CUSS WG                                                      A. Johnston
Internet-Draft                                                     Avaya
Intended status: Informational                                  L. Liess
Expires: February 12, 2012                           Deutsche Telekom AG
                                                         August 11, 2011


 Problem Statement and Requirements for Transporting User to User Call
                       Control Information in SIP
                    draft-ietf-cuss-sip-uui-reqs-04

Abstract

   This document introduces the transport of call control related User
   to User Information (UUI) using the Session Initiation Protocol
   (SIP), and develops several requirements for a new SIP mechanism.
   Some SIP sessions are established by or related to a non-SIP
   application.  This application may have information that needs to be
   transported between the SIP User Agents during session establishment.
   In addition to interworking with the ISDN UUI Service, this extension
   will also be used for native SIP endpoints requiring application UUI.

Status of this Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted to IETF 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
   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 February 12, 2012.

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
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents



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   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.


Table of Contents

   1.  Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Use Cases  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
     2.1.  User Agent to User Agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
     2.2.  Proxy Retargeting  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
     2.3.  Redirection  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
     2.4.  Referral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
   3.  Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   4.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
   5.  Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   6.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11































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1.  Overview

   This document describes the transport of User to User Information
   (UUI) during SIP session setup.  This section introduces UUI and
   explains how it relates to SIP.

   We define SIP UUI information as application-specific information
   that is related to a session being established using SIP.  It is
   assumed that the application is running in both endpoints in a two
   party session.  That is, the application interacts with both the User
   Agents in a SIP session.  In order to function properly, the
   application needs a small piece of information, the UUI, to be
   transported at the time of session establishment.  This information
   is essentially opaque data to SIP - it is unrelated to SIP routing,
   authentication, or any other SIP function.  This application can be
   considered to be operating at a higher layer on the protocol stack.
   As a result, SIP should not interpret, understand, or perform any
   operations on the UUI.  Should this not be the case, then the
   information being transported is not considered UUI, and another SIP-
   specific mechanism will be needed to transport the information (such
   as a new header field).

   UUI is defined this way for two reasons.  Firstly, this supports a
   strict layering of protocols and data.  Providing information and
   understanding of the UUI to the transport layer (SIP in this case)
   would not provide any benefits and instead could create cross layer
   coupling.  Secondly, it is neither feasible nor desirable for a SIP
   User Agent (UA) to understand the information; instead the goal is
   for the UA to simply pass the information as efficiently as possible
   to the application which does understand the information.

   An important application is the interworking with User to User
   Information (UUI) in ISDN, specifically, the transport of the call
   control related ITU-T Q.931 User to User Information Element (UU IE)
   [Q931] and ITU-T Q.763 User to User Information Parameter [Q763] data
   in SIP.  ISDN UUI is widely used in the PSTN today in contact centers
   and call centers.  These applications are currently transitioning
   away from using ISDN for session establishment to using SIP.  Native
   SIP endpoints will need to implement a similar service and be able to
   interwork with this ISDN service.

   Note that the distinction between call control UUI and non-call
   control UUI is very important.  SIP already has a mechanism for
   sending arbitrary UUI information between UAs during a session or
   dialog - the SIP INFO [RFC2976] method.  Call control UUI, in
   contrast, must be exchanged at the time of setup and needs to be
   carried in the INVITE and a few other methods and responses.
   Applications that exchange UUI but do not have a requirement that it



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   be transported and processed during call setup can simply use SIP
   INFO and do not need a new SIP extension.

   In this document, four different use case call flows are discussed.
   Next, the requirements for call control UUI transport are discussed.


2.  Use Cases

   This section discusses four use cases for the transport of call
   control related user to user information.  What is not discussed here
   is the transport of non-call control UUI which can be done using the
   SIP INFO method.  These use cases will help motivate the requirements
   for SIP call control UUI.

2.1.  User Agent to User Agent

   In this scenario, the originator UA includes UUI in the INVITE sent
   through a proxy to the terminating UA.  The terminator can use the
   UUI in any way.  If it is an ISDN gateway, it could map the UUI into
   the appropriate DSS1 information element or QSIG information element
   or ISUP parameter.  Alternatively, the using application might render
   the information to the user, or use it during alerting or as a lookup
   for a screen pop.  In this case, the proxy does not need to
   understand the UUI mechanism, but normal proxy rules should result in
   the UUI being forwarded without modification.  This call flow is
   shown in Figure 1.

