Path-Decoupled Signaling BOF (pads) Thursday, March 20 at 1530-1730 =============================== CHAIRS: S. Van den Bosch M. Brunner Introduction: The Next Steps in Signaling (NSIS) WG is developing a next-generation general purpose signaling protocol. The protocol is intended to be useful for a wide variety of applications including reservation of QoS resources and configuration of middleboxes (NATs, firewalls). The current consensus within NSIS is that the protocol would consist of two layers: a generic (NSIS) transport or messaging layer for delivering packets between NSIS capable nodes and one or more specific (NSIS) signaling layer which would implement the various applications. A common characteristic of all applications is that they require the installation or modification of state or the collection of information along the data path. NSIS is currently focusing on an interpretation of 'along the data path' as 'visiting the same routers as the data flow'. This is denoted as path-coupled signaling. For a number of applications, it would be useful to have a somewhat broader interpretation of 'along the data path', e.g. 'visiting the same AS's as the data flow'. This is denoted as path-decoupled signaling. The purpose of the BOF session is to survey and discuss the path-decoupled signaling case. The first part of the discussion should bring forward arguments and counter-arguments for path-decoupled signaling. - What are potential interesting use cases for path-decoupled signaling - ... The second part deals with the expected impact path-decoupled signaling would have on the NSIS protocol. It should provide insight in the expected consequences on the layer split and the modularity of both layers in case they would need to support path-decoupled signaling applications. Proposed agenda: 1. Introduction - 5 minutes 2. Why path-decoupled signaling? - 20 minutes 3. Impact on NSIS? - 10 minutes 4. Discussion and round-up - 25 minutes