Subject: [bmwg] Document Shepherd's Note on draft-ietf-bmwg-mpls-forwarding-meth-03.txt

From: Al Morton <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:36:27 -0400

Ron, BMWG,

This is a publication request for

MPLS Forwarding Benchmarking Methodology for IP Flows
draft-ietf-bmwg-mpls-forwarding-meth-03.txt

as an INFORMATIONAL RFC.

     (1.a) Who is the Document Shepherd for this document? Has the
           Document Shepherd personally reviewed this version of the
           document and, in particular, does he or she believe this
           version is ready for forwarding to the IESG for publication?
Al Morton, chair of BMWG, has personally reviewed the document and will
be the document shepherd. The document is ready for publication.

     (1.b) Has the document had adequate review both from key WG members
           and from key non-WG members? Does the Document Shepherd have
           any concerns about the depth or breadth of the reviews that
           have been performed?
Yes, this document has been refined in terms of its coverage and detail
over the last 3 years, with good working group and external reviewer comments
and addressed.  Since becoming a chartered working group item last year,
the draft has seen two WGLCs with many additional & constructive comments.
The 2nd WGLC was cross-posted to the mpls WG list, and there was some feedback.
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/mpls/current/msg02827.html
The last WGLC went quietly, indicating that the BMWG is
now satisfied with the document.

     (1.c) Does the Document Shepherd have concerns that the document
           needs more review from a particular or broader perspective,
           e.g., security, operational complexity, someone familiar with
           AAA, internationalization or XML?
No, this methodology appears to satisfy its stated scope, and has benefited
from the extensive review including those listed in the Acknowledgements
section, and from a recently added co-author.

     (1.d) Does the Document Shepherd have any specific concerns or
           issues with this document that the Responsible Area Director
           and/or the IESG should be aware of? For example, perhaps he
           or she is uncomfortable with certain parts of the document, or
           has concerns whether there really is a need for it. In any
           event, if the WG has discussed those issues and has indicated
           that it still wishes to advance the document, detail those
           concerns here. Has an IPR disclosure related to this document
           been filed? If so, please include a reference to the
           disclosure and summarize the WG discussion and conclusion on
           this issue.
No specific issues. Development of this draft has been smooth.
No known IPR.

     (1.e) How solid is the WG consensus behind this document? Does it
           represent the strong concurrence of a few individuals, with
           others being silent, or does the WG as a whole understand and
           agree with it?
There were some minor comments addressed as part of the third WGLC (mine),
but otherwise the WG as a whole understands this draft and the need for it.
WG commentary has been sufficiently active.

     (1.f) Has anyone threatened an appeal or otherwise indicated extreme
           discontent? If so, please summarize the areas of conflict in
           separate email messages to the Responsible Area Director. (It
           should be in a separate email because this questionnaire is
           entered into the ID Tracker.)
No.
     (1.g) Has the Document Shepherd personally verified that the
           document satisfies all ID nits? (See
           http://www.ietf.org/ID-Checklist.html and
           http://tools.ietf.org/tools/idnits/). Boilerplate checks are
           not enough; this check needs to be thorough. Has the document
           met all formal review criteria it needs to, such as the MIB
           Doctor, media type and URI type reviews?
The draft passes all nits checks, except for one false alarm:
   == There are 1 instance of lines with non-RFC3330-compliant IPv4 addresses
      in the document.  If these are example addresses, they should be changed.

which seems to be related to a section number reference on separate lines:
      port(s) Bp. The frame may contain either an IP packet or an MPLS
      packet depending on the testcase need, as described in the Section
      4.1.4.3. Furthermore, the IP packet must be either an IPv4 or IPv6
      ^^^^^^^

     (1.h) Has the document split its references into normative and
           informative? Are there normative references to documents that
           are not ready for advancement or are otherwise in an unclear
           state? If such normative references exist, what is the
           strategy for their completion? Are there normative references
           that are downward references, as described in [RFC3967]? If
           so, list these downward references to support the Area
           Director in the Last Call procedure for them [RFC3967].
No downward references.

     (1.i) Has the Document Shepherd verified that the document IANA
           consideration section exists and is consistent with the body
           of the document? If the document specifies protocol
           extensions, are reservations requested in appropriate IANA
           registries? Are the IANA registries clearly identified? If
           the document creates a new registry, does it define the
           proposed initial contents of the registry and an allocation
           procedure for future registrations? Does it suggest a
           reasonable name for the new registry? See [RFC5226]. If the
           document describes an Expert Review process has Shepherd
           conferred with the Responsible Area Director so that the IESG
           can appoint the needed Expert during the IESG Evaluation?
Yes.

     (1.j) Has the Document Shepherd verified that sections of the
           document that are written in a formal language, such as XML
           code, BNF rules, MIB definitions, etc., validate correctly in
           an automated checker?
Not Applicable.

     (1.k) The IESG approval announcement includes a Document
           Announcement Write-Up. Please provide such a Document
           Announcement Write-Up? Recent examples can be found in the
           "Action" announcements for approved documents. The approval
           announcement contains the following sections:

           Technical Summary
    Over the past several years, there has been an increase in the use
    of MPLS as a forwarding architecture in new and existing network
    designs. However, there is no standard method defined to compare 
and contrast
    the foundational MPLS packet forwarding capabilities of network
    devices. This document specifies a methodology using common criteria
    (such as throughput, latency, frame loss rate, system recovery,
    reset etc.) to evaluate MPLS forwarding of any implementation.

    The purpose of this document is to describe a methodology specific
    to the benchmarking of MPLS forwarding devices. The methods
    described are limited in scope to the most common MPLS packet
    forwarding scenarios and corresponding performance measurements in a
    laboratory setting.  This document focuses on the MPLS label 
stack having only
    one entry, as it is the fundamental of MPLS forwarding.

           Working Group Summary
    Development of this memo was smooth.
    The memo has been refined in terms of its coverage and detail
    over the last 3 years, with good working group and external reviewer
    comments addressed.

           Document Quality
   The authors are not aware of fully functional implementation of this
   method, although a number of test tool vendors are considering it, with
   variable levels of commitment. Many WG members have thoroughly reviewed this
   memo. Reviewers of previous versions include: Carlos Pignataro,
   Rodney Dunn, Scott Bradner, and Bill Cerveny.