The IESG has received a request from the Network File System Version 4 WG (nfsv4) to consider the following document: - 'pNFS block disk protection' <draft-ietf-nfsv4-pnfs-block-disk-protection-02.txt> as Proposed Standard The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits final comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the ietf@ietf.org mailing lists by 2012-06-06. Exceptionally, comments may be sent to iesg@ietf.org instead. In either case, please retain the beginning of the Subject line to allow automated sorting. Abstract Parallel NFS (pNFS) extends Network File System version 4 (NFSv4) to enable direct client access to file data on storage, bypassing the NFSv4 server. This can increase both performance and parallelism, but requires additional client functionality, some of which depends upon the type of storage used. The pNFS specification for block storage (RFC 5663) describes how clients can identify the volumes used for pNFS, but this mechanism requires communication with the NFSv4 server. This document updates RFC 5663 to add a mechanism that enables identification of block storage devices used by pNFS file systems without communicating with the server. This enables clients to control access to pNFS block devices when the client initially boots, as opposed to waiting until the client can communicate with the NFSv4 server. This last call explicitly identifies 1 downref in the normative references of this document: [GPT] Unified EFI Forum, "Unified Extensible Firmware Interface Specification", Version 2.3.1, Errata A, Section 5.3, September 2011, available from http://www.uefi.org . GPT GUID usage is well understood and implemented. This I-D provides a documentation/definition point.Given the use case of NFSv4.1 pNFS block devices, the documentation of the pNFS GPT GUID in an IETF RFC best suites the need of the community. The file can be obtained via http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-nfsv4-pnfs-block-disk-protection/ IESG discussion can be tracked via http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-nfsv4-pnfs-block-disk-protection/ballot/ No IPR declarations have been submitted directly on this I-D.