Huawei

Yuhua District 101 Software Avenue Nanjing Jiangsu 210012 China bill.wu@huawei.com

Yale University

51 Prospect St. New Haven CT 06520 United States of America yry@cs.yale.edu

Samsung

younglee.tx@gmail.com

Huawei

India dhruv.ietf@gmail.com

Nokia Networks France

France sabine.randriamasy@nokia-bell-labs.com

Telefonica

Madrid Spain luismiguel.contrerasmurillo@telefonica.com

tsv alto JavaScript Object Notation Application-Layer Traffic Optimization The cost metric is a basic concept in Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO), and different applications may use different types of cost metrics. Since the ALTO base protocol (RFC 7285) defines only a single cost metric (namely, the generic "routingcost" metric), if an application wants to issue a cost map or an endpoint cost request in order to identify a resource provider that offers better performance metrics (e.g., lower delay or loss rate), the base protocol does not define the cost metric to be used. This document addresses this issue by extending the specification to provide a variety of network performance metrics, including network delay, delay variation (a.k.a. jitter), packet loss rate, hop count, and bandwidth. There are multiple sources (e.g., estimations based on measurements or a Service Level Agreement) available for deriving a performance metric. This document introduces an additional "cost-context" field to the ALTO "cost-type" field to convey the source of a performance metric.

Status of This Memo This is an Internet Standards Track document. This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has received public review and has been approved for publication by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 7841. Information about the current status of this document, any errata, and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at .

Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2023 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 () 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 include Revised BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.

Table of Contents

• .  Introduction
• .  Requirements Language
• .  Performance Metric Attributes
  • .  Performance Metric Context: "cost-context"
  • .  Performance Metric Statistics
• .  Packet Performance Metrics
  • .  Cost Metric: One-Way Delay (delay-ow)
    • .  Base Identifier
    • .  Value Representation
    • .  Intended Semantics and Use
    • .  Cost-Context Specification Considerations
  • .  Cost Metric: Round-Trip Delay (delay-rt)
    • .  Base Identifier
    • .  Value Representation
    • .  Intended Semantics and Use
    • .  Cost-Context Specification Considerations
  • .  Cost Metric: Delay Variation (delay-variation)
    • .  Base Identifier
    • .  Value Representation
    • .  Intended Semantics and Use
    • .  Cost-Context Specification Considerations
  • .  Cost Metric: Loss Rate (lossrate)
    • .  Base Identifier
    • .  Value Representation
    • .  Intended Semantics and Use
    • .  Cost-Context Specification Considerations
  • .  Cost Metric: Hop Count (hopcount)
    • .  Base Identifier
    • .  Value Representation
    • .  Intended Semantics and Use
    • .  Cost-Context Specification Considerations
• .  Throughput/Bandwidth Performance Metrics
  • .  Cost Metric: TCP Throughput (tput)
    • .  Base Identifier
    • .  Value Representation
    • .  Intended Semantics and Use
    • .  Cost-Context Specification Considerations
  • .  Cost Metric: Residual Bandwidth (bw-residual)
    • .  Base Identifier
    • .  Value Representation
    • .  Intended Semantics and Use
    • .  Cost-Context Specification Considerations
  • .  Cost Metric: Available Bandwidth (bw-available)
    • .  Base Identifier
    • .  Value Representation
    • .  Intended Semantics and Use
    • .  Cost-Context Specification Considerations
• .  Operational Considerations
  • .  Source Considerations
  • .  Metric Timestamp Considerations
  • .  Backward-Compatibility Considerations
  • .  Computation Considerations
    • .  Configuration Parameter Considerations
    • .  Aggregation Computation Considerations
• .  Security Considerations
• .  IANA Considerations
  • .  ALTO Cost Metrics Registry
  • .  ALTO Cost Source Types Registry
• .  References
  • .  Normative References
  • .  Informative References
• Acknowledgments
• Authors' Addresses

Introduction Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) provides a means for network applications to obtain network information so that the applications can identify efficient application-layer traffic patterns using the networks. Cost metrics are used in both the ALTO cost map service and the ALTO endpoint cost service in the ALTO base protocol . Since different applications may use different cost metrics, the ALTO base protocol introduced the "ALTO Cost Metrics" registry () as a systematic mechanism to allow different metrics to be specified. For example, a delay-sensitive application may want to use latency-related metrics, and a bandwidth-sensitive application may want to use bandwidth-related metrics. However, the ALTO base protocol has registered only a single cost metric, i.e., the generic "routingcost" metric (); no latency- or bandwidth-related metrics are defined in the base protocol. This document registers a set of new cost metrics () to allow applications to determine where to connect based on network performance criteria, including delay- and bandwidth-related metrics. Cost Metrics Defined in This Document

