Session Date/Time: 11 Nov 2021 14:30

iabopen

Summary

The IAB Open session provided updates on the IAB's ongoing technical and architectural work, including document publications, workshop outcomes, and program statuses. Key discussions focused on the Evolvability, Deployability, and Maintainability (EDM) program's efforts to track protocol implementations and deployability, and the report from the workshop on Measuring Network Quality for End Users (MQEU). The session also included an open mic for community feedback on IAB activities and technical topics.

Key Discussion Points

IAB Open Purpose: Mia Caleff and Russ White opened the session, reminding participants of the IETF Note Well. They reiterated that IAB Open sessions serve to increase the visibility of IAB work, provide a forum for technical and architectural discussions, and gather community feedback.
IAB Communication Channels:
- [email protected]: Direct email to IAB, also monitored by staff.
- architecture-discuss: Open mailing list for community discussion on architectural and technical topics, including IAB documents.
- IAB program mailing lists: Open for community engagement on specific program topics.
- Liaison coordination alias: Direct contact for liaison-related questions.
IAB Document Updates:
- Published: RFC 9120, related to APN cleanups.
- Approved for RFC Publication: One document is in the RFC Editor queue and expected soon.
- Under IAB Discussion: One document is adopted and actively being worked on.
- Call for Community Feedback: A new document, likely draft-iab-path-signal (referred to as "the passing document" and "past English document" in transcript), is open for community feedback. Comments should be sent to IAB or the architecture-discuss list.
IAB Program Updates:
- EDM Program (Evolvability, Deployability, Maintainability): (Presented by Tommy Pauly)
  - draft-iab-use-it-or-lose-it: Completed and in the RFC Editor queue for publication.
  - Current Focus: Tracking protocol implementations and deployability.
  - Importance: Running code is crucial for determining deployability before shipping protocols, aids interop testing, helps understand ossification, and provides feedback for long-term maintenance and feature adoption.
  - edm-find-code draft (by Charles Eckel): Summarizes current, often inconsistent, tools for tracking implementation status (e.g., implementation-status section in drafts, GitHub repos, Hackathon wikis).
  - Proposed Solution: Centralized, discoverable links to running code, implementation status, or interop test matrices from DataTracker, working group GitHub, or RFC metadata.
  - Community Survey: A survey was sent to all working group chairs to understand current practices. Initial results: >50% track implementation status, methods vary, most desire greater discoverability and consistent tracking after RFC publication.
  - Discussion: Pete Resnick suggested integrating this effort with the standards track progression (Proposed Standard to Full Standard) to facilitate moving widely deployed and interoperable protocols forward, preventing the internet from relying indefinitely on Proposed Standard. Tommy agreed this could enhance the meaningfulness of the "standard" label.
  - Broader Interest: Beyond implementation status, interest was expressed in tracking any code related to IETF work, such as hackathon code, test tools, or code for understanding protocols.
- Model-T Program: Had an IAB review; a new discussion has started to "rescue" or continue its work, with a meeting planned for September 2nd.
- RFC Editor Future Development Program: Nearing conclusion, having defined a new RFC Editor model. Program Last Call ended, with minor issues remaining. Further community feedback opportunities will be provided before publication.
IAB Workshop Updates:
- Measuring Network Quality for End Users (MQEU): (Presented by Wes Hardaker)
  - Workshop held: September 14-16, with 90 attendees and significant discussion.
  - Background: Despite increased bandwidth, local outages and application resource competition persist. The workshop aimed to identify problems, define good user experience, and explore standardized measurement and communication methods.
  - Key Findings (from 19 consensus statements):
    - Bandwidth is necessary but not alone sufficient; "better" bandwidth is needed.
    - Requires both active and passive measurements, with archivable and queryable metrics for trend analysis.
    - Meaningful metrics for users should indicate if their application "will work."
    - Measurements must be actionable and incentivize improvements, benefiting all end users.
    - Specific metrics like "Round Trips Per Minute (RPM)" are useful.
    - Need new applications to report measurements and identify network bottlenecks.
    - Users require simple, application-specific metrics they can understand and report.
    - Important to distinguish between Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE).
    - Concerns: Mean/median latency can be distracting; measurements without incentives for improvement are frustrating; ecological impact of network quality; difficulty in prioritizing among multiple metrics as no single one is perfect.
  - Future Work: Document the workshop findings in draft-iab-mqeu-report. Delegate immediate tasks to existing IETF working groups (e.g., IPPM) and longer-term research tasks to the IRTF. An IAB program for this topic is not envisioned at this time.
- Analyzing IETF Data: A workshop is planned for late November to analyze metadata from drafts and the DataTracker (e.g., authorship, participation trends) to understand community evolution and improve processes.
Open Mic and Community Engagement:
- IAB Meeting Transparency: Spencer Dawkins thanked the IAB for making Research Group reviews public and viewable, noting the positive impact of increased transparency. IAB members confirmed that all IAB calls, except for brief executive sessions on sensitive administrative matters, are open for observers.
- Community Contribution to IAB Work: Discussion on how community members can contribute to IAB documents. Mia and Russ explained that feedback is explicitly solicited at two points:
  1. Early stage: Before a document is adopted as an IAB document (e.g., the current call for feedback on the "Path Signal" document).
  2. Late stage: Just before publication, for severe concerns. Community members are encouraged to attend IAB Open meetings and bring technical topics for discussion.
- Path Signal Document Clarification: Robin raised a question about the draft-iab-path-signal document, suggesting consideration for differences between open internet and limited domains. Mia (as an author) responded that the latest draft revision addresses these concerns, noting that security considerations for limited domains are not fundamentally different. She encouraged further discussion on the architecture-discuss mailing list.

Decisions and Action Items

EDM Program:
- A survey on implementation tracking practices was sent to all Working Group Chairs.
- Action: Tommy Pauly to send a reminder to the WG chairs mailing list to encourage more survey responses.
MQEU Workshop:
- Decision: The workshop report will be documented as draft-iab-mqeu-report.
- Action: Follow-on work identified for IETF Working Groups (e.g., IPPM) for immediate tasks and IRTF for research tasks.
Model-T Program:
- Action: A meeting is planned for September 2nd to discuss the continuation and future direction of the Model-T program.
IAB Documents:
- Action: Community members are strongly encouraged to review and provide feedback on the draft-iab-path-signal document (and others open for feedback) via IAB directly or the architecture-discuss mailing list.

Next Steps

EDM Program: Analyze the results of the Working Group Chair survey and continue discussions on potential solutions for consistent and discoverable implementation tracking. Report back at a future IAB Open meeting.
Model-T Program: Hold the planned meeting on September 2nd to define the program's path forward.
RFC Editor Future Development Program: Address remaining open issues and proceed with publication of the new RFC Editor model.
Measuring Network Quality for End Users Workshop: Finalize the draft-iab-mqeu-report and facilitate the delegation of follow-on work to relevant IETF Working Groups (such as IPPM) and IRTF Research Groups.
Analyzing IETF Data Workshop: Proceed with organizing the workshop in late November to analyze IETF data.
Community Engagement: The IAB encourages community members to continue engaging with IAB work by observing IAB calls, reviewing IAB documents, providing feedback, and proposing technical topics for discussion at future IAB Open meetings.