Re: IMPORTANT: Strategy for VPN work in IETF

Jeremy,

Thanks for your message, please see my comments inline below.

> I believe that it can also be read as indicating that many feel that
> most of the (current) L3VPN work is stable and agreed upon, and doesn't
> need more discussion within the WG.

I'd like to make a particular comment on those documents considered
"stable" and "done". Very often it seems that once the active
discussion in the WG is settled, this is it, the document is ready to
fly and not much attention is needed. My experience as an AD and an
IESG member is quite different. Quite often considerable issues are
found during the AD-review and IESG-review processes. I am not talking
about fundamental disagreements like whether MPLS is good or evil, but
about plain technical issues, security aspects, etc. These are parts
of the path of a document through the IETF process and often require
the same level of attention and focus of the WG as during the first
(intra-WG) phase of it. So, my point here is that we should not
underestimate the amount of work that is left for the existing L3
documents.

> As was already hinted previously, the progress of the L3VPN work has
> been delayed (for a long time) because the framework and
> requirements documents needed to be accepted first.

This sounds like the delays for those docs have been primarily on the
IESG side. I think it would be interesting to take a look at the logs
in the ID tracker to see where exactly the delays were.

As a data point, I can tell you that the way of a document within the
IESG is time-bound, because of the way the IESG as a body operates.
Most of the delays I see in reality are during either the AD-review
process, or when input from the IESG needs to be addressed.

> I do believe however that several proposed new working items (QoS,
> security, management, multicast, etc.) have received little attention
> from the WG because of the current L2VPN (VPLS) discussions/urgency. But
> as many of these are aimed at both L2 and L3VPNs, and as I don't find
> reference to these items in the proposed charters, I understand that the
> goal of the proposed split is not to accomodate these.

Could you send the draft names, pls?

> On one hand, I believe that the idea of two separate WGs is a good one,
> but on the other hand, I'm not sure how much it will help now, so far in
> the process.

> I also personally believe that the PPVPN WG has produced valuable
> results, and is making progress on complex topics every day (look at the
> current IEEE vs VPLS discussions on this list). And this despite the
> fact that the 'market' is not waiting and despite the fact that the
> number of interested individuals (from different backgrounds: SPs,
> vendors, academic and other standard bodies) is very large.

Noted.

Thanks.

Alex