Re: [sip-clf] Defining Pros and Cons of ASCII/IPFIX

[Dan Burnett <[e-mail]>]

+1.  Sometimes during standards work it is clear that either
1) all but perhaps a few folks/organizations agree on a particular approach, meaning that in the world of implementations the minority need to just join the party, or
2) most folks/organizations don't care at all and will just implement whatever the majority wants.

In our case neither is true.  As Hadriel points out we have two sizeable and vocal groups with different use cases and customer bases.  Each is likely to ignore the proposal that does not satisfy their constituents.  I suspect that if we had had two different groups - one to create a text standard and one to create a binary standard - that we would already today have both completed and widely adopted.  The only important requirement here is that any content in either format can be mapped to the other and back with no loss of information.  

-- dan

On Oct 28, 2010, at 1:28 AM, Hadriel Kaplan <[e-mail]> wrote:

> 
> At a recent conference I asked a SIP monitoring vendor which format they thought we should specify, and surprisingly they said "do both".  I asked them why, and they said there was a market for both ascii and binary formats - that monitoring systems would prefer binary ones, but that humans prefer ascii style ones; and that in the Enterprise market ascii was more dominant, while in the SP market binary was more dominant.  They said we wouldn't be able to choose just one in the IETF - because whichever we picked there'd still be a market for the other and that market would continue the status-quo of proprietary formats or settle on some de-facto one.
> 
> In thinking about this more I think I agree with them.  It'd be like us picking a Registrar database access protocol as well as the fields in it - we could specify SQL or DIAMETER, but in some markets it'll be one not the other no matter which one we choose. (or it'll be Active Directory, etc.)
> 
> -hadriel
> 
> On Oct 27, 2010, at 11:23 AM, Peter Musgrave wrote:
> 
>> Hi all, 
>> 
>> As co-chair I am looking for a way to make a determination about how to meet the groups decision to move forward with just one format in a WG which has good support for two formats. 
>> 
>> In my (personal) opinion I think the objective is to develop something that will be widely implemented. I would like to solicit input from a larger audience - but first I think we need to frame the pros and cons.
>> 
>> I would like to suggest the following:
>> 
>> 1) Use the list and the Beijing meeting to come to a consensus on the pros and cons of each and the applications which may favour one format vs another. 
>> 
>> 2) Place these pros/cons on the WG Wiki [I can act as editor]
>> 
>> 3) Solicit input from SIP Implementors - referring them to the WG WIki
>> - use the Columbia sip-implementors, sipforum list and SIPT27
>> 
>> 4) Review the feedback and try to come to a conclusion on the list (or failing that, in Prague at IETF80)
>> 
>> I will be at SIPIT27 - so I can raise awareness of this discussion in that community. 
>> 
>> How do people feel about this approach?
>> 
>> I welcome any other/additional ways to resolve this issue. 
>> 
>> Regards, 
>> 
>> Peter Musgrave
>> co-chair
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> <ATT00001..c>
> 
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