Audio/Video Transport Working Group                           Q. Wu, Ed.
Internet-Draft                                                    Huawei
Intended status: Informational                            April 23, 2011
Expires: October 25, 2011


                    Monitoring Architectures for RTP
                   draft-ietf-avtcore-monarch-00.txt

Abstract

   This memo proposes an architecture for extending RTCP with a new RTCP
   XR (RFC3611) block type to report new metrics regarding media
   transmission or reception quality, as proposed in RFC5968.  This memo
   suggests that a new block should contain a single metric or a small
   number of metrics relevant to a single parameter of interest or
   concern, rather than containing a number of metrics which attempt to
   provide full coverage of all those parameters of concern to a
   specific application.  Applications may then "mix and match" to
   create a set of blocks which covers their set of concerns.  Where
   possible, a specific block should be designed to be re-usable across
   more than one application, for example, for all of voice, streaming
   audio and video.

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 http://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
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   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on October 25, 2011.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2011 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



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   (http://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
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   described in the Simplified BSD License.


Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Requirements notation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   3.  RTP monitoring architecture  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   4.  RTCP Metric Block Report and associated parameters . . . . . .  8
     4.1.  Classification of RTCP Metric Block parameters . . . . . .  9
       4.1.1.  Application level parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
       4.1.2.  Transport level parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
       4.1.3.  End system parameters  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   5.  Monitoring Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
     5.1.  Option 1 - Monitoring every packet . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
     5.2.  Option 2 - Real-time histogram methods . . . . . . . . . . 11
     5.3.  Option 3 - Monitoring by exception . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
     5.4.  Option 4 - Application-specific monitoring . . . . . . . . 12
   6.  Issues with RTCP XR extension  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
   7.  Guideline for reporting block format using RTCP XR . . . . . . 14
     7.1.  Using small blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     7.2.  Sharing the identity block . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     7.3.  Expanding the RTCP XR block namespace  . . . . . . . . . . 18
   8.  An example of a metric block . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
   9.  Application to RFC 5117 topologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
     9.1.  Applicability to MCU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
     9.2.  Application to translators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
   10. IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
   11. Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
   12. Acknowledgement  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
   13. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
   Appendix A.  Appendix A. Change Log  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
     A.1.  draft-ietf-avtcore-monarch-00  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
   Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27











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1.  Introduction

   Service providers and network providers today suffer from lack of
   good service that can monitor the performance at the user's home,
   handset or remote office.  Without service performance metrics, it is
   difficult for network operators to properly locate the problem and
   solve service issues before problems impact subscriber/end user.  The
   resolution generally involves deploying costly field network
   technician to conduct on-site troubleshooting and diagnostics.  By
   reducing the expensive deployments with more automated remote
   monitoring capabilities, network operators can save significant
   costs, reduce mean time to repair and provider a better service
   offering.

   As more users and subscribers rely on real time application services,
   uncertainties in the performance and availability of these services
   are driving the need to support new standard methods for gathering
   performance metrics from RTP applications.  These rapidly emerging
   standards, such as RTCP XR [RFC3611]and other RTCP extension to
   Sender Reports(SR), Receiver Reports (RR) [RFC3550]are being
   developed for the purpose of collecting and reporting performance
   metrics from endpoint devices that can be used to correlate the
   metrics, provide end to end service visibility and measure and
   monitor QoE.

   However the proliferation of RTP/RTCP specific metrics for transport
   and application quality monitoring has been identified as a potential
   problem for RTP/RTCP interoperability, which attempt to provide full
   coverage of all those parameters of concern to a specific
   application.  Since different applications layered on RTP may have
   some monitoring requirements in common, therefore these metrics
   should be satisfied by a common design.

   The objective of this document is to define an extensible RTP
   monitoring framework to provide a small number of re-usable QoS/QoE
   metrics which facilitate reduced implementation costs and help
   maximize inter-operability.  [RFC5968] has stated that, where RTCP is
   to be extended with a new metric, the preferred mechanism is by the
   addition of a new RTCP XR [RFC3611] block.  This memo assumes that
   any requirement for a new metric to be transported in RTCP will use a
   new RTCP XR block.