Metric	Definition in This Document	Semantics Based On
One-Way Delay		Base: sum of Unidirectional Delay of links along the path
Round-Trip Delay		Base: Sum of two directions of Unidirectional Delay
Delay Variation		Base: Sum of Unidirectional Delay Variation of links along the path
Loss Rate		Base: aggr Unidirectional Link Loss
Residual Bandwidth		Base: min Unidirectional Residual BW
Available Bandwidth		Base: min Unidirectional Available BW
TCP Throughput
Hop Count

The first six metrics listed in (i.e., one-way delay, round-trip delay, delay variation, loss rate, residual bandwidth, and available bandwidth) are derived from the set of Traffic Engineering (TE) performance metrics commonly defined in OSPF , IS-IS , and BGP - Link State (BGP-LS) . Deriving ALTO cost performance metrics from existing network-layer TE performance metrics, and making it exposed to ALTO, can be a typical mechanism used by network operators to deploy ALTO . This document defines the base semantics of these metrics by extending them from link metrics to end-to-end metrics for ALTO. The "Semantics Based On" column specifies at a high level how the end-to-end metrics are computed from link metrics; details will be specified in the following sections. The Min/Max Unidirectional Link Delay metric as defined in and , and Maximum (Link) Bandwidth as defined in and , are not listed in because they can be handled by applying the statistical operators defined in this document. The metrics related to utilized bandwidth and reservable bandwidth (i.e., Maximum Reservable (Link) Bandwidth and Unreserved Bandwidth as defined in and ) are outside the scope of this document. The seventh metric in (the estimated TCP-flow throughput metric) provides an estimation of the bandwidth of a TCP flow, using TCP throughput modeling, to support use cases of adaptive applications . Note that other transport-specific metrics can be defined in the future. For example, QUIC-related metrics can be considered when the methodology for measuring such metrics is more mature (e.g., see ). The eighth metric in (the hop count metric) is mentioned, but not defined, in the ALTO base protocol ; this document provides a definition for it. These eight performance metrics can be classified into two categories: those derived from the performance of individual packets (i.e., one-way delay, round-trip delay, delay variation, loss rate, and hop count) and those related to bandwidth/throughput (residual bandwidth, available bandwidth, and TCP throughput). These two categories are defined in Sections  and , respectively. Note that all metrics except round-trip delay are unidirectional. An ALTO client will need to query both directions if needed. The purpose of this document is to ensure proper usage of these eight performance metrics in the context of ALTO. This document follows the guidelines defined in on registering ALTO cost metrics. Hence, it specifies the identifier, the intended semantics, and the security considerations of each one of the metrics specified in . The definitions of the intended semantics of the metrics tend to be coarse grained and are for guidance only, and they may work well for ALTO. On the other hand, a performance measurement framework, such as the IP Performance Metrics (IPPM) framework, may provide more details for defining a performance metric. This document introduces a mechanism called "cost-context" to provide additional details, when they are available; see . Following the ALTO base protocol, this document uses JSON to specify the value type of each defined metric. See for JSON data type specifications. In particular, specifies that cost values should be assumed by default to be 'JSONNumber'. When defining the value representation of each metric in , this document conforms to but specifies additional, generic constraints on valid JSONNumbers for each metric. For example, each new metric in will be specified as non-negative (>= 0); Hop Count is specified to be an integer. An ALTO server may provide only a subset of the metrics described in this document. For example, those that are subject to privacy concerns should not be provided to unauthorized ALTO clients. Hence, all cost metrics defined in this document are optional; not all of them need to be exposed to a given application. When an ALTO server supports a cost metric defined in this document, it announces the metric in its information resource directory (IRD) as defined in . An ALTO server introducing these metrics should consider related security issues. As a generic security consideration regarding reliability and trust in the exposed metric values, applications SHOULD promptly stop using ALTO-based guidance if they detect that the exposed information does not preserve their performance level or even degrades it. discusses security considerations in more detail.

Requirements Language The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.

