IPS Draft Charter

[Black_David@emc.com]

As promised, here's the current charter draft that the
co-chairs and ADs have been working on is attached.  A
couple of important notes:

- The scope is considerably broader than iSCSI; this
	is deliberate.
- The schedule/milestones is/are particularly drafty.

Comments and suggestions are encouraged, promptly
so there's a reasonable chance of having a close-
to-final revision prior to Pittsburgh.

Thanks,
--David

---------------------------------------------------
David L. Black, Senior Technologist
EMC Corporation, 42 South St., Hopkinton, MA  01748
+1 (508) 435-1000 x75140, FAX: +1 (508) 497-6909
black_david@emc.com  Cellular: +1 (978) 394-7754
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IP Storage (ips) Working Group Proposed Charter - DRAFT 

There is significant interest in using IP-based networks to transport
block storage traffic.  This group will pursue the pragmatic approach of
encapsulating existing block storage protocols, such as SCSI and certain
Fibre Channel protocols, in an IP-based transport or transports.  The group
will focus on the transport or transports and related issues (e.g.,
security,
naming, discovery, and configuration), as opposed to modifying existing
block
storage protocols.  Standards for those protocols are controlled by other
standards
organizations (e.g., T10 [SCSI] and T11 [Fibre Channel]).  The WG cannot
assume
that any changes it desires will be made in these standards, and hence will
pursue approaches that do not depend on such changes unless they are
unavoidable and in that case will create a document to be forwarded to
the standards group responsible for the technology explaining the 
issue and requesting the desired changes be considered.  The WG will
endeavor to ensure high quality communications with these
standards organizations.

The storage protocols to be encapsulated expect a reliable transport,
in that failure to deliver data is considered to be a rare event for
which time-consuming recovery is acceptable.  This has implications
for both the choice of transport protocols and design of the
encapsulation(s).  Encapsulations of the storage protocols may require
quality of service assurances (e.g., predictable latency) to operate
successfully; the WG will consider what assurances are appropriate and
how to provide such assurances in shared traffic environments
based on existing IETF QoS mechanisms such as Differentiated Services.

Use of an IP-based transport raises issues that do not occur in existing
storage transports.  The WG will address at least the following issues:
- Congestion control suitable for the shared traffic environment of
	the Internet.
- Security measures, including authentication and privacy, sufficient
	to defend against threats that can be expected on a public network.
- Storage naming and discovery mechanisms for block storage services
	on IP-based networks that support other services and protocols.
- Management, including appropriate MIB definition.
The WG will not require either modifications to common transport
protocols such as TCP and IP or presence of options that are not
widely supported, although the WG may recommend use of such options
for block storage traffic.

The WG will consider issues raised by bridges and gateways to existing
implementations of block storage protocols in order to support effective
interoperability of the protocols developed in the working group with other
implementations and/or encapsulations of the same block storage protocol(s).
It may be necessary for block storage traffic to pass through Network
Address Translators (NATs) and/or firewalls in some circumstances; the
WG will endeavor to design NAT- and firewall-friendly protocols that do
not dynamically select target ports or require Application Level Gateways.

Effective implementations of some IP-transports for block storage traffic
are likely to require hardware acceleration; the WG will consider issues
concerning the effective implementation of its protocols in hardware.
The standard internet checksum is weaker than the checksums used by existing
block storage implementations.  The WG will consider what levels of data
integrity assurance are required for block storage traffic over IP networks
and how they should be achieved.

The WG will produce a framework document describing the encapsulation or
encapsulations it intends to pursue, and requirements, applicability
and protocol specification documents for each encapsulation.  The framework
document will consider whether both end-system and gateway node (including
gateways to Fibre Channel) requirements can be accommodated in a single
protocol
family (e.g., as has been done by the IP Security Protocol).  The
applicability
and requirements documents will consider both disk and tape devices and take
note of the variation in scale from single drives to large disk arrays and
tape libraries; the protocols need not be applicable to all such devices.

The WG will not work on:
- Extensions to existing block storage protocols beyond those strictly
	necessary for the use of IP-based transports.
- Support for environments in which significant data loss or data
	corruption is acceptable.
- File system protocols.
 
Milestones

Aug 00 Initial meeting in Pittsburgh.  Launch framework discussion to
	select encapsulation approach or approaches.
Sep 00 Publish version of framework draft reflecting WG consensus
	on encapsulation approach or approaches.
Dec 00 Discuss framework, and first set of requirements, applicability
	and protocol specification drafts at IETF meeting in San Diego.
Jan 01 Submit framework and first set of requirements, applicability,
	and protocol specification drafts to IESG.
Mar 01 Discuss MIB and any ancillary drafts required to use the
	specified protocols at IETF meeting in Minneapolis.
May 01 Submit MIB draft to IESG.

Aug 01 Meet at IETF to close any open issues and finish any outstanding
	work items.