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2.  Requirements notation

   This memo is informative and as such contains no normative
   requirements.















































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3.  RTP monitoring architecture

   The RTP monitoring architecture comprises the following two
   functional components shown below:

   o  Monitor

   o  Metric Block Structure

   Monitor is a functional component that acts as a source of
   information gathered for monitoring purposes.  It may also collects
   statistics from multiple source, stores such information reported by
   RTCP XR or other RTCP extension appropriately as base metric or
   calculates composite metric.  The end system that source RTP streams,
   or an intermediate-system that forwards RTP packets to End-devices
   that send or receive metric block can be envisioned to act as Monitor
   within the RTP monitoring architecture.

   The Metric Block exposes real time Application Quality information in
   the report block format to monitor within the Network Management
   System.  The RTCP or RTCP XR can be extended to convey such
   information.





























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       +-------------------+
       | RTP Sender        |
       |   +-----------+   |
       |   |  Monitor  | --- --------|
       |   |           |   |         |
       |   +-----------+   |         |
       |+-----------------+|         |        +--------------+
       ||Application      ||         |        |Management    |
       ||-streaming video ||         |        |  System      |
    |---|-VOIP            ||         |        |              |
    |  ||-video conference||      5  |        | +----------+ |
    |  ||-telepresence    ||          --------->|          | |
    |  ||-ad insertion    ||                  | |  Monitor | |
    |  |+-----------------+|         |--------->|          | |
    |  +-------------------+         |        | +-------\--+ |
    |               Report Block     |        +---------|----+
    |               transported over |  Report Block    |
    |               RTCP extension   |  transported over|5
    | 1                              |  RTCP XR         |
    | +------ -----------------+     |   +--------------|---- ----+
    | | RTP System             |     |   | RTP Receiver >--4-|--- |
    | |      +----------+      |  5  |   |    +-----------+  |    |
    | |      |          |------------|   |    |  Monitor  |<--    |
    | |      |  Monitor |      |         |    |           |<------|
    | |      |          |      |         |    +----/------+      ||
    | |      +----------+      |         |         |             ||
    | |                        |         |         |2            ||
    | | +-----------------+    |         | +-------/---------+   ||
    | | |Application      |    |         | |Application      |   ||
    | | |-streaming video |    |         | |-streaming video |   ||
    | | |-VOIP            |    |    1    | |-VOIP            |   3|
    ---->-Video conference|--------------->|-Video conference    ||
      | |-Telepresence    |    |         | |-Telepresence    |   ||
      | |-Ad insertion    |    |         | |-Ad insertion    |   ||
      | +-----------------+    |         | +-----------------+   ||
      | +-----------------+    |         | +-----------------+   ||
      | |Transport        |    |         | |Transport        |   ||
      | |-IP/UDP/RTP      |    |         | |-IP/UDP/RTP      >---||
      | |-IP/TCP/RTP      |    |         | | -IP/TCP/RTP     |    |
      | |-IP/TCP/RTSP/RTP |    |         | |-IP/TCP/RTSP/RTP |    |
      | +-----------------+    |         | +-----------------+    |
      +------------------------+         +------------------------+


                   Figure 1: RTP Monitoring Architecture






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   1.  RTP communication between real time applications

   2.  Application layer metrics

   3.  Transport layer metrics

   4.  End System metrics

   5.  Reporting Session- metrics transmitted over specified interfaces

   6.  Management application- monitor interaction using northbound
       interface. - Monitor outputs reports to the management
       application.  The management application collects raw data from
       monitor, organizes database, conducts data analysis and creates
       alerts to the users.  Note that Management application
       interaction with Monitor is out of scope of this document.



































