Network Working Group                                         C. Bormann
Internet-Draft                                   Universitaet Bremen TZI
Intended status: Informational                            March 18, 2018
Expires: September 19, 2018


                   The Series Transfer Pattern (STP)
                       draft-bormann-t2trg-stp-00

Abstract

   Many applications make use of Series of data items, i.e., an array of
   data items where new items can be added over time.  Where such Series
   are to be made available using REST protocols such as CoAP or HTTP,
   the Series has to be mapped into a structure of one or more resources
   and a protocol for a client to obtain the Series and to learn about
   new items.

   Various protocols have been standardized that make Series-shaped data
   available, with rather different properties and objectives.  The
   present document is an attempt to extract a common underlying pattern
   and to define media types and an access scheme that can be used right
   away for further protocols that provide Series-shaped data.

Status of This Memo

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on September 19, 2018.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2018 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
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   (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Objectives  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   3.  A REST Series Transfer Pattern (STP)  . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   4.  IANA considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   5.  Security considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   6.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7

1.  Introduction

   (TO DO: Insert an extended form of the abstract first here, expanding
   the reference to [RFC7230] and [RFC7252] in the process.)

   Examples for protocols that provide Series-shaped data are:

   o  The Atom Syndication Format [RFC4287] defines _feeds_ as Series of
      _entries_ (links plus some metadata, which can often be much of
      the content of an entry), where a feed is represented by a
      collection resource that contains just a small number of the most
      recent entries.  By polling a feed, a client can contain a fresh
      view of the Series, with a focus on recent items.  If the client
      does not poll often enough, it will _miss_ items.

   o  Messaging protocols such as XMPP or SIMPLE transfer series of what
      is often called "Instant Messages".  A publish/subscribe mechanism
      allows a client to select sequences of messages that it is
      interested in.

   o  Mail servers that provide interactive access to stored messages
      present a Series to their clients.  Obviously, loss of messages is
      frowned upon.

   o  CoAP Observe allows a client to observe a resource as it changes;
      the client can collect the changes into a Series.  Observe is
      focused on eventual consistency: a fresher data items simply
      overwrites an older one.  The present document uses the observe
      pattern to build a more general Series Transfer Pattern.



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   o  Syslog is an interesting case of a Series Transfer.

   o  [I-D.ietf-netconf-yang-push],
      [I-D.voit-netmod-yang-notifications2],
      [I-D.ietf-netconf-subscribed-notifications],
      [I-D.ietf-netconf-notification-messages],
      [I-D.ietf-netconf-restconf-notif].

   o  An RTP stream can be viewed as an (somehat extreme) case of a
      Series; new items are just sent inside separate UDP packets.  A
      sequence number allows to detect (but not normally ask for
      retransmission of) missing items.  A timestamp as well as source
      data (SSRC, CSRC) provide further common metadata that aid in the
      processing of the Series items.

   o  An example of an ad-hoc design of a series transfer protocol is
      [I-D.ietf-netconf-udp-pub-channel].

   o  Server-sent events [sse] are a somewhat bizarre version of a
      series transfer protocol.

   o  The Interface for Metadata Access Points (IF-MAP) specified by the
      Trusted Computing Group and emerging derivates of that protocol
      create a series of updates to a graph representation of related
      network-related security information.  The requests created by IF-
      MAP clients are bundled operations of updates to a MAP Graph,
      which compose a Series Transfer Pattern of bundled atomic
      operations that ensure the integrity of the MAP Graph.  [Henk
      Birkholz]

   o  netflow/IPFIX was defined to transfer a series of data items about
      flows.  Information about PDU flows accounted by network
      interfaces of endpoints is emitted in a series of counter bundles
      via the IPFIX protocol.  Only a series of these continuous Flow
      Records creates a ' meaningful bigger picture about the current
      traffic in the network topology of an administrative domain.
      Depending on the characteristics measured, loss of a Flow Record
      can range from harmless to missing the only vital counter
      measurement.  [Henk Birkholz]

   o  TO DO: Add more items.

   [I-D.birkholz-yang-push-coap-problemstatement] is a problem statement
   that will require the design of another scheme to transfer Series-
   shaped data.






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2.  Objectives

   Series transfer applications may have rather different objectives.

   o  The completeness of the Series transfer may be of utmost
      importance (e.g., if each item represents a sale), it may be
      desirable but can be jettisoned in an overload situation, or it
      may just be a likely outcome with a very active client (e.g., with
      Atom).  Note that there is never a way to _guarantee_ completeness
      unless all of the rate and size of incoming new items, the
      transfer capacity available, and the processing capabilities of
      the client are controlled; however, system designs may want to
      give the illusion of "reliability".

   o  Mimimizing the latency of the transfer may be important, as may be
      limiting it below a defined maximum (note that these are different
      objectives).  The latter can be supported in a polling system by
      polling at least as often as that maximum latency; this may be
      considered inefficient and "push" mechanisms may be developed.
      Mail environments have developed "push" services to enable
      minimizing the latency.  Where latency requirements go below the
      time that might be needed for an end-to-end retransmission, error
      concealment may provide an acceptable user experience (e.g., in
      RTP).

   In general, minimizing latency and ensuring completeness are
   competing objectives.

