North American Network Operators Group
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Re: protocols that don't meet the need...

  • From: Christian Kuhtz
  • Date: Tue Feb 14 19:10:51 2006 
David,

On Feb 14, 2006, at 5:07 PM, David Meyer wrote:

Hmm, well, when there is lots of vendor and academia involvement, no,
there's no operator community presented in number of things I'm
following in the IETF.  Take manet, for example, I don't even know to
begin where to inject operator concerns/requirements. :-/

	Well taken. And further, I would say manet is more the
	rule than the exception in this respect. BTW, it took me
	years to become facile with the (IETF) process (if I'm
	even there now :-)). I can say that I had excellent
	mentoring (Randy and perhaps a few others), so that
	helped. Maybe we need something not as formal as an IETF
	liaison relationship, but perhaps something like
	that. More thinking required...
Thanks for the feedback. I've been following manet as an interested party for a while, with no real mission other than tracking it for emerging technologies R&D. Lately, job is architecting municipal wireless networks (which is really far more than what most people think of when they think Sbux style WISP hotspots). And I'm looking at the IETF for what's been worked out so far with respect to wireless routing protocols for example, and I just can't help sitting here scratching my head about how I would ever use what they've come up with so far. And right now, I really can't without major modifications it seems. And I find that really sad actually.

And, don't get me wrong, but I'm not trying to bash them at all. I just think that real world operations needs and concepts like wholesale access aren't even anywhere near the radar screen it seems. And that somehow needs to be fixed. And, yes, municipal wireless is a roller coaster that's still gathering speed, so, expecting that everything's already grown and ready for us are thoroughly unrealistic. But! ;-)

Right now the routing protocol on the mesh side will likely be proprietary for some time, which really isn't in the operator's best interest but that's what we have to work with. I/we have a substantial interest in this becoming more than an academic PhD thesis exercise, but something that can really be practically used in the real world.

Now, there is stuff in the MPLS community, for example, that I've followed more or less closely for the past 7 yrs that might actually be fruitful, but it too requires substantial tailoring. So, no worries about job security there. ;-)

I think this is as much an IETF issue as it is of the operator
community.  Operators need to devote time to IETF to make the work in
the IETF most relevant to the operators needs.

	Yes, and this has always been an acute problem as long as
	I've been around. People have day (night, weekend
	jobs). Co-location of the meetings seems a possible way
	to start attacking one aspect that problem, with the
	understanding that perhaps travel isn't the biggest of
	the problems, but it is a non-trivial issue for many of
	us.
Agreed. I'm headed to the IEEE 802 plenary in a couple of weeks to start working standards body stuff for us as well, some of what needs to happen is lower layer stuff. The less trips and the more I can combine them, the more likely my management will look at my travel expense submissions in a favorable light ;-).. So, the more incentive we can provide with that, the better.

A while back, there was a desire to colo ARIN with NANOG. That's really cool to see happen. For me, no offense to anyone, I really couldn't care less at the moment. I'm on the opposite side of the spectrum, ARIN being a vehicle for operationalized networks rather than those who are about to be operationalized. So, perhaps NANOG should be paired up with other industry forums in some kind of rotation.. Anyone got ideas on this?

Best regards,
Christian