Subject: Document Action: '6LoWPAN: Overview, Assumptions, Problem Statement and Goals' to Informational RFC

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2007 18:36:19 -0400

The IESG has approved the following document:

- '6LoWPAN: Overview, Assumptions, Problem Statement and Goals '
   <draft-ietf-6lowpan-problem-08.txt> as an Informational RFC

This document is the product of the IPv6 over Low power WPAN Working 
Group. 

The IESG contact persons are Mark Townsley and Jari Arkko.

A URL of this Internet-Draft is:
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-6lowpan-problem-08.txt

Technical Summary 
6LoWPAN is specification describing how to utilize
IPv6 on top of low power, low data rate, low cost personal area
networks. These networks today being built using IEEE 802.15.4
standard radios. These radios have an extremely limited frame
size which makes it necessary to define an adaptation layer to
support link layer fragmentation and reassembly. Additionally
since these networks utilize low power transmission it is
necessary for the adaptation layer to support network layer mesh
capabilities. This specification defines the header format for
this adaptation layer.

Working Group Summary
The working group reached consensus on this document. 

Document Quality
There are at least 6 independent implementations of this protocol
being worked on and all concerns raised during the review and
WGLC have been addressed. Geoff Mulligan is the Document Shepherd.

Note to RFC Editor

1) The draft indicates in its 3rd line that the intended status is
"Standards Track". However, the document should be Informational.

2)  The document does not contain any normative statement (capitalized
MUST, MAY, SHOULD, etc.), Section 1.1 and the reference to RFC 2119 could
be safely deleted.

3) Normative references should be [ieee802.15.4] and [RFC2460], with the
remaining informative.

4) OLD: 

      An admittedly non-technical but important consideration is that
      intellectual property conditions for IP networking technology are
      either more favorable or at least better understood than
      proprietary and newer solutions.

NEW:

An admittedly non-technical but important consideration is that IP
networking technology is specified in open and freely available
specifications which is favorable or at least able to be better understood
by a wider audience than proprietary solutions.

OLD: 

   As alluded to above, devices within LoWPANs are expected to be
  deployed in exceedingly large numbers.  Additionally, they are
  expected to have limited display and input capabilities.
  Furthermore, the location of some of these devices may be hard to
  reach.  Accordingly, protocols used in LoWPANs should have minimal
  configuration, preferably work "out of the box", be easy to
  bootstrap, and enable the network to self heal given the inherent
  unreliable characteristic of these devices.  Network management
  should have little overhead yet be powerful enough to control dense
  deployment of devices.

NEW: 

  As alluded to above, devices within LoWPANs are expected to be
  deployed in exceedingly large numbers.  Additionally, they are
  expected to have limited display and input capabilities.
  Furthermore, the location of some of these devices may be hard to
  reach.  Accordingly, protocols used in LoWPANs should have minimal
  configuration, preferably work "out of the box", be easy to
  bootstrap, and enable the network to self heal given the inherent
  unreliable characteristic of these devices.  The size constraints of the

  link layer protocol should also be considered. Network management
  should have little overhead yet be powerful enough to control dense
  deployment of devices.

OLD: 

      Network Management: One of the points of transmitting IPv6
      packets, is to reuse existing protocols as much as possible.
      Network management functionality is critical for LoWPANs.
      [RFC3411] specifies SNMPv3 protocol operations.  SNMP
      functionality may be translated "as is" to LoWPANs.  However,
      further investigation is required to determine if it is suitable,
      or if an appropriate adaptation is in order.  This adaptation could
      include limiting the data types and simplifying the Basic
      Encoding Rules so as to reduce the size and complexity of the
      ASN.1 parser, thereby reducing the memory and processing needs to
      better fit into the limited memory and power of LoWPAN devices.

NEW: 

       Network Management: One of the points of transmitting IPv6
       packets, is to reuse existing protocols as much as possible.
       Network management functionality is critical for LoWPANs.
       However, management solutions need to meet the resource
       constraints as well as the minimal configuration and self
       healing functionality described in section 4.4.

       The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) [RFC3410] is
       widely used for monitoring data sources and sensors in
       conventional networks. SNMP functionality may be translated "as
       is" to LoWPANs with the benefit to utilize existing tools.
       However, due to the memory, processing, and message size
       constraints, further investigation is required to determine if
       the use of SNMPv3 is suitable, or if an appropriate adaptation
       of SNMPv3 or use of different protocols is in order.

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