The IESG has approved the following document: - 'Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) Requirements' (draft-ietf-alto-reqs-16.txt) as Informational RFC This document is the product of the Application-Layer Traffic Optimization Working Group. The IESG contact persons are Wesley Eddy and Martin Stiemerling. A URL of this Internet Draft is: http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-alto-reqs/ Technical Summary This is a procedural document, listing requirements for the protocol the ALTO WG is chartered to standardize. The abstract of the draft provides an accurate summary: Many Internet applications are used to access resources, such as pieces of information or server processes, which are available in several equivalent replicas on different hosts. This includes, but is not limited to, peer-to-peer file sharing applications. The goal of Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) is to provide guidance to applications, which have to select one or several hosts from a set of candidates, that are able to provide a desired resource. This guidance shall be based on parameters that affect performance and efficiency of the data transmission between the hosts, e.g., the topological distance. The ultimate goal is to improve performance (or Quality of Experience) in the application while reducing resource consumption in the underlying network infrastructure. This document enumerates requirements for specifying, assessing, or comparing protocols and implementations. Working Group Summary The document has had reviews by key WG members, as well as by members of WGs that are considering the work of the alto WG as the basis for their standardization work (esp. decade and cdni WGs). It has been intetionally kept alive, refined and reviewed in several iterations, for quite a long time to track new requirements during the early phase of the specification work. Since the specs are now generally considered mature, the WG has expressed strong consensus to move it toward publication. Document Quality The document has received extended review by WG members, as well as by contributors of other WGs (esp. DECADE and CDNI) that are considering the ALTO protocol as the basis for their specification work. Personnel Document Shepherd: Enrico Marocco Responsible Area Director: Wesley Eddy
