Gen-ART review of draft-ietf-bess-orf-covering-prefixes-03

"Black, David" <david.black@emc.com> Sat, 14 February 2015 01:06 UTC

From: "Black, David" <david.black@emc.com>
To: "hj2387@att.com" <hj2387@att.com>, "luay.jalil@verizon.com" <luay.jalil@verizon.com>, "rbonica@juniper.net" <rbonica@juniper.net>, "keyupate@cisco.com" <keyupate@cisco.com>, "Lucy yong (lucy.yong@huawei.com)" <lucy.yong@huawei.com>, "General Area Review Team (gen-art@ietf.org)" <gen-art@ietf.org>
Subject: Gen-ART review of draft-ietf-bess-orf-covering-prefixes-03
Thread-Topic: Gen-ART review of draft-ietf-bess-orf-covering-prefixes-03
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Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2015 01:05:27 +0000
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Cc: "Black, David" <david.black@emc.com>, "ietf@ietf.org" <ietf@ietf.org>, "bess@ietf.org" <bess@ietf.org>
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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-bess-orf-covering-prefixes-03
Reviewer: David Black
Review Date: Feb 13, 2015
IETF LC End Date: Feb 18, 2015

Summary: Unfortunately, I don't have the expertise to review this draft.

This draft is esoteric - it's written by BGP/MPLS VPN experts for BGP/MPLS
experts and is effectively unintelligible in the absence of BGP/MPLS VPN
expertise.  I'm not a BGP/MPLS expert, but this is the first time in my
many years of Gen-ART reviewing that I've had to use the "don't have the
expertise" summary status.

The draft's writing style is inaccessible.  A simple example is that one
would expect that a draft whose title is "Covering Prefixes Outbound
Route Filter for BGP-4" would explain what a "Covering Prefix" is - this
draft never does that.  Much of the draft is nearly opaque lists of
requirements and processing rules, with little if any design explanation
or rationale for why they are that way and what they accomplish.  This
is exacerbated by presence of a number of acronyms that are not expanded
on first use.

Overall, I really can't figure out what's going on in this draft, so I
have to trust that the WG got it right, I hope.  That's disappointing.

I do have one minor editorial suggestion:

The security considerations section cites BGP security considerations
in existing RFCs.  It should also cite VPN security considerations in
existing RFCs, as those are more important for a draft that is only
applicable to VPNs.

idnits 2.13.01 didn't find anything to complain about.

Thanks,
--David
----------------------------------------------------
David L. Black, Distinguished Engineer
EMC Corporation, 176 South St., Hopkinton, MA  01748
+1 (508) 293-7953             FAX: +1 (508) 293-7786
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Gen-ART review of draft-ietf-bess-orf-covering-pr… Black, David