Local Peer and Remote Peer

Mike Ko <[email protected]> Tue, 13 Sep 2005 17:34:22 -0700
Newsgroups gmane.ietf.rddp
Message-ID <OF93CB2557.D7BB6758-ON8525707B.007C8184-8825707C.0003254B@us.ibm.com>
In the course of updating the iSER draft, we found that the usage of the 
terms "Local Peer" and "Remote Peer" as they relate to Advertisement is 
not quite correct in both the RDMAP draft and the DDP draft.

In the RDMAP draft, "Local Peer" is defined as "The RDMA/DDP protocol 
implementation on the local end of the connection" and "Remote Peer" is 
similarly defined as "The RDMA/DDP protocol implementation on the opposite 
end of the connection".  Under the definition of Advertisement, it states 
that "advertisement of Tagged Buffer information is not defined by 
RDMA/DDP and is left to the ULP".  For example, it is the iSER layer at 
the local node that advertises the STag to the iSER layer at the remote 
node by embedding the STag in a Send Message and the RDMAP/DDP layers send 
the Send Message with no knowledge of the embedded STag.  However, In the 
RDMAP draft, Advertisement is defined as "the act of informing a Remote 
Peer that a local RDMA Buffer is available to it. A Node makes available 
an RDMA Buffer for incoming RDMA Read or RDMA Write access by informing 
its RDMA/DDP peer of the Tagged Buffer identifiers ...".  This should be 
changed to "the act of informing the ULP of a Remote Peer that a local 
RDMA Buffer is available to it.  A Node makes available an RDMA Buffer for 
incoming RDMA Read or RDMA Write access by informing the ULP of its Remote 
Peer of the Tagged Buffer identifiers ..."

Similarly, 

The defintion of Tagged Buffer should refer to the "ULP of the Remote 
Peer" instead of just "Remote Peer" and the revised definition should be 
"A buffer that is explicitly Advertised to the ULP of the Remote Peer 
through exchange of an STag, Tagged Offset, and length".

The defintion of Untagged Buffer should refer to the "ULP of the Remote 
Peer" instead of just "Remote Peer" and the revised defintion should be "A 
buffer that is not explicitly Advertised to the ULP of the Remote Peer."

"ULP Buffer" is currently defined as "A buffer owned above the RDMAP Layer 
and advertised to the RDMAP Layer either as a Tagged Buffer or an Untagged 
ULP Buffer".  This defintion is unclear since it does not mention whether 
the RDMAP Layer refers to the local node or the remote node.  If the RDMAP 
Layer refers to the remote node, then it is incorrect to state that the 
Untagged buffer is advertised.  If the RDMAP is the local node, then usage 
of the term "advertised" is incorrect since it is used in reference to a 
remote node.  Perhaps it should be defined as "A buffer owned above the 
RDMAP Layer and made available to the RDMAP Layer either as a Tagged 
Buffer or an Untagged Buffer."

Mike