Subject: Protocol Action: 'iSCSI Extensions for RDMA Specification' to Proposed Standard (draft-ietf-storm-iser-15.txt)

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 07:46:45 -0700

The IESG has approved the following document:
- 'iSCSI Extensions for RDMA Specification'
  (draft-ietf-storm-iser-15.txt) as Proposed Standard

This document is the product of the STORage Maintenance Working Group.

The IESG contact persons are Martin Stiemerling and Spencer Dawkins.

A URL of this Internet Draft is:
http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-storm-iser/

Technical Summary

   iSCSI Extensions for RDMA provides the RDMA data transfer capability
   to iSCSI by layering iSCSI on top of an RDMA-Capable Protocol.  An
   RDMA-Capable Protocol provides RDMA Read and Write services, which
   enable data to be transferred directly into SCSI I/O Buffers without
   intermediate data copies.  This document describes the extensions to
   the iSCSI protocol to support RDMA services as provided by an RDMA-
   Capable Protocol.

Working Group Summary

   This document is a minor update to RFC 5046, primarily to reflect
   what has actually been done in implementations.  WG Last Call turned
   up several issues around relaxing RFC 5046's requirements based on what
   implementations have done.  These issues involved use of Send message
   types that have side effects (implementations often do not use these)
   and the consequences of delayed resource allocation (implementations
   have run into a race condition that can terminate an iSER connection
   if measures to avoid it are not taken).  All of these issues have
   been resolved in the current version of this document, although
   the race condition avoidance is not perfect due to the need to
   cope with current "running code" in implementations.

Document Quality

   There are multiple implementations of the iSER protocol;
   the primary purpose of this document is to reflect implementation
   experience so that the iSER protocol specification matches the
   "running code".  Hemal Shah's review of the document resulted in
   some important changes in the text describing use of versions of
   the Send message.  Alexander Neshinsky reported the resource
   allocation problem seen in implmenetations and provided valuable
   help in working out an approach that encompasses boht the "right
   thing" to do going forward and necessary measures to cope with
   current "running code" in implementations.

Personnel

   Document Shepherd: David Black (storm WG co-chair)
   Responsible Area Director: Martin Stiemerling (Transport)