Routing Over Low power and Lossy networks (roll)

Last Modified: 2008-08-21

Additional information is available at tools.ietf.org/wg/roll

Chair(s):

  • JP Vasseur <jpv@cisco.com>

  • David Culler <culler@eecs.berkeley.edu>

    Routing Area Director(s):

  • Ross Callon <rcallon@juniper.net>
  • David Ward <dward@cisco.com>

    Routing Area Advisor:

  • David Ward <dward@cisco.com>

    Mailing Lists:

    General Discussion: roll@ietf.org
    To Subscribe: http://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/roll
    Archive: http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/roll/

    Description of Working Group:

    Low power and Lossy networks (LLNs) are typically composed of many
    embedded devices with limited power, memory, and processing resources
    interconnected by a variety of links, such as IEEE 802.15.4, Bluetooth,
    Low Power WiFi. LLNs are transitioning to an end-to-end IP-based
    solution to avoid the problem of non-interoperable networks
    interconnected by protocol translation gateways and proxies. In
    addition, LLNs have specific routing requirements that may not be met by
    existing routing protocols, such as OSPF, IS-IS, AODV and OLSR. For
    example path selection must be designed to take into consideration the
    specific power capabilities, attributes and functional characteristics
    of the links and nodes in the network.

    There is a wide scope of application areas for LLNs, including
    industrial monitoring, building automation (HVAC, lighting, access
    control, fire), connected home, healthcare, environmental monitoring,
    urban sensor networks sensor networks, assets tracking, refrigeration.
    The Working Group will only focus on routing solutions for a subset of
    these. It will focus on  industrial, connected home/building and urban
    sensor networks and it will  determine the routing requirements for
    these scenarios.

    The Working Group will provide an IPv6 only routing architectural
    framework for these application scenarios. Given the transition of this
    technology to  IP, at this time it is believed that an IPv4 solution is
    not necessary. The Framework will take into consideration various
    aspects including high reliability in the presence of time varying loss
    characteristics and connectivity while permitting low-power operation
    with very modest memory and CPU pressure in networks potentially
    comprising a very large number (several thousands) of nodes.

    The Working Group will explore aspects of mobility within a single LLN
    (if any) in the routing requirement creation.

    The Working Group will pay particular attention to routing security and
    manageability (e.g., self configuration) issues. It will also need to
    consider the transport characteristic the routing protocol messages will
    experience. Mechanisms that protect an LLN from congestion collapse or
    that establish some degree of fairness between concurrent communication
    sessions are out of scope of the Working Group. It is expected that
    applications utilizing LLNs define appropriate mechanisms.

    Work Items:

    - Produce routing requirements documents for Industrial, Connected
    Home, Building and urban sensor networks. Each document will describe
    the use case and the associated routing protocol requirements. The
    documents will progress in collaboration with the 6lowpan Working Group
    (INT area).

    - Survey the applicability of existing protocols to LLNs. The aim of
    this document will be to analyze the scaling and characteristics of
    existing protocols and identify whether or not they meet the routing
    requirements of the applications identified above. Existing IGPs, MANET,
    NEMO, DTN routing protocols will be part of evaluation.

    - Specification of routing metrics used in path calculation. This
    includes static and dynamic link/node attributes required for routing in
    LLNs.

    - Provide an architectural framework for routing and path selection at
    Layer 3 (Routing for LLN Architecture) that addresses such issues as
    whether LLN routing protocols require a distributed and/or centralized
    path computation models, whether additional hierarchy is necessary and
    how it is applied. Manageability will be considered with each approach,
    along with various trade-offs for maintaining low power operation,
    including the presence of non-trivial loss and networks with a very
    large number of nodes.

    - Produce a routing security framework for routing in LLNs.

    Goals and Milestones:

    Jul 2008  Submit Routing requirements for Industrial applications to the IESG to be considered as an Informational RFC.
    Jul 2008  Submit Routing requirements for Connected Home networks applications to the IESG to be considered as an Informational RFC.
    Jul 2008  Submit Routing requirements for Building applications to the IESG to be considered as an Informational RFC.
    Jul 2008  Submit Routing requirements for Urban networks applications to the IESG to be considered as an Informational RFC.
    Nov 2008  Submit Routing metrics for LLNs document to the IESG to be considered as a Proposed Standard.
    Feb 2009  Submit Protocol Survey to the IESG to be considered as an Informational RFC.
    Apr 2009  Submit Security Framework to the IESG to be considered as an Informational RFC
    May 2009  Submit the Routing for LLNs Architecture document to the IESG as an Informational RFC.
    Jun 2009  Recharter or close.

    Internet-Drafts:

    Urban WSNs Routing Requirements in Low Power and Lossy Networks (48966 bytes)
    Industrial Routing Requirements in Low Power and Lossy Networks (59478 bytes)
    Home Automation Routing Requirement in Low Power and Lossy Networks (33388 bytes)
    Overview of Existing Routing Protocols for Low Power and Lossy Networks (50642 bytes)

    No Request For Comments

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