Re: [dtn] Draft Charter Discussion

["Burleigh, Scott C (312G)" <[e-mail]>]

Okay, taking another crack at this.

I think there are two levels of question here, one implying the other, and it might be helpful to address them separately.

First the proximate question: given that DTN exists, why standardize it?  Why not just use it as it is?  What has changed?

I think the answer there, to which Fred and Ed have alluded, is that there are business entities that would now like to use DTN to solve some communication problems (or exploit some opportunities) but won't risk doing so while the protocols are not standards.  I know Ed works with such entities on a regular basis, and the fact that Boeing is willing to invest some time and money in this BoF seems to suggest that they at least are another such entity.

So then the underlying question: what are those problems and opportunities for which a standardized DTN would be used?

As Fred has pointed out, organizations that hope to make money from these ideas are not likely to disclose them here or in the BoF.  But, just from my own reading of the news, let me suggest a couple of potential DTN use cases that go beyond the ISS and Saami deployments we're all familiar with.

1.  The UAV industry is exploding.  Nobody has any idea where the limits on applications of UAVs are, but what we do know is that the information that controls them is conveyed by radio, which is occasionally subject to disruption.  Technology that could improve the safety and reliability of UAVs, while reducing cost, could find a large market.

2.  The speed of sound underwater is 1.5 km/sec, so the round-trip time between two underwater entities communicating by acoustic modem and separated by a distance of 7.5 km is about equal to the round-trip time between Earth and the Earth/Sun L2 Lagrange point.  Since the data rates of acoustic modems are low, efficient delay-tolerant networking is a pretty good way to establish underwater communication.  The market for underwater sensors and instrumentation is already in the billions of dollars; revenue in the autonomous underwater vehicle manufacturing industry is growing at nearly 14% per year.

3.  The "space" use case is arguably still small if you restrict it to the vehicles that are in orbit.  If you extend the space communication use case to users on Earth who will need to communicate with spacecraft over the next two decades, as Earth orbit becomes increasingly industrialized, then you find yourself talking about a very large user community.

And I am pretty sure there are more that I'm not aware of.  The basic proposition is that the Internet is an outstanding communications solution for all parts of Earth's surface that are relatively easy to get to, but there are business opportunities that are beyond its current reach.  DTN can help extend that outstanding communications solution to currently Internet-inhospitable parts of the Earth and near-Earth, benefiting a lot of people.  Standardizing it will help make that happen.  As Vint remarked in one of our conversations on this topic (I paraphrase freely), the Internet didn't get created because somebody thought of a killer app; people thought of killer apps because there was an Internet.

Scott

-----Original Message-----
From: dtn [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Stephen Farrell
Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2014 1:32 PM
To: Templin, Fred L; [e-mail]
Subject: Re: [dtn] Draft Charter Discussion


Hi Fred,

On 17/06/14 21:12, Templin, Fred L wrote:
> Hi Stephen,
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Stephen Farrell [mailto:[e-mail]]
>> Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2014 1:05 PM
>> To: Templin, Fred L; [e-mail]
>> Subject: Re: [dtn] Draft Charter Discussion
>>
>>
>> Fred and others,
>>
>> I think I've asked this before so apologies if I just forget the good 
>> answer;-)
>>
>> We have the space use-case and some fairly well known niche 
>> terrestrial use-cases, which are fine. But we've known these for 
>> years and the DTNRG didn't want to move to the standards track until 
>> now.
> 
> Yes, a diverse set of use cases and not a single use case. That means 
> that in the early days there may be many purpose-built DTNs that may 
> at a later time be joined together to form larger DTNs.
> A "DTN-of-DTNs" in the same way that the Internet is a "network- 
> of-networks".
> 
> The whole reason the Internet was able to join together smaller 
> networks to form larger networks is that the Internet had 
> interoperable standards from the very beginning. It is now time for us 
> to do that for DTN.

I'm familiar with DTN. But I find the above a pretty complete non-answer to the question asked (in that it answers no part of my question:-) So I'll try again, in a more direct fashion...

I do not know why specifically Boeing want a standards track RFC5050bis, nor why you want it now.

