Re: [IPFIX] Fwd: New Version Notification for draft-trammell-ipfix-ie-doctors-00

Hi, Hadriel,

Thanks for the feedback.

The primary design goal of the IESpec format is human readability in the expression of information model extensions and templates, while maintaining simple machine readability. The idea is implementors can read an Internet Draft about an IPFIX application with example templates in IESpec form, copy and paste the example templates out of it into an implementation supporting IEspec, fill in the fields and go. For readability and compactness, it's intended to address shortcomings both in the XML format(s) already defined for IPFIX IEs, and in the traditional 32-bit-wide box-and-line diagrams, which make it difficult to fit a nontrivial template onto a single page, and require some manual work to turn into an implementation.

The XML format in 5102 has been partially superceded by the one used by IANA internally (I'm not sure the extent to which the one uses the elements from the other, it's been a while), and is specifically targeted only for defining Information Elements to be added to the registry. (If you need to put IE metadata on the wire, e.g. to define enterprise-specific IEs in long-term storage, 5610 covers that.)

As to the structure, you have a point; it's a little tacked on. IESpec was formerly (well, currently; it's not expired yet) its own document, and integrated into ie-doctors on several suggestions in Maastricht; I'm not yet decided where it belongs...

Cheers,

Brian

On Oct 8, 2010, at 1:05 AM, Hadriel Kaplan wrote:

> 
> Hi Brian,
> I read this draft, and most of it seems good/useful/motherhood-and-apple-pie.
> 
> The only substantive comment/question I have is on section 9, the textual IESpec stuff.  Do we really need yet another textual representation of meta-data?  Isn't there already an XML-based one from rfc5102?  
> 
> I note your statement that the design goal was compactness and not needing XML support, but it's not clear why those properties matter when the meta-data is never on the wire in its textual form.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not an XML fan by any stretch, but I'd hate to have two textual representation formats for one protocol, and re-inventing the wheel with yet-another-new-format seems silly. (Nevermind that the IETF already uses SMI/ASN.1 for SNMP, XML for DIAMETER, ABNF for a HTTP/SIP/RTSP/SMTP/etc., defacto-standards for RADIUS and DNS, and who knows what else. :)
> 
> It's also kinda weird to have a new text format in a Guidelines doc.
> 
> -hadriel
> 
> 
> On Oct 1, 2010, at 8:15 AM, Brian Trammell wrote:
> 
>> Greetings, all:
>> 
>> A first draft of the IE-Doctors draft discussed in Maastricht has been posted; this presents a reasonably complete discussion of the issues surrounding efficient extension of the Information Element registry and definition of new IPFIX applications in Internet-Drafts. We intend to discuss this as a future BCP at the meeting in Beijing. Reviews and comments in the meantime are of course appreciated. :)
>> 
>> Best regards,
>> 
>> Brian
>> 
>> Begin forwarded message:
>> 
>>> From: IETF I-D Submission Tool <idsubmission@ietf.org>
>>> Date: October 1, 2010 2:01:48 PM GMT+02:00
>>> To: trammell@tik.ee.ethz.ch
>>> Cc: bclaise@cisco.com
>>> Subject: New Version Notification for draft-trammell-ipfix-ie-doctors-00 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> A new version of I-D, draft-trammell-ipfix-ie-doctors-00.txt has been successfully submitted by Brian Trammell and posted to the IETF repository.
>>> 
>>> Filename:	 draft-trammell-ipfix-ie-doctors
>>> Revision:	 00
>>> Title:		 Guidelines for Authors and Reviewers of IPFIX Information Elements
>>> Creation_date:	 2010-10-01
>>> WG ID:		 Independent Submission
>>> Number_of_pages: 22
>>> 
>>> Abstract:
>>> This document provides guidelines for the definition of IPFIX
>>> Information Elements for addition to the IANA IPFIX Information
>>> Element registry, in order to extend the applicability of the IPFIX
>>> protocol to new operations and management areas.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> The IETF Secretariat.
>>> 
>> 
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