   Series transfer environments sometimes centralize information
   distribution functions, leading to "broker" architectures (often
   combined with the "publish/subscribe" pattern).  With brokers, Series
   publishers may use an entirely different interface to the brokers
   from that used by the receiving clients, or the interfaces can be
   designed so they are similar for all the forwarding steps.

3.  A REST Series Transfer Pattern (STP)

   A GET on a resource representing a Series may return a collection
   item that contains the following pieces of information

   o  An array of Series items, either as an array of media-typed
      objects in a suitable representation format (e.g., CBOR, MIME) or
      by using an array-like media type (e.g., SenML).

      *  Items may be full items or limit themselves to some metadata
         and a link; the client can then follow that link if it is
         interested in the data (possibly basing that decision on the
         metadata and/or a measure of load).



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   o  A "cursor" that can then be used as a parameter in further GET
      requests (see below) in order to receive only newer items than
      those received with this transfer.

   o  A "more bit" that indicates whether such further items already
      exist but could not be returned in the present response.

   A GET may be enhanced with additional parameters (possibly turning it
   into a FETCH):

   o  The cursor.

   o  A "wait bit" that indicates whether a (possibly empty) reply
      should be given right away or the server should wait for new items
      to become available.  (To avoid the equivalence of the "silly
      window syndrome", the wait bit may be enhanced by a minimum number
      of items and a timeout after which even a smaller number is made
      available).

   A server may implement a form of custody transfer by interpreting the
   cursor as an acknowledgement that the client has received all data up
   to the cursor.  This is not necessarily acting as an unsafe request
   ("destructive GET"), as other clients may be active that have not yet
   received all these data.  To implement a full custody semantics, the
   server needs to be aware of all the clients that expect a full Series
   Transfer (a classical group management problem).

   (Explain how Observe can help.  Can it?)

4.  IANA considerations

   This memo registers a number of media types: TO DO.

   o  A media type for FETCH selectors (Section 3):

      *  An alternative way to encode this information into the URI of a
         GET should also be available.

   o  A Series media type as alluded to in Section 3.

5.  Security considerations

   TO DO








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6.  Informative References

   [I-D.birkholz-yang-push-coap-problemstatement]
              Birkholz, H., Zhou, T., Liu, X., and E. Voit, "YANG Push
              Operations for CoMI", draft-birkholz-yang-push-coap-
              problemstatement-00 (work in progress), October 2017.

   [I-D.ietf-netconf-notification-messages]
              Voit, E., Birkholz, H., Bierman, A., Clemm, A., and T.
              Jenkins, "Notification Message Headers and Bundles",
              draft-ietf-netconf-notification-messages-03 (work in
              progress), February 2018.

   [I-D.ietf-netconf-restconf-notif]
              Voit, E., Tripathy, A., Nilsen-Nygaard, E., Clemm, A.,
              Prieto, A., and A. Bierman, "RESTCONF and HTTP Transport
              for Event Notifications", draft-ietf-netconf-restconf-
              notif-04 (work in progress), January 2018.

   [I-D.ietf-netconf-subscribed-notifications]
              Voit, E., Clemm, A., Prieto, A., Nilsen-Nygaard, E., and
              A. Tripathy, "Custom Subscription to Event Streams",
              draft-ietf-netconf-subscribed-notifications-10 (work in
              progress), February 2018.

   [I-D.ietf-netconf-udp-pub-channel]
              Zheng, G., Zhou, T., and A. Clemm, "UDP based Publication
              Channel for Streaming Telemetry", draft-ietf-netconf-udp-
              pub-channel-01 (work in progress), November 2017.

   [I-D.ietf-netconf-yang-push]
              Clemm, A., Voit, E., Prieto, A., Tripathy, A., Nilsen-
              Nygaard, E., Bierman, A., and B. Lengyel, "YANG Datastore
              Subscription", draft-ietf-netconf-yang-push-15 (work in
              progress), February 2018.

   [I-D.voit-netmod-yang-notifications2]
              Voit, E., Bierman, A., Clemm, A., and T. Jenkins, "YANG
              Notification Headers and Bundles", draft-voit-netmod-yang-
              notifications2-00 (work in progress), February 2017.

   [RFC4287]  Nottingham, M., Ed. and R. Sayre, Ed., "The Atom
              Syndication Format", RFC 4287, DOI 10.17487/RFC4287,
              December 2005, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4287>.







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   [RFC7230]  Fielding, R., Ed. and J. Reschke, Ed., "Hypertext Transfer
              Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Message Syntax and Routing",
              RFC 7230, DOI 10.17487/RFC7230, June 2014,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7230>.

   [RFC7252]  Shelby, Z., Hartke, K., and C. Bormann, "The Constrained
              Application Protocol (CoAP)", RFC 7252,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7252, June 2014,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7252>.

   [sse]      WHATWG, "HTML Living Standard -- 9.2 Server-sent events",
              n.d., <https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/
              server-sent-events.html#server-sent-events>.

Acknowledgements

   The need for a Series Transfer Pattern has been made clear by a
   number of people that contribute to the IRTF Thing-to-Thing Research
   Group (T2TRG), e.g.  Matthias Kovatsch and Henk Birkholz (both of
   whom also provided feedback on an early draft).  Henk also
   contributed further examples for the use of Series Transfers in
   protocols.

Author's Address

   Carsten Bormann
   Universitaet Bremen TZI
   Postfach 330440
   Bremen  D-28359
   Germany

   Phone: +49-421-218-63921
   Email: cabo@tzi.org


















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