Framework for White Pages Service in the Internet BOF (PAGES)
Reported by Joan Gargano/UC Davis and Alexis Bor/Boeing
Introduction
The agenda was reviewed and approved.
The purpose of this BOF is to discuss the principles of the white pages
meta-service described in RFC 1588 and to define the framework it
provides to the various white pages services (WPS).
The intended results of this BOF are to produce a description of the
basic white pages service framework, identify the issues common to all
WPS that would benefit from standardization to provide more
functionality between them, identify the working groups that need to be
established and draft a charter, and categorize key issues into common
WPS issues and protocol specific issues.
Overview of RFC 1588 and the Application of the Recommendations to
NetFind
Mike Schwartz presented a summary of the findings and recommendation
from the NSF meeting in November 1993 and identified several additional
issues:
o Discovery approach (NetFind site database? Centroids?)
o How to handle non-standard URLs (define a proxy server?)
o Data model (raw text - X.500 data elements)
o Multiprotocol communication architecture
o Privacy law limits to proactive data gathering
A short discussion followed regarding NetFind as a proactive data
gathering mechanism.
Discussion of the Basic White Pages Service Framework
The following agenda items were identified for discussion:
o Identify the issues common to all WPS that would benefit from
standardization to provide more functionality between them (i.e.
data elements, indexing and security).
o Identify the working groups that need to be established and a draft
of a charter. Three working groups were suggested to discuss
issues related to protocols, interoperability and indexing, and
policy.
o Categorize key issues into common WPS issues and protocol-specific
issues.
A general discussion of white pages services followed including the
following issues:
o White pages definitions
o Privacy issues
o Security
o The need to separate data management from white pages services
o The need to support self-defining services/data elements
o Call back features for sites with restricted directory services
o Indexing
o Super-client versus super-servers as meta-service models
o WPS as a service within other applications such as electronic mail
interfaces
Environmental factors were discussed which make the WPS service
different from earlier services such as DNS:
o WPS data is already managed in institutional databases
o IETF standards cannot impose order or constraints on institutional
data
o People need to search for WPS information in many different ways
o A number of directory access protocols exist
The following recommendations were made:
o A working group should be formed to write a white pages service
requirements document. This group must complete its work before
the next IETF meeting. The first working meeting is scheduled for
Friday 1 April. The chair will be Tony Genovese. The mailing list
for this work is wps@surfnet.nl. For addition to the list, send
mail to wps-request@surfnet.nl.
The discussion archive will be accessible via anonymous FTP on
ftp.es.net:pub/ietf/wps. It will also be accessible via Gopher on
gopher.es.net, path 1/pub/ietf/wps, port 70.
o A working group should be formed to work on directory service
protocol. This work should be performed under the proposed Access
and Synchronization of the Internet Directory Working Group (ASID),
chaired by Tim Howes.
o A working group should be formed to work on acceptable practices,
administrative and policies issues related to white pages services.
This work should be performed in the Integrated Directory Services
group, chaired by Tim Howes and Chris Weider.
o Following completion of the work on functional requirements, a
working group should be formed to look at interoperability issues.
Second Session Overview
A number of people felt that a short requirements document could help
focus the development of the Internet White Pages Service (IWPS). It
seemed that there were a couple of areas that could benefit from a well
defined set of requirements (i.e., naming and schema).
At the first session of the PAGES BOF, it was decided to use the second
session to let a small group of interested people meet on these issues.
They were to begin the effort of defining a set of requirements or
specifications for the Internet White Pages Service. Tony Genovese was
volunteered to help facilitate this effort. The area director set the
time frame for this effort to be less than four months. The work of
this group is to be finished before the next IETF meeting.
Working Group Goal/Charter
A short discussion covered the working group goal. It was asked if we
are going to specify a solution or list requirements? It was generally
felt that the area of requirements has been well explored in other RFCs
(i.e., RFC 1588). What we needed were specific recommendations for the
service. To meet the area director's time frame, the following schedule
was proposed:
o April 15 - Approve charter
o April 30 - Develop first draft
o May 31 - Submit first revision of RFC
o June 30 - Produce final draft of RFC
o September 15 - Complete work and shut down the working group
If we cannot reach consensus or find valid solutions for these issues
within the time allotted, the group will stop its efforts. This would
leave the general set of requirements, without specifics, to other RFCs
(i.e., RFC 1588).
Meeting Goal
The goal of this meeting was to develop an initial outline for the RFC.
We were not going to deal with the technical solutions for the
identified topics, though at times this was unavoidable. It was
generally agreed that the RFC should only be a couple of pages long.
The approach for meeting the working group requirements will be to
borrow from existing technology when at all possible. Specifications of
some areas of the IWPS may not be obtainable in the time frame given us.
If an issue is believed to still need work, the working group may
recommend the development of another standards track RFC specific to
this issue.
The following are the issues that were felt the IWPS requirements RFC
will need to be deal with:
o Purpose/scope
o Naming
o Schema
o Machine/human access to data
o Conceptual model
o Profiling of implementations
o Navigation/searching
o Performance
o Data integrity
o Reference documents
Technical Presentations
Paul-Andre Pays gave an overview of a number of the issues this proposed
working group would needs to deal with. The details of his presentation
and the chronology of the meeting can be found in the documents
directory of the archive in the file ``Detailed Minutes Presentations.''
Sri Sataluri was unable to make his presentation.
