Editor's Note: Minutes received 12/10/92 CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_ Reported by Einar Stefferud/NMA Minutes of the IFIP Electronic Mail Management BOF (EMAILMGT) Introduction This was the Second Meeting of the IFIP-EMailMgt Task Group. The basis for formation of the IFIP-EMailMgt Joint Task Group of IFIP WG-6.5 and WG-6.6 was reviewed for the benefit of those who were new to the Group. A large portion were new, since this meeting drew many IETF attendees, and the prior meeting was held at OIW in September. Drawing new participants was one of the primary reasons for organizing an IFIP-EMailMgt BOF meeting at the IETF, and in this we succeeded! The basic points covered were that this is an international task Group that is focused first on pre-standards work, such as requirements determination and abstract modeling for Electronic Mail Management of all kinds of interworking Electronic Mail Systems. The Charter and the work plan reflect this orientation. IFIP-EMailMgt plans to call meetings in conjunction with various other Task Force and Workshop meetings around the world to intersect all interested segments of the EMail Industry. In each such meeting, the EMailMgt attendees will adhere to the meeting rules of their host, including payment of attendance fees and provision of meeting reports. An IFIP-EMailMgt meeting may be called by any interested group, in conjunction with any meeting venue. It is expected that a report of the meeting will be prepared and submitted to the host organization, and to the IFIP-EMailMgt mailing list. The report may include comments on IFIP-EMailMgt work in progress, or may include contributions of any kind, including proposed documents to be progressed for publication as IFIP-EMailMgt output products. Outputs from EMailMgt are directed to whomever may be interested in using them for whatever purposes they may have. IFIP-EMailMgt accepts support and participation from any source. Its meetings are entirely open to anyone with an interest in the issues, as is its Mailing list . To subscribe, send a request to: . According to the Charter, no decisions may be made in any face-to-face meeting. All decisions will be made openly in the mailing list, using consensus measurement techniques. No specific consensus measurement tools have been selected for this purpose, but we expect to manage it in ad hoc ways as we proceed. Therefore, any meeting can do no more than prepare contributions and proposals to the EMailMgt mailing list. 1 Meeting Activities The Charter of the Group was reviewed and a few minor changes were proposed. These will be noted in the Charter for review by the mailing list, along with the process of adoption by the mailing list, which has not yet occurred. The goals and work plan were reviewed. Given that the work is so near to its beginning, the basic goals (develop requirements, models, and object definitions) were retained and work commenced. The objectives of this meeting were to progress our understanding of the EMailMgt requirements, and to begin work on development of appropriate models. These two areas (Requirements and Models) provide the primary focus for the first phase of our work. We are not interested in creation of a whole new set of requirements or models. Thus, the work consists of collecting and synthesizing from other work that has been done, or is currently under way. Some new participants offered to present new work that they are doing, which appears to offer additional prospectives on the overall picture. What we seem to be finding so far is that existing EMailMgt requirements and modeling work fails to include some aspects that other work does include. Thus our first finding is that we do indeed have some serious work to do. Email Management should be thought of as a special case of management. Presentation of Drafts Requirement Document Emily McCoy is the Design Team Leader for a Requirements Document. She presented the first draft version. (EMGT-92-xxxx). It consisted of a meld of may other documents, which were identified as sources for each paragraph to facilitate tracing concepts back to their roots. Conflicting views were placed in the document to raise discussion points. It contained the following sections: o General Requirements. o Requirements from a system administrator view. o User requirements. It was agreed that attendees would read the document and discuss it the next day (Thursday, November 19th). Discussion of Draft Requirements Document Missing Areas: 2 Inter-Relay Aspects: There are better versions of Routing management issues (ISO documents authored by Bob Willmott) from Oslo meeting. Should reference MHS-DS documents. Message Stores User Management Privacy Issues: o Non-OSI is not clearly stated. o Need to make sure that it follows all the flavors and needs of Email, but can't be too generic, since that may make it non-usable. o An editing group was set up to work with Emily on this document. Another Review of Requirements Document Emily explained changes. Then asked for which items were specific and which were generic. It was decided that all items currently in document were generic! (surprise). There was A LOT (read lots) of discussion when the Group got to users requirement, especially in the area of what users and customers were. There seemed to be a need to differentiate between at least two and potentially three different needs at the user's level. Remote Mail Management Issues Context: A set of Email Repository Machines. Using IMAP, a remote mail access protocol, et al. Management problems are inherently from the user's