Subject: Protocol Action: 'Advice for Internet Subnetwork Designers' to BCP

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 13:27:49 -0500

The IESG has approved the following document:

- 'Advice for Internet Subnetwork Designers '
   <draft-ietf-pilc-link-design-15.txt> as a BCP

This document is the product of the Performance Implications of Link 
Characteristics Working Group. 

The IESG contact persons are Allison Mankin and Jon Peterson.

Technical Summary
 
This document provides advice to the designers of digital
communication equipment, link-layer protocols and packet-switched
subnetworks (collectively referred to as subnetworks) who wish to
support the Internet protocols but who may be unfamiliar with the
Internet architecture and the implications of their design choices on
the performance and efficiency of the Internet.

The document includes among its topics: recommendations about maximum
transmission units and their tradeoffs for slow subnetwork types;
issues with connection-oriented subnetwork designs; recommendations
for multicast capabilities for links; recommendations for reliability,
error control, and their interactions with TCP, as the major reliable
transport protocol in the Internet; recommendations about use of
compression; recommendations about avoidance of significant packet
reordering; and recommendations that both link-level and end-to-end
security be used for their particular benefits.

This document represents a consensus of the members of the IETF
Performance Implications of Link Characteristics (PILC) working
group.

Working Group Summary

The working group strongly supported advancement of this
document.

Protocol Quality

The document was reviewed for the IESG by Mark Allman and Allison
Mankin.