Editor's Note: Minutes received 12/1/92
CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_
Reported by Marco E. Sosa/Bellcore
Minutes of the Virtual Circuit Routing BOF (VCROUT)
The meeting was organized as a BOF to determine if there was enough
interest in forming an IETF working group to develop a standard routing
algorithm for choosing paths for virtual connection set-up in a Frame
Relay or ATM network. The meeting was attended by more than 48 people.
The meeting was a presentation led by Rob Coltun covering the issues
discussed at a previous meeting. Audience feedback/discussion on the
scope of issues addressed was encouraged and received. (So much so that
we didn't even get through the summary of the previous meeting's
outcomes.) The talk included:
o Scope of the proposed working group.
o Initial set of issues/plan of attack discussed at previous meeting.
In addition, Juha Heinanen presented his proposal for integrated routing
using NSAP addressing.
After much discussion the Group decided that there was enough interest
that a IETF working group should be formed.
A mailing list has already been set up at vc-routing@gated.cornell.edu.
Please use vc-routing-request@gated.cornell.edu to join.
The following topics were addressed:
o Rob and Marco Sosa (Bellcore) will co-Chair the Working Group and
edit the resulting specification (standards-track RFC?).
o Rob and Marco will co-author an (informational) Internet-Draft,
before the next IETF, which will outline the envisioned scope and
architecture for which the resulting specification will apply,
including what we think are the major issues to resolve. This will
incorporate any input received from the mailing list.
o The resulting specification should be based on existing standards/
implementation agreements. OSPF/RMP is one of the starting points
for our proposal (RMP is an OSPF-based protocol used in
multi-switch SMDS networks).
o The work of this Group should not duplicate the work that is being
done in other standard groups/forums.
o The initial focus of the Group should be within a single routing
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domain (Autonomous System) with up to 1000 switches. Inter-domain
routing issues will also be looked into, possibly based on IDRP.
o We will specify the routing protocol used between switches in the
routing domain. A switch may in fact be distributed, running
proprietary protocols internally.
o What address resolution is performed by attached end-systems (and
how), is a hot topic that can not be decided by this Group.
However, it may be appropriate to specify a means of resolving the
addresses received within a call set-up message into a network
internal switch/ port identifier to be used by the routing
protocol.
o Q.933 (FR)/Q.93B (ATM) signaling will be base for virtual circuit
management work. The Group will look into extending these as
needed to define an inter-switch call set-up protocol (algorithm
and format) that will include an option for inter-domain and
inter-domain (loose) source route call set-up.
o Alternative methods for the format of the switch identifiers were
discussed. Using a private 32-bit address (which could be an IP
address) to ID a switch or using variable-length public NSAPs to
identify end stations attached to a switch and routing based on
these were the two main options.
o Assignment of link metrics was discussed. There seemed to be
agreement that metrics should be settable through administration.
There is also a proposal to define default metrics to provide a
consistent metric all switches could handle (as metrics may change
dynamically). The proposal is to look into using the SMDS RMP
default metrics as the base. Modifications are needed to base the
metric on ``unreserved effective BW'' rather than capacity.
Effective BW allows for over-reservation of links and leaves open
possibility of a better traffic descriptor than peak rate or CIR.
Also, ``damping'' procedures will be needed to make sure excessive
LSAs are not sent (don't want new LSA every time a new connection
is reserved over a link).
o Three different classes of service were discussed, VC, Datagram,
and ``Soft VC'' (like VC but without strict QOS guarantees,
possibly allowing simpler call rerouting).
The co-Chairs will create a draft Charter based on the agreements of the
two meetings.
Attendees
Cynthia Bagwell cbagwell@gateway.mitre.org
Fred Baker fbaker@acc.com
Ken Benstead kbenstead@coral.com
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Lou Berger lberger@bbn.com
Shiraz Bhanji bhanji@gateway.mitre.org
Edo Biagioni esb@fore.com
Ken Carlberg Carlberg@cseic.saic.com
Kay Chang chang@chang.austin.ibm.com
Dilip Chatwani dilip@synoptics.com
Dean Cheng dean@sun2.retix.com
Chi Chong cchong@synoptics.com
George Clapp clapp@ameris.center.il.ameritech.com
Robert Cole rgc@qsun.att.com
Osmund de Souza osmund.desouza@att.com
Art Dertke dertke@gateway.mitre.org
Jacques Dugast dugast@issy.cnet.fr
Robert Enger enger@reston.ans.net
Mike Goguen goguen@src.dec.com
Patrick Hanel hanel@yoyodyne.dco.ntc.nokia.com
Ken Hayward crm57d@bnr.ca
Frank Heath heath@cmc.com
David Husak dave@synnet.com
David Jacobson dnjake@vnet.ibm.com
Merike Kaeo merike@alw.nih.gov
George Kajos kajos@coral.com
Fong-Ching Liaw fong@eng.sun.com
Olli-Pekka Lintula olli-pekka.lintula@ntc.nokia.com
Robin Littlefield rlittlef@wellfleet.com
Andrew Malis malis@bbn.com
Tracy Mallory tracym@3com.com
Robert Moose rmoose@gateway.mitre.org
Julianne Myers jmyers@network.com
Erik Nordmark nordmark@eng.sun.com
Bala Rajagopalan braja@qsun.att.com
Jim Scott scott@kali.enet.dec.com
Frank Solensky solensky@andr.ub.com
Marco Sosa mxs@sabre.bellcore.com
Brad Steinka brad@microcom.com
Terrance Sullivan terrys@newbridge.com
John Tavs tavs@vnet.ibm.com
Dono van-Mierop dono_van_mierop@3mail.3com.com
James Watt james@newbridge.com
Luanne Waul luanne@wwtc.timeplex.com
Guy Wells guy2@uswest.com
Ian Wilson ianw@spider.co.uk
Liang Wu ltw99@bellcore.com
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