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4.  RTCP Metric Block Report and associated parameters

   The basic RTCP Reception Report (RR) conveys reception statistics in
   metric block report format for multiple RTP media streams including

   o  transport level statistics

   o  the fraction of packet lost since the last report

   o  the cumulative number of packets lost

   o  the highest sequence number received

   o  an estimate of the inter-arrival jitter

   o  and information to allow senders to calculate the network round
      trip time.

   The RTCP XRs [RFC3611] supplement the existing RTCP packets and
   provide more detailed feedback on reception quality in several
   categories:

   o  Loss and duplicate RLE reports

   o  Packet-receipt times reports

   o  Round-trip time reports

   o  Statistics Summary Reports

   There are also various other scenarios in which it is desirable to
   send RTCP Metric reports more frequently.  The Audio/Video Profile
   with Feedback [RFC4585]extends the standard A/V Profile[RFC3551] to
   allow RTCP reports to be sent early provided RTCP bandwidth
   allocation is respected.  There are four use cases but are not
   limited to:

   o  RTCP NACK is used to provide feedback on the RTP sequence number
      of the lost packets.

   o  RTCP XR is extended to provide feedback on multicast acquisition
      statistics information and parameters.

   o  RTCP is extended to convey requests for full intra-coded frames or
      select the reference picture, and signalchanges in the desired
      temporal/spatial trade-off and maximum media bit rate.





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   o  RTCP or RTCP XR is extended to provide feedback on ECN statistics
      information.

4.1.  Classification of RTCP Metric Block parameters

4.1.1.  Application level parameters

   Measured data at the application level, i.e., QoE related parameters
   which focus on quality of content rather than network parameters.
   These include but are not limited to:

   o  Sound/Noise Level

   o  Echo return lost

   o  Statistics Summary Info, e.g.,key frame lost key frame lost rate/
      discard rate, key frame burst severity

   o  Codec Control

   o  Estimated Mean Opinion Score (MOS)

4.1.2.  Transport level parameters

   Measured data at the transport level.  These include but are not
   limited to:

   o  Lost packets

   o  Round trip delay

   o  Jitter

   o  Congestion info

   o  FEC

   o  Codec Control

   o  Media Synchronization info

   o  Retransmission Info

   o  RAMS info







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4.1.3.  End system parameters

   Measured data from application residing in that device.  These
   include but are not limited to:

   o  Error Concealment

   o  FEC

   o  Media Synchronization info

   o  Jitter Buffer Lost

   o  Jitter Buffer Delay





































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5.  Monitoring Methodology

5.1.  Option 1 - Monitoring every packet

   The aim of "monitoring every packet" is to ensure that the
   information reported is not dependent on the application.  In this
   scheme, RTP systems will report arrival data for each individual RTP
   packet.  RTP (or other) systems receiving this "raw" data may use it
   to calculate any preferred heuristic metrics, but such calculations
   and the reporting of the results (e.g. to a session control layer or
   a management layer) are outside the scope of RTP and RTCP.

5.2.  Option 2 - Real-time histogram methods

   There are several potentially useful metrics which rely on the
   accumulation of a histogram in real time, so that a packet arrival
   results in a counter being incremented rather than in the creation of
   a new data item.  These metrics may be gathered with a low and
   predictable storage requirement.  Each counter corresponds to a
   single class interval or "bin" of the histogram.  Examples of metrics
   which may be accumulated in this way include the observed
   distribution of packet delay variation, and the number of packets
   lost per unit time interval.

   Different networks may have very different expected and achieved
   levels of performance, but it may be useful to fix the number of
   class intervals in the reported histogram to give a predictable
   volume of data.  This can be achieved by starting with small class
   intervals ("bin widths") and automatically increasing the width (e.g.
   by factors of two) if outliers are seen beyond the current upper
   limit of the histogram.  Data already accumulated may be assigned
   unambiguously to the new set of bins, given some simple conditions on
   the relationship between the old and new origins and bin widths.

   A significant disadvantage of the histogram method is the loss of any
   information about time-domain correlations between the samples which
   build the histogram.  For example, a histogram of packet delay
   variation provides no indication of whether successive samples of
   packet delay variation were uncorrelated, or alternatively that the
   packet delay variation showed a highly-correlated low-frequency
   wander.

