Re: [re-ECN] FW: ConEx BoF announcement text

[Leslie Daigle <[e-mail]>]

Hi Bob,

I didn't change that para, not because it seemed to be perfect, but 
because there seem still to be confusion about how to improve it.

I think the current proposal (per my last message, and certainly still 
subject to improvement!) is:

<on the wiki, to be replaced:>
The Internet is, in essence, about pooling resources. The ability to 
share capacity has been paramount to its success and has traditionally 
been managed through the voluntary use of TCP congestion control. 
However, TCP alone is unable to prevent bandwidth intensive 
applications, such as peer-to-peer or streaming video, from causing 
enough congestion over time to severely limit the user-experience of 
many other users. This has led ISPs to deploy ad-hoc solutions such as 
volume accounting, rate policing and deep packet inspection in an 
attempt to distribute capacity differently. The consequences of such 
practices are increasingly leading to calls for government regulations 
and stifling innovation at the transport and application layer (see for 
example, the problem statement I-D (ref below) and RFC5594).
</on the wiki>


<proposed>
The Internet is, in essence, about pooling resources. The ability to
share capacity has been paramount to its success and currently relies on 
the voluntary use of TCP congestion control. However, this assumes all 
application requirements are the same, and congestion can be avoided by 
ensuring orderly and fair (on average) access to bandwidth.  This is 
does not generally work for peer-to-peer or streaming video 
applications.  In order to avoid congestion from such applications, more 
aggressive control is required in some circumstances than is provided by 
standard TCP congestion control.  Networks are currently unable to 
accurately detect these applications' traffic or the circumstances in 
which additional control should be applied. The consequences of such 
practices are increasing calls for government regulation and stifling 
innovation at the transport and application layer (see for example, the 
problem statement I-D (ref below) and RFC5594).
</proposed>

Though I'm suspecting that some instances of "congestion" should be 
replaced by "performance".

Leslie.

