russ housley ietf chair internet2 spring member meeting 28 april 2009 successful protocol...
TRANSCRIPT
Russ Housley
IETF Chair
Internet2 Spring Member Meeting
28 April 2009
Successful Protocol Development
Internet Engineering Task Force
“We make the net work” The mission of the IETF is to produce high
quality, relevant technical and engineering documents that influence the way people design, use, and manage the Internet in such a way as to make the Internet work better. These documents include protocol standards, best current practices, and informational documents of various kinds. [RFC 3935]
IETF Open Standards
While the mission of the IETF is to make the Internet work better, no one is “in charge” of the Internet. Instead, many people cooperate to make it work. Each person brings a unique perspective of the Internet, and this diversity sometimes makes it difficult to reach consensus. Yet, when consensus is achieved, the outcome is better, clearer, and more strongly supported than the initial position of any participant.
Successful protocols
Consider the following successful protocols:Inter-domain: IPv4, TCP, UDP, HTTP, SMTP, DNS, …Intra-domain: ARP, PPP, DHCP, OSPF, …
Successful: a protocol that is used in the way it was originally envisioned
Wildly Successful: a successful protocol that is deployed on a scale much greater than originally envisioned or used in ways beyond its original design
Potential success factors
1. Meets a real need 2. Incremental deployment 3. Open code availability 4. Freedom from usage restrictions 5. Open specification availability 6. Open development and maintenance processes 7. Good technical design
Additional “wild success” factors: 8. Extensible 9. No hard scalability limitations10. Security threats sufficiently mitigated
Success factor importance
1. Meets a real need 2. Incremental deployment 3. Open code availability 4. Freedom from usage restrictions 5. Open specification availability 6. Open development and maintenance processes 7. Good technical design
Additional “wild success” factors: 8. Extensible 9. No hard scalability limitations10. Security threats sufficiently mitigated
Role of the IETF
Many successful IETF protocols have origins outside the IETF Technical quality not a primary factor in success
IETF had a role in improving many of these protocols, often after success of version 1
Much easier when version 1 included a mechanism for extensibility At least a protocol version number
IETF takes on work when …
The problem needs to be solved The scope is well defined and understood Agreement that the specific deliverables Reasonable probability of timely completion People willing to do the work
IETF is right place when …
The problem fits one of the IETF Areas Applications Internet Operations and Management Real-time Applications and Infrastructure Routing Security Transport
Working to get better at problems that span Areas Have had bad experiences with problems that span
Standards Development Organizations (SDOs)
IETF is successful when …
Participants care about solving the problem Participants represent all stakeholders
I’d like to see more Research andEducational Network (REN) involvement.
I’d like to see more networkoperator involvement too.
Protocol development Successful Internet protocols have come from
top-down and bottom-up approaches Bottom-up is more common today Most things are incremental improvements
Internet challenges Different technologies are pulling the Internet in
many different directions Power Bandwidth Mobility New applications Infrastructure
I’d like to see more academic researchers involved.
Power
Routers Consume lots of power and generate lots of heat Demands for even greater throughput
Small and Mobile Devices Act as always connected Many very small devices are servers Demands for longer battery life
Bandwidth
Big pipes Greater bandwidth than ever before, and not just
between large data centers
Availability Competing technologies benefit consumers More that 20% of the world's population has access
to the Internet, and it is growing steadily
Mobility
Mobile Devices More and more capabilities: voice, video, email,
instant messaging, web browsing, geo-location
Mobile Networks Ships, trains, and planes (and soon automobiles)
Critical system using Internet protocols Connect passenger’s mobile and portable
devices
New ApplicationsMany new applications Voice, video, and entertainment Social networking Peer-to-peer (p2p) Presence and geo-location Synchronization among devices
Changing perception of the Internet Critical Demand for privacy and security
Infrastructure
IPv4 Address Exhaustion 2010: IANA unused IPv4 address pool empty IPv6 offers much greater address space
IPv4 to IPv6 transition mechanisms under development
Infrastructure Security DNS Security: authentication and integrity Routing Security: first steps toward authorization
Challenge Summary
Different technologies are pulling the Internet in many different directions:
More demanding applications transferring much more data from many more locations to many more locations being used by many more users on vastly more devices
Your experience is needed to meet these challenges.
