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IETF Experiments
draft-bonica-gendispatch-exp-00

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This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Active".
Authors Ron Bonica , Adrian Farrel
Last updated 2024-07-02
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draft-bonica-gendispatch-exp-00
GenDispatch Working Group                                      R. Bonica
Internet-Draft                                          Juniper Networks
Intended status: Best Current Practice                         A. Farrel
Expires: 3 January 2025                               Old Dog Consulting
                                                             2 July 2024

                            IETF Experiments
                    draft-bonica-gendispatch-exp-00

Abstract

   This document describes IETF experiments and provides guidelines for
   the publication of Experimental RFCs.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on 3 January 2025.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2024 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/
   license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document.
   Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
   and restrictions with respect to this document.  Code Components
   extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as
   described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are
   provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Requirements on Experimental RFCs . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
     2.1.  Codepoints in Experimental RFCs . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     2.2.  Requirements Level Language and Keywords  . . . . . . . .   4
   3.  Experimental Reports  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   4.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   5.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   6.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   7.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     7.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     7.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6

1.  Introduction

   Experimental RFCs in the IETF Stream describe IETF experiments.  IETF
   process experiments are described in [RFC3933], but this document is
   concerned with protocol experiments.

   An IETF protocol experiment is a procedure that is executed on the
   Internet for a bounded period of time.  The experiment can, but does
   not always, include the deployment of a new protocol or protocol
   extension.  When two protocols are proposed to solve a single
   problem, the IETF can initiate an experiment in which each protocol
   is deployed.  Operational experience obtained during the experiments
   can help to determine which, if either, of the protocols should be
   progressed to the standards track.

   An IETF experiment must not harm the Internet or interfere with
   established network operations.  It must be conducted in a carefully
   controlled manner (for example, using a limited domain [RFC8799]).
   Furthermore, it must use protocol identifiers that do not conflict
   with other protocols or experiments.

   When an IETF protocol experiment concludes, experimental results
   should be reported in one or more informational RFCs.

   This document describes IETF protocol experiments and provides
   guidelines for the publication of Experimental RFCs.  Experimental
   RFCs in the Independent Submissions Stream are out of scope of this
   document.

2.  Requirements on Experimental RFCs

   An Experimental RFC must:

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   *  Describe the experiment in details, so that it can be replicated
      by non-collaborating parties and recognised when it is seen in
      deployments.

   *  Describe an experiment that does not harm the Internet or
      interfere with its established operations.

   *  Include a date at which the experiment will be terminated.

   *  Include metrics and observations that will be collected during the
      experiment.

   *  Include criteria by which success of the experiment will be
      determined.

   When two protocols are proposed to solve a single problem, the IETF
   can initiate an experiment in which each protocol is deployed.  In
   this case, the same metrics should be collected in each experiment.

2.1.  Codepoints in Experimental RFCs

   [RFC8126] describes guidelines for writing IANA Considerations
   sections in RFCs.  It lists a number of assignment policies that
   apply to codepoint registries maintained by IANA.

   Experimental RFCs cannot obtain codepoints from registries or parts
   of registries that are managed under the following assignment
   policies:

   *  Standards Action

   *  Hierarchical Allocation

   An Experimental RFC may request and be granted codepoints from
   registries or parts of registries that are managed under the
   following assignment policies:

   *  First Come First Served

   *  Expert Review

   *  Specification Required

   *  RFC Required

   *  IETF Review

   *  IESG Approval

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   Consideration must be given to the fact that the experiment may be
   temporary in nature and the protocol or protocol extensions may be
   abandoned.  If there is a scarcity of available codepoints in a
   registry, even more caution should be applied to any codepoint
   assignments.

   Some registries or parts of registries are marked as "For
   Experimental Use: Not to be assigned."  These ranges are specifically
   intended for use by protocol experiments.  But assigments are not
   made from them and Experimental RFCs must not document and codepoints
   from such ranges.  Instead, protocol implementations should allow the
   codepoints to be configured so that all implementations participating
   in an experiment can interoperate and so that multiple experiments
   may co-exist in the same network.

   Experiemts should not use Private Use registries.

   Additionally, IANA will not create any new registries or sub-
   registries as specified in Experimental RFCs.  Experimental RFCs that
   would otherwise ask for the creation of protocol registries can
   simply enumerate the codepoints within the RFC.

2.2.  Requirements Level Language and Keywords

   An Experimental RFC describing a protocol experiment may use BCP 14
   requirements level language and keywords [RFC2119] [RFC8174] to help
   clarify the description of the protocol or prtocol extension and the
   expected behavior of implementations.

3.  Experimental Reports

   Experimental Reports shoul include the following information:

   *  Scale of deployment

   *  Effort required to deploy

      -  Was deployment incremental or network-wide?

      -  Was there a need to synchronize configurations at each node or
         could nodes be configured independently

      -  Did the deployment require hardware upgrade?

   *  Effort required to secure

   *  Performance impact of risk mitigation

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   *  Effectiveness of risk mitigation

   *  Cost of risk mitigation

   *  Interoperability

   *  Did you deploy two inter-operable implementations?

   *  Did you experience interoperability problems?

   *  Effectiveness and sufficiency of OAM mechanism

4.  IANA Considerations

   This document does not make any requests of IANA, but see Section 2.1
   for details of the use of codepoints in Experimental RFCs.

5.  Security Considerations

   As this document does not introduce any new protocols or operational
   procedures, it does not introduce any new security considerations

   Experimental RFCs must include security and privacy considerations as
   with any other RFC.  As well as considering the security and privacy
   implications of the protocol or protocol extensions, Experimental
   RFCs should examine the implications for security and privacy of
   running an experiment on the Internet.

6.  Acknowledgements

   The authors wish to acknowledge TBD for their review and helpful
   comments.

7.  References

7.1.  Normative References

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119>.

   [RFC8126]  Cotton, M., Leiba, B., and T. Narten, "Guidelines for
              Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26,
              RFC 8126, DOI 10.17487/RFC8126, June 2017,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8126>.

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   [RFC8174]  Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8174>.

7.2.  Informative References

   [RFC3933]  Klensin, J. and S. Dawkins, "A Model for IETF Process
              Experiments", BCP 93, RFC 3933, DOI 10.17487/RFC3933,
              November 2004, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3933>.

   [RFC8799]  Carpenter, B. and B. Liu, "Limited Domains and Internet
              Protocols", RFC 8799, DOI 10.17487/RFC8799, July 2020,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8799>.

Authors' Addresses

   Ron Bonica
   Juniper Networks
   Herndon, Virginia
   United States of America
   Email: rbonica@juniper.net

   Adrian Farrel
   Old Dog Consulting
   United Kingdom
   Email: adrian@olddog.co.uk

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