And I'm wondering and would like to know. I have not heard your use-case (or business case, whatever) explained so far.
Nor have I heard someone say "can't/won't tell, sorry."
So I'm curious.

And I'll note once again that successful BoFs tend to involve explaining why this, now, specifically. As an IESG member it makes it much easier for me to evaluate proposals for forming a WG.

(BTW, any answer that asks me to think like an acorn won't really work for this question, sorry:-)

If someone else has a new answer to this question that would also be interesting. By new, I mean a use-case or business-case that hasn't previously been discussed in the DTNRG.

Cheers,
S.

PS: In case there's confusion. My question is very much not the same as Will's, despite your answer being very similar.

> 
> Thanks - Fred
> [e-mail]
> 
>> I think it'd help the IESG to decide whether to approve a WG if there 
>> were more information available about what has changed to motivate 
>> moving to the standards track.
>>
>> If (say for Boeing) those are such that you can't say and there 
>> aren't any others who can, then that's a pity, since it does make it 
>> harder to get why a 5050bis on the standards track is attractive.
>>
>> I'm just noting this again because I think many recent successful 
>> BoFs have tended to have this topic as part of the agenda, but it 
>> seems missing in yours, which just assumes that the room knows that 
>> RFC5050 needs a bit of work. (I'm exaggerating a bit there, but I 
>> hope you get what I mean.)
>>
>> S.
>>
>> On 17/06/14 18:40, Templin, Fred L wrote:
>>> Please see below for an updated version of the draft charter based 
>>> on list discussions, and post any further comments in follow-up.
>>> (See also attached for diffs relative to the previous version.)
>>>
>>> Thanks - Fred
>>> [e-mail]
>>>
>>> ---
>>>
>>> Draft BoF Agenda (2.5hrs):
>>> **************************
>>> 1) Problem statement (IETF wg motivation) - 30min
>>>
>>> 2) RFC5050(bis) - 15min
>>>
>>> 3) Streamlined Bundle Security Protocol (SBSP) - 15min
>>>
>>> 4) Security Key Management - 10min
>>>
>>> 5) Network Management - 10min
>>>
>>> 6) Contact Graph Routing and Contact Plan Update Protocol - 10min
>>>
>>> 7) Bundle-in-Bundle Encapsulation - 5min
>>>
>>> 8) Registry for Service Identifiers - 5min
>>>
>>> 9) Open Discussion - 50min
>>>
>>>
>>> Draft working group charter:
>>> ****************************
>>> Working group name:
>>>
>>>       Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking Working Group (DTNWG)
>>>
>>> Chair(s):
>>>
>>>       TBD
>>>
>>> Area and Area Director(s):
>>>
>>>       Transport Area: ADs Spencer Dawkins <spencerdawkins.ietf at gmail.com>,
>>>                           Martin Stiemerling <mls.ietf at gmail.com>
>>>
>>> Responsible Area Director:
>>>
>>>       TBD
>>>
>>> Mailing list:
>>>
>>>       General Discussion: dtn at ietf.org
>>>       To Subscribe: https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/dtn
>>>       Archive: 
>>> http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/dtn/current/maillist.html
>>>
>>> Description of Working Group:
>>>
>>>       The Delay/Disruption Tolerant Network Working Group (DTNWG) specifies
>>>       mechanisms for data communications in the presence of long delays
>>>       and/or intermittent connectivity. The work is motivated by well known
>>>       limitations of standard Internet protocols that expect end-to-end
>>>       connectivity between communicating endpoints, sub-second transmission
>>>       delays and robust packet delivery ratios. In environments where these
>>>       favorable conditions do not apply, existing mechanisms encounter problems
>>>       such as reliable transport protocol handshakes timing out and routing
>>>       protocols failing to converge resulting in communication failures.
>>>       Furthermore, classical end-to-end security associations cannot be
>>>       coordinated when communicating endpoints cannot conduct multi-message
>>>       keying exchanges in a timely fashion. These limitations suggested the
>>>       need for a new approach.
>>>
>>>       Delay-Tolerant Networking (DTN) protocols have been the subject of
>>>       extensive research and development in the Delay-Tolerant Networking
>>>       Research Group (DTNRG) of the Internet Research Task Force since 2002.
>>>       The DTNRG has developed the Delay-Tolerant Networking Architecture
>>>       (RFC 4838) that the DTNWG uses as the basis for its work.  The key