5.3.  Option 3 - Monitoring by exception

   An entity which both monitors the packet stream, and has sufficient
   knowledge of the application to know when transport impairments may
   have degraded the application's performance, may choose to send
   exception reports containing details of the transport impairments to



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   a receiving system.  The crossing of a transport impairment
   threshold, or some application-layer event, would trigger such
   reports.  RTP end systems and mixers are likely to contain
   application implementations which may, in principle, identify this
   type of exception.

   It is likely that RTP translators will not contain suitable
   implementations which could identify such exceptions.

   On-path devices such as routers and switches are not likely to be
   aware of RTP at all.  Even if they are aware of RTP, they are
   unlikely to be aware of the RTP-level performance required by
   specific applications, and hence they are unlikely to be able to
   identify the level of impairment at which exceptional transport
   conditions may start to affect application performance.

   This type of monitoring typically requires the storage of recent data
   in a FIFO (e.g. a circular buffer) so that data relevant to the
   period just before and just after the exception may be reported.  It
   is not usually helpful to report transport data only from the period
   following an exception event detected by an application.  This
   imposes some storage requirement (though less than needed for Option
   1).  It also implies the existence of additional cross-layer
   primitives or APIs to trigger the transport layer to generate and
   send its exception report.  Such a capability might be considered
   architecturally undesirable, in that it complicates one or more
   interfaces above the RTP layer.

5.4.  Option 4 - Application-specific monitoring

   This is a business-as-usual option which suggests that the current
   approach should not be changed, based on the idea that previous
   application-specific approaches such as that of [RFC3611] were valid.
   If a large category of RTP applications (such as VoIP) has a
   requirement for a unique set of transport metrics, arising from its
   different requirements of the transport, then it seems reasonable for
   each application category to define its preferred set of metrics to
   describe transport impairments.  We expect that there will be few
   such categories, probably less than 10.

   It may be easier to achieve interworking for a well-defined set of
   application-specific metrics than it would be in the case that
   applications select a profile from a palette of many independent re-
   usable metrics.







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6.  Issues with RTCP XR extension

   Issues that have come up in the past with extensions to RTCP or RTCP
   XR include (but are probably not limited to) the following:

   o  Repeating this information in a number of metrics blocks within
      the same RTCP packet may bring inefficiency when multiple small
      blocks in the same RTCP XR packet contain measurement data for the
      same stream and period.

   o  RFC 3611 [RFC3611] defines seven report block formats for network
      management and quality monitoring.  However some of these block
      types defined in [RFC3611]are only specifically designed for
      conveying multicast inference of network characteristics(MINC) or
      voice over IP (VoIP) monitoring.

   o  Designing a single report block or metric containing a large
      number of parameters in different classes for a specific
      application may increase implementation cost and minimize
      interoperability.

   o  The RTCP XR block namespace is limited by the 8-bit block type
      field in the RTCP XR header Under current allocation pressure, we
      expect that the RTCP XR Block Type space will be exhausted soon.
      We therefore need a way to extend the block type space, so that
      new specifications may continue to be developed.

























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7.   Guideline for reporting block format using RTCP XR

7.1.  Using small blocks

   Different applications using RTP for media transport certainly have
   differing requirements for metrics transported in RTCP to support
   their operation.  For many applications, the basic metrics for
   transport impairments provided in RTCP SR and RR packets [RFC3550]
   (together with source identification provided in RTCP SDES packets)
   are sufficient.  For other applications additional metrics may be
   required or at least sufficiently useful to justify the overheads,
   both of processing in endpoints and of increased session bandwidth.
   For example an IPTV application using Forward Error Correction (FEC)
   might use either a metric of post-repair loss or a metric giving
   detailed information about pre-repair loss bursts to optimise payload
   bandwidth and the strength of FEC required for changing network
   conditions.  However there are many metrics available.  It is likely
   that different applications or classes of applications will wish to
   use different metrics.  Any one application is likely to require
   metrics for more than one parameter but if this is the case,
   different applications will almost certainly require different
   combinations of metrics.  If larger blocks are defined containing
   multiple metrics to address the needs of each application, it becomes
   likely that many different such larger blocks are defined, which
   becomes a danger to interoperability.

