Last Modified: 2004-01-22
The WG will define architecture and requirements for management and access to server pools, including requirements from a variety of applications, building blocks and interfaces, different styles of pooling, security requirements and performance requirements, such as failover times and coping with heterogeneous latencies. This will be documented in an Informational RFC.
Scope:
The working group will focus on supporting high availability and scalability of applications through the use of pools of servers. This requires both a way to keep track of what servers are in the pool and are able to receive requests and a way for the client to bind to a desired server.
The Working Group will NOT address:
1) reliable multicast protocols - the use of multicast for reliable server pooling is optional. Reliable multicast protocols will be developed by the RMT WG.
2) synchronization/consistency of data between server pool elements, e.g. shared memory
3) mechanisms for sharing state information between server pool elements
4) Transaction failover. If a server fails during processing of a transaction this transaction may be lost. Some services may provide a way to handle the failure, but this is not guaranteed.
The WG will address client access mechanisms for server pools, specifically:
1) An access mechanism that allows geographically dispersed servers in the pool
2) A client-server binding mechanism that allows dynamic assignment of client to servers based on load balancing or application specific assignment policies.
3) Support of automatic reconfiguration of the client/server binding in case of server failure or administrative changes.
To the extent that new protocols are necessary to support the requirements for server pooling, these will be documented in a Standards Track RFC on client access to a binding service (i.e. name space) protocol.
The WG will also address use of proxying to interwork existing client access mechanisms to any new binding service.
The WG will address server pool management and a distributed service to support client/server binding, including:
1) A scalable mechanism for tracking server pool membership (incl. registration)
2) A scalable protocol for performing node failure detection, reconfiguration and failover, and otherwise managing the server pool (supporting caching, membership, query, authentication, and security)
3) A distributed service to support binding of clients to servers, based on information specific to the server pool. Given that this service is essential to access the server pool, a high degree of availability is necessary.
4) A means for allowing flexible load assignment and balancing policies
The protocols and procedures for server pool management will be documented in a Standards Track RFC.
The WG will address:
- transport protocol(s) that would be supported (eg. UDP, SCTP, TCP)
- any new congestion management issues
- relationship to existing work such as URI resolution mechanisms
Rserpool will consult with other IETF working groups such as Reliable multicast, DNS extensions, AAA, URN, WREC and Sigtran as appropriate and will not duplicate any of these efforts.
Done | Initial draft of Protocol Comparison | |
Done | Initial draft of Threat Analysis | |
Done | Initial draft of MIB | |
Done | Initial draft of Rserpool Services document | |
Done | Initial draft of Pool Management document | |
Done | Initial draft of Rserpool Architecture document | |
Done | Initial draft of Binding Service document | |
Done | Submit Requirements document to IESG for Informational RFC | |
Done | Submit Comparison document to IESG for Informational RFC | |
Done | Initial draft of Resrpool Requirements document | |
Done | Initial draft of TCP Mapping document | |
Done | Initial draft of Applicability Statement | |
Mar 03 | Submit Services document to IESG for Informational RFC | |
Done | Submit Architecture draft to IESG for Informational RFC | |
May 03 | Submit TCP mapping to IESG for Proposed Standard RFC | |
Done | Submit Threat Analysis to IESG for Informational RFC | |
Aug 03 | Submit Binding Service and Pool Management to IESG for Proposed Standard RFC | |
Aug 03 | Submit Applicability Statement to IESG for Informational RFC | |
Nov 03 | Submit MIB to IESG for Proposed Standard RFC |
RFC | Status | Title |
---|---|---|
RFC3237 | I | Requirements for Reliable Server Pooling |
Reliable Server Pooling Minutes from IETF #59 Approximately 30 people attended the meeting at IETF #59. Chairs: Lyndon Ong; lyong@ciena.com Maureen Stillman; maureen.stillman@nokia.com We discussed the services document draft-ietf-rserpool-service-00.txt. This document was recently updated and posted to the list. We request that people read the document and send comments to the list. Next we discussed the Rserpool architecture, draft-ietf-rserpool-arch-07.txt which is in IESG review. The IESG requested some changes to this document which raised some issues. Specifically questions were raised about whether the protocols should be split into more pieces to aid in its understanding and possibly to aid in implementation. This topic needs to be investigated further. The comparison document draft-ietf-rserpool-comparison-07.txt was added to the agenda because the issues raised by the reserpool architecture review also had impact on the comparison document. Further issues were raised by the AD review concerning evaluation of other IETF protocols such as Dynamic Delegation Discovery System (DDDS) RFC 3401-6 and Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) draft-ietf-provreg-epp-09 in relation to Rserpool. We need to evaluate these protocols and reach a determination about their applicability to Rserpool. Also the issue of using URN was raised. Rserpool uses pool handle names in ASCII format rather than URN. This is due to issues such as hierarchy in the name resolution process. The Rserpool name space is not hierarchical. The comment was that this seems to be an architectural issue rather than a comparison document issue. The Rserpool security threat document draft-ietf-rserpool-threats-02.txt is also in AD review. Comments were also received from the AD and have been added to -03. This draft will be sent to be published after IETF 59. A summary of the threats and mitigations was presented. This is the text added to the security considerations section in response to AD review. An issue was raised about the security of cookies. Cookies are not part of the Rserpool infrastructure, but it might make sense to provide security guidance on this area. The security design team will evaluate this issue and make a recommendation. This issue should also be discussed on the list. We will continue to work on documents that have been reviewed by our ADs. Updated internet-drafts are being generated in response to |