US/Mountain View) <[e-mail]>; Henderickx, Wim (Nokia - BE/Antwerp) <[e-mail]>; [e-mail]
    Subject: Re: [Banana] Charter
    
    
    Hi Sri,
    
    > I have the same comment. It is not clear to me either on what exactly 
    > this WG intends to do. In the BOF (WG-forming) meeting, there was no 
    > opportunity given to raise any questions on the problem statement.  
    > The entire focus of the meeting was on some charter text without any 
    > discussions on 1.) problem statement, 2.) currently known art, 3.) 
    > efforts in other WG groups,4.) the gaps.  There was no agreement on 
    > IETF 98 BOF meeting (non-WG forming) either on the problem statement.
    
    Actually, the non-WG forming BOF was held at IETF-97, and it is true that we did not yet have agreement on a clear and well-understood problem statement at that time. We didn’t hold a BOF at IETF-98.  Instead, about 30 of us met for a publicly-scheduled "Bar BOF" and discussed the problem statement and possible charter text. There was also _considerable_ discussion of the problem statement on the mailing list between IETF-97 and IETF-99, and we reached general agreement on our problem statement on the mailing list.
    
    At IETF-99, we reviewed the charter text, which included our agreed problem statement as the first few paragraphs.  To wit:
    
    "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.”
    
    We went through the charter text, sentence by sentence, at the BOF and the only change we made to the problem statement portion of the charter was to add VPNs to the list of low bandwidth Internet links.  There was an opportunity to discuss every sentence in this section, but people didn’t have much to say about it, probably because we had already spent months discussing it on the list and in a Bar BOF.
    
    During the question period at the end of the BOF, we asked whether the problem was clear and well-understood.  The large majority of  the people who responded said “yes”.  This was recorded in the minutes as a “decent hum” for yes, and a “low murmur” for no. 
    
    > So, I do not
    > understand why we are jumping on charter text discussion without clear 
    > agreements on the problem statement.
    
    Based on the agreement on the mailing list and in the room in Prague, I would say that we _do_ have agreement on a clear and understandable problem statement.  What makes you think we don’t?
    
    > I really hope IESG will review all the notes/discussions carefully.
    
    I am sure that Suresh can be trusted to review things carefully before he puts our charter on the IESG agenda.  If there are any particular notes or discussion that you would like him to review, please feel free to draw his attention to them.
    
    Margaret
    
    
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