Subject: [clouds] CloudApps BoF (IETF-80) proposal for your review and comments

From: Bhumip Khasnabish <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2011 16:43:17 -0500

I plan to submit it by the deadline (Monday-31-January-2011).

http://trac.tools.ietf.org/area/app/trac/attachment/wiki/Clouds/Khasnabish-et-al-CloudApps-BoF-Proposal-v7-30Jan2011.doc

So, pls review and send me your comments and suggestions ASAP. Many thanks.

Best Regards.

Bhumip Khasnabish (Mobile:+001-781-752-8003, [email-masked])
http://www.linkedin.com/in/bhumipkhasnabish

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From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2011 11:37:18 -0700

> http://trac.tools.ietf.org/area/app/trac/attachment/wiki/Clouds/Khasnabish-et-al-CloudApps-BoF-Proposal-v7-30Jan2011.doc 

It would have been good to post actual text to the list. Attachments
that require support for proprietary formats are not welcome.

> So, pls review and send me your comments and suggestions ASAP. Many thanks.

Let me say that you are making some progress. At least you now have
separate proposals that are focused on more particular problem domains
(e.g., applications vs. operations).

However, when I read this proposal I see several big warning flags.

First, as various folks explained in Beijing, IETF participants prefer
to develop protocols, because that's what we do best. Your proposal is
to work on:

Phase 1 - Use cases, reference framework, survey

Phase 2 - Requirements

Phase 3 - New protocol, profile of existing protocols, and/or APIs

That approach might work well in other SDOs, but I don't think it is a
recipe for success at the IETF.

Second, everything in this proposal still reeks of the old "clouds are
special" attitude. As folks explained in Beijing, we care about solving
specific engineering problems, not building any kind of cloud-related
application that some people might find interesting.

Several of the referenced drafts talk about the problem of building
virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI):

http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-wang-clouds-vdi-problem-statement-00.txt

http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-ma-clouds-vdi-survey-00.txt

http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-yokota-cloud-service-mobility-00.txt

http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-cloud-log-00.txt

Those documents seem to provide a good start toward defining a more
focused engineering problem that IETF participants could work on (my
apologies, but I have yet to read them in depth). I would suggest
throwing out Phases 1 and 2 to some extent (using them only as
background to the engineering problem) and trying to get to Phase 3 as
quickly as possible.

Holding a Bof about forming a VDI WG might be appropriate at IETF 80 in
Prague. At the least it would help IETF folks understand whether there
really is a problem here that the IETF needs to solve, how many people
are willing to work on building solutions, etc. See RFC 5434 for some
*very* helpful information about the thinking (and work!) necessary to
hold a successful BoF.

Next steps:

a. Read RFC 5434 and restructure your proposal a bit to answer the
questions posed in that document.

b. Complete the BoF request template here:

http://trac.tools.ietf.org/bof/trac/

Because I will be the continuing area director at IETF 80, I will
volunteer to be your responsible AD.

Also, do you plan to request additional BoF slots at IETF 80 (e.g., for
CloudCenter/DataCenter Operations)? It takes a lot of work to hold a
successful BoF. It even takes a lot of work to hold an unsuccessful BoF!
Therefore I counsel you to plan accordingly, and to hold only one BoF
per IETF meeting if you want to form multiple working groups in
different IETF areas.

Peter

-- 
Peter Saint-Andre
https://stpeter.im/

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From: Vishwas Manral <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2011 10:49:00 -0800

Hi Peter,

I would not totally agree. For nearly every new protocol developed,
that I have worked on there has been seperate  requirement documents,
use cases as well as protocol extension documents - have a look at
MPLS, TRILL and PCE. I do not think we should not consider the phase.

I however agree it should be a shorter phase to define requirements
and use cases.

You are right some of the drafts are about VDI, however the others you
mention are now directly related to it (the Yokota draft is more about
resource management and mobility in the cloud).

Thanks,
Vishwas

On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 10:37 AM, Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]> wrote:
> _______________________________________________
> clouds mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/clouds
>
>

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From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2011 11:52:39 -0700

> MPLS, TRILL and PCE. I do not think we should not consider the phase.

I think it's easy to get bogged down use cases, surveys, frameworks, and
requirements. A WG could easily spend years on those tasks and run out
of energy before doing the real engineering work.

> I however agree it should be a shorter phase to define requirements

As short as possible, but not shorter. :)

> resource management and mobility in the cloud).

Correct.

I'm trying to be encouraging (some progress is being made) but realistic
(there's still a lot of work and focusing to do).

Peter

-- 
Peter Saint-Andre
https://stpeter.im/

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From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2011 15:39:13 -0600

Vishwas,

> use cases as well as protocol extension documents

While I would not dream of identifying the person who said it, I was told at 
IETF 51 in London that the reason so many groups were being chartered to 
produce use cases and requirements documents was to slow groups of new IETF 
participants down long enough for leadership to figure out what on earth 
they were talking about :p

I agree with Peter that IETF does less use cases/requirements work than most 
SDOs. My suggestion is that you may need to do this work, in this specific 
case, but do as little as possible.

Thanks,

Spencer

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From: "Natale, Bob" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2011 17:22:54 -0500

Hi Spencer,

I'd like to think that the intent of your last phrase -- "but do as little as possible" -- was actually "but do only as much as necessary" ...? and I have no problem with pointers to other sources who have already specified use cases, requirements, test cases, etc. ... no need for duplicate text (verbatim or generally) ... but any development effort should document cognizance of the requirements it intends to satisfy (IMHO).

Cheers,
BobN

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Spencer Dawkins
Sent: Monday, January 31, 2011 4:39 PM
To: Vishwas Manral; Peter Saint-Andre
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [clouds] CloudApps BoF (IETF-80) proposal for your review andcomments

Vishwas,

Thanks,

Spencer