Subject: [tcmtf] Improvements in TCM-TF according to the received comments: Problem 4: Do vendors want standards in this space?

From: "Jose Saldana" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2014 13:07:21 +0100

Problem:
 
Bob Briscoe: Do vendors want standards in this space? There are a lot of
proprietary products; I would like to hear from other vendors who also would
like to see this.
 
We have asked in the mailing list about this, and it has been discussed in
this thread:
 <http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/tcmtf/current/msg00480.html>
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/tcmtf/current/msg00480.html

This post from Wes summarizes the question:
 
(.) there will be (and are)
products available that attempt to optimize traffic in poorly
documented and often poorly conceived ways.  These can do more harm
and have other mysterious effects on traffic than whatever this
working group would create, since it would provide open specifications
that could be developed and tested against the concerns of relevant
layers and other IETF protocols, and problems and concerns could be
addressed.
 
If there are people willing to write the specs *and* people are
also able to express interest in writing/deploying/selling code and
products that use those specs, then we should certainly be doing
this work in the IETF.
 
This will allow:
- multiple vendor boxes to interoperate on different sides of a
  challenged network/link (currently this is beyond the state of
  the art!)
- simplified/standardized management of such boxes
- well-understood behavior profiles of such middleboxes and their
  protocols algorithms
 
If the IETF does not do this work, then I don't believe any of those
three benefits/results are likely at all, and the (poor) status quo
will continue.

Jose