Re: [MMUSIC] WG Poll on the middleboxes draft (draft-ietf-mmusic-media-path-middleboxes)

[Hannes Tschofenig <[e-mail]>]

Hi Flemming, 

I take a pragmatic view. The document has been worked on in the group for a while, a WGLC had been held, the received last call comments had been incorporated in the meanwhile. 

From there on there are only two routes (IMHO):
a) publish the document through the working group, 
b) the authors submit it to the RFC editor as an independent submission

At this point in time the outcome is not so much different anymore (since the working group had already provided their input). 

The text about the impact of middleboxes on signaling protocols is something worth capturing and the offered guidance seems to be OK. I still think that this writeup will be a useful reference for the work on middleboxes with relationship to security protocols. 

Ciao
Hannes


On Jun 9, 2012, at 2:09 AM, Flemming Andreasen wrote:

> Some comments (as an individual)
> 
> A lot of the SIP and SDP work started out with a somewhat "purist" Internet view of the world, where things such as middleboxes were not considered. As other standards and industry organizations became interested in using SIP and SDP, different architectures were defined and some of those arcitectures did include the notion of middleboxes (e.g. 3GPP IMS and CableLabs PacketCable). From an IETF point of view, there was, at least initially, not a great deal of knowledge about these architectures and what the middleboxes defined by them were doing. Conversely, there was (is) also a concern that such middleboxes may break end-to-end transparency and hence there was a desire to try and alleviate that. 
> 
> To that effect, it was seen as useful to have a document that could
> a) Explain what/how middleboxes might be operating in these architectures
> b) Provide guidelines as to how such middleboxes could minimize (ideally avoid) impacting end-to-end transparency and/or how protocols could be used to try and alleviate any impact such middleboxes might have. 
> 
> The middleboxes draft is trying to address the above as it relates to the media path. The target audience is thus IETF participants that would like an overview of how these middleboxes may affect SIP/SDP-signaled media streams as well as what can be done to try and overcome that. Similarly, the document is targeted at people involved in these "other" architecture efforts, with a goal of making it clear how middleboxes may affect the operation of SIP/SDP-signaled media streams and hence provide some "design principles". This is not unlike some of the NAT work that was done in BEHAVE. 
> 
> It could be argued that these architectures have now been around for so long that producing the above document will not make any difference at this point. While I have some sympathy for this, I also think we have to recognize the importance of documenting what we know and to make that readily available for new people that will be working in this space. 
> 
> In other words, I still believe there is value in pursuing this document. As to whether it should be a BCP or Informational, I don't     have any strong opinions. 
> 
> Thanks 
> 
> -- Flemming (as an individual)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 6/8/12 6:37 PM, Flemming Andreasen wrote:
>> Hi 
>> 
>> As part of the MMUSIC charter we have the following milestone
>> 
>> Sep 2012	Submit Considerations for using SDP offer/answer with middleboxes for BCP
>> and we have the middleboxes draft
>> 
>>     http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-mmusic-media-path-middleboxes-04.txt
>> 
>> to address that milestone. 
>> 
>> As discussed at IETF 83 (Paris), Hadriel Kaplan raised some concerns with the goal of the document and the potential target as further explained in the following e-mail: 
>> 
>>     http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/mmusic/current/msg09278.html
>> 
>> A set of (initial) technical comments were also provided by Hadriel in the following e-mail:
>> 
>>     http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/mmusic/current/msg08640.html
>> 
>> For now, the chairs would like to focus on the first set of questions above, i.e. what is the goal and potential target audience for the document and is there still value in pursuing it ?
>> 
>> 
>> The chairs would like to poll the group for opinions and interest in this. Specific areas to consider:
>> 
>> 1) What is the target audience for the document ?
>> 
>> 2) Do people believe that the target audience will read and/or care about this document at this point ?
>> 
>> 3) Should the document be a BCP or Informational ?
>> 
>> 
>> Thanks 
>> 
>> -- Miguel & Flemming (as chairs)
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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