Bob Briscoe wrote:
> Leslie,
> 
> I accept all the changes you've made except one, which we really must 
> stop saying.
> 
> 1/ "However, TCP alone is unable to prevent bandwidth intensive 
> applications"
> 
> TCP *does* prevent high bandwidth apps. That's the problem.
> 
> And implying intensive bandwidth usage needs to be prevented is rubbish 
> marketing for the idea behind ConEx, given it *enables* higher bandwidth 
> apps.
> 
> I believe congestion exposure will enable an Internet where high 
> bandwidth and high volume apps can co-exist optimally. I want to 
> encourage high bandwidth apps *and* high volume apps, not prevent either.
> 
> I sometimes think there really are people on this list who believe that 
> too much use of the Internet is the problem. Or congestion is the 
> problem. No. No. No. Rubbish capacity sharing is the problem.
> 
> This is the same point as moving away from TCP-friendly, which is what 
> LEDBAT aims for. LEDBAT deliberately allows interactive stuff to go 
> faster while background stuff temporarily goes slower. That is the 
> opposite of TCP-friendly, which is better overall.
> 
> Data point: In the transport area plenary in March '09, Matt Mathis 
> asked for a hum on "Is TCP-friendly a way forward?".
> Yes: zero; No: most of the hall.
> 
> [It's minuted as 'all hummed no' but I'd say that was over-enthusiastic 
> minute-taking as I'm sure there were plenty of the obligatory silent 
> observers you get these days at the IETF, who were sitting on their 
> hands <http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/74/minutes/tsvarea.txt>]
> 
> With congestion exposure, we will be able to have weighted congestion 
> control. Then we should be able to repeat the LEDBAT trick recursively 
> as different size flows arrive. Ie. imagine three types of flows 
> co-existing:
> - small foreground flows
> - medium middleground flows
> - larger background flows
> The larger background can be background to the medium middleground, and 
> both can be background to the small foreground. This can continue with 
> any number of recursions. All transfers complete much faster, except the 
> very largest flows which should complete in not much more time than they 
> do now.
> 
> 2/ User experience: I agree; hard to quantify, but not impossible. It's 
> a mix of faster at same price / cheaper at same quality.
> 
> Aspects of user experience that are really hard to quantify: less 
> complexity / more future innovation.
> 
> 
> 
> Bob
> 
> At 02:55 20/10/2009, Leslie Daigle wrote:
> 
>> Bob,
>>
>> First -- thanks for making the suggestions as marked up text:  it 
>> makes it easier for all of us to track what is (and is not) changing 
>> in the text.
>>
>> Having seen no further discussion of the changes, I've made the 
>> changes as follows.  I've also indicated where I've not made the 
>> changes, in case there is further discussion (in-line):
>>
>>
>> [e-mail] wrote:
>>> Bob
>>> Some (personal) comments in-line
>>> Best wishes,
>>> phil
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf
>>> Of Bob Briscoe
>>> Sent: 18 October 2009 19:47
>>> To: Leslie Daigle
>>> Cc: [e-mail]
>>> Subject: Re: [re-ECN] FW: ConEx BoF announcement text
>>> Leslie,
>>> I like the announcement text now (it was pretty good already).
>>> I have a few suggestions that seem like nits, but they are important (to
>>> me).
>>> I'm assuming you "hold the token" on the text at the mo. So I've 
>>> pasted it from the wiki below, and added my comments.
>>> ========================================================================
>>> ====
>>>> Congestion Exposure (ConEx?) is a proposed new IETF activity to 
>>>> enable congestion to be exposed along the forwarding path of the 
>>>> Internet. By revealing expected congestion in the IP header of every
>>> packet,
>>> s/every packet/packets/
>>
>> Done
>>
>>> [phil] agree with your change
>>> [[[Reasoning: We shouldn't imply we have ambitions to ever make all 
>>> Internet traffic expose congestion. I defined the re-ECN protocol so 
>>> re-ECN and non-re-ECN packets can be distinguished. Then different 
>>> apps can choose to use it or not. And different ISPs can choose to 
>>> separately account for these two main types of traffic (or not). This 
>>> is what we should mean by permanent partial deployment.
>>> For example, Sally Floyd was much less concerned about re-ECN once I 
>>> had made this design goal clear.
>>> Anyway, on practicality grounds, an ISP can't force all IP traffic to 
>>> use ConEx, particularly if we've only initially defined it for some 
>>> transports like TCP and not others like DNS/UDP. Obviously, if an ISP 
>>> uses congestion exposure in the future to limit heavy sources of 
>>> congestion, then the ISP is likely to severely limit non-re-ECN 
>>> traffic. But we should leave that up to each ISP.
>>> ]]]
>>>
>>>>  congestion exposure provides a generic network capability which 
>>>> allows greater freedom over how capacity is shared. Such information 
>>>> could be used for many purposes, including congestion policing, 
>>>> accountability and inter-domain SLAs. It may also open new 
>>>> approaches to QoS and traffic engineering.
>>>>
>>>> The Internet is, in essence, about pooling resources. The ability to 
>>>> share capacity has been paramount to its success and has 
>>>> traditionally been managed through the voluntary use of TCP 
>>>> congestion control. However, TCP alone is unable to prevent 
>>>> bandwidth intensive applications,
>>> s/bandwidth intensive applications/applications transferring high 
>>> traffic volumes/
>>
>> Not done -- agree with Phil.