Performance Metric Attributes The definitions of the metrics in this document are coarse grained, based on network-layer TE performance metrics, and for guidance only. A fine-grained framework as specified in requires that the fine-grained specification of a network performance metric include six components: (1) Metric Name, (2) Metric Description, (3) Method of Measurement or Calculation, (4) Units of Measurement, (5) Measurement Points, and (6) Measurement Timing. Requiring that an ALTO server provide precise, fine-grained values for all six components for each metric that it exposes may not be feasible or necessary for all ALTO use cases. For example, an ALTO server computing its metrics from network-layer TE performance metrics may not have information about the method of measurement or calculation (e.g., measured traffic patterns). To address the issue and realize ALTO use cases for the metrics listed in , this document defines performance metric identifiers that can be used in the ALTO Protocol with the following well-defined items: (1) Metric Name, (2) Metric Description, (3) Units of Measurement, and (4) Measurement Points, which are always specified by the specific ALTO services; for example, the endpoint cost service is between the two endpoints. Hence, the ALTO performance metric identifiers provide basic metric attributes. To allow the flexibility of allowing an ALTO server to provide fine-grained information such as Method of Measurement or Calculation according to its policy and use cases, this document introduces context information so that the server can provide these additional details.

Performance Metric Context: "cost-context" The core additional details of a performance metric specify how the metric is obtained. This is referred to as the source of the metric. Specifically, this document defines three types of coarse-grained metric information sources: "nominal", "sla", and "estimation". For a given type of source, precise interpretation of a performance metric value can depend on specific measurement and computation parameters. To make it possible to specify the source and the aforementioned parameters, this document introduces an optional "cost-context" field to the "cost-type" field defined by the ALTO base protocol () as follows: object { CostMetric cost-metric; CostMode cost-mode; [CostContext cost-context;] [JSONString description;] } CostType; object { JSONString cost-source; [JSONValue parameters;] } CostContext; "cost-context" will not be used as a key to distinguish among performance metrics. Hence, an ALTO information resource MUST NOT announce multiple CostType entries with the same "cost-metric", "cost-mode", and "cost-context". They must be placed into different information resources. The "cost-source" field of the "cost-context" field is defined as a string consisting of only ASCII alphanumeric characters (U+0030-U+0039, U+0041-U+005A, and U+0061-U+007A). The "cost-source" field is used in this document to indicate a string of this format. As mentioned above, this document defines three values for "cost-source": "nominal", "sla", and "estimation". The "cost-source" field of the "cost-context" field MUST be one that is registered in the "ALTO Cost Source Types" registry (). The "nominal" category indicates that the metric value is statically configured by the underlying devices. Not all metrics have reasonable "nominal" values. For example, throughput can have a nominal value, which indicates the configured transmission rate of the involved devices; latency typically does not have a nominal value. The "sla" category indicates that the metric value is derived from some commitment, which this document refers to as a Service Level Agreement (SLA). Some operators also use terms such as "target" or "committed" values. For an "sla" metric, it is RECOMMENDED that the "parameters" field provide a link to the SLA definition. The "estimation" category indicates that the metric value is computed through an estimation process. An ALTO server may compute "estimation" values by retrieving and/or aggregating information from routing protocols (e.g., see , , and ), traffic measurement management tools (e.g., the Two-Way Active Measurement Protocol (TWAMP) ), and measurement frameworks (e.g., IPPM), with corresponding operational issues. An illustration of potential information flows used for estimating these metrics is shown in . discusses in more detail the operational issues and how a network may address them.

A Framework to Compute Estimation of Performance Metrics +--------+ +--------+ +--------+ | Client | | Client | | Client | +----^---+ +---^----+ +---^----+ | | | +-----------|-----------+ |ALTO Protocol | | +--+-----+ retrieval +-----------+ | ALTO |<----------------| Routing | | Server | and aggregation| Protocols | | |<-------------+ | | +--------+ | +-----------+ | | +------------+ | |Performance | ---| Monitoring | | Tools | +------------+

There can be multiple options available when choosing the "cost-source" category; the operator of an ALTO server will make that choice. If a metric does not include a "cost-source" value, the application MUST assume that the value of "cost-source" is the most generic source, i.e., "estimation".

Performance Metric Statistics The measurement of a performance metric often yields a set of samples from an observation distribution , instead of a single value. A statistical operator is applied to the samples to obtain a value to be reported to the client. Multiple statistical operators (e.g., min, median, and max) are commonly being used. Hence, this document extends the general ASCII alphanumeric cost metric strings, formally specified as the CostMetric type defined in , as follows: A cost metric string consists of a base metric identifier (or base identifier for short) string, followed by an optional statistical operator string, connected by the ASCII colon character (':', U+003A), if the statistical operator string exists. The total length of the cost metric string MUST NOT exceed 32, as required by . The statistical operator string MUST be one of the following:

cur:

The instantaneous observation value of the metric from the most recent sample (i.e., the current value).

percentile, with the letter 'p' followed by a number:

