Web4 Federation Architecture Model
draft-jacobs-web4-federation-architecture-00

Individual Submission                                          T. Jacobs
Internet-Draft                                                KTS Global
Intended status: Informational                             8 August 2026
Expires: 9 February 2027

                   Web4 Federation Architecture Model
              draft-jacobs-web4-federation-architecture-00

Abstract

   This document describes a generic architectural model for Web4
   federations, as defined in [JACOBS-TERM], covering node admission,
   tiering, gateway-mediated inter-node transport, and operational
   health verification.  It generalizes patterns observed in a live,
   operating multi-node federation, offered as a Reference
   Implementation under the terminology of [JACOBS-TERM], without
   specifying vendor-internal computational, cryptographic, or
   coordinate mechanisms.

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Conventions and Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   3.  Architectural Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
     3.1.  Node Roles  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     3.2.  Admission Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     3.3.  Gateway-Mediated Transport  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.4.  Tiering and Visibility  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.5.  Health and Coherence Verification . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   4.  Reference Implementation Notes  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   5.  Non-Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   6.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   7.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   8.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   9.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7

1.  Introduction

   [JACOBS-TERM] establishes baseline vocabulary for Web4 systems,
   including "Federation Node," "Tiering," and "Sovereign Entity,"
   without prescribing any specific architecture.  This document fills
   that gap at a generic level: it describes a class of architectures
   capable of satisfying the Web4 definitions, expressed abstractly
   enough to apply to independently engineered implementations, while
   remaining consistent with an operating reference deployment.

   This document intentionally omits internal computational models,
   coordinate systems, cryptographic primitives, and vendor-specific
   optimization techniques.  Its purpose is to describe the shape of a
   Web4 federation -- roles, admission, transport mediation, and
   verification -- not to standardize any single vendor's engine.

2.  Conventions and Terminology

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP
   14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
   capitals as shown here.

   This document uses the terms "Federation Node," "Sovereign Entity,"
   "Tiering," "Conformance Class," and "Reference Implementation" as
   defined in [JACOBS-TERM].

3.  Architectural Model

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3.1.  Node Roles

   A Web4 federation MAY distinguish between the following abstract node
   roles:

   Coordinating Node:  A node responsible for maintaining admission
      state and routing policy for the federation.  A federation MAY
      designate one or more coordinating nodes.

   Member Node:  A node that participates in the federation subject to
      admission by a coordinating node, and that exposes a health/status
      surface for external verification.

   Gateway:  A discrete component, co-located with or adjacent to a
      coordinating node, that mediates inter-node transport requests and
      enforces admission policy at the transport layer, distinct from
      application-layer logic on member nodes.

   These roles are logical, not physical; a single deployed process MAY
   perform more than one role.

3.2.  Admission Mechanism

   Federation membership SHOULD be governed by an explicit, inspectable
   admission mechanism, such as an allowlist keyed by node identity,
   rather than implicit network reachability.  An admission mechanism
   SHOULD support:

   *  Enumeration: a caller with appropriate authorization can retrieve
      the current set of admitted node identities and a count of
      admitted entries.

   *  Modification: node identities can be added to or removed from the
      admitted set without requiring redeployment of member-node
      application code.

   *  Auditability: changes to the admitted set SHOULD be attributable
      to a specific change event, distinguishable from routine
      operational traffic.

   This document does not mandate a specific storage technology for the
   admission mechanism (e.g., key-value store, relational store, or
   distributed ledger); it mandates only the enumerability,
   modifiability, and auditability properties above.

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3.3.  Gateway-Mediated Transport

   Inter-node requests that cross federation-trust boundaries SHOULD
   pass through a gateway component that:

   *  Validates the source node identity against the current admission
      mechanism state before permitting the request to proceed.

   *  Applies a distinct versioned identity from the member nodes it
      serves, such that gateway software can be updated independently of
      member-node application code.

   *  Rejects requests from unlisted source identities with an explicit,
      distinguishable error condition rather than silent failure or a
      generic fallback response.

   A federation MAY additionally define a relay component, distinct from
   the gateway, responsible for forwarding admitted traffic after
   gateway validation.  Separating gateway (admission enforcement) from
   relay (forwarding) is RECOMMENDED so that each component can be
   versioned and audited independently.

