CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_

Reported by Tony Bates/RIPE NCC

Minutes of the Generic Internet Service Description Working Group (GISD)

After the agenda was presented, Tony Bates gave a general overview of
GISD. The overview prompted a short discussion on focus including the
following topics:


   o Is it meant for users ?  No
   o Is it meant as a checklist ?  No
   o Is it a service profile ?  No, but could be in the future


An overview of the GISD structure was also given showing how GISD
aspects are documented.  Some concern was raised about the use of
minimal/common/maximal in the sense that this could cause some
classification of service providers (SPs).  However, the general view
was that in the the context of GISD, it should be possible to word this
in such a way so as not to make this happen.  The idea behind this is to
show the options rather than to categorise; occasionally it is useful to
show different options.

The issue of ``who or what constitutes an SP'' was raised.  The point is
that anyone can call themselves a service provider but this is in fact
not the issue of GISD. The point behind GISD is to write a document so
people know what services an SP can potentially provide and how SPs
should interact with each other regarding these services.

Some people also GISD as a direct template (i.e.  a ``tick the box''
type of document).  Again, this is not the intention of GISD. However,
it could be possible at a later date to produce a template using the
terminology and list of aspects detailed in GISD.

Tony Bates gave a overview of the aspects themselves.

It was noted that ``training'' is becoming more of an issue for SPs to
provide to their customers and this could an aspect within the
``Information and coordination'' area.

A status of the current draft was given.  Thirty-eight aspects have been
defined as a result of two previous IETF BOFs on the subject.  Thus far
only eight aspects had been drafted, and the intention is to get members
of the GISD group to draft some of these aspects.  An action was placed
on Tony to produce a short GISD aspect guideline document giving details
of the format required and an index of possible aspects still needed to
be drafted.  The intention would be to work on the areas one at a time.

A basic overview of the process:


        Guideline Document (Format + index)
                |
                |
               \./
              Areas ----------------> Volunteers (select an aspect)
               /.\                        |
                |                         |
                |                         |
                +-----------------------Review
                |
               \./
            All 6 areas drafted


A related idea was when sending the index of aspects out, to seek good
candidates for a certain topic outside of the working group.  Several
people committed to writing aspects once they had seen the guideline
document.  The meeting concluded with the general consensus that the
document should be possible to come together for review by Seattle and
final copy by Toronto.


Attendees

Vikas Aggarwal           vikas@jvnc.net
Tony Bates               tony@ripe.net
Steven Blair             sblair@us.dell.com
Scott Bradner            sob@harvard.edu
Henry Clark              henryc@oar.net
David Conrad             davidc@iij.ad.jp
Vince Fuller             vaf@barrnet.net
Eugene Hastings          hastings@psc.edu
Matt Hood                hood@nsipo.nasa.gov
Jeanine Kamerdze         kamerdze@nsipo.nasa.gov
Scott Kaplan             scott@ftp.com
Sean Kennedy             liam@nic.near.net
Kim Long                 klong@sura.net
Dan Magorian             magorian@ni.umd.edu
Bill Manning             bmanning@rice.edu
Glenn Mansfield          glenn@aic.co.jp
Stephen Miller           smiller@bbn.com
Pushpendra Mohta         pushp@cerf.net
Scott Paisley            paisley@central.bldrdoc.gov
Andrew Partan            asp@uunet.uu.net
Brad Passwaters          bjp@eng.umd.edu
Marsha Perrott           perrott@prep.net
Henry Sinnreich          hsinnreich@mcimail.com
Bernhard Stockman        boss@ebone.net
Marten Terpstra          marten@ripe.net
John Veizades            veizades@ftp.com
Evan Wetstone            evanw@vnet.ibm.com
Chris Wheeler            cwheeler@cac.washington.edu