>>>       components of the this architecture are the bundle concept for
>>>       encapsulating data units, the bundle transmission protocol and the
>>>       underlying convergence layer architecture.
>>>
>>>       The experimental DTN Bundle Protocol (RFC 5050) and Licklider
>>>       Transmission Protocol (RFC 5326) have been shown to address the
>>>       issues identified above in substantial fielded deployments in the space
>>>       sector [1].  RFC 5050 in conjunction with TCP- and UDP-based convergence
>>>       layers has been used successfully in a number of experiments both in
>>>       communications challenged environments around the edges of the Internet
>>>       and as an Internet overlay where applications require delay- and/or
>>>       disruption-tolerance [refs needed].
>>>
>>>       The success of the BP over convergence layer protocol stack -- the core
>>>       protocols of the "DTN Architecture" described in RFC 4838 -- may be
>>>       attributed to the following fundamental design principles:
>>>
>>> 	- There is never any expectation of contemporaneous end-to-end
>>>           connectivity between any two network nodes.
>>>
>>> 	- Because end-to-end connectivity can never be assumed, each node
>>> 	  on the path between source and destination must be prepared to
>>> 	  handle incoming "bundles" of data that cannot immediately be
>>> 	  forwarded.
>>>
>>> 	- Again because end-to-end connectivity can never be assumed,
>>> 	  end-to-end conversational data exchange can never be assumed to
>>> 	  complete in a timely manner; protocol features that rely on
>>> 	  timely conversational data exchange must be excluded from the
>>> 	  architecture.
>>>
>>>       The DTNWG believes that protocols adhering to these principles offer
>>>       opportunities for enhancing the functionality of the Internet, 
>>> including
>>>
>>>         - facilitating the extension of the Internet into environments such as
>>>           the ocean floor and deep space in which the core Internet protocols
>>>           operate sub-optimally for the reasons discussed earlier;
>>>
>>>         - extending the Internet into communications challenged terrestrial
>>>           environments where it is not possible to provide continuous, low
>>>           delay Internet connections; and
>>>
>>>         - supporting Internet applications that need DTN capabiliies.
>>>
>>>       We believe that the extensive research, demonstration, and
>>>       pilot operations performed to date using the DTNRG protocols provides
>>>       a firm basis for publishing Internet standards derived from that work.
>>>
>>>       Work items related to Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking include:
>>>
>>>       o A mechanism for the exchange of protocol data units, termed
>>> 	   "bundles", that are designed to obviate conversational communications
>>> 	   by containing values for all potentially relevant configuration
>>> 	   parameters. These protocol data units are typically larger than
>>> 	   network-layer packets. We will derive this bundle exchange mechanism
>>>         from the DTN Bundle Protocol (BP) documented in RFC 5050 by publishing
>>>         a new document for which [2] is a proposed first draft (where
>>>         appendix A provides a summary of the proposed changes).
>>>
>>>       o A security protocol for ensuring that the network in which bundles
>>> 	   are exchanged is secured against unauthorized access and denial of
>>> 	   service attacks, and to ensure data integrity and confidentiality
>>> 	   in that network where necessary.  We will derive this security
>>> 	   protocol from a "streamlined" adaptation of the DTN Bundle Security
>>> 	   Protocol documented in RFC 6257.
>>>
>>>        o A delay-tolerant security key management scheme that can protect
>>>          the integrity of a DTN network.
>>>
>>>       o A simple datagram convergence layer protocol for adaptation of the
>>>         bundle protocol to underlying internetworks. We expect to derive
>>>         this convergence layer protocol from the Datagram Convergence
>>>         protocol documented in RFC 7122.
>>>
>>>       o A protocol for remote status monitoring, configuration, and
>>>         administration of network nodes in the presence of long delays
>>>         and/or intermittent connectivity.
>>>
>>>       o A functional specification of Contact Graph Routing (CGR) specifying
>>>         the inputs (global contact schedules, traffic demands, etc.) and
>>>         outputs (node specific transmission and reception schedules,