              Originator              Proxy             Terminator
                   |                    |                    |
                   |   INVITE (UUI) F1  |                    |
                   |------------------->|   INVITE (UUI) F2  |
                   |      100 Trying F3 |------------------->|
                   |<-------------------|         200 OK F4  |
                   |          200 OK F5 |<-------------------|
                   |<-------------------|                    |
                   |  ACK F6            |                    |
                   |------------------->|            ACK F7  |
                   |                    |------------------->|

   Figure 1.  Call flow with UUI exchanged between Originator and
   Terminator.

2.2.  Proxy Retargeting

   In this scenario, the originator UA includes UUI in the INVITE sent
   through a proxy to the terminating UA.  The proxy retargets the
   INVITE, sending it to a different termination UA.  The UUI



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   information is then received and processed by the terminating UA.
   This call flow is identical to Figure 1 but with a different
   destination for the INVITE.  The UUI in the INVITE needs to be passed
   unchanged through this proxy retargeting operation.

2.3.  Redirection

   In this scenario, UUI is inserted by an application which utilizes a
   SIP redirect server.  The UUI is then included in the INVITE sent by
   the Originator to the Terminator.  In this case, the Originator does
   not necessarily need to support the UUI mechanism but does need to
   support the SIP redirection mechanism used to include the UUI
   information.  Two examples of UUI with redirection (transfer and
   diversion) are defined in [ANSII] and [ETSI].

   Note that this case may not precisely map to an equivalent ISDN
   service use case.  This is because there is no one-to-one mapping
   between elements in a SIP network and elements in an ISDN network.
   Also, there is not an exact one-to-one mapping between SIP call
   control and ISDN call control.  However, this should not prevent the
   usage of SIP call control UUI in these cases.  Instead, these slight
   differences between the SIP UUI service and the ISDN service need to
   be carefully noted and discussed in an interworking specification.

   Figure 2 shows this scenario, with the Redirect inserting UUI which
   is then included in the INVITE F4 send to the Terminator.

              Originator          Redirect Server        Terminator
                   |                    |                    |
                   |          INVITE F1 |                    |
                   |------------------->|                    |
                   | 302 Moved (UUI) F2 |                    |
                   |<-------------------|                    |
                   |            ACK F3  |                    |
                   |------------------->|                    |
                   |  INVITE (UUI) F4   |                    |
                   |---------------------------------------->|
                   |  200 OK F5                              |
                   |<----------------------------------------|
                   |  ACK F6                                 |
                   |---------------------------------------->|

   Figure 2.  Call flow with UUI exchanged between Redirect Server and
   Terminator.

   A common example application of this call flow is an Automatic Call
   Distributer (ACD) in a PSTN contact center.  The originator would be
   a PSTN gateway.  The ACD would act as a Redirect Server, inserting



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   UUI based on called number, calling number, time of day, and other
   information.  The resulting UUI would be passed to the agent's
   handset which acts as the Terminator.  The UUI could be used to
   lookup information for rendering to the agent at the time of call
   answering.

   This redirection scenario, and the referral scenario in the next
   section, are the most important scenarios for contact center
   applications.  Incoming calls to a contact center almost always are
   redirected or referred to a final destination, sometimes multiple
   times, based on collected information and business logic.  The
   ability to pass along UUI in these call redirection scenarios is
   critical.

2.4.  Referral

   In this scenario, the application uses a UA to initiate a referral,
   which causes an INVITE to be generated between the Originator and
   Terminator with UUI information inserted by the Referrer UA.  Note
   that this REFER [RFC3515] could be part of a transfer operation or it
   might be unrelated to an existing call, such as out-of-dialog REFER.
   In some cases, this call flow is used in place of the redirection
   call flow where immediately upon answer, the REFER is sent.  This
   scenario is shown in Figure 3.

