The IESG has approved the following document: - 'IETF Recommendations Regarding Active Queue Management' (draft-ietf-aqm-recommendation-11.txt) as Best Current Practice This document is the product of the Active Queue Management and Packet Scheduling Working Group. The IESG contact persons are Spencer Dawkins and Martin Stiemerling. A URL of this Internet Draft is: http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-aqm-recommendation/ Technical Summary This document is a complete rework of the recommendations to have some form of active queue management in ideally every queue. While RFC2309 (1998) was mostly concerned around network stability, and made recommendations which did not appeal to operators (universal deployment of RED, which has been found to be particularly hard to configure correctly), this revised document includes the lessons learned over the past years. Also, the main focus is on reducing network latency, while still delivering improvements to network stability. It contains a number of requirements, that a modern AQM mechanism should fulfill, without endorsing one specific method. Working Group Summary There was consensus early on about the aim and technical content of this document. However, specific wording (e.g. carrying over text from RFC2309, as this document started off as a 2309bis draft) was objected to. Also, the question if this document should update or obsolete the earlier BCP (which was the result of discussions on the end2end mailing list, prior of formation of the IRTF) has been disussed eagerly. On the technical grounds to argue for obsoleting the earlier BCP, this document specifically deprecates RED in favor of one of potentially several more modern AQM algorithms. Further, a point has been made that since it is not necessary to read RFC2309 to arrive at a sound understanding of the IETF (WG) consensus position around AQM, and the deviation is large enough with little overlap, having this document update 2309 was deemed less appropriate than obsoleting it. Finally, one active participant has expressed very strong objections to some of the points summarized above, but later commented that he will accept his position as "in the rough". So, even though this was voiced at one point in time, an appeal is not expected. Document Quality As a BCP, a number of operators and developers are following up on the updated recommendations. Newer mechanisms that fulfill the updated requirements have been developed by multiple parties and are already being deployed by third parties (e.g. DOCSIS PIE in Cable Modems). Have a significant number of vendors indicated their plan to implement the specification? Yes; As a recommendation, it provides the necessary guidance when mechanisms are developed. Also, interoperability between AQMs is not as strict as in other areas, as many variants can be deployed along a path, as long as some over- arching design principles are adhered to. Are there any reviewers that merit special mention as having done a thorough review, e.g., one that resulted in important changes or a conclusion that the document had no substantive issues? John Leslie and Bob Briscoe made comments that improved the overall document text, to align with the technical aim. However, these changes did not modify the technical content. Personnel The Document Shepherd is Richard Scheffenegger. The Responsible Area Director is Martin Stiemerling.