   To avoid this pitfall, this memo proposes the use of small RTCP XR
   metrics blocks each containing a very small number of individual
   metrics characterising only one parameter of interest to an
   application running over RTP.  For example, at the RTP transport
   layer, the parameter of interest might be packet delay variation, and
   specifically the metric "IPDV" defined by [Y1540].  See Section 8 for
   architectural considerations for a metrics block, using as an example
   a metrics block to report packet delay variation.

7.2.  Sharing the identity block

   Any measurement must be identified.  However if metrics are delivered
   in small blocks there is a danger of inefficiency arising from
   repeating this information in a number of metrics blocks within the
   same RTCP packet, in cases where the same identification information
   applies to multiple metrics blocks.

   An instance of a metric must be identified using information which is
   likely to include most of the following:






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   o  the node at which it was measured,

   o  the source of the measured stream (for example, its CNAME),

   o  the SSRC of the measured stream,

   o  the sequence number of the first packet of the RTP session,

   o  the extended sequence numbers of the first packet of the current
      measurement interval, and the last packet included in the
      measurement,

   o  the duration of the most recent measurement interval and

   o  the duration of the interval applicable to cumulative measurements
      (which may be the duration of the RTP session to date).

   Note that this set of information may overlap with, but is more
   extensive than, that in the union of similar information in RTCP RR
   packets.  However we can not assume that RR information is always
   present when XR is sent, since they may have different measurement
   intervals.  Also the reason for the additional information carried in
   the XR is the perceived difficulty of "locating" the *start* of the
   RTP session (sequence number of 1st packet, duration of interval
   applicable to cumulative measurements) using only RR.  However when
   an RTCP XR packet containing more than two metrics blocks, reporting
   on the same streams from the same source, each metric block should
   have the same measurement identify, if each metric block carry the
   duplicated data for the measurement identity ,it leads to redundant
   information in this design since equivalent information is provided
   multiple times, once in *every* identification packet.  Though this
   ensures immunity to packet loss, the design bring more complexity and
   the overhead is not completely trivial.

   This section proposes an approach to minimise the inefficiency of
   providing this identification information, assuming that an
   architecture based on small blocks means that a typical RTCP packet
   will contain more than one metrics block needing the same
   identification.  The choice of identification information to be
   provided is discussed in [IDENTITY] (work in progress).

   The approach is to define a stand-alone block containing only
   identification information, and to tag this identification block with
   a number which is unique within the scope of the containing RTCP XR
   packet.  The "containing RTCP XR packet" is defined here as the RTCP
   XR header with PT=XR=207 defined in Section 2 of [RFC3611] and the
   associated payload defined by the length field of this RTCP XR
   header.  The RTCP XR header itself includes the SSRC of the node at



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   which all of the contained metrics were measured, hence this SSRC
   need not be repeated in the stand-alone identification block.  A
   single containing RTCP XR packet may contain multiple identification
   blocks limited by the range of the tag field.  Typically there will
   be one identification block per monitored source SSRC, but the use of
   more than one identification block for a single monitored source SSRC
   within a single containing RTCP XR packet is not ruled out.

   There will be zero or more metrics blocks dependent on each
   identification block.  The dependence of an instance of a metrics
   block on an identification block is established by the metrics
   block's having the same numeric value of the tag field as its
   identification block (in the same containing RTCP XR packet).

   Figure 2 below illustrates this principle using as an example an RTCP
   XR packet containing four metrics blocks, reporting on streams from
   two sources.  The measurement identity information is provided in two
   blocks with Block Type NMI, and tag values 0 and 1 respectively.

