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Shepherd writeup
rfc9222-07

Shepherd writeup for draft-ietf-anima-asa-guidelines
Version: 2
Date:    11/10/2021
Author:  Toerless Eckert, tte@cs.fau.de

Status:
Document did pass WGLC earlier this week.

> As required by RFC 4858, this is the current template for the Document
> Shepherd Write-Up. Changes are expected over time.
>
> This version is dated 1 November 2019.

> (1) What type of RFC is being requested (BCP, Proposed Standard, Internet
Standard, Informational, Experimental, or Historic)? Why is this the proper
type of RFC? Is this type of RFC indicated in the title page header?

This draft requests to be an informational WG RFC.
This status is correctly indicated in the page header.

> (2) The IESG approval announcement includes a Document Announcement Write-Up.
Please provide such a Document Announcement Write-Up. Recent examples can be
found in the "Action" announcements for approved documents. The approval
announcement contains the following sections:

Technical Summary:

The ANIMA WG has defined a set of mechanisms through its RFCs most of whom where
released earlier in 2021.

One key benefit of these mechanisms is to make it easier to develop and deploy
network automation software agents on network devices. These agents are called
 "Autonomic Service Agents" (ASA).

This simplification is achieved through the autonomic services offered by ANIMAs
"Autonomic Networking Infrastructure" and its services provided to those ASA.

This document gives an overview of the structure of ASA and guidance for its
interaction mechanisms with those services. These functions are primarily
service (objective) interactions with other ASA via the ANI GRASP protocol,
use of the ANI's ACP for any other secure communication between ASA and ASA
Lifecycles.

> Working Group Summary:

This document was worked on and improved by several members of the WG for
a long time (Since Sep 2016) without being adopted because work on ASA and
potocols/mechanisms for them was out of charter for a long time. Most issues
where resolved during this time, which is why the document only needed to
receive few revisions after being adopted by the WG when the charter allowed
for it.

> Document Quality:

This document is of an architectural/design nature. It predates significant
implementation experience. It does not discuss any protocols but primarily
use of abstract service interfaces within a network device.

A simple proof of concept of some of the aspects described in this document
was done by Brian Carpenter (co-author) and is discussed here:

https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/anima/u1TCJQ0PpOJSVs9bdqr5akwA25w/
There are no formal languages used.

Thorough reviews where done by multiple reviewers listed in the acknowledgement
section including the Shepherd (for the penultimate version of the document).

> Who is the Document Shepherd? Who is the Responsible Area Director?

Document Shepherd: Toerless Eckert

Responsible AD: Rob Wilton (OPS).

Note that initially, ANIMA was completely managed by an INT AD
(Terry Manderson) because there was a lot of larger system component
interaction issues to be resolved, which was probably felt to better
fit INT than OPS. This document, while only being informational,
is primarily talking about integration aspects of components, where
an INT AD might also be an option (Shepherd has no strong opinion either way).

> (3) Briefly describe the review of this document that was performed by the
Document Shepherd. If this version of the document is not ready for
publication, please explain why the document is being forwarded to the IESG.

See above. Thorough review by Shepherd.
The Shepherd thinks that this document is ready for publication.

> (4) Does the document Shepherd have any concerns about the depth or breadth
of the reviews that have been performed?

No.

> (5) Do portions of the document need review from a particular or from broader
perspective, e.g., security, operational complexity, AAA, DNS, DHCP, XML, or
internationalization? If so, describe the review that took place.

No.

> (6) Describe any specific concerns or issues that the Document Shepherd has
with this document that the Responsible Area Director and/or the IESG should be
aware of? For example, perhaps he or she is uncomfortable with certain parts of
the document, or has concerns whether there really is a need for it. In any
event, if the WG has discussed those issues and has indicated that it still
wishes to advance the document, detail those concerns here.

The document shepherd is fine with the document.
There are no issues. The need of the document is
the desire to provide some initial guidance for
software developers intending to start building ASA
and ANI software components. Given how this first round
of guidance for a completely new (ANIMA) architecture
is intended to predate such developments, there are
a lot of unknowns, and this is fine.

> (7) Has each author confirmed that any and all appropriate IPR disclosures
required for full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79 have
already been filed. If not, explain why?

Yes.

Brian Carpenter:   Mail as of Oct 16th
Sheng Jiang:       Mail as of Oct 18th
Pierre Peloso:     Mail as of Nov  5th
Laurent Civiaglia: Mail as of Nov 10th
>
> (8) Has an IPR disclosure been filed that references this document? If so,
summarize any WG discussion and conclusion regarding the IPR disclosures.

No: Authors are not aware of any IPR that has not been reported to IETF.

> (9) How solid is the WG consensus behind this document? Does it represent the
strong concurrence of a few individuals, with others being silent, or does the
WG as a whole understand and agree with it?

There is strong consensus in the WG (after going through the revisions to
improve the document quality).

> (10) Has anyone threatened an appeal or otherwise indicated extreme
discontent? If so, please summarise the areas of conflict in separate email
messages to the Responsible Area Director. (It should be in a separate email
because this questionnaire is publicly available.)

No.

> (11) Identify any ID nits the Document Shepherd has found in this document.
(See http://www.ietf.org/tools/idnits/ and the Internet-Drafts Checklist).
Boilerplate checks are not enough; this check needs to be thorough.

https://www6.ietf.org/tools/idnits was run in verbose mode against
the document and found no issues other than its usual self-issues
(not document issues).

> (12) Describe how the document meets any required formal review criteria,
such as the MIB Doctor, YANG Doctor, media type, and URI type reviews.

NA: No formal languages are used, no registries referenced or created.

> (13) Have all references within this document been identified as either
normative or informative?

Yes.

> (14) Are there normative references to documents that are not ready for
advancement or are otherwise in an unclear state? If such normative references
exist, what is the plan for their completion?

All normative references have been published as RFC.

> (15) Are there downward normative references references (see RFC 3967)? If
so, list these downward references to support the Area Director in the Last
Call procedure.

No downware references.

> (16) Will publication of this document change the status of any existing
RFCs? Are those RFCs listed on the title page header, listed in the abstract,
and discussed in the introduction? If the RFCs are not listed in the Abstract
and Introduction, explain why, and point to the part of the document where the
relationship of this document to the other RFCs is discussed. If this
information is not in the document, explain why the WG considers it unnecessary.

No changes to existing RFCs.

> (17) Describe the Document Shepherd's review of the IANA considerations
section, especially with regard to its consistency with the body of the
document. Confirm that all protocol extensions that the document makes are
associated with the appropriate reservations in IANA registries. Confirm that
any referenced IANA registries have been clearly identified. Confirm that newly
created IANA registries include a detailed specification of the initial
contents for the registry, that allocations procedures for future registrations
are defined, and a reasonable name for the new registry has been suggested (see
RFC 8126).

This document makes no requests to IANA.

> (18) List any new IANA registries that require Expert Review for future
allocations. Provide any public guidance that the IESG would find useful in
selecting the IANA Experts for these new registries.

NA.

> (19) Describe reviews and automated checks performed by the Document Shepherd
to validate sections of the document written in a formal language, such as XML
code, BNF rules, MIB definitions, YANG modules, etc.

NA.

> (20) If the document contains a YANG module, has the module been checked with
any of the recommended validation tools
(https://trac.ietf.org/trac/ops/wiki/yang-review-tools) for syntax and
formatting validation? If there are any resulting errors or warnings, what is
the justification for not fixing them at this time? Does the YANG module comply
with the Network Management Datastore Architecture (NMDA) as specified in
RFC8342?

NA.

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