>>
>>> [phil] personally I don't find your version any more or less clear than
>>> the current text. maybe a 3rd version is needed!
>>> [[[Reasoning: TCP *can* limit bandwidth, but it cannot arbitrate 
>>> continuously heavy use of bandwidth over time.
>>> ]]]
>>>
>>>> such as peer-to-peer or streaming video, from causing enough congestion
>>> i/over time /
>>
>> Done.
>>
>>>
>>>> to severely limit the user-experience of many other end-hosts.
>>> s/user-experience of many other end-hosts/experience of many other
>>> users/
>>> [phil] ok
>>
>> Done.  As a bit of a gripe:  "user experience" is not quantifiable.  
>> It would be nicer if we could actually express this in terms of some 
>> other quantifiable impact at the end hosts.  I am not inspired to 
>> suggestion, however.  (So, I did the mod as described :-) ).
>>
>>> [[[hosts don't have user-experiences
>>> ]]]
>>>
>>>> This has led ISPs to deploy ad-hoc solutions such as volume 
>>>> accounting, rate policing and deep packet inspection in an attempt 
>>>> to distribute capacity differently. The consequences of such 
>>>> practices are increasingly leading to calls for government 
>>>> regulations and stifling innovation at the transport and application 
>>>> layer (see for example, the problem statement I-D (ref below) and
>>> RFC5594).
>>>> We believe these problems stem from the lack of a network-layer 
>>>> system for accountability -- among all parties -- for sending 
>>>> traffic which causes congestion.
>>> s/sending/forwarding/
>>> [phil] maybe this depends whether you think forwarding is a subset or
>>> sending, sending is a subset of forwarding, or neither. Perhaps the
>>> easiest solution is to say "sending or forwarding"
>>
>> Changed to sending or forwarding.
>>
>>> [[[Reasoning: applies equally to networks or senders
>>> ]]]
>>>
>>>> We propose a metric where IP packets carry information about the 
>>>> expected rest-of-path congestion, so that any network node may 
>>>> estimate how much congestion it is likely to cause by forwarding 
>>>> traffic. A network operator can then count the volume of congestion 
>>>> about to be caused by an aggregate of traffic as easily as it can 
>>>> count the volume of bytes entering its network today. Once ISPs can 
>>>> see rest-of-path congestion, they can actively discourage
>>> d/actively /
>>
>> Done.
>>
>>> [phil] ok
>>> [[[Reasoning: passively (e.g. pricing) or actively (e.g. policing)
>>> ]]]
>>>
>>>> users from causing large volumes of congestion, discourage other 
>>>> networks from allowing their users to cause congestion, and more 
>>>> meaningfully differentiate between the qualities of services offered 
>>>> from potential connectivity partners. Meanwhile end-hosts may be 
>>>> freed from rate restrictions where their traffic causes little
>>> congestion.
>>> i/In this environment the self-imposed constraint of TCP-friendliness 
>>> could be relaxed, allowing a richer variety of application behaviours 
>>> to evolve that would still prevent congestion collapse./
>>> [phil] if this is inserted, there is no point having the last sentence
>>> ["Meanwhile..."], as they say the same thing. I don't care much between
>>> them.
>>> [[[Your original had wording around this idea that has got lost in 
>>> translation.]]]
>>
>> No change made -- I think positing TCP-friendliness could be relaxed 
>> is probably overreaching (happy to be educated otherwise), and largely 
>> think the rest is covered in the "Meanwhile" sentence.
>>
>>>
>>>> The purpose of the BoF is to explore the support for and viability 
>>>> of pursuing an IETF activity to define a basic protocol to expose 
>>>> the expected rest-of-path congestion in the IP header. Any such 
>>>> protocol should work with minimal changes to the existing network, 
>>>> in particular it should work with unmodified routers.
>>> d/Any such protocol should work with minimal changes to the existing 
>>> network, in particular it should work with unmodified routers./
>>> [phil] I have no strong preference where this text appears
>>> [[[Reasoning: A BoF announcement shouldn't contain strong 
>>> requirements-text. A little lower down, I've introduced text that 
>>> conveys the same sentiment without making it a strong requirement.
>>> ]]]
>>
>> Done -- I do think the BoF announcement should give some sense of 
>> boundaries that exists.  Having said that, I don't care where it is, 
>> and am happy to migrate it closer to the proposal text.
>>
>>>
>>>> There is already one existing proposal that builds on ECN to provide 
>>>> rest-of-path congestion information in every IP header
>>> s/every IP header/IP headers/
>>
>> Done.
>>
>>>
>>>> and other proposals may come forward.
>>>>
>>>> If supported, an eventual WG would focus on the development of that
>>> protocol
>>> s/that protocol/its chosen congestion exposure protocol/
>>>
>>>> as its main work item.
>>> i/The chosen protocol will need to be deployable with minimal changes 
>>> to the existing Internet and compare well against the existing 
>>> proposal, which works with unmodified routers./
>>
>> I inserted:
>>
>> "The chosen protocol will need to be deployable with minimal changes 
>> to the existing Internet, preferably working with unmodified routers."
>>
>> I deleted the competition with the existing proposal -- either that's 
>> obvious, or something else is at play from which the BoF/WG should not 
>> be constrained, so it seemed an unnecessary restriction in the text.
>>
>>>
>>>> Additional work items could include detailing the motivations for 
>>>> congestion exposure, a threat analysis of the subsequent protocol, 
