Subject: [6lowapp] End of vacation period... BOF request deadline coming up

From: Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 12:40:26 +0200

The timing of the summer IETF is somewhat unfortunate, since at least  
the European participants fall into the great holiday void of August  
immediately afterward.
This is my first day back in the office, so I'd like to welcome the  
now 51 members of the mailing list.

We already have a target date coming up close: Today is the deadline  
for submitting BOF requests for IETF 76 (Hiroshima).
I have no idea who put this important date on the Canadian/US Labor  
Day, but that's the way it is.
I think we are in reasonable shape with an existing problem statement  
draft and some structure on the Wiki, but the actual BOF request has  
to be written today.

I'll send a proposal for a BOF request later today, then we have a  
couple of hours to discuss it before we have to hand it in.
I don't think it makes sense to try to attach a charter proposal to  
that BOF request -- the main result of *the BOF* should be the  
structure of the work.
The AD has to approve (or not) the BOF proposal next Monday (Sep 14),  
so we'll be to change some details in that process.
(And then we have two months to do the actual work leading to a good  
BOF.)

Stay tuned for later today...

Gruesse, Carsten

---

From: Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 17:05:36 +0200

On Sep 7, 2009, at 12:40, Carsten Bormann wrote:

> I'll send a proposal for a BOF request later today

I condensed some offline input to the proposal below.

Feedback welcome, from "+1" to "that doesn't work for me", please!
(Feedback needed today for the initial proposal.)

Gruesse, Carsten

(Draft) BOF request for IETF 76 (Hiroshima)
$Revision: 1.2 $

BOF Name: 6lowapp
Area: APP
Conflicts:
-- must avoid: 6LoWPAN, ROLL, APPAREA, OPSAREA
-- Avoid if possible: TSVAREA, SAAG
-- (others???)
Expected attendance: ~100 (see below)
Timeslot: 120 minutes

BOF Chairs: Carsten Bormann, Zach Shelby

Description:

The 6LoWPAN and ROLL WGs are laying the groundwork to make the
Wireless Embedded Internet a reality, but what application protocols
will we use? Request-response protocols like HTTP are a poor fit to a
communication model with battery-operated, mostly sleeping nodes. In
addition, the usual data formats (both headers and body) are perceived
to be too chatty for the 50-60 byte payloads possible in LoWPANs and
to require too much code for the 8-bit and 16-bit processors
dominating the Internet of Things. Still, it would be a mistake to
start a new silo of application protocols that do not benefit from
existing application area Internet experience.

In the 6lowapp Bar BOF discussion at IETF 75 in Stockholm, five areas
of work were identified.  (Section references point to the problem
statement document, http://tools.ietf.org/html/6lowapp-problem .)

a -- Security (section 6).

b -- Transport (section 3).
    TCP is often considered relatively heavyweight while UDP lacks the
    necessary reliability and ordering services. Results of
    6LowApp-related activities might include a "profiling" of TCP that
    just includes the necessary elements without losing compatibility,
    and/or a set of "building blocks" that could be used in a specific
    application protocol to enhance UDP by just the functions actually
    required.

c -- Data Representation, both for the application data and for the
    protocols themselves. This is often referred to as "binary
    encoding"; the main benefits come less from being binary than from
    being efficient, easily processable and in particular predictable
    (reducing code size). W3C EXI was one of the schemes mentioned.

d -- Base Application Protocols. HTTP and SNMP were mentioned; there is
    a strong relationship to the Transport problem on one side and the
    data representation problem on the other side. A related area is
    the choice of *Namespaces*, e.g., HTTP has URIs, SNMP has Object
    Identifiers.

e -- Service Discovery (section 4).

The BOF will focus on the last three items (c to e), with a clear
emphasis on application (d) and service discovery (e) protocols.
(Rationale: a and b probably require longer time frames and may fan
out to different IETF areas.  This does not mean we should ignore them.)

The goal of the BOF is to build up the content for a WG charter
proposal for one initial working group in the APP area.

Agenda (2 hours):

  5 min   Agenda bashing                               Carsten
10 min   Goal and purpose of the BOF                  Carsten
10 min   Description of the problem/problem space     Carsten
15 min	 6lowapp WG proposal			      Zach
30 min   Contributions so far 			      TBC
          Several drafts are in the pipeline for submission before the
          Hiroshima initial I-D deadline, 2009-10-19.  It would be
          premature to make an exact list, but subjects will include:
          -- Requirements input (Building automation, Smart energy)
          -- Input from relevant large projects (e.g., SENSEI)
          -- Solutions based on existing standards (EXI, IPFIX)
          -- Solutions based on industry protocols
40 min   Open Discussion                              All
10 min   Calling the questions                        ADs

Further Reading:
-- 6lowapp Wiki                  http://6lowapp.net
-- 6lowapp Problem Statement     http://tools.ietf.org/html/6lowapp-problem

Expected Audience:

The 6lowapp mailing list has 51 members, many of which were attendees
of the Stockholm Bar BOF.  Other potential attendees include ROLL and
6LoWPAN attendees, plus other interested APP area attendees.
(Influence of the meeting location in both directions, very hard to
estimate.)

---

From: "Don Sturek" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 08:16:01 -0700

Hi Carsten,

Agree with the text below (mark me down as "+1").  Here is what I can commit
to in the coming weeks:
1)  An I-D on an extension to SLP for small footprint devices (using an
encoded binary protocol that will be compatible with existing SLP).  I
submitted the proposal as part of the "ZigBee IP" work and am in the process
of writing the I-D for it along with Dan Lohman of Itron.
2)  The ZigBee/HomePlug Technical requirements document should be
complete/reviewed in time for Hiroshima and publicly available.  It was
contributions from 14 or so utilities plus many/most of the large vendors in
the metering space.  It would be worth a discussion of key requirements from
that document (some were presented during my presentation in Stockholm but
the document was not nearly complete at that time).

Best Regards,

Don Sturek

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf
Of Carsten Bormann
Sent: Monday, September 07, 2009 8:06 AM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [6lowapp] End of vacation period... BOF request deadline coming
up

Gruesse, Carsten

BOF Name: 6lowapp
Area: APP
Conflicts:

Description:

Agenda (2 hours):

Further Reading:

Expected Audience:

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