Light-Weight IP Protocol Design BOF Beijing IETF Chairs: Zhen Cao Bob Hinden WEDNESDAY, November 10, 2010 1510-1610 Afternoon Session II Valley Ballroom A -------------------------------------------------- Agenda Bash Agenda, chairs (5 Minutes) Introduction and problems statement - Hui Deng (15 Minutes) Experience on implementing TCP/IP in a lightweight way - David Borman (15 Minutes) Discussion - Bob Hinden (25 Minutes) ------------------------ ------------------------ Proposed Charter Most devices that are commonly used in the Internet of Things applications are resource constrained. First, they are built on top of the constrained computing platform (e.g., with 8-bit micro-controllers and limited RAM and ROM). Secondly, the the connectivity within the network and out of the network to the rest of the Internet is constrained (e.g., some networks go down to 20kbps and with to a maximum of few kilobits per second or intermittent connectivity). Thirdly, these devices are energy constrained. They only have battery supply and the application users normally do not change their battery for long periods of time. IP technology is envisioned to provide a highly interoperable environment for these smart devices. Nevertheless, implementing the TCP/IP protocols on the very constrained platform is not trivial. There are lots of techniques that can be used to to make the TCP/IP protocols lightweight to make them more suitable for constrained devices. These include lightweight design of data structures and packet processing, smart memory management schemes, TCP window optimizations, and cross-layer optimizations. However, these technologies are not well documented in one place. This working group will develop several documents to ensure and guide interoperable lightweight IP protocols implementations. Work Items: 1. Produce the "Problem Statement of Lightweight IP Protocols Implementations" to specify the common known issues met by implementers. This document will be informational. 2. Produce a document describing implementation techniques that met the challenges listed in the problem statement document. In order to facilitate the ongoing/future developers on these constrained platforms, there is a need to document these activities and common technologies in implementing a lightweight IP stack. This document will describe techniques for producing minimized sized implementations and implementations that minimize the use of power. 3. Develop a set of the profiles for minimal IP implementations. The IP protocols, either IPv4 or IPv6, include multiple mechanisms. Some of these mechanisms are not required for interoperability. For example, in IPv6 it is possible to avoid the need to fragment or reassemble IP packets if the packet size is less than equal to 1280 bytes. Similar techniques can be found for other protocols. These techniques can be used to reduce the complexity of an implementation and at the same time maintain interoperability with other implementations. The w.g. will document these techniques in a set of implementation profiles. Goals and Milestones: Dec 2010 - WG chartered. Mar 2011 - Initial draft on problem statement adopted by the WG. July 2011 - Initial draft on lightweight implementation techniques adopted by the WG. Mar 2012 - Initial draft on lightweight IP protocol profiles adopted by the WG. ------------------------