              Originator           Referrer             Terminator
                   |                    |                    |
                   |  REFER (UUI) F1    |                    |
                   |<-------------------|                    |
                   |  202 Accepted F2   |                    |
                   |------------------->|                    |
                   |  INVITE (UUI) F3   |                    |
                   |---------------------------------------->|
                   | NOTIFY (100 Trying) F4                  |
                   |------------------->|                    |
                   |         200 OK F5  |                    |
                   |<-------------------|                    |
                   |  200 OK F6                              |
                   |<----------------------------------------|
                   |  ACK F7                                 |
                   |---------------------------------------->|
                   | NOTIFY (200 OK) F8 |                    |
                   |------------------->|                    |
                   |        200 OK F9   |                    |
                   |<-------------------|                    |

   Figure 3.  Call flow with Referral and UUI.




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3.  Requirements

   This section states the requirements for the transport of call
   control related user to user information (UUI).

   REQ-1: The mechanism will allow UAs to insert and receive UUI data in
   SIP call setup requests and responses.

      SIP messages covered by this include INVITE requests and end-to-
      end responses to the INVITE, which includes 18x, 200, and 3xx
      responses.

   REQ-2: The mechanism will allow UAs to insert and receive UUI data in
   SIP dialog terminating requests and responses.

      Q.931 UUI supports inclusion in release and release completion
      messages.  SIP messages covered by this include BYE and 200 OK
      responses to a BYE.

   REQ-3: The mechanism will allow UUI to be inserted and retrieved in
   SIP redirects and referrals.

      SIP messages covered by this include REFER requests and 3xx
      responses to INVITE requests.

   REQ-4: The mechanism will allow UUI to be able to survive proxy
   retargeting or any other form of redirection of the request.

      Retargeting is a common method of call routing in SIP, and must
      not result in the loss of user to user information.

   REQ-5: The mechanism should not require processing entities to
   dereference a URL in order to retrieve the UUI information.

      Passing a pointer or link to the UUI information will not meet the
      real-time processing considerations and would complicate
      interworking with the PSTN.

   REQ-6: The mechanism will support interworking with call control
   related DSS1 information elements or QSIG information elements or
   ISUP parameters.

   REQ-7: The mechanism will allow a UAC to learn that a UAS understands
   the UUI mechanism.

   REQ-8: The mechanism will allow a UAC to require that a UAS
   understands the call control UUI mechanism have a request routed
   based on this information.  If the UAS does not understand the



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   mechanism, the request will fail.

      This could be useful in ensuring that a request destined for the
      PSTN is routed to a gateway that supports the UUI mechanism rather
      than an otherwise equivalent PSTN gateway that does not support
      the ISDN mechanism.  Note that support of the UUI mechanism does
      not, by itself, imply that a particular application is supported -
      see REQ-10.

   REQ-9: The mechanism will allow proxies to remove a particular
   application usage of UUI information from a request or response.

      This is a common security function provided by border elements to
      header fields such as Alert-Info or Call-Info URIs.

   REQ-10: The mechanism will provide the ability for a UA to discover
   which application usages of UUI another UA understands or supports.

      The creation of a registry of application usages for the SIP UUI
      mechanism is implied by this requirement.  The ISDN Service
      utilizes a field known as the protocol discriminator, which is the
      first octet of the ISDN UUI information, for this purpose.

   REQ-11: The solution will provide a mechanism of transporting at
   least 128 octets of user data and a one octet protocol discriminator,
   i.e. 129 octets in total.

      There is the potential for non-ISDN services to allow UUI to be
      larger than 128 octets.  However, users of the mechanism will need
      be cognizant of the size of SIP messages and the ability of
      parsers to handle extremely large values.

   REQ-12: The recipient of UUI will be able to determine the entity
   that inserted the UUI.  It is acceptable that this is performed
   implicitly where it is known that there is only one other end UA
   involved in the dialog.  Where that does not exist, some other
   mechanism will need to be provided.

      This requirement comes into play during redirection, retargeting,
      and referral scenarios.


4.  Security Considerations

   The security requirements for the SIP UUI mechanism are described in
   this section.  It is important to note that UUI security is jointly
   provided at the application layer and at the SIP layer.  As such, is
   important for application users of SIP UUI to know the realistic



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   level of security used and deployed in SIP, and not assume that some
   rarely deployed SIP level security mechanism is in place.

