[SAM] IETF-71 meeting for SAM RG

[Xiaoming Fu]

Dear all,

As a RG member I have one, probably more general question: where we are
now and where we are going within the RG? In the past few months (since
IETF#69) the technical discussion was somewhat dormant in the mailing
list, nor there is an active ID on SAM, therefore I have been wondering
this question - or more specifically, a set of subquetions below:

http://www.samrg.org states that
"The Scalable Adaptive Multicast (SAM) Research Group invetigates
multicast protocols including application layer multicast (ALM), overlay
multicast (OM), native multicast, and hybrid techniques with the goal of
greater scalabality and adaptability in terms of numbers of multicast
groups and network resources. It also provides input for standardization
efforts within the IETF."
"The Scalable Adaptive Multicast (SAM) Research Group is chartered to
explore and research techniques which improve multicast performance with
respect to dimensions such as number of groups, dynamics of group
membership, dynamics of the network topology, and network resource
constraints. The RG will investigate approaches based on application
layer multicast (ALM), overlay multicast (OM), and native IP multicast,
as well as hybrid approaches."

--> This indicates that, analysis of existing non-IP multicast
approaches would be a GOAL. I have somehow sensed this as possible RG
item but no team work being taken nor active draft at least from what I
know for now.

"A key design consideration is the placement of multicast state
information along the multicast path, including packet headers, end
hosts, and network nodes, where placement may be determined adaptively."

--> This implies that the placement of MC state information could be
dynamic, which does not tell what we should do.

"In SAM architectures, new protocols are expected to coexist and
integrate with native IP multicast protocols while offering more
flexible deployment options and scaling to support a greater number of
simultaneous multicast groups. Alternative technologies such as
end-system multicast and overlay multicast have been demonstrated, but
these mechanisms must be integrated into a unified architecture and
operational design."

--> this implies a new (or called "unified") architecture will be
defined within the RG. Maybe I am missing something, but where is an
architecture or prototypical idea?

"Among the challenges to be addressed are: multicasting in topologies
with concatenated VPNs, such as the Global Information Grid (GIG);
ability to incorporate QoS mechanisms while retaining scalability;
integration with network- and application-layer security mechanisms; and
adaptation schemes which consider group-related factors, such as group
size, number of sources, membership dynamics, sensitivity to delay,
amount of state, state update rate, application data rate, and other
application-specific parameters, as well as network-related factors,
such as dynamics of topology, carrying capacity, and connectivity."
--> This looks to me we aim to define evaluation metrics and make a
systematic evaluation for various existing (non-IP) multicast proposals?

"Methods will be explored for group formation and discovery that scale
to large numbers of groups, accommodate highly dynamic group membership,
and support user-initiated small-group multicast in which the group is
defined as a set of explicitly addressed endpoints. Further challenges
include efficient multicast for limited-resource nodes and access links,
control mechanisms for hybrid systems, approaches to optimization in the
network, including routing, and operation in mobile networks, including
Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs)."

--> My interpretation would be that SAMRG intends to take group
management into account and consider multicast over specific scenarios.
For the former, I didn't recall much ML discussion on the design space;
For the later if I remember it correctly there is an ID (actually a
group of IDs) on mobile multicast recently and even discussed in last
IETF, would people here be interested on this and like to explore more
details?

"Deploying, diagnosing, debugging, and managing multicast services is
complex, particularly for services which span multiple administrative
domains. The RG will propose and evaluate tools and strategies for
deployment, operations, and management of SAM services."

--> I would rather see some document(s) and more discussions on
operational experiences on IPTV and  multicast deployments in the
Internet. This may allow better understanding of the customers' need and
what are the real operational requirements/constraints. Again question
is: would people here be interested in contributing and discussing their
related work/experiences to the RG?

"The RG will select candidates for analysis and evaluation from existing
research results. Researchers are invited to submit new approaches for
further investigation. Through experimentation, the RG seeks to deepen
its understanding of the solution space and to enable the identification
of preferred solutions as a function of dynamic network characteristics
and the number of multicast sources, receivers, and groups."
--> Well, we probably have some good starts in turns of evaluation of
existing works, but not much extended and reviewed in the RG - or I am
missing any active editors?

"The expected findings of the RG include characterizing the problem
space, including driving scenarios, comparisons and analysis of existing
approaches, a SAM framework that supports multiple ALM/OM/ native/hybrid
protocols, analysis of network infrastructure impact when multicast
traffic becomes a dominant flow in a network, and deployment scenarios
which are independent of but can support and evolve with network
infrastructure support for native multicast. The findings are expected
to be published in technical reports, academic papers, and/or RFCs."
--> This sounds reasonable scoping, but I cannot resist ask myself:
where are we now? Maybe it would be helpful if we could make the future
work agenda more clearly expressed, by defining RG (at least some
mid-term) milestones and soliciting active contributors (esp.
corresponding editors) for each of the work items, e.g., (roughly
sequentially in time but may overlay):

* A survey of existing non-IP multicast approaches (btw - did any
RG/IAB/IETF WG publish a survey on existing IP multicast protocols?
RFC3569? Otherwise, I would suggest also to look at IP multicast
protocols too as another potential work item) - Informational
* Evaluation metrics of multicast approaches - Informational
* An evaluation of Internet multicast approaches - Informational
* A SAM framework for interworking (?) between different multicast
approaches - Informational
* Operational experience of IPTV services (or IPTV operational
practices) - Informational
* Experience with the xxx Protocol - Informational (or BCP?)
* (Suggestions for) Multicast in mobile IP(v6) environments (or some
other scenarios) - Informational
etc.

My 0.02 cents
Cheers,
Xiaoming
Forest.Lin wrote:
> Hi,  I want to ask u a question , that is , when the sam-tk project can 
> release the first version on http://sourceforge.net/projects/samtk ? thx! 
>  
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Forest.Lin
> 2008-01-03
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *·¢¼þÈË£º* Eiichi Muramoto
> *·¢ËÍʱ¼ä£º* 2008-01-03 15:35:14
> *ÊÕ¼þÈË£º* buford at samrg.org
> *³­ËÍ£º* sam at irtf.org; xcast at wide.ad.jp
> *Ö÷Ì⣺* Re: [SAM] IETF-71 meeting for SAM RG
>  
> John-san
>  
> We would like to have presentation below at the BoF of SAM in IETF71
>  
> - Tutorial of SAM-TK ( by Nobuo Kawaguchi of Nagoya Univ.)
> - ALM API for Topology Management and 
>   Network Layers Transparent Multimedia Streaming 
>   (by Lim Boon Ping of Panasonic Kuala Lumpur Lab)
> - XCAST 1.0 and 2.0 ( by Yuji -UG- Imai of WIDE )
>  
> I think 15 min for each is enough.
>  
> Best Regards,
> Eiichi Muramoto 
>  
> On Wed, 2 Jan 2008 13:53:40 -0500
> "John Buford"  <buford at samrg.org > wrote:
>  
>  > We plan to hold a meeting of the SAM RG at IETF-71 in Philadelphia.
>  > 
>  > When the exact date of the meeting is available, we will post to the mail
>  > list.
>  > 
>  > Please post requests for agenda items to the mail list.
>  > 
>  > Thank you,
>  > 
>  > John Buford & Jeremy Mineweaser
>  
> -- 
> Eiichi Muramoto  <muramoto.eiichi at jp.panasonic.com >
>  
>  
>