3.4.  Tiering and Visibility

   As defined in [JACOBS-TERM], tiering organizes nodes into layered
   relationships.  This document recommends that a federation maintain
   an explicit, queryable map of:

   *  Which nodes are currently first-class (fully admitted and
      participating).

   *  Which nodes are pending, deferred, or held (admitted in principle
      but not currently exchanging traffic).

   *  Which nodes are excluded, and, to the extent operationally
      appropriate, why.

   Maintaining this map as a first-class, independently verifiable
   artifact, rather than only as implicit configuration state, supports
   the auditability property described in Section 3.2 and allows
   external Conformance evaluation as defined in [JACOBS-TERM].

3.5.  Health and Coherence Verification

   Each member node SHOULD expose a health-status surface, independent
   of its primary application logic, that reports at minimum:

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   *  Whether the node considers itself currently admitted to the
      federation.

   *  A federation-network identity token, allowing an external verifier
      to confirm the node believes itself part of the claimed federation
      rather than an unrelated deployment.

   *  A monotonically advancing sequence value (e.g., an epoch or audit
      index) that allows an external verifier to distinguish a live,
      advancing node from a stale or non-responsive one returning a
      cached or fallback response.

   This document takes no position on the internal mechanism used to
   compute or advance such sequence values.

4.  Reference Implementation Notes

   A live, multi-node federation operating under this architectural
   model has been in continuous operation since January 2026, comprising
   more than twenty independently addressable member nodes coordinated
   through a gateway/relay pair, with an enumerable, auditable admission
   mechanism and per-node health surfaces consistent with Section 3.5.
   Consistent with [RFC7942] reporting norms, this note is provided to
   demonstrate that the architecture described in Section 3 is
   achievable in practice; it does not constitute IETF endorsement of
   the specific implementation, and no internal coordinate system,
   cryptographic primitive, or optimization technique used by that
   implementation is disclosed by this document.

5.  Non-Goals

   This document does not:

   *  Specify a wire protocol, serialization format, or transport
      encoding.

   *  Specify or constrain the internal computational model by which a
      node processes, stores, or relates data.

   *  Specify a discovery mechanism by which unrelated federations
      locate one another.

   *  Certify any particular deployment as conformant; conformance
      evaluation is out of scope for this document and is addressed
      separately under the Conformance Class framework of [JACOBS-TERM]
      and [JACOBS-MEC].

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6.  Security Considerations

   An admission mechanism as described in Section 3.2 is a security-
   critical component: any party able to modify the admitted-node set
   can affect federation membership.  Implementations SHOULD restrict
   modification access using authenticated, authorized channels distinct
   from ordinary application traffic, and SHOULD log modification events
   for audit purposes.

   A gateway as described in Section 3.3 becomes a single point of
   trust-boundary enforcement; implementations SHOULD ensure gateway
   failure results in fail-closed behavior (rejecting unvalidated
   traffic) rather than fail-open behavior (passing traffic without
   validation).

   Health surfaces described in Section 3.5, if unauthenticated, reveal
   federation topology and operational state to any observer.
   Implementations SHOULD weigh operational transparency against
   information disclosure and MAY restrict detailed health data to
   authenticated callers while exposing only coarse status publicly.

   This document does not address confidentiality or integrity of
   payloads carried over inter-node transport, which is left to the
   choice of underlying transport protocol.

7.  IANA Considerations

   This document has no IANA actions.

8.  Normative References

   [JACOBS-TERM]
              Jacobs, T., "Web4 Terminology and Definitions", August
              2026, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-jacobs-
              web4-terminology/>.

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

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

9.  Informative References

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   [JACOBS-MEC]
              Jacobs, T., "Web4 Sovereign Entity Comprehension:
              Requirements and External Conformance Framework", August
              2026, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-jacobs-web4-
              sovereign-entity-comprehension/>.

   [RFC7942]  Sheffer, Y. and A. Farrel, "Improving Awareness of Running
              Code: The Implementation Status Section", BCP 205,
              RFC 7942, July 2016,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7942>.

Author's Address

   Tim Jacobs
   KTS Global
   United Arab Emirates
   Email: tim@ktsglobal.live

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