   Note: in this example, RTCP XR block type values for four proposed
   new block types (work in progress) are given as NMI, NPDV, NBGL and
   NDEL.  These represent numeric block type codepoints to be allocated
   by IANA at the conclusion of the work.

   Each of these two identity blocks will specify the SSRC of one of the
   monitored streams, as well as information about the span of the
   measurement.  There are two metrics blocks with tag=0 indicating
   their association with the measurement identity block which also has
   tag=0.  These are the two blocks following the identity block with
   tag=0, though this positioning is not mandatory.  There are also two
   metrics blocks with tag=1 indicating their association with the
   measurement identity block which also has tag=1, and these are the
   two blocks following the identity block with tag=1.

   Note that if metrics blocks associated with an identity block must
   always follow the identity block, we could save the tag field and
   possibly simplify processing.  However depending on ordering of
   metric block and identity block may bring inefficiency since you do
   not know which block is the last metric block associated with
   identity block.  Hence it is more desirable to to cross-referencing
   with a numeric tag,i.e., using tag field to associated metric block
   with identity block.

   In the example, the block types of the metrics blocks associated with
   tag=0 are BT=NPDV (a PDV metrics block) and BT=NBGL (a burst and gap
   loss metrics block).  The block types of the metrics blocks
   associated with tag=1 are BT=NPDV (a second PDV metrics block) and
   BT=NDEL (a delay metrics block).  This illustrates that:



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   o  multiple instances of the same metrics block may occur within a
      containing RTCP XR packet, associated with different
      identification information, and

   o  differing measurements may be made, and reported, for the
      different streams arriving at an RTP system.


       0                   1                   2                   3
       0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |V=2|P|reserved |   PT=XR=207   |             length            |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                  SSRC of RTCP XR packet sender                |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |     BT=NMI    |0|tag=0| resv  |        block length           |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                  SSRC of stream source 1                      |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      .      ...measurement identity information, source 1...         .
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |     BT=NPDV   |I|tag=0|pdvtyp |        block length           |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      .               ...PDV information for source 1...              .
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |    BT=NBGL    |I|tag=0| resv  |        block length           |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      .            ...burst-gap-loss information for source 1...      .
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |     BT=NMI    |0|tag=1| resv  |        block length           |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                  SSRC of stream source 2                      |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      .      ...measurement identity information, source 2...         .
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |     BT=NPDV   |I|tag=1|pdvtyp |        block length           |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      .              ...PDV information for source 2...               .
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |    BT=NDEL    |I|tag=1| resv  |        block length           |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      .             ...delay information for source 2...              .
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

               Figure 2: RTCP XR block with identity blocks

   This approach of separating the identification information is more
   costly than providing identification in each metrics block if only a



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   single metrics block is sent in an RTCP packet, but becomes
   beneficial as soon as more than one metrics block shares common
   identification.

7.3.  Expanding the RTCP XR block namespace

   The RTCP XR block namespace is limited by the 8-bit block type field
   in the RTCP XR header (Section 3 of [RFC3611]).  IESG have noted that
   this is potentially restrictive.  It would be possible to standardize
   an expansion mechanism, probably based on use of a new field near the
   start of the variable-length "type-specific block contents" field.
   Clearly this could apply only to new block types, so might be
   standardized to apply to some subrange of the current 8-bit range,
   for example the range 128 through 191 might be used.  At time of
   writing, block types 12 to 254 are unassigned and 255 is reserved for
   future expansion.  One potential use is through hierarchical control,
   where one or a few codepoints at the top level are given to other
   SDOs who may then define a number of metrics distinguished by values
   in the (so far hypothetical) new field.
































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8.  An example of a metric block

   This section uses the example of an existing proposed metrics block
   to illustrate the application of the principles set out in
   Section 7.1.

