Re: [tequila/sls] comments on the TEQUILA draft by W. Almesberger

From: Werner Almesberger (Werner.Almesberger@epfl.ch)
Date: Mon Oct 16 2000 - 14:11:47 CEST

  • Next message: Werner Almesberger: "Re: [tequila/sls] comments on the TEQUILA draft by W. Almesberger"

    Yves T'Joens wrote:
    > we haven't used any specification language so far, CIM is a pretty good
    > candidate indeed. Internally we originally used a BNF notation scheme
    > (which is a bit less heavy), but i would support going for CIM.

    I was also hoping that BNF would be sufficient ... CIM is powerful but
    I suspect it may add a lot of unnecessary overhead ... (hmm, I see a
    specification language war coming up ;-)

    > but you don't need the policy framework architecture for supporting the SLS
    > negotiation. In that sense, it is different enough to allow the creation
    > of a different working group.

    Agreed. Also, as far as I can tell, the scope of the SLS work can
    be quite clearly defined. So there is hope that things won't get
    side-tracked too much. (Which is always a risk if you add work on
    peripheral issues to a group with a broad spectrum.)
     
    >>>3.1, general.
    >>> Typical SLAs in use today include geographic references like "no more
    >>> than X ms RTT to any of our routers in Europe". Example:
    >>> http://www.uk.uu.net/customerservices/sla/tandcs/
    >>>
    >>> Such specifications are probably too difficult to express in a general
    >>> formal way, so the current approach of ignoring them seems appropriate.
    >>> Nevertheless, it may be good to mention them, simply due to their
    >>> current practical relevance.
    >>
    >> I don't think that they are too difficult, but on an other level of
    >> abstraction. (part of domain name? Some specific countries, regions etc.

    What I mean is this: there are always lots of little "private" bits
    showing up in an SLA. I don't think it's worth the effort to try to
    integrate them all into a general SLS model.

    With RTT, I see the following problems:
     - it's hard to define in the context of Diffserv (besides trivial
       cases where an SLS containing an RTT is constructed from two SLS'
       with only one-way delays)
     - it implies traffic conformance rules for the reverse direction,
       which may generate references to other SLS', etc.
     - the properties of the reflection procedure need to be specified

    NB: not having the concept of RTT in the SLS doesn't prevent a provider
    from talking about RTT in the SLA.

    > you can have multiple flow IDs attached to one SLS, but then one would
    > police on the aggregate of the packets that are classified as such.
    > this is different from identifying multiple SLSses for which policing is
    > done on any individual flow ids.

    Concerning classification (in a broad sense - basically everything
    you do to decide what to do with a packet, including metering), I think
    we ought to be able to express everything that is in
    draft-ietf-diffserv-mib-04.txt or draft-ietf-diffserv-model-04.txt

    In particular, I think it would be a mistake to knowingly exclude
    functionality already provided for in the drafts mentioned above.
    (It's less of a problem if the SLS model exceeds the capabilities
    of the drafts a bit, because a) real life will impose its
    restrictions anyway, and b) some functionality may be provided by
    some means beyond the scope of those drafts.)

    >> I think there should be a requirements draft for the negotiation anyway.
    >
    > I don't know if one can really separate them, since a request for an SLS
    > subscription/invocation may carry a different set of parameters then the
    > ack/offer being presented by the network. we will try to clarify this in
    > our next version.

    At the Salzburg meeting, we had broad consensus that there should be
    (at least) two documents on SLS': one dealing with what is basically at
    a flow(s) level (we called this the "invoked" service), while the second
    one would focus on the invocation and other things going into the
    subscription. I think this distinction it useful and it will help to
    keep things consistent in their respective areas.

    - Werner

    -- 
      _________________________________________________________________________
     / Werner Almesberger, ICA, EPFL, CH           Werner.Almesberger@epfl.ch /
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