The MPLS WG Archive

[Fred Baker <chair@ietf.org>]

This note will be sent to ietf-announce in the morning; I am sending it to 
you now as it is long overdue and you especially need to know.

Last week the IETF chair sent out a message informing the community of some 
plans to improve the organization of some significant work going on in the 
IETF on "sub-ip" technologies. This potential re-organization affects a 
number of existing and proposed working groups, including MPLS, IPO, TE, 
IoPTR, CEOT, and PPVPN (previously NBVPN). Others may be added, or some 
removed, as the scope and direction solidify. It also proposes the creation 
of an additional working group, previously known as "CoMa" and renamed to 
"CCAMP" (see below) to unify the architecture and protocol work for the 
control and measurement plane.

This note is to bring you up to date on where we stand on the planning and 
logistics for these efforts. The process is ongoing and the details and 
implications will become more clear over the next week.  The IESG will of 
course be open to community input on the scope and direction of the work in 
the various groups and will fine tune the WG charters as appropriate.

Here are some specific points we would like to emphasize.

- while a number of proposed WG charters (and re-charters) are out
   for community review, none of them has been completely finalized,
   nor has mapping of various drafts to working groups been
   completed. It is particularly important to note that at least one
   of the new proposed charters (MPLS) was accidentally and prematurely
   posted on the IETF web page. We emphasize that this is *not*
   necessarily the final charter; a number of questions of scope
   and milestones are still open and it is possible that some fine
   tuning of charter is still needed.

- Chairs are not finalized for all of the working groups and
   there are likely to be some reshufflings. Also, we have
   not selected chairs for the proposed CCAMP working group.
   In the interim the WG will be chaired by two area
   directors. The IESG is aggressively looking at candidates and
   we expect to have permanent chairs well soon after the after San Diego,
   but in any case well before the Minneapolis meeting.

- The effort crosses a number of existing IETF areas. We are therefore
   going to form a "directorate", consisting of the IESG area directors
   of the affected areas (OPS, RTG, INT, TSV), and the chairs of the
   affected working groups and BoFs. This group will have an initial
   meeting on Sunday night before the IETF in San Diego. As are other
   directorates, this is not an open group, and exists to advise the
   area directors as opposed to doing technical work which as always
   goes on in the working groups.

- We have received feedback that the selection of the acronym "CoMA"
   for the Control and Measurement work was perhaps unfortunate, as
   it brought the metaphor of "going to sleep" into prominence. We
   therefore propose instead the acronym "CCAMP", to stand for
   "Common Control and Measurement Protocols".

- While we appreciate the desire for authors of internet drafts to be
   able to target their efforts and attention to a specific working
   group, we do not believe we have full enough community consensus
   on the architectural boundaries and direction to do so at this
   moment. Therefore, assignment of Internet Drafts to Working Groups
   will happen after the San Diego meeting with input from WGs and
   community. It is likely of course, that some drafts will not
   be progressed, or be combined with others during this process.
   For now we are asking the existing chairs of the WGs and BOFs to
   make up their agendas and provide time to discuss the IDs as they
   were planning to.

- The Monday 9:00-11:30 MPLS WG meeting slot will be subdivided into two
   slots. The first hour will be a joint session of the MPLS WG and a
   CCAMP Bof, to be chaired by the interim CCAMP chairs. There will be one
   agenda item for this meeting slot - to discuss the proposed scope and
   architectural direction for the control and measurement plane work and
   solicit feedback and ideas from the community. We encourage all WG
   members with an interest in the overall architecture and direction of
   the control and measurement plane work to attend. From 10:00-11:30, the
   MPLS Working Group, chaired by its current chairs, will have its normal
   meeting, discussing those drafts which continue to be in its purview.

More to come as we move forward. Stay tuned. Feedback is solicited and 
welcome, either through the working group mailing lists (yes we are reading 
the lists) or directly to the IESG if you deem appropriate.