   The example [PDV] (work in progress) is a block to convey information
   about packet delay variation (PDV) only, consistent with the
   principle that a metrics block should address only one parameter of
   interest.  One simple metric of PDV is available in the RTCP RR
   packet as the "jit" field.  There are other PDV metrics which may be
   more useful to certain applications.  Two such metrics are the IPDV
   metric ([Y1540], [RFC3393]) and the MAPDV2 metric [G1020].  Use of
   these metrics is consistent with the principle in Section 5 of
   [RFC5968] that metrics should usually be defined elsewhere, so that
   RTCP standards define only the transport of the metric rather than
   its nature.  The purpose of this section is to illustrate the
   architecure using the example of [PDV] (work in progress) rather than
   to document the design of the PDV metrics block or to provide a
   tutorial on PDV in general.

   Given the availability of at least three metrics for PDV, there are
   design options for the allocation of metrics to RTCP XR blocks:

   o  provide an RTCP XR block per metric

   o  provide a single RTCP XR block which contains all three metrics

   o  provide a single RTCP block to convey any one of the three
      metrics, together with a identifier to inform the receiving RTP
      system of the specific metric being conveyed

   In choosing between these options, extensibility is important,
   because additional metrics of PDV may well be standardised and
   require inclusion in this framework.  The first option is extensible
   but only by use of additional RTCP XR blocks, which may consume the
   limited namespace for RTCP XR blocks at an unacceptable rate.  The
   second option is not extensible, so could be rejected on that basis,
   but in any case a single application is quite unlikely to require
   transport of more than one metric for PDV.  Hence the third option
   was chosen.  This implies the creation of a subsidiary namespace to
   enumerate the PDV metrics which may be transported by this block, as
   discussed further in [PDV] (work in progress).








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9.  Application to RFC 5117 topologies

   An RTP system (end system, mixer or translator) which originates,
   terminates or forwards RTCP XR blocks is expected to handle RTCP,
   including RTCP XR, as specified in [RFC3550] for that class of RTP
   systems.  Provided this expectation is met, an RTP system using RTCP
   XR is architecturally no different from an RTP system of the same
   class (end system, mixer, or translator) which does not use RTCP XR.
   This statement applies to the topologies investigated in [RFC5117],
   where they use RTP end systems, RTP mixers and RTP translators as
   these classes are defined in [RFC3550].

   These topologies are specifically Topo-Point-to-Point, Topo-
   Multicast, Topo-Translator (both variants, Topo-Trn-Translator and
   Topo-Media-Translator, and combinations of the two), and Topo-Mixer.

9.1.  Applicability to MCU

   The topologies based on systems which do not behave according to
   [RFC3550], that is Topo-Video-Switch-MCU and Topo-RTCP-terminating-
   MCU, suffer from the difficulties described in [RFC5117].  These
   difficulties apply to systems sending, and expecting to receive, RTCP
   XR blocks as much as to systems using other RTCP packet types.  For
   example, a participant RTP end system may send media to a video
   switch MCU.  If the media stream is not selected for forwarding by
   the switch, neither RTCP RR packets nor RTCP XR blocks referring to
   the end system's generated stream will be received at the RTP end
   system.  Strictly the RTP end system can only conclude that its RTP
   has been lost in the network, though an RTP end system complying with
   the robustness principle of [RFC1122] should survive with essential
   functions unimpaired.

9.2.  Application to translators

   Section 7.2 of [RFC3550] describes processing of RTCP by translators.
   RTCP XR is within the scope of the recommendations of [RFC3550].
   Some RTCP XR metrics blocks may usefully be measured at, and reported
   by, translators.  As described in [RFC3550] this creates a
   requirement for the translator to allocate an SSRC for itself so that
   it may populate the SSRC in the RTCP XR packet header (although the
   translator is not a Synchronisation Source in the sense of
   originating RTP media packets).  It must also supply this SSRC and
   the corresponding CNAME in RTCP SDES packets.

   In RTP sessions where one or more translators generate any RTCP
   traffic towards their next-neighbour RTP system, other translators in
   the session have a choice as to whether they forward a translator's
   RTCP packets.  Forwarding may provide additional information to other



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   RTP systems in the connection but increases RTCP bandwidth and may in
   some cases present a security risk.  RTP translators may have
   forwarding behaviour based on local policy, which might differ
   between different interfaces of the same translator.