   There are two main security models that need to be addressed by the
   SIP UUI mechanism.  One model treats the SIP layer as untrusted and
   requires end-to-end integrity protection and/or encryption.  This
   model can be achieved by providing these security services at a layer
   above SIP.  In this case, the application integrity protects and/or
   encrypts the UUI information before passing it to the SIP layer.
   This method has two advantages: it does not assume or rely on end-to-
   end security mechanisms in SIP which have virtually no deployment,
   and allows the application which understands the contents of the UUI
   to apply a proper level of security.  The other approach is for the
   application to pass the UUI without any protection to the SIP layer
   and require the SIP layer to provide this security.  This approach is
   possible in theory, although its practical use would be extremely
   limited.  The SIP UUI mechanisim should support both of these
   approaches.

   The other model utilizes a trust domain and relies on perimeter
   security at the SIP layer.  This is the security model of the PSTN
   and ISDN where UUI is commonly used today.  This approach uses hop-
   by-hop security mechanisms and relies on border elements for
   filtering and application of policy.  This approach is used today in
   SIP UUI deployments.  However, there is no requirement that an
   intermediary element be able to read or interpret the UUI, as UUI
   only has end-to-end significance.  An intermediary element may remove
   a UUI element based on policy, however.  This SIP UUI mechanism needs
   to support this model.

   The next three requirements capture the SIP UUI security
   requirements.

   REQ-13: The mechanism will allow integrity protection of the UUI.

      This allows the UAS to be able to know that the UUI has not been
      modified or tampered with by intermediaries.  This property is not
      guaranteed by the protocol in the ISDN application.

   REQ-14: The mechanism will allow end-to-end privacy of the UUI.

      Some UUI may contain private or sensitive information and may
      require different security handling from the rest of the SIP
      message.  Note that this property is not available in the ISDN
      application.

   REQ-15: The mechanism will allow both end-to-end and hop-by-hop
   security models.



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      The hop-by-hop model is required by the ISDN UUI service.


5.  Acknowledgements

   Thanks to Joanne McMillen who was a co-author of earlier versions of
   this specification.  Thanks to Spencer Dawkins, Keith Drage, Dale
   Worley, and Vijay Gurbani for their review of earlier versions of
   this document.  The authors wish to thank Christer Holmberg,
   Frederique Forestie, Francois Audet, Denis Alexeitsev, Paul Kyzivat,
   Cullen Jennings, and Mahalingam Mani for their comments on this
   topic.


6.  Informative References

   [RFC3261]  Rosenberg, J., Schulzrinne, H., Camarillo, G., Johnston,
              A., Peterson, J., Sparks, R., Handley, M., and E.
              Schooler, "SIP: Session Initiation Protocol", RFC 3261,
              June 2002.

   [Q931]     "ITU-T Q.931 User to User Information  Element (UU IE)",
              http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-Q.931-199805-I/en .

   [Q763]     "ITU-T Q.763 Signaling System No. 7 - ISDN user part
              formats and codes",
              http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-Q.931-199805-I/en .

   [ANSII]    "ANSI T1.643-1995, Telecommunications-Integrated Services
              Digital Network (ISDN)-Explicit Call Transfer
              Supplementary Service".

   [ETSI]     "ETSI ETS 300 207-1 Ed.1 (1994), Integrated Services
              Digital Network (ISDN); Diversion supplementary services".

   [QSIG]     "ECMA-143  "Private Integrated Services Network (PISN) -
              Circuit Mode Bearer Services -  Inter-Exchange Signalling
              Procedures and Protocol" December 2001".

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC2976]  Donovan, S., "The SIP INFO Method", RFC 2976,
              October 2000.

   [RFC3372]  Vemuri, A. and J. Peterson, "Session Initiation Protocol
              for Telephones (SIP-T): Context and Architectures",
              BCP 63, RFC 3372, September 2002.



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   [RFC3515]  Sparks, R., "The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Refer
              Method", RFC 3515, April 2003.

   [RFC3324]  Watson, M., "Short Term Requirements for Network Asserted
              Identity", RFC 3324, November 2002.


Authors' Addresses

   Alan Johnston
   Avaya
   St. Louis, MO  63124

   Email: alan.b.johnston@gmail.com


   Laura Liess
   Deutsche Telekom AG

   Email: laura.liess.dt@gmail.com































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