>>>> providing feedback on experimental trials and describing deployment 
>>>> considerations.
>>> s/providing feedback on/reporting on/
>>
>> Done.
>>
>>> [phil] ok
>>>
>>>> Importantly, the proposed WG would encourage experimentation but not 
>>>> deliberate on how congestion exposure should be used: our concern 
>>>> would be how flexibly the resulting protocol can support differing 
>>>> needs at run-time, rather than dictating a particular usage at design
>>> time.
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Leslie.
>>
>>>
>>> Bob
>>> At 04:02 17/10/2009, Leslie Daigle wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> I've posted a description on the BoF wiki page:
>>>>
>>>> http://trac.tools.ietf.org/area/tsv/trac/wiki/re-ECN
>>>>
>>>> I think I mostly followed the structural edits, but not the wording 
>>>> changes within sentences, because I felt there were important (if 
>>>> subtle) changes that I wasn't convinced about/would want further 
>>>> input from the list for.   But -- it's a wiki.  We can change the 
>>>> text, if there's need to do so!
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Leslie.
>>>>
>>>>> Suggested edited version (slightly shorter and it moves references 
>>>>> to re-ECN further towards the end. Also tries to tighten up the text a
>>> bit):
>>>>> Congestion Exposure (ConEx) is a proposed new IETF activity that 
>>>>> reveals congestion along the forwarding path of the Internet. By 
>>>>> revealing the expected congestion in the IP header of every packet, 
>>>>> congestion exposure provides a new generic network capability. We 
>>>>> believe such information could be used for many purposes, including 
>>>>> congestion policing, accountability and inter-domain SLAs. It may 
>>>>> also open new approaches to QoS and traffic engineering.
>>>>>
>>>>> The Internet is, in essence, about pooling and sharing resources. 
>>>>> This has been paramount to its success and has traditionally been 
>>>>> managed through the voluntary use of TCP congestion control.  
>>>>> However, TCP alone is unable to prevent bandwidth intensive 
>>>>> applications, such as peer-to-peer or streaming video,
>>>> >from causing enough congestion to severely limit the
>>>>> user-experience of many other end-hosts.  This has led ISPs to 
>>>>> deploy ad-hoc solutions such as volume accounting, rate policing 
>>>>> and deep packet inspection in an attempt to distribute capacity 
>>>>> differently. Such practices are leading to calls for government 
>>>>> regulation as well as stifling innovation at the transport and 
>>>>> application layer (see for example, the problem statement I-D (ref 
>>>>> below) and RFC5594).
>>>>>
>>>>> We believe these problems stem from the lack of accountability for 
>>>>> causing congestion at the network layer. We propose a metric where 
>>>>> all IP packets carry information about the expected rest-of-path 
>>>>> congestion, so that any network node may estimate how much 
>>>>> congestion it will cause by forwarding traffic. This will allow 
>>>>> network operators to count the volume of congestion about to be 
>>>>> caused as easily as the volume of bytes in any aggregate of 
>>>>> traffic. Once ISPs can see rest-of-path congestion, they can 
>>>>> actively discourage users from causing excessive congestion, 
>>>>> encourage other networks to control the congestion their customers 
>>>>> cause, and more meaningfully differentiate between the qualities of 
>>>>> services offered by potential connectivity partners. Meanwhile 
>>>>> end-hosts can be freed from rate restrictions so long as they 
>>>>> control the overall congestion they cause.
>>>>>
>>>>> The purpose of this BoF is to explore whether the IETF community 
>>>>> agrees this lack of congestion exposure is a problem and to gauge 
>>>>> the support for and viability of pursuing an IETF activity to 
>>>>> define a basic protocol to expose the expected rest-of-path 
>>>>> congestion in the IP header.  Any such protocol should work with 
>>>>> minimal changes to the existing network; in particular it should 
>>>>> work with unmodified routers. There is already one existing 
>>>>> proposal that builds on ECN to provide rest-of-path congestion 
>>>>> information in every IP header and other proposals may come forward.
>>>>>
>>>>> If supported, an eventual WG would focus on developing such a 
>>>>> protocol as its main work item.  Additional work items could 
>>>>> include detailing the motivations for congestion exposure, a threat 
>>>>> analysis of the protocol, providing feedback on experimental trials 
>>>>> and describing deployment considerations. Importantly, the proposed 
>>>>> WG would encourage experimentation but not deliberate on how 
>>>>> congestion exposure should be used: our concern would be how 
>>>>> flexibly the resulting protocol can support differing needs at 
>>>>> run-time, rather than dictating a particular usage at design time.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> *From:* [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] 
>>>>> *On Behalf Of *[e-mail]
>>>>> *Sent:* 16 October 2009 11:28
>>>>> *To:* [e-mail]
>>>>> *Subject:* [re-ECN] ConEx BoF announcement text
>>>>>
>>>>> Here's a slightly revised version of the announcement text - thanks 
>>>>> to Joao and everyone who worked on it.
>>>>>
>>>>> The main change was to re-write the last 2 paras from the 
>>>>> perspective of the BoF. I also deleted the claim that the work 
>>>>> should be transport-agnostic, as I find 'transport' an ambiguous 
>>>>> word & also think the substantive point is already made by saying 