   For bidirectional unicast, an RTP system may usually detect RTCP XR
   from a translator by noting that the sending SSRC is not present in
   any RTP media packet.  However even for bidirectional unicast there
   is a possibility of a source sending RTCP XR before it has sent any
   RTP media (leading to transient mis-categorisation of an RTP end
   system or RTP mixer as a translator), and for multicast sessions - or
   unidirectional/streaming unicast - there is a possibility of a
   receive-only end system being permanently mis-categorised as a
   translator.  Hence it is desirable for a translator that send XR to
   have a way to declare itself explicitly.




































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10.  IANA Considerations

   None.
















































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11.  Security Considerations

   This document itself contains no normative text and hence should not
   give rise to any new security considerations, to be confirmed.















































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12.  Acknowledgement

   Geoff Hunt and Philip Arden wrote the initial draft for this document
   and provided useful reviews.  Many thanks to them.  The authors would
   also like to thank Colin Perkins, Graeme Gibbs, Debbie Greenstreet,
   Keith Drage,Dan Romascanu, Ali C. Begen, Roni Even for their valuable
   comments and suggestions on the early version of this document.












































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13.  Informative References

   [G1020]    ITU-T, "ITU-T Rec. G.1020, Performance parameter
              definitions for quality of speech and other voiceband
              applications utilizing IP networks", July 2006.

   [H323]     ITU-T, "ITU-T Rec. H.323, Packet-based multimedia
              communications systems", June 2006.

   [IDENTITY]
              Hunt, G., "RTCP XR Report Block for Measurement Identity",
              ID draft-ietf-avt-rtcp-xr-meas-identity-02, May 2009.

   [PDV]      Hunt, G., "RTCP XR Report Block for Packet Delay Variation
              Metric Reporting", ID draft-ietf-avt-rtcp-xr-pdv-03,
              May 2009.

   [RFC1122]  Braden, R., "Requirements for Internet Hosts --
              Communication Layers", RFC 1122, October 1989.

   [RFC3393]  Demichelis, C., "IP Packet Delay Variation Metric for IP
              Performance Metrics (IPPM)", RFC 3393, November 2002.

   [RFC3550]  Schulzrinne, H., "RTP: A Transport Protocol for Real-Time
              Applications", RFC 3550, July 2003.

   [RFC3551]  Schulzrinne , H. and S. Casner, "Extended RTP Profile for
              Real-time Transport Control Protocol (RTCP)-Based Feedback
              (RTP/AVPF)", RFC 3551, July 2003.

   [RFC3611]  Friedman, T., "RTP Control Protocol Extended Reports (RTCP
              XR)", RFC 3611, November 2003.

   [RFC4585]  Ott, J. and S. Wenger, "Extended RTP Profile for Real-time
              Transport Control Protocol (RTCP)-Based Feedback (RTP/
              AVPF)", RFC 4585, July 2006.

   [RFC5117]  Westerlund, M., "RTP Topologies", RFC 5117, January 2008.

   [RFC5968]  Ott, J. and C. Perkins, "Guidelines for Extending the RTP
              Control Protocol (RTCP)", RFC 5968, September 2010.

   [Y1540]    ITU-T, "ITU-T Rec. Y.1540, IP packet transfer and
              availability performance parameters", November 2007.







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Appendix A.  Appendix A. Change Log

   Note to the RFC-Editor: please remove this section prior to
   publication as an RFC.

A.1.  draft-ietf-avtcore-monarch-00

   The following are the major changes compared to
   draft-hunt-avtcore-monarch-02:

   o  Move Geoff Hunt and Philip Arden from author list to
      acknowledgement section.







































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Author's Address

   Qin Wu (editor)
   Huawei
   101 Software Avenue, Yuhua District
   Nanjing, Jiangsu  210012
   China

   Email: sunseawq@huawei.com










































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