We've been working toward a possible IETF BoF on diffserv control plane elements to be under the Operations and Management Area. Our in-progress Background and Goals for the BoF: It's been some time since the Diffserv forwarding path elements were standardized. At that time, the approach was to get the mechanisms deployed in routers so that approaches to service creation and control plane could be attempted. Before closing, the Diffserv WG defined the concept of Per-Domain Behaviors (PDBs) in RFC 3086, but left the approach to controling PDBs open. Now Diffserv forwarding elements are available in most routers and are in use to create services in some networks. A variety of approaches are being used for control and management of Diffserv but there appears to be some commonality. A possible path for IETF work is to enumerate and classify the common elements and to work toward some best common practices. Additionally, it may be useful to present specifications for a range of diffserv control plane elements using common interfaces. The major issues to deploying Diffserv-based services are primarily operational. The deployment must be cost-effective, be secured against vulnerabilities and not become a vehicle for denial of service attacks. Standardization should result in existing toolsets being either expanded to cover more needed functionality or to interact with other tools. A standardization effort should cover how to secure the architecture to mitigate vulnerabilities. Standards for a control plane QoS agent for routers may be useful. A desired outcome of IETF efforts is to make multiple products available to network operators, obviating the time and personnel expense of individual solutions. The end goal is to enable more services, both for network customers and for control of the network, without taxing personnel. The starting point for a BoF is to look at what's out there, determine if there is indeed some uniformity of approach useful as a starting point, and determine what's missing. The intial focus would be the intradomain control plane moving to interdomain or AS under same provider and finally to interprovider or interoperator. ------------------------------------------------------------------ The entire in-progress proposal for the BoF can be viewed at www.pollere.com under Resources, then Current Work or you can find a text version in the archives of the dcpel list. If you are interested in helping to further shape the proposal, please sign up for the email list dcpel@xxxxxxxx through www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/dcpel and comment on the list. thanks, Kathie Nichols Scott Bradner _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf