Internet and OSI Harmonisation BOF (IOH) Reported by Jack Houldsworth/ISO-SC6 and Alan Lloyd/Datacraft Technologies The IOH BOF met once at the 33rd IETF on Wednesday, 19 July. Introduction The IOH BOF session was held to examine the way forward in the Internet and OSI Harmonisation process. The session was conducted in the main plenary theatre and relayed, with interactive facilities, via the MBone. The meeting was chaired by Jack Houldsworth, the ISO/IEC JTC1/SC6 Rapporteur and attended by Vinton Cerf and many other key figures from the IETF. Alan Lloyd of Australia, who was en-route to the SC21 meeting in Ottowa, attended as an informal representative for both SC18 and SC21. The ITUT has just established liaison with the IETF and Herbert Bertine, the Chairman of ITU-T Study Group 7, also attended. The agenda presented was as follows: o Introduction and Agenda Bash o Presentations - Jack Houldsworth * Update on SC6 strategy * SC6 views of scope for harmonisation * Network and transport harmonisation - Alan Lloyd * Applications areas * Messaging and directories * Security * Management * Abstract syntax notation.1 o Possibilities of harmonisation o Open discussion - Goals of harmonisation - Areas that can be progressed - Interchange mechanisms - Actions Update on Activities in SC6 Jack reminded the IETF members of the simple rules in the SC6/IETF co-operative agreement which was signed by Vint Cerf and Jack Wheeler (the Chairman of SC6) in April of this year. They are: o Freedom to attend each others meetings o Bi-directional transfer of information and work programmes - Posted electronically o Referencing of each others standards - Design authority stays with the originator He reported that the electronic release of key standards has now been cleared and access will be handled by the formal IETF liaison representative, Susan Thompson. IETF representatives were unhappy about the release mechanism, which involves nominating specific IETF representatives who should receive authority to access the standards, and thought this to be too restrictive. There were several calls for a freer access to be made available for the rather short list of standards which has been requested. It was pointed out that committee documents, which relate to the ongoing development activity, will probably be more useful than the formal standards and these should be available for electronic distribution. IETF representatives were invited to the upcoming SC6 meeting in Brazil (4-15 December). There is a small cultural gap here because anyone can walk into an IETF meeting, provided the registration fee is paid, and express their personal opinion on any subject under discussion. The ISO/IEC and the ITU-T representatives said that they would like to have representatives announced so that they can be sure that they are expressing an IETF and not a personal view. A few IETF cultural purists argued that this is restrictive but it was generally considered to be a sensible approach. It was announced that SC6 have applied for an ICD for IANA and this was well received. The NSAP mapping draft allows for International Code Designators (ICDs) to be carried in IPv6 headers. The SC6 sponsored application was formally actioned by the ISO/IEC registration authority (BSI) during the meeting. The IANA ICD = 0090. IETF members were also impressed by the referencing of RFC 1006 by SC6 as the preferred mechanism for running OSI applications over TCP/IP. Presentation of the SC6 Internet/OSI Convergence Strategy Jack Houldsworth presented the strategy for co-existence between OSI and TCP/IP, and future convergence with IP version 6, which had been developed at the recent SC6 meeting in Beppu, Japan: o Converge OSI and TCP/IP networking layers o Co-existence of IPv6 and CLNP o Focus on IPv6 for the future - But support CLNP users during migration o Convergence at the transport layer - Support both OSI and IPS applications - Clear convergence and migration strategy - Enhanced transport for multimedia (TCPng?) He outlined the SC6 views on convergence issues and the opportunities for co-operation. A work programme has been proposed to support the strategic goals: o Network layer - IPv6 and CLNP co-existence, interworking and migration - Refine IETF proposals for OSI co-existence * NSAP addressing * Tunnelling o Transport layer - Adopt RFC 1006 * Allows OSI applications over IPv4 or IPv6 - New mechanisms for TP4 over IPv6 and CLNP - Consider TUBA (TCP over CLNP) as a convergence tool - Develop TCPng in co-operation with the IETF - Consider other migration tools * X/Open Transport Interface (XTI) * X/Open Multi-protocol Transport Networking (XMPTN) o Routing - Work on IDRP, ES-IS and IS-IS protocols o Other areas of common interest - Converged management in the lower layers - Converged security standards He reported that SC6 have established a Rapporteur Group to work on IPv6 and TCPng and to define the transition mechanisms and migration strategies: The Rapporteur is Jack Houldsworth: The Rapporteurs Group will work through a mailing list: To join: No major issues were raised about the SC6 strategy and work programme which seems to be reasonably well in tune with the current IETF activities. However, the IETF members did not see the need for a new transport standard (TCPng) and will continue to evolve the existing TCP. Maybe this is just another approach to TCPng. The IETF recognise that there are plenty of problems to solve on multicast. In the short term, SC6 was requested to apply its attention to the use of OSI transport over both the traditional IP and the new IPv6. IETF members also invited help in solving some problems which exist when operating the OSI convergence standard RFC 1006 over TCP/IP. It was suggested that the SC6ietf mailing list can be used for technical discussions on these issues. Jack Houldsworth was asked to carry the above views and requests for co-operation back to SC6. Presentation on Harmonisation in the Applications Area Alan Lloyd presented the current architecture and procedure standards in SC18 and SC21. He also highlighted the importance of properly controlled global address registration. Points proposed in his presentation for application harmonisation: o Use of ASN.1 for application layer information definitions o Use of X.500 as a naming service -- global names and information objects o Registration of application layer RFCs for presentation layer syntaxes o Consideration of E.164/NSAP forms for switched networks o Security: Alignment with X.509 and use of tokens and labels o Management: Incorporation of X.500 name forms into SNMP ! X.700 o Messaging: Alignment of X.400 with SMTP, MIME, PEM o Directories: DNS and X.500 The discussion on the above points concluded that some description and discussion points should be documented and submitted to the IETF and ISO. The IETF representatives said that they were less interested in architectural and framework information from SC18 and SC21 than practical input on known problems. They suggested that the focus should be on standards that can interwork together (e.g., SMTP/MIME and X.400). However, pre-packaged solutions from ISO/IEC and ITU-T will not be well received. In particular: o SMTP/MIME and X.400 interworking requires attention. o DNS/X.500 relationship needs sorting out. o There are problems to be solved on Multicast. o Input would be welcomed on all these areas. Alan Lloyd was asked to carry the above views back to SC18 and SC21. General Discussion The IOH session was very lively and certainly cleared the air. The ISO/IEC and ITU-T representatives were satisfied that the IETF is taking a serious and professional approach to standards creation. The future now looks extremely bright for the new triangular co-operation between ISO/IEC, ITU-T and ISOC. It was acknowledged that there are specific areas, such as operation over mixed network types (analogue and digital) where the experience of both ISO/IEC and ITU-T will be very valuable to the IETF. Actions Actions on the ISO/IEC and ITU-T representatives are contained in the above minutes.