Re: [conex] Genart LC review: draft-ietf-conex-abstract-mech-12

[Matt Mathis <[e-mail]>]

You are correct, the section is a bit stale.  And although the authors of
6789 would like to claim the topic is closed, newer documents
(e.g. draft-ietf-tcpm-accecn-reqs-07.txt,) have found it necessary to hedge
on this very issue for pragmatic reasons.  (Note the overlapping authors
between -abstract-mech-, 6789 and -accecn-).

The core advice in section 4.6 still stands:
>
> "This document does not take a strong position on this issue.    However,
> a ConEx encoding will need to explicitly specify whether it assumes units
> of bytes or packets consistently for both congestion indications and ConEx
> markings.  (see network layer requirement E in Section 3.3)."


Some of the surrounding editorializing reflects not completely resolved
tension between the authors on this point.  I for one would prefer to
remove the presumption that 6789 and 7141 are the final answer, and make
this draft purely bytes/packets agnostic.  I partially ceded the point on
the grounds that the impracticality 6789 would doom it over the long haul,
as we have already seen in -accecn-.

It would be bad form for this document to explicitly conflict with 6789,
but I for one would object to it unequivocally endorsing 6789, and although
leaving it waffle, isn't pretty, it does accurately reflect the views of
the authors.

Thanks,
--MM--
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On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 12:58 PM, Robert Sparks <[e-mail]> wrote:

> I am the assigned Gen-ART reviewer for this draft. For background on
> Gen-ART, please see the FAQ at
>
> <http://wiki.tools.ietf.org/area/gen/trac/wiki/GenArtfaq>.
>
> Please resolve these comments along with any other Last Call comments
> you may receive.
>
> Document: draft-ietf-conex-abstract-mech-12
> Reviewer: Robert Sparks
> Review Date: 5-Aug-2014
> IETF LC End Date: 8-Aug-2014
> IESG Telechat date: Not on an upcoming telechat agenda
>
> Summary: Ready for publication as Informational
>
> This document handles a complex description problem in a very accessible
> way.
> Thank you for the effort that has gone into creating it.
>
> One minor point to double-check:
>
> This document goes out of its way to push decisions about measuring in
> packets,
> bytes, or other units to the concrete  encoding proposals. RFC6789 was
> explicit
> about conex exposing a metric of congestion-volume measured in bytes.
>
> RFC6789 was published a couple of years ago - has that part of it become
> stale?
> If so, it would be good for this document to explicitly call that out.
>
> If not, (most of section 4.6 goes back to -04 which predates RFC6789),
> does this document need to retain the this flexibility in its description?
>
>