Gives the percentile specified by the number following the letter 'p'. The number MUST be a non-negative JSON number in the range [0, 100] (i.e., greater than or equal to 0 and less than or equal to 100), followed by an optional decimal part, if higher precision is needed. The decimal part should start with the '.' separator (U+002E) and be followed by a sequence of one or more ASCII numbers between '0' and '9'. Assume that this number is y, and consider the case where the samples are coming from a random variable X. The metric then returns x, such that the probability of X is less than or equal to x, i.e., Prob(X <= x), = y/100. For example, delay-ow:p99 gives the 99th percentile of observed one-way delay; delay-ow:p99.9 gives the 99.9th percentile. Note that some systems use quantile, which is in the range [0, 1]. When there is a more common form for a given percentile, it is RECOMMENDED that the common form be used; that is, instead of p0, use min; instead of p50, use median; instead of p100, use max.

min:

The minimal value of the observations.

max:

The maximal value of the observations.

median:

The midpoint (i.e., p50) of the observations.

mean:

The arithmetic mean value of the observations.

stddev:

The standard deviation of the observations.

stdvar:

The standard variance of the observations.

Examples of cost metric strings then include "delay-ow", "delay-ow:min", and "delay-ow:p99", where "delay-ow" is the base metric identifier string; "min" and "p99" are example statistical operator strings. If a cost metric string does not have the optional statistical operator string, the statistical operator SHOULD be interpreted as the default statistical operator in the definition of the base metric. If the definition of the base metric does not provide a definition for the default statistical operator, the metric MUST be considered the median value. Note that limits the overall cost metric identifier to 32 characters. The cost metric variants with statistical operator suffixes defined by this document are also subject to the same overall 32-character limit, so certain combinations of (long) base metric identifiers and statistical operators will not be representable. If such a situation arises, it could be addressed by defining a new base metric identifier that is an "alias" of the desired base metric, with identical semantics and just a shorter name.

Packet Performance Metrics This section introduces ALTO network performance metrics on one-way delay, round-trip delay, delay variation, packet loss rate, and hop count. They measure the "quality of experience" of the stream of packets sent from a resource provider to a resource consumer. The measurements of each individual packet (pkt) can include the delay from the time when the packet enters the network to the time when the packet leaves the network (pkt.delay), whether the packet is dropped before reaching the destination (pkt.dropped), and the number of network hops that the packet traverses (pkt.hopcount). The semantics of the performance metrics defined in this section are that they are statistics computed from these measurements; for example, the x-percentile of the one-way delay is the x-percentile of the set of delays {pkt.delay} for the packets in the stream.

Cost Metric: One-Way Delay (delay-ow)

Base Identifier The base identifier for this performance metric is "delay-ow".

Value Representation The metric value type is a single 'JSONNumber' type value conforming to the number specifications provided in . The unit is expressed in microseconds. Hence, the number can be a floating-point number to express delay that is smaller than microseconds. The number MUST be non-negative.

Intended Semantics and Use

Intended Semantics:

To specify the temporal and spatial aggregated delay of a stream of packets from the specified source to the specified destination. The base semantics of the metric is the Unidirectional Delay metric as defined in , , and , but instead of specifying the delay for a link, it is the (temporal) aggregation of the link delays from the source to the destination. A non-normative reference definition of the end-to-end one-way delay metric is provided in . The spatial aggregation level is specified in the query context, e.g., provider-defined identifier (PID) to PID, or endpoint to endpoint, where the PID is as defined in .

Use:

This metric could be used as a cost metric constraint attribute or as a returned cost metric in the response.

Delay Value on Source-Destination Endpoint Pairs (Example 1) POST /endpointcost/lookup HTTP/1.1 Host: alto.example.com Content-Length: 239 Content-Type: application/alto-endpointcostparams+json Accept: application/alto-endpointcost+json,application/alto-error+json { "cost-type": { "cost-mode": "numerical", "cost-metric": "delay-ow" }, "endpoints": { "srcs": [ "ipv4:192.0.2.2" ], "dsts": [ "ipv4:192.0.2.89", "ipv4:198.51.100.34" ] } } HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Length: 247 Content-Type: application/alto-endpointcost+json { "meta": { "cost-type": { "cost-mode": "numerical", "cost-metric": "delay-ow" } }, "endpoint-cost-map": { "ipv4:192.0.2.2": { "ipv4:192.0.2.89": 10, "ipv4:198.51.100.34": 20 } } }

Note that since the "cost-type" does not include the "cost-source" field, the values are based on "estimation". Since the identifier does not include the statistical operator string component, the values will represent median values. shows an example that is similar to Example 1 (), but for IPv6.