>>>         notifications, etc.).  CGR is a centralized, oracle-based bundle
>>>         transmission and reception scheduling scheme used in space segment
>>>         DTN deployments.
>>>
>>>       o An adjunct to the management protocol that will allow the contact
>>>         schedules generated by CGR to be distributed to nodes.  This may be
>>>         based on the Contact Plan Update Protocol (CPUP) proposed in
>>>
>>>       o An encapsulation protocol for "tunneling" BP traffic within bundles
>>> 	   that are secured and/or routed in different way from the encapsulated
>>> 	   bundles.
>>>
>>>       o A registry for DTN Service Identifiers
>>>
>>>     The working group will consider extending the current milestones based on
>>>     new information and knowledge gained while working on the initial charter,
>>>     as well as to accommodate new work items beyond the scope of the initial
>>>     phase.  For example, we expect that transport protocols such as LTP and
>>>     the Saratoga protocol are among the candidates for work in this phase.
>>>
>>> Goals and Milestones:
>>>   start+0mos - Accept 'Bundle Protocol Specification (RFC5050bis)' [2] as
>>>                a working group work item intended for Proposed Standard.
>>>   Start+0mos - Accept 'Streamlined Bundle Security Protocol (SBSP)' [3] as
>>>                a working group work item intended for Proposed Standard.
>>>   start+3mos - Accept 'Bundle In Bundle Encapsulation (BIBE)' [4] as a
>>>                working work item intended for Proposed Standard.
>>>   start+6mos - Working group getting concensus on changes to be implemented
>>>                in RFC 5050(bis).
>>>   start+9mos - Working group getting consensus on merging RFC5050bis, SBSP,
>>>                BIBE etc. into a combined draft or keep as separate drafts.
>>>   start+12mos - Accept 'CGR Functional Specification' as a working group
>>>                 working group work item intended for Informational.
>>>   start+12mos - Accept 'Delay Tolerant Networking Security Key Management'
>>>                 as a working group work item intended for Proposed Standard.
>>>   start+15mos - Accept 'Contact Plan Update Protocol' as working group work
>>>                 item intended for Proposed Standard.
>>>   start+18mos - Submit RFC5050bis, SBSP, BIBE and Key Mgmt to the IESG either
>>>                 as a combined draft or as separate drafts.
>>>   start+18mos - Submit Network Management [5], Registry [6] and Simple
>>>                 Convergence Layer [7] as working group documents.
>>>   start+20mos - Survey appropriate forums (e.g., DTNRG) for emerging
>>>                 technologies (e.g., convergence layer protocols, dynamic
>>>                 routing protocols, naming and addressing services, etc.)
>>>                 ready for transition into IETF DTN Working Group. Publish
>>>                 draft on survey results as independent submission related
>>>                 to the WG.
>>>   start+24mos - Submit Network Management, Registry and Simple Convergence
>>>                 Layer to IESG
>>>   start+24mos - Recharter to accommodate new work items or close 
>>> Working Group
>>>
>>>
>>> [1] "BP/LTP deployment on EPOXI spacecraft" [2008],
>>>     http://committees.comsoc.org/tccc/ccw/2010/slides/DINET_CCW.pdf
>>> [2] "Proposed Revised Bundle Protocol" [2014],
>>>     https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-burleigh-bpv7/
>>> [3] "Streamlined Bundle Security Protocol Specification" [2014],
>>>     https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-irtf-dtnrg-sbsp/
>>> [4] "Bundle-in-Bundle Encapsulation" [2013],
>>>     http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-irtf-burleigh-bibe
>>> [5] "Delay Tolerant Network Management Protocol" [2013],
>>>     http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-irtf-dtnrg-dtnmp
>>> [6] "Delay-Tolerant Networking Bundle Protocol IANA Registries" [2011],
>>>     https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc6255/
>>> [7] "Datagram Convergence Layers ..." [2014],
>>>     https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc7122/
>>> [8] "Towards Flexibility and Accuracy in Space DTN Communications",
>>>     Bezirgianndia et al, CHANTS 2012,
>>>     http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2505499 [2012]
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> dtn mailing list
>>> [e-mail]
>>> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/dtn
>>>
> 
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