Network Working Group A. Morton Internet-Draft AT&T Labs Intended status: Standards Track July 1, 2010 Expires: January 2, 2011 RFC 4148 and the IPPM Metrics Registry are Obsolete draft-morton-ippm-rfc4148-obsolete-01 Abstract This memo recommends that RFC 4148, the IP Performance Metrics (IPPM) Registry be reclassified as Historic, and the IANA IPPM Metrics Registry itself be withdrawn from use. The current registry structure has been found to be insufficiently detailed to uniquely identify IPPM metrics. Requirements Language The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119]. Status of this Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." This Internet-Draft will expire on January 2, 2011. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2010 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents Morton Expires January 2, 2011 [Page 1] Internet-Draft RFC 4148 is Obsolete July 2010 (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License. Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2. Recommendation to Reclassify RFC 4148 and Withdraw the corresponding IANA registry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 5. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 6. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 6.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 6.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Morton Expires January 2, 2011 [Page 2] Internet-Draft RFC 4148 is Obsolete July 2010 1. Introduction The IP Performance Metrics (IPPM) framework [RFC2330] describes several ways to record options and metric parameter settings, in order to account for sources of measurement variability. For example, Section 13 of[RFC2330] describes the notion of "Type P" so that metrics can be specified in general, but the specifics (such as payload length in octets and protocol type) can replace P to disambiguate the results. When the IPPM Metric Registry [RFC4148] was designed, the variability of the Type P notion, and the variability possible with the many metric parameters (see Section 4.1 of [RFC2679] ) was not fully appreciated. Further, some of the early metric definitions only indicate Poisson streams [RFC2330] (see the metrics in [RFC2679], [RFC2680], and [RFC3393]), but later work standardized the methods for Periodic Stream measurements [RFC3432], adding to the variability possible when characterizing a metric exactly. It is not believed to be feasible or even useful to register every possible combination of Type P, metric parameters, and Stream parameters using the current structure of the IPPM Metric Registry. The IPPM Metrics Registry is believed to have very few, if any users. Evidence of this provided by the fact that one registry entry was syntactically incorrect for months after [RFC5644] was published. The text ":=" was used for the metrics in that document instead of "::=". It took eight months before someone complained that a parser found the error. Even the original registry author agrees that the current registry is not efficient, and has submitted a proposal to effectively create a new registry [draft-stephan-ippm-registry-ext-00, work in progress]. 2. Recommendation to Reclassify RFC 4148 and Withdraw the corresponding IANA registry Due to the ambiguities between the current metrics registrations and the metrics used, and the apparent minimal adoption of the registry in practice, this memo RECOMMENDS that: o the IETF reclassify [RFC4148] as Historic o the IANA withdraw the current IPPM Metrics Registry It is assumed that parties who wish to establish a replacement registry function will work to specify such a registry. Morton Expires January 2, 2011 [Page 3] Internet-Draft RFC 4148 is Obsolete July 2010 3. Security Considerations This memo and its recommendations have no known impact on the security of the Internet (especially if there is a a zombie apocalypse on the day it is published). 4. IANA Considerations Metrics defined in IETF are typically registered in the IANA IPPM METRICS REGISTRY as described in initial version of the registry [RFC4148]. However, areas for improvement of this registry have been identified, and the registry structure has to be revisited when there is consensus to do so. The current consensus is to withdraw the IPPM Metrics Registry, as originally described in [RFC4148]. 5. Acknowledgements Henk Uijterwaal suggested additional rationale for the recommendation in this memo. 6. References 6.1. Normative References [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. [RFC2330] Paxson, V., Almes, G., Mahdavi, J., and M. Mathis, "Framework for IP Performance Metrics", RFC 2330, May 1998. [RFC2679] Almes, G., Kalidindi, S., and M. Zekauskas, "A One-way Delay Metric for IPPM", RFC 2679, September 1999. [RFC2680] Almes, G., Kalidindi, S., and M. Zekauskas, "A One-way Packet Loss Metric for IPPM", RFC 2680, September 1999. [RFC3393] Demichelis, C. and P. Chimento, "IP Packet Delay Variation Metric for IP Performance Metrics (IPPM)", RFC 3393, November 2002. [RFC3432] Raisanen, V., Grotefeld, G., and A. Morton, "Network performance measurement with periodic streams", RFC 3432, Morton Expires January 2, 2011 [Page 4] Internet-Draft RFC 4148 is Obsolete July 2010 November 2002. [RFC4148] Stephan, E., "IP Performance Metrics (IPPM) Metrics Registry", BCP 108, RFC 4148, August 2005. [RFC5644] Stephan, E., Liang, L., and A. Morton, "IP Performance Metrics (IPPM): Spatial and Multicast", RFC 5644, October 2009. 6.2. Informative References [....] "None", . Author's Address Al Morton AT&T Labs 200 Laurel Avenue South Middletown,, NJ 07748 USA Phone: +1 732 420 1571 Fax: +1 732 368 1192 Email: acmorton@att.com URI: http://home.comcast.net/~acmacm/ Morton Expires January 2, 2011 [Page 5]