Attendees
Claudio Allocchio Claudio.Allocchio@elettra.trieste.it
Alexis Bor bora@ct.si.cs.boeing.com
Luc Boulianne lucb@bunyip.com
Mic Bowman mic@transarc.com
Gregg Brekke gbrekke@mr.net
Robert Brenner Robert.W.Brenner@gte.sprint.com
Randy Bush randy@psg.com
Susan Calcari susanc@internic.net
C. Allan Cargille allan.cargille@cs.wisc.edu
Michael Carroll br.mjc@rlg.stanford.edu
Vinton Cerf vcerf@cnri.reston.va.us
Cyrus Chow cchow@ames.arc.nasa.gov
Robert Christ rchrist@fhcrc.org
Charles Combs 0003647213@mcimail.com
Jim Conklin jbc@bitnic.educom.edu
David Conrad davidc@iij.ad.jp
Robert Cooney cooney@wnyose.nctsw.navy.mil
Ann Cooper cooper@isi.edu
Curtis Cox ccox@wnyosi7.nctsw.navy.mil
Mark Crispin mrc@cac.washington.edu
Roger Cyganer cygander@telebit.comm
Glen Daniels gub@elf.com
Shane Davis shane@delphi.com
Michael Elkins elkins@areo.org
Alan Emtage bajan@bunyip.com
Robert Enger enger@seka.reston.ans.net
Urs Eppenberger eppenberger@switch.ch
Sheryl Erez erez@cac.washington.edu.
Michael Erlinger mike@jarthur.claremont.edu
Richard Everman reverman@ka.reg.uci.edu
Roger Fajman raf@cu.nih.gov
Patrik Faltstrom paf@nada.kth.se
Jill Foster Jill.Foster@newcastle.ac.uk
Lois Frampton frampton@mitre.org
Paul Francis francis@cactus.slab.ntt.jp
Ned Freed ned@innosoft.com
Kevin Gamiel kgamiel@cnidr.org
Joan Gargano jcgargano@ucdavis.edu
Tony Genovese genovese@es.net
Arlene Getchell getchell@es.net
Shawn Gillam shawn@timonware.com
William Gilliam wag@cup.hp.com
Judith Grass grass@cnri.reston.va.us
Sally Hambridge sallyh@ludwig.intel.com
Deborah Hamilton debbieh@internic.net
Darren Hardy hardy@cs.colorado.edu
Alisa Hata hata@cac.washington.edu
Roland Hedberg Roland.Hedberg@umdac.umu.se
Marco Hernandez marco@cren.net
Jeff Hodges hodges@jessica.stanford.edu
Alex Hopmann alex.hopmann@resnova.com
Tim Howes tim@umich.edu
Richard Huber rvh@ds.internic.net
Steven Hubert hubert@cac.washington.edu
Jeff Hughes jeff@col.hp.com
Erik Huizer Erik.Huizer@SURFnet.nl
Ryu Inada ryu@fujixerox.co.jp
Barbara Jennings bjjenni@sandia.gov
Matthew Jonson jonson@ddn.af.mil
Marko Kaittola Marko.Kaittola@dante.org.uk
John Klensin Klensin@infoods.unu.edu
Richard Kooijman r.kooijman@et.tudelft.nl
Mark Kosters markk@internic.net
John Kunze jak@violet.berkeley.edu
Sylvain Langlois Sylvain.Langlois@der.edf.fr
Frank Liu fcliu@pacbell.com
Paul Lu lu@pmel.noaa.gov
Glenn Mansfield glenn@aic.co.jp
April Marine april@atlas.arc.nasa.gov
Marilyn Martin martin@netcom.ubc.ca
Larry Masinter masinter@parc.xerox.com
Chip Matthes chip@delphi.com
Laura McCarty lmccarty@pmel.noaa.gov
Daniel McDonald danmcd@itd.nrl.navy.mil
David Miller dlm@cac.washington.edu
Linda Millington l.millington@noc.ulcc.ac.uk
Keith Moore moore@cs.utk.edu
Chris Newman chrisn+@cmu.edu
Martin Pagel martinp@microsoft.com
Paul-Andre Pays pays@faugeres.inria.fr
Pete Percival percival@indiana.edu
Karen Petraska-Veum karen.veum@gsfc.nasa.gov
George Phillips phillips@cs.ubc.ca
William Pickard bpickard@halcyon.com
Jon Postel postel@isi.edu
Thomas Powell sestrada@aldea.com
Mark Prior mrp@itd.adelaide.edu.au
Francois Robitaille francois.robitaille@crim.ca
Deb Rodgers deb@cac.washington.edu
Jim Romaguera romaguera@netconsult.ch
Marshall T. Rose mrose.iesg@dbc.mtview.ca.us
Steven Russert srussert@atc.boeing.com
Greg Ruth gruth@gte.com
Srinivas Sataluri sri@internic.net
Corey Satten corey@cac.washington.edu
Rickard Schoultz schoultz@sunet.se
Michael Schwartz schwartz@cs.colorado.edu
Chris Seabrook cds@ossi.com
Timon Sloane timon@timonware.com
Mark Smith m_smith@hitachi.com
Mark Smith mcs@umich.edu
Suzanne Smith smith@es.net
Karen Sollins sollins@lcs.mit.edu
Milan Sova sova@feld.cvut.cz
David Staudt dstaudt@nsf.gov
Ira Steckler isteckle@chipcom.com
Einar Stefferud stef@nma.com
Peter Sylvester peter.sylvester@inria.fr
Dave Thompson davet@ncsa.uiuc.edu
Phil Trubey ptrubey@netcom.com
Wendell Turner wt@arinc.com
Ruediger Volk rv@informatik.uni-dortmund.de
Chris Weider clw@bunyip.com
Geoff White geoff@nexsys.net
Scott Williamson scottw@nic.ddn.mil
Dan Wood dwood@bbn.com
Russ Wright wright@lbl.gov