ips Administrative Matters and framework document

[Black_David@emc.com]

The ips WG charter is now posted on the IETF web site at:

http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/ips-charter.html

Everyone should read it, as it contains a number of
important statements of goals, requirements, and restrictions,
in addition to a current set of expected milestones.

There are no drafts currently linked to the charter.  The
current plan is to have new versions of the iSCSI and FC over
IP drafts submitted as WG documents (draft-ietf-ips-...) and
link them at that point.  Things have changed sufficiently
since the last versions, that linking them to the web
copy of the charter could seriously mislead people who
aren't following the mailing list.  This should happen
by the end of October, and hopefully a lot earlier (yes,
this is a public hint to the document authors :-) ).

That takes care of the first milestone on the charter.
The second milestone is to get an initial version of
the framework document submitted as an Internet-Draft.
The charter says:

  "The WG will produce a framework document that provides
   an overview of the environments in which its encapsulated
   protocols and related protocols are expected to operate."

The framework document is the place for discussions of how, why
and where iSCSI and FC-over-IP might be used and what the various
other components are that have to be present to make them usable
aside from implementations of these protocols.  This also includes
complementarity of these protocols and discussion of overlap/
situations in which both might be applicable.

The initial version of the framework document will be produced
by an off-line author team for review and comment by the WG.
I'm looking for a few good authors for the document - expertise
on networking, SCSI and Fibre Channel will be needed in the
author team.  Volunteers should have the time available to produce
significant text in the next couple of months, and there's
a need for one person to put in the time to coordinate this
effort and assemble the text as document editor.  The rewards
are fleeting fame as a co-author of the document; I would
guess that it'll go through several serious revisions over the
next 6 months or so before it can be submitted for publication
as an informational RFC.  If you're interested (and I hope
a number of folks out there are), please send me email directly.

Thanks,
--David

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David L. Black, Senior Technologist
EMC Corporation, 42 South St., Hopkinton, MA  01748
+1 (508) 435-1000 x75140     FAX: +1 (508) 497-8500
black_david@emc.com       Mobile: +1 (978) 394-7754
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