In reply to Offer Pazy's note attached, let me
express my point of view, which includes a belief that we must define our
requirements in a systematic fashion:
Based on almost two decades of deep involvement
in standards creation, it is my strong belief that an early discussion that
attempts to lock down what requirements are will produce a huge amount of
discussion, but few answers. It is also likely to help polarize
positions, making it more difficult to develop resolution later
on. Frankly, I am concerned that it
is too early to decide on any but the very highest level objectives at the
January interim meeting. In addition, we do have other very high
priority tasks in front of us, including the agreement on how we will move
this standards development process forward.
Certainly, we can include a discussion of high
level objectives at the January meeting. If there is time, we can begin
to drill down to see if there are areas where we have concensus. I would
be adverse to any lenghy discussions to defend positions at this
meeting. Rather, I would prefer to note where there are multiple
opinions, and document the different directions we may decide to take, so we
can solicit email discussion and papers at future meetings to help resolve the
issues.
Offer, I understand that it can be frustrating to
focus on process when there are real problems out there that need to be
solved, and decisions that must be made. In addition, we must not spend
too much time organizing, thereby losing time precious development time.
I propose that taking next weeks meeting to define the playing field, and the
rules, and to understand where the issues are, rather than attempting to
resolve them will prepare us to move quickly on resolving issues from that
point on.
Best regards,
Robert D. Love
President, LAN Connect Consultants
7105 Leveret
Circle Raleigh, NC 27615
Phone: 919
848-6773 Mobile: 919 810-7816
email:
rdlove@xxxxxxxx
Fax: 720 222-0900
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2001 12:40
PM
Subject: RE: Jan 15-17 meeting. I'm
confused, please help
Mike and others,
After reading the exchange below and Mike's tentative agenda, I'm a
bit uncertain as to what exactly we want to achieve in the upcoming meeting.
It is clear to me that significant portion of the time will (and has to) be
dedicated to bringing everybody new on board. We have only two days and the
question is how to we make sure that the rest of the time is used
productively.
Let me explain what I'm mostly interested in and what I believe
should be the first priority of the meeting: Requirements, Requirements,
Requirements. I've been spending a lot of time in the past two months
explaining to people what RPR is about. But beyond "dual-counter rotating
rings", I could not say anything else in any confidence. Most people
understand the issues and ask questions regarding specific capabilities. All
I have now (and I believe this is all we have) is an unflushed and unsorted
list of very high-level "things" that I've copied from some presentations
and from the white board and it is not enough.
It
is clear to me that the interim meeting does not make decisions and that
nailing down specific requirements may take a long time, but at least I
would like us to move in that direction.
If
possible, my goal for the meeting would be to come up with a requirements
list that is as specific as to be clearly understood by everyone leaving as
little as possible for ambiguity or "between the lines" meaning. I expect
that some issues will be controversial and I don't expect we resolve this at
the meeting. Nevertheless having such concise and clear list will help us
all focus and understand where we agree and where we don't. We can establish
a convention on how to mark such issues.
Just as an illustration (I do not wish to start a debate on
these):
Fairness: Is the intention fairness within a node or within the
ring?
Congestion management/control: Is it management or control? Is it CAC
based (probably not)? Do we assume buffers or not?
Again, these are just examples. Another outcome of such an effort
will be to have one list of requirements instead of several (there are some
differences between the various presentations and the list we've
prepared to the 802.3).
What do people think? Is it the right time and important enough to
focus on this in the upcoming meeting?
Offer Pazy
Sr. Product Manager
Native Networks
15 Gonen St.
Petah Tikva 49170
Israel
The
Native Way = Ethernet Simplicity + SONET
Reliability
Rob,
Thanks. I was trying to get the logistics. Here
is what I read from your comments
For us to complete the standard there are many
sections and sub sections to be written.
Before that can be done there are many proposal
to evaluate.
Before that can be done there are the objectives
and scope.
I propose a framework and then identify the scope
and objectives....
Network
single
Ring
Interconnected
Rings
Bridges and
router
MAC Layer
Data path
function
forwarding
filtering
error
correction/detection
Control
Plane
header
definition
network size
header
field definition
customer separation
header
bit definition
L2
functions
Node
discovery
Fairness
L3
interface
L1 management
I/F
L1
control
L1
Interfaces
Generic Packet interface
SONET
SDH
Gigabit Ethernet
DWDM
Digital Wrapper
Network Applications
Ring
interconnect
Transparent LAN
Service
ISP
Harry, here is my 2¢ on this one: I would
expect us to continue to refine our detailed scope and objectives, going
much further than the PAR input. I anticipate that 802.17 will be
doing a significant amount of voting at the March plenary meeting, some
of which will be establishing things like objectives. Hopefully a
great deal of the work will have been done ahead of time, including at
the upcoming meeting, and via email discussion. All of this work should
fundamentally build on what the Study Group has previously decided, even
though the Study Group's output is not binding on the decisions of the
Working Group.
I don't know how much time will be
available at the January interim meeting to address the issue of
refinement of the Scope and Objectives. If there is time, I think
the topic will fit well with the meeting's overall
focus.
Best regards,
Robert D. Love
President, LAN Connect Consultants
7105
Leveret Circle Raleigh, NC 27615
Phone: 919
848-6773 Mobile: 919
810-7816
email:
rdlove@xxxxxxxx
Fax: 720 222-0900
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2001
11:40 AM
Subject: Q: Jan 15-17
meeting
mike:
Are you gathering scope an objectives to
help defining the tasks in the schedule to complete the
standard?
Some of the scope were
discussed in previous meetings. Now that we are a WG are we
recapturing and additional detail scope
and objectives as confined in the PAR and 5
Criteria?
Regards,
Harry