[Coma] Store, Carry and Forward (SCF) Technologies for Management of Constrained Networks and Devices

["Ivancic, William D. (GRC-RHN0)" <[e-mail]>]

Hello,
I became aware of this list recently and perused the archives.  I am posting with two motives:

(1)  To see if this group sees a need for store, carry and forward (SCF) technologies. One of the areas we see such technology helping in is updated software to systems in challenged (Constrained) networks.

(2)  Our approach to bounding the SCF problem and generating requirements may be useful to COMA. After reading the threads, it appears that documenting your scenarios and creating a bounded problem statement may help move discussion along. As is, the problem space appears unbounded or, at least overly large.
The following Internet Drafts have recently been posted:
http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-ivancic-scf-problem-statement-00.txt
http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-ivancic-scf-requirements-expectations-00.txt

http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-ivancic-scf-testing-requirements-00.txt

There is also a recent presentation that might help regarding the philosophical approach to the problem.
http://roland.grc.nasa.gov/~ivancic/papers_presentations/2012/RobustNetworkingWorkshop062612.pdf

Summarized below:
=================
1. KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid)
2. Options make interoperability hard.
3. Options are often used as a placeholder for fixing a bad design.
4. Think about terminology. – “Words make a difference. They affect how we thing about something. The terms chosen to describe a concept are a crucial part of any model. The right concepts with terms that give the wrong connotation can make a problem much more difficult. The right terms can make it much easier. Adopting the mindset of the terms may allow you to see thing you might not otherwise see.” - John Day, Patterns in Network Architect

5. Don’t overload the protocol.
6. "In anything at all, perfection if finally attained, not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away..." - Antonie de Saint Exupery
7. "A good engineer is a lazy degenerate. He prefers degenerate cases to special cases and will sit around (thinking) until he finds a simple solution, rather that immediately launch into a brute force approach. In other words, the goal of a architect is to use the tools he has to make things simple. (Anyone can make things more complicated)!” - John Day, Patterns in Network Architect
- Will

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William D. Ivancic
http://roland.grc.nasa.gov/~ivancic