Re: [OPSAWG] Comments on draft-opsawg-ersue-coman-probstate-reqs

[Juergen Schoenwaelder <[e-mail]>]

On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 09:38:30AM -0500, James Nguyen wrote:
> >
> >> (2) Section 3.3 Configuration Management
> >>
> >>     Session-oriented configuration protocol may be expensive for managing
> >> a large number of similar devices.  In a case when common redundant
> >> configurations is issued, reliable multicast with negative acknowledgement
> >> (e.g. Negative ACKnowledgement (NACK)-Oriented Reliable Multicast (NORM))
> >> would work best.  I suggest to add a reliable transport requirement in this
> >> section.  Moreover, a common data model would be needed.
> >>
> >>     Stateless configuration update solution would also work well for
> >> constrained networks.
> >
> > My assumption is that reliable multicast protocols are not simple and
> > bring their own can of worms. Can you point to prototype systems that
> > do successfully use reliable multicast to configure constrained
> > devices?
> 
> I certainly can list a couple of scenarios:
> 
> I assume that military radios could be categorized as constrained
> devices as they're often on the move and operated in unreliable
> networks with lossy links and/or highly disrupted environment.
> Military radios or military devices seem to fit the definitions that
> are listed in Section 1.6.
> 
> (1) In military theater or emergency disaster incident, a group of
> soldiers or a group of search-and-rescuers need to switch frequency of
> their radios to join other group's communication network.
> 
> (2) In battlefield, soldiers' need to be zero-outed (of
> configurations) to prevent these radios/comms devices to fall in
> enemies' hands.

Luckily, I am not familiar with any of this. But my concern remains
and in such scenarios, I would have serious trouble to define what
'reliable' means given that the group membership is open ended.

> > Can you also elaborate what "stateless configuration update solution"
> > means to you?
> 
> I meant stateless configuration management.
> 

And that means what to you? What is 'stateless'?

/js

-- 
Juergen Schoenwaelder           Jacobs University Bremen gGmbH
Phone: [phone]         Campus Ring 1, 28759 Bremen, Germany
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