Subject: WG Review: Source-Specific Multicast (ssm)

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2000 07:47:50 -0400

A new IETF working group has been proposed in the Routing Area.
The IESG has not made any determination as yet. 

The following Description was submitted, and is provided for
informational purposes only:

Source-Specific Multicast (ssm)
-------------------------------------

 Current Status: Proposed Working Group

 Mailing Lists: 
     General Discussion:[email-masked]
     To Subscribe:      [email-masked]
         In Body:       subscribe ssm-interest
     Archive:           

Description of Working Group:
 
The purpose of the SSM working group is to standardize and clearly
elucidate the definition of source-specific multicast in such a way as
to provide unambiguous semantics to the designers of the protocols and
host interfaces used in conjunction with source-specific multicast.

We intend SSM to be a short-lived, highly-focused working group.  The
working group will handle the following three work items related to
SSM:

1) A concise standards-track RFC that clearly defines the
   source-specific multicast model and its relation to RFC 1112
   multicast.  This document will specify of the host interfaces to be
   used for source-specific multicast, the rules that hosts, routers,
   and protocols must follow when allocating and using source-specific
   addresses.  This document will serve as a reference to RFC authors
   (possibly in other working groups) that describe the protocols and
   host interfaces used to implement SSM.  This document will be
   parented in the Internet Area, although it will be a product of this 
   working group.

2) A short standards-track RFC that formally allocates the 232.0.0.0/8
   address space to source-specific multicast.  (Similar to RFC1918 and
   to Admin-Scope.), "ratifying" the IANA allocation and referring to
   the above document for the semantics of the address range.

3) An informational RFC providing an overview of source-specific
   multicast.  This document will serve as a starting point for parties
   interested in source-specific multicast.

   SSM can be implemented by slight modifications to "standard" IP
   multicast protocols, and so some SSM-related documents will be taken
   on as work items by the appropriate related multicast working groups> 
   that have more specific expertise, namely pim, mboned, idmr.  In
   particular, a document specifying PIM-SM modifications that implement
   SSM will (likely) be adopted by the PIM working group.  A document
   describing IGMPv3 modifications for SSM will (likely) be adopted by
   IDMR.

The SSM working group chairs will cooperate with the chairs of the
related working groups and the Area Directors to determine the
appropriate location (if any) of the SSM-related document that arise
during the lifetime of the SSM working group.

A significant amount of work on SSM has already occurred, therefore we
believe that the SSM working group can quickly complete all of its
work items.