perspective. (See EMGT-92-25 (Remote email/message MGT). Management includes Boards and News. Review of Charter The Group was still having trouble deciding what it is that is Management and what this Group is responsible for. How long will mushiness be there until there is firm ground. Can there be a goal (date wise?). It was decided that what the Group is responsible for should be dictated by the Charter. It was agreed that it should indicate target dates for adoption. Needs a Glossary of items. The editor will rework it where needed, for submission to the mailing list for adoption. Discussion of Model Messaging Model: There are two ends (users in most cases). Some MTA's are in an environment that is larger than themselves. Some are members of other environments. We will call these environments 3 domains. There are protocol enclaves which provide services. A manager is often confused but is the manager of something. Manager defines management domain. Management domain is what a manager manages. This allows for a manager to manage multiple protocols and platforms in that domain. Mail Cache, Mail Drop, Queues and Mail Store environments are important. POP server, P7 User ----> MD Manager --------> Service (transport) Manager This was good model for mail system. Now what is the model for the manager (how to manage it). 1. Manager wants end-to-end connectivity. 2. Message flow. How do you instrument the flows. Requirement is to understand (structure) of the flow. 3. Physical resources. Some diagrams and pictures were drawn, but they are too hard to render in this report so interested readers are encouraged to join the mailing list and obtain copies of better developed documents. Harald agreed to develop a more complete version of the model that took shape in the meeting, and publish it on the mailing list before the end of the year. An initial draft will be available for use at the OIW meeting, December 15-17, 1992. Establishment of Model Design Team Harald will serve as Modeling Design Team leader. The Modeling Design Team mailing list is . To subscribe, send a request to: . Brief Softswitch Model Presentation Sheryl Namoglu (Softswitch) offered her understanding of EMGT-92-010 diagram on page 5. Each line below is a different service (or layer). o User Services (BBS, news, Order processing, etc) o User Management (profile of users, etc) o Mail Services (Routing, Doc Conv, naming translation, Security, etc) o Operating Systems or Transport Service 4 Presentatin of CMU Model Chris Newman presented the CMU Model. The Model proposed is from the manager's view. client -------------- direct delivery --------------- client client ------------ message store (semi-direct) ---- client client -------- mail subscription ---- local gateway ---- client or global gateway Many users --- Bulletin boards (or other such) --- mail service Two radical viewpoints: 1. Elements of management for bb, mail, etc. 2. Services of mail. Ad Hoc Editing Group The Requirements Document was reviewed by (John Hawthorne (Rome Research Corp.), Emily McCoy (Mitre), Chris Newman (CMU), Ray Freiwirth (RCI)). The biggest thing that has to be done to the Requirements Document is folding in other documents. 1. Mailbased servers document. 2. Julian's stuff. 3. Extracted requirements from Ann McLaughlin's MO definitions. 4. Security management document. Review of Meeting Progress and Future Work Plans Set Agenda For OIW Meeting in December. All work beyond completion of Requirements and Modeling Documents is generally on hold because it is dependent on these results. The only exception is that a lot of work is already under way on Definition of CMIS Managed Objects and SNMP MIBs. Thus, current work is organized around these three foci: 1. Requirements 5 2. Models 3. Object Definitions Emily's original document is on the net. A Copy of the new document will be placed on the net for review by the time of the OIW meeting. Harald's 1st and 2nd Model Document drafts will be placed on the net in time for the OIW meeting. Paul Brusil will be asked to lead an effort to collect Managed Object and MIB definitions, and then study them to see what can be learned from them. With any luck, they will form a useful base for EMailMgt. Team Leaders: Emily McCoy Requirements Harald Alvestrand Models Paul Brusil MIB & MO Definition Collection Future Study Identify Management Functions OIW Planned Agenda: o Administrivia o Presentations - Requirements - Model o Discussions - Mapping Requirements/MO o MO & MIB Collections o Management Tools and Management Information Attendees Harald Alvestrand Harald.Alvestrand@delab.sintef.no George Chang gkc@ctt.bellcore.com Daniel Fauvarque dfauvarq@france.sun.com Ned Freed ned@innosoft.com Raphael Freiwirth 5242391@mcimail.com Terry Gray gray@cac.washington.edu Michel Guittet guittet1@applelink.apple.com 6 Alf Hansen Alf.Hansen@delab.sintef.no John Hawthorne johnh@tigger.rl.af.mil Barbara Jennings bjjenni@sandia.gov Marko Kaittola marko.kaittola@funet.fi Neil Katin neil.katin@eng.sun.com Sylvain Langlois Sylvain.Langlois@der.edf.fr Edward Levinson levinson@pica.army.mil Bob Lynch lynch@dsteg.dec.com Emily McCoy mccoy@gateway.mitre.org John Myers jgm+@cmu.edu Sheryl Namoglu sfn@softsw.ssw.com Chris Newman chrisn+@cmu.edu Kary Robertson kr@concord.com Jim Romaguera romaguera@cosine-mhs.switch.ch Jon Saperia saperia@tcpjon.ogo.dec.com Michael Sapich sapich@conware.de Richard Schmalgemeier rgs@merit.edu Chris Shaw cshaw@banyan.com John Sherburne john.sherburne@sprintintl.sprint.com Einar Stefferud stef@nma.com Panos-Gavriil Tsigaridas Tsigaridas@fokus.berlin.gmd.dbp.de 7