Subject: Re: [RTG-DIR] Routing Area Health Check

From: "Susan Hares" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 09:38:15 -0400

[Soap box on] 

What’s not necessary to consider in this discussion is: 

1)      Maximum number of working groups -

2)      Instant cutting of number of working groups

3)      Bullying or badgering toward cutting working groups

Three issues exist in the routing area:

1)      Getting new work in – from new applications of routing protocols in
Data centers, 

2)      Getting work completed – 

a.       Getting the last drafts out and then,  declaring victory and
closing, 

b.      Determining the last drafts are not worth-while, so stopping at a
good point.

c.       Determine things are at  maintenance point and scheduling based on
this point. 

3)      Listening to each other  (which prevents 1 & 2 effectively
occurring) 

-------------------

1)      The most important of these facets is the ability to rapidly adopt
and get new work in. This means we must actively go out and listen for new
work.  Data Center people have a lot of traffic and a new ideas.  ETSI/NFV
have a new needs.  It is good news that people attending heavily SFC,
Spring, and I2RS.  

This is where most of our discussion should be focused – because this is
what keeps us vibrant as a standard group. 

2)      Getting work completed.  

Here is the tough part we are really talking about.  With SIDR, KARP, and
the rest – the real question is have we finished our first grouping?  What
does it take to complete it?  

One middle ground to closing is “hiatus”.  Yakov put IDR into hiatus for
several sessions. This was a good forcing function for the new uses.
Putting your WG into hiatus may signal people that if they do not have
drafts ready and active on the mail list – you will simply not meet or get
the ½ hour time slot.  Hiatus is a step before closing.  AD’s can handle a
lot of groups in Hiatus, if we “de-emotionalize” this state.   

Some groups are in maintenance or a change.  IDR is both in maintenance
(fixing those pesty error conditions), and new growth.  The difficulty with
MPLS, L2VPN, L3VPN, PWE – is we are not sure if it is maintenance (for large
deployments) or new growth.  If we have a hiatus state, perhaps we can talk
about the problems as chairs and a directorate.  

3)      Listening to one another  - We have OMC (Old Married Couple)
syndrome

We in the routing group have been at this for almost 30 years.  We have OMC
syndrome. 

We have ceased to listen because we KNOW what the other person will say, and
fight rather than think about new ideas.  Are Alia and Adrian like OMC
marriage counselors?  Yes – but is about time we started listening because
the best time for working on routing – are ahead of us.  

The virtualization of the edge and the data center has endless
possibilities, and we have the wisdom to figure it out.  We are the best
people to help the next generation of technology come to full bloom. 

[Soap box off]  

Sue Hares

---

From: Alia Atlas <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 14:56:55 -0400

Hi Sue,

On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 9:38 AM, Susan Hares <[email-masked]> wrote:

> [Soap box on]
>
> What's not necessary to consider in this discussion is:
>
[Alia] Yes - while it is harder to schedule each IETF meeting, that is not
a reason for an artificial limit on the number of working groups in
routing.  It is a reason for WG chairs to think deeply about how much time
they really need and to have planned and purposeful agendas.

> 2)      Instant cutting of number of working groups
[Alia] Yes - working groups completing their charter and ending is a good
thing and a natural part of the WG life-cycle.  That there are working
groups on that trajectory is not a surprise.

> 3)      Bullying or badgering toward cutting working groups
[Alia] Absolutely on bullying.  It is useful to have an impetus towards
saying that we could be doing things better and part of that may be
consolidating working groups or admitting that some are done or should be
soon.

> 1)      Getting new work in - from new applications of routing protocols
> in Data centers,
>
[Alia] We've had a rash of new work in the last couple years - which is
great - and may not be done.

> 2)      Getting work completed -
>
[Alia] For protocol groups, we have tended to keep them individually alive
as maintenance

> b.      Determining the last drafts are not worth-while, so stopping at a
[Alia] Yes - I do wonder for some of the not-enough-review complaints
whether that is because drafts are addressing more corner cases where there
isn't active implementation or serious wide interest.

> c.       Determine things are at  maintenance point and scheduling based
> on this point.
>
[Alia] I think this has been hard to do.  Part of it is determining when
there is enough maintenance work to keep a WG and when there could be
benefits from merging some.

> 3)      Listening to each other  (which prevents 1 & 2 effectively
[Alia] What do you think might help here?  I don't think that it is just a
socialization/respect problem.

>  -------------------
>
> 1)      The most important of these facets is the ability to rapidly
> adopt and get new work in. This means we must actively go out and listen
> for new work.  Data Center people have a lot of traffic and a new ideas.
> ETSI/NFV have a new needs.  It is good news that people attending heavily
> SFC, Spring, and I2RS.
>
> This is where most of our discussion should be focused - because this is
[Alia] Yes on listening to new work - and I would encourage you all to
think about what new ideas may be worth bringing to the IETF.   We need to
actively engage in new work as well as figure out how to make that work go
quickly, which means not merely excitement but active intent to implement
quickly.

[Alia] To act well on new work, we have to understand that there are
limited cycles and that sometimes means finishing up and putting down old
work.

> the rest - the real question is have we finished our first grouping?  What
[Alia] Yes, there are a few groups in this state.  It's not clear to me
that SIDR is one of them, but I'm happy to listen and learn.

>  One middle ground to closing is "hiatus".  Yakov put IDR into hiatus for
> drafts ready and active on the mail list - you will simply not meet or get
> the 1/2 hour time slot.  Hiatus is a step before closing.  AD's can handle a
> lot of groups in Hiatus, if we "de-emotionalize" this state.
>
[Alia] Yes, and BFD functions frequently in that mode.  It's hard to get
there if there are a lot of corner-case drafts in the WG.

> MPLS, L2VPN, L3VPN, PWE - is we are not sure if it is maintenance (for
> large deployments) or new growth.  If we have a hiatus state, perhaps we
> can talk about the problems as chairs and a directorate.
>
[Alia] One idea is to merge WGs that have similar/related technologies when
there seems to be duplication of the maintenance work.

> We in the routing group have been at this for almost 30 years.  We have
> OMC syndrome.
>
> We have ceased to listen because we KNOW what the other person will say,
> and fight rather than think about new ideas.  Are Alia and Adrian like OMC
> marriage counselors?  Yes - but is about time we started listening because
> the best time for working on routing - are ahead of us.
>

[Alia] I think you are arguing for Adrian and I to force people to sit down
in the same room and talk to each other as well as encouraging it on the
mailing list.  We are, as you read now, doing the latter.  We are also
(still tentatively) talking about possibly doing the former at the next
IETF - probably in a dinner time slot so there's enough time to get work
done during it as well.

> people to help the next generation of technology come to full bloom.
[Alia] Absolutely!  We've got to figure out the right types of abstractions
and how to make this work practically.

> [Soap box off]

[Alia] Guess I should climb down too :-)

Regards,
Alia