Subject: [eman] Overall approach

From: Bruce Nordman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2010 15:08:15 -0800

This email is my opinion as a contributor,  not as WG co-chair.

I was not involved in creation of our charter, so did not express my views

on it at that time.  Also, as new to the IETF process, I have been cautious

on how much I put out to the email list.  As we can now meet in person,

I would welcome side conversations with any of you that I have not yet

been conversing with directly – please find me since I don’t know who

you are.

Perhaps the most basic issue is determining the balance between *reporting*

and *control* in our discussions and final product(s).  Reporting seems a

precondition for control.  The question is whether control is no part of our

initial work, a small part, or large.  Certainly control is part of the
topic of

“Energy Management”.

I believe that power/energy reporting can be universal as it is independent

of functionality, control objectives, and usage contexts.  Reporting only
gets

to be device-specific to the degree that we assign detailed functional
meaning

to power states (this is one reason why I believe in few basic power states
for

a generic facility).  Even if we created a good and useful facility for
control,

it would not be universal, and I expect never used by even a majority of
devices

on the Internet (but may get good use by many so well-worth pursuing).

So, I think the architecture/framework for eman should be designed for
reporting

only so that it is optimized for that.  Then, we can consider what control

mechanisms can be layered on top and are a logical extension of it.  If the

architecture were to be designed for the control scenarios, it could
undermine

its effectiveness for reporting.  My reading of item 1. of our charter is
that it

gives us flexibility for a wide range of approaches, but does suggest that
control

might be secondary.

I think the difficult part of this process is the requirements and
framework.  Once

those are set, specifying the MIBs that implement that will I expect be much

easier and quicker.

As new to the IETF, I am unsure how to separate Applicability considerations

(last item) from the first requirements of Requirements and Framework (first

items).  Best I can do is see Applicability as a short description of the
result, but

Requirements and Framework speaking to why particular approaches were taken

or not taken.

On other matters from the charter, I am unsure about how critical the issue
of

transitions is.  I think we need to consider our use cases more to inform
that.

Reporting on batteries seems a worthwhile part of our work but seems on the

sidelines for the issue of how to construct the requirements and framework.

Once we have a basic facility for reporting, I do believe that we will want
to

extend it to more complex (but less universal) applications, and to control.

I do see it appropriate and necessary to be considering these in parallel to

creating our first products, and can imagine working on I-Ds that advance

these in parallel to ones that have the more narrow basic reporting focus.

-- 
*Bruce Nordman*
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
eetd.lbl.gov/ea/nordman
[email-masked]
510-486-7089
m: 510-501-7943