Birds of a Feather at IETF 108

Before each IETF meeting, the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) collects proposals for Birds of a Feather (BOF) sessions. These sessions are designed to help determine the path for new work in the IETF, to generate discussion about a topic within the IETF community, and to determine whether there is interest in working on the topic within the IETF.

The IESG approved three BOF sessions to be scheduled at IETF 108 all of which aim to form new working groups:

A Semantic Definition Format for Data and Interactions of Things (ASDF)

One frequently cited Internet of Things (IoT) challenge is the inconsistency and lack of interoperability across the field of IoT data models, and specifically the lack of a common data model. One Data Model (OneDM) is an initiative aiming to arrive at a common set of data and interaction models that describe IoT devices. The objective of ASDF is to work with OneDM and its contributing organizations to develop the OneDM Semantic Definition Format (SDF) into an IETF-quality specification. There will be a particular focus in the BOF session on determining the level of interest among IoT device makers in implementing and shipping SDF.

Revision of Core Email specifications (EMAILCORE)

For several years, the email community has discussed revisingRFC 5321 andRFC 5322 to transition them to Internet Standards. Both documents are at Draft Standard (which is a status that no longer exists) and they have a significant number of errata submitted. This BOF will be used to determine if there exists sufficient critical mass to undertake a limited review and revision of these documents for the purpose of advancing them to Internet Standard status.

Local Optimizations on Path Segments (LOOPS)

This work is focused on enabling optimizations within segments of an end-to-end path. Typically, these segments are located between overlay nodes (tunnel endpoints), which allows a local optimization protocol to run between these nodes. The LOOPS work is motivated by (1) increasing deployment of encryption, which is affecting the functioning of traditional Performance Enhancing Proxies (PEPs) that leverage transport and application-layer information, and (2) increased processing power available within the network. After a non-WG-forming BOF at IETF 105 and further discussions about sharpening the charter to a specific, attainable initial deliverable, this is now a WG-forming BOF.

I look forward to seeing productive discussion in all three of these sessions at IETF 108!