Service Level Specification and Usage (SLSU) WG Proposed Chairs --------------- Yves T'Joens (yves.tjoens@alcatel.be) Raju Rajan (rajan@research.att.com) subscription to e-mail list via http://www.ist-tequila.org/sls.html Operations and Management Area Directors ---------------------------------------- Randy Bush Bert Wijnen Operations and Management Area Advisor: --------------------------------------- Bert Wijnen Mailing Lists: -------------- General Discussion: sls@ist-tequila.org To Subscribe: http://www.ist-tequila.org/sls.html Archive: via http://www.ist-tequila.org/sls.html Description of the proposed Working Group ----------------------------------------- Problem Statement : The provisioning of services over an IP network with an associated level of quality is today often associated with the negotiation of service contracts between customer and provider. These contracts are referred to as Service Level Agreements. The technical part of the Service Level Agreement that refers to the terms and conditions of the IP datagram transport is bundled in a so-called Service Level Specification. The process of service provisioning over IP networks is burdened with a lack of consistent terminology, especially within the context where the above-mentioned IP datagram transport implies that the corresponding IP traffic crosses several administrative domains. Today, the instantiation of service level agreements between customers and providers is a rather static and labour intensive task. The procedures involved in this process are proprietary to the provider, and, in many cases these procedures are invoked on a low frequency basis (e.g. when updating a VPN (Virtual Private Network) topology). By its proprietary nature, such a process does not allow for an open service architecture to be built upon an IP network. It is to be understood that standardization of the technical parts of the basic process may allow for a highly developed level of automation and dynamic negotiation of Service Level Specifications between customers and providers. This automation may prove helpful in providing customers (as well as providers) the technical means for the dynamic provisioning of quality of service guaranteed transport services. Objectives: The objective of the proposed WG is to formulate a consistent terminology, design a formal extensible model (that will include semantics) for Service Level Specifications and gather the requirements for the negotiation of Service Levels across administrative boundaries. The need to have such an agreed set of Service Level Specification parameters and semantics is twofold. A formal, extensible specification would enable automation of the service negotiation process. Providers and customers would benefit from the faster turnaround of service fulfillment. Providers would continue to enjoy flexibility in designing their service offerings, and customers would enjoy independence from their point of attachment. The extensible specification should provide for the basic parameters involved in service negotiation and allow room for both standard based extensions and vendor/provider differentiation. Second, the design and the deployment of services across a multi-vendor and multi-provider environment requires a standardized set of semantics for Transport Services being negotiated at different locations: (a) between the customer and the service provider (b) within an administrative domain (for intra-domain Service negotiation purposes) and (c) between administrative domains (for inter-domain Service negotiation purposes). While the semantics of the Service Level Specification need to be defined in a vendor-independent, interoperable and scalable manner, the syntax of the specification may be multiply represented in different specification languages, e.g., CIM, LDAP schemata, XML DITs, etc. Similarly, while the semantics of message exchanges during service negotiation need to be specified, the actual packet formats may depend on the multiple protocols that the transaction is layered over, e.g., XML over HTTP, RSVP, or other. A further objective of the WG is as such the documentation of the semantics of the negotiation process and as such the requirements for the protocols involved in service negotiation. At present, it is not the intention of the WG to pursue the protocol specification itself, however to feed the requirements to the appropriate groups if needed. As the architecture and negotiation framework for Service Level negotiation is not particularly bound to IP networks, it is to be understood that the procedures as discussed within the proposed WG are to be extensible to optical networks (o-sls). The WG will coordinate work with other Working Groups within the IETF that are addressing technical issues which are related to this effort. Goals and Milestones -------------------- apr 01 - SLSU WG active aug 01 - submit Service Level Specification and Usage framework draft to IESG as Informational dec 01 - submit Service Level Specification information model draft to IESG as standards track dec 01 - submit Service negotiation requirements to IESG as Informational mar 02 – submit SLS mib/pib (or other) to IESG as standards track jul 02 – submit applicability statement draft to IESG as informational jul 02 - re-charter