Subject: [Gen-art] Gen-ART review of draft-ietf-mip4-vpn-problem-solution-04.txt

From: Suresh Krishnan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2008 15:04:54 -0500

I am the assigned Gen-ART reviewer for
draft-ietf-mip4-vpn-problem-solution-04.txt

For background on Gen-ART, please see the FAQ at
<http://www.alvestrand.no/ietf/gen/art/gen-art-FAQ.html>.

Please resolve these comments along with any other Last Call comments
you may receive.

Summary: Ready for publication. All my technical comments on the earlier 
version of this draft have been addressed.

Process nit
===========
I am still concerned about the draft being a BCP rather than a Standards 
track document since it requires changes to node implementations and 
requires behavioral changes on some nodes.

Cheers
Suresh

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---

From: "Eric Gray" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 14:55:52 -0600

Suresh, et al,

	I am not sure it is appropriate to treat the issue of this
being possibly published as a BCP as a "process nit".

	There are a lot of required behaviors and no discussion to
lead one to conclude that these are already existing behaviors 
in any part of the "problem space."  In fact, what discussion
there is includes statements like:

   "This document outlines the proposed solution for IPv4."

	That doesn't sound like an endorsement of an existing
approach one should expect from a BCP.

	The entire Abstract says only this:

"This document outlines a solution for the Mobile IPv4 and IPsec
 coexistence problem for enterprise users.  The solution consists
 of an applicability statement for using Mobile IPv4 and IPsec
 for session mobility in corporate remote access scenarios, and a
 required mechanism for detecting the trusted internal network
 securely."

	The introduction includes a bullet requirement of the 
"solution specified in this document" that says "must minimize 
changes to existing firewall/VPN/DMZ deployments" - clearly
implying that some significant part of the deployed equipment
may require changes (further begging a question about where 
and when the "current practices" should be discovered).

	In fact, the introduction explicitly states -

"Unfortunately the current Mobile IPv4 and IPsec standards alone
 do not provide such a service" 

- where the service referred to is (presumably) the target solution
proposed by this document.

	As I understand it, the use of "Best Current Practices"
is intended to document the best of (possibly several) existing
solutions for use in the network.  Using a BCP to propose a new
set of "practices" - particularly where those practices involve
required behaviors in existing devices that may or may not be
present, and without any obvious mention of at least considering
that as an issue - (at worst) looks effectively like an "end-run" 
effort to avoid standards track processes, or (at best) severely
optimistic interpretation of the phrase "current practice".

	Have BCPs become the new standard's track?

--
Eric Gray
Principal Engineer
Ericsson  

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] 
> [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Suresh Krishnan
> Sent: Monday, March 03, 2008 3:05 PM
> To: General Area Review Team; [email-masked]; [email-masked]
> Cc: [email-masked]; Henrik Levkowetz; Jari Arkko
> Subject: [Gen-art] Gen-ART review 
> ofdraft-ietf-mip4-vpn-problem-solution-04.txt
>