Delay Value on Source-Destination Endpoint Pairs for IPv6 (Example 1a) POST /endpointcost/lookup HTTP/1.1 Host: alto.example.com Content-Length: 252 Content-Type: application/alto-endpointcostparams+json Accept: application/alto-endpointcost+json,application/alto-error+json { "cost-type": { "cost-mode": "numerical", "cost-metric": "delay-ow" }, "endpoints": { "srcs": [ "ipv6:2001:db8:100::1" ], "dsts": [ "ipv6:2001:db8:100::2", "ipv6:2001:db8:100::3" ] } } HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Length: 257 Content-Type: application/alto-endpointcost+json { "meta": { "cost-type": { "cost-mode": "numerical", "cost-metric": "delay-ow" } }, "endpoint-cost-map": { "ipv6:2001:db8:100::1": { "ipv6:2001:db8:100::2": 10, "ipv6:2001:db8:100::3": 20 } } }

Cost-Context Specification Considerations

"nominal":

Typically, network one-way delay does not have a nominal value.

"sla":

Many networks provide delay-related parameters in their application-level SLAs. It is RECOMMENDED that the "parameters" field of an "sla" one-way delay metric include a link (i.e., a field named "link") providing a URI for the specification of SLA details, if available. Such a specification can be either (1) free text for possible presentation to the user or (2) a formal specification. The format of the specification is outside the scope of this document.

"estimation":

The exact estimation method is outside the scope of this document. There can be multiple sources for estimating one-way delay. For example, the ALTO server may estimate the end-to-end delay by aggregation of routing protocol link metrics; the server may also estimate the delay using active, end-to-end measurements -- for example, using the IPPM framework .

If the estimation is computed by aggregation of routing protocol link metrics (e.g., Unidirectional Link Delay metrics for OSPF , IS-IS , or BGP-LS ), it is RECOMMENDED that the "parameters" field of an "estimation" one-way delay metric include the following information: (1) the RFC defining the routing protocol metrics (e.g., see for derived metrics), (2) configurations of the routing link metrics such as configured intervals, and (3) the aggregation method from link metrics to end-to-end metrics. During aggregation from link metrics to end-to-end metrics, the server should be cognizant of potential issues when computing an end-to-end summary statistic from link statistics. The default end-to-end average one-way delay is the sum of average link one-way delays. If an ALTO server provides the min and max statistical operators for the one-way delay metric, the values can be computed directly from the routing link metrics, as , , and provide Min/Max Unidirectional Link Delay. If the estimation is from the IPPM measurement framework, it is RECOMMENDED that the "parameters" field of an "estimation" one-way delay metric include the URI in the "URI" field of the IPPM metric defined in the IPPM "Performance Metrics" registry (e.g., ). The IPPM metric MUST be one-way delay (i.e., IPPM OWDelay* metrics). The statistical operator of the ALTO metric MUST be consistent with the IPPM statistical property (e.g., 95th percentile).

Cost Metric: Round-Trip Delay (delay-rt)

Base Identifier The base identifier for this performance metric is "delay-rt".

Value Representation The metric value type is a single 'JSONNumber' type value conforming to the number specifications provided in . The number MUST be non-negative. The unit is expressed in microseconds.

Intended Semantics and Use

Intended Semantics:

To specify temporal and spatial aggregated round-trip delay between the specified source and specified destination. The base semantics is that it is the sum of the one-way delay from the source to the destination and the one-way delay from the destination back to the source, where the one-way delay is as defined in . A non-normative reference definition of the end-to-end round-trip delay metric is provided in . The spatial aggregation level is specified in the query context (e.g., PID to PID, or endpoint to endpoint). Note that it is possible for a client to query two one-way delay (delay-ow) items and then compute the round-trip delay. The server should be cognizant of the consistency of values.

Use:

This metric could be used as a cost metric constraint attribute or as a returned cost metric in the response.

Round-Trip Delay of Source-Destination Endpoint Pairs (Example 2) POST /endpointcost/lookup HTTP/1.1 Host: alto.example.com Content-Length: 238 Content-Type: application/alto-endpointcostparams+json Accept: application/alto-endpointcost+json,application/alto-error+json { "cost-type": { "cost-mode": "numerical", "cost-metric": "delay-rt" }, "endpoints": { "srcs": [ "ipv4:192.0.2.2" ], "dsts": [ "ipv4:192.0.2.89", "ipv4:198.51.100.34" ] } } HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Length: 245 Content-Type: application/alto-endpointcost+json { "meta": { "cost-type": { "cost-mode": "numerical", "cost-