>>>>> the congestion is revealed in the IP header.
>>>>>
>>>>> Please send any further suggestions asap, so we can circulate to 
>>>>> other mailing lists later today
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks
>>>>> Phil & Leslie
>>>>>
>>>>> ---
>>>>>
>>>>> Congestion Exposure (ConEx) is a proposed new IETF activity to 
>>>>> enable congestion to be exposed along the forwarding path of the 
>>>>> Internet. By revealing expected congestion in the IP header of 
>>>>> every packet, congestion exposure provides a generic network 
>>>>> capability which allows greater freedom over how capacity is shared.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> An existing proposal, building on ECN to reveal "rest-of-path" 
>>>>> information into the IP header, has already demonstrated how 
>>>>> congestion exposure can give an incentive to control one's impact 
>>>>> on the network beside TCP congestion-control. We believe this 
>>>>> "congestion exposure" information may be used for many purposes, 
>>>>> including congestion policing, accountability and inter-domain 
>>>>> SLAs. It may also open new approaches to QoS and traffic engineering.
>>>>>
>>>>> The Internet is, in essence, about pooling resources. The ability 
>>>>> to share capacity has been paramount to its success and has 
>>>>> traditionally been managed through the voluntary use of TCP 
>>>>> congestion control.
>>>>> However, TCP alone is unable to prevent bandwidth intensive 
>>>>> applications, such as peer-to-peer or streaming video, from causing 
>>>>> enough congestion to severely limit the user-experience of many 
>>>>> other end-hosts.  This has led ISPs to deploy ad-hoc solutions such 
>>>>> as volume accounting, rate policing and deep packet inspection in 
>>>>> an attempt to distribute capacity differently. The consequences of 
>>>>> such practices are increasingly leading to calls for government 
>>>>> regulations and stifling innovation at the transport and 
>>>>> application layer (see for example, the problem statement I-D (ref 
>>>>> below) and RFC5594).
>>>>>
>>>>> We believe these problems stem from the lack of a network-layer 
>>>>> system for accountability -- among all parties -- for sending 
>>>>> traffic which causes congestion. We propose a metric where IP 
>>>>> packets carry information about the expected rest-of-path 
>>>>> congestion, so that any network node may estimate how much 
>>>>> congestion it is likely to cause by forwarding traffic. A network 
>>>>> operator can then count the volume of congestion about to be caused 
>>>>> by an aggregate of traffic as easily as it can count the volume of 
>>>>> bytes entering its network today. Once ISPs can see rest-of-path 
>>>>> congestion, they can actively discourage users from causing large 
>>>>> volumes of congestion, discourage other networks from allowing 
>>>>> their users to cause congestion, and more meaningfully 
>>>>> differentiate between the qualities of services offered from 
>>>>> potential connectivity partners. Meanwhile end-hosts may be freed
>>>> >from rate restrictions where their traffic causes little congestion.
>>>>> The purpose of the BoF is to explore the support for and viability 
>>>>> of pursuing an IETF activity to define a basic protocol to expose 
>>>>> the expected rest-of-path congestion in the IP header.  Any such 
>>>>> protocol should work with minimal changes to the existing network, 
>>>>> in particular it should work with unmodified routers.
>>>>>
>>>>> If supported, an eventual WG would focus on the development of that 
>>>>> protocol as its main work item.  Additional work items could 
>>>>> include detailing the motivations for congestion exposure, a threat 
>>>>> analysis of the subsequent protocol, providing feedback on 
>>>>> experimental trials and describing deployment considerations. 
>>>>> Importantly, the proposed WG would encourage experimentation but 
>>>>> not deliberate on how congestion exposure should be used: our 
>>>>> concern would be how flexibly the resulting protocol can support 
>>>>> differing needs at run-time, rather than dictating a particular 
>>>>> usage at design time.
>>>>>
>>>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> -- 
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> re-ECN mailing list
>>>>> [e-mail]
>>>>> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/re-ecn
>>>> -- 
>>>>
>>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> "Reality:
>>>>      Yours to discover."
>>>>                                 -- ThinkingCat
>>>> Leslie Daigle
>>>> [e-mail]
>>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> re-ECN mailing list
>>>> [e-mail]
>>>> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/re-ecn
>>> ________________________________________________________________
>>> Bob Briscoe,                                BT Innovate & Design
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> re-ECN mailing list
>>> [e-mail]
>>> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/re-ecn
>>
>> -- 
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>> "Reality:
>>      Yours to discover."
>>                                 -- ThinkingCat
>> Leslie Daigle
>> [e-mail]
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> ________________________________________________________________
> Bob Briscoe,                                BT Innovate & Design

-- 

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"Reality:
      Yours to discover."
                                 -- ThinkingCat
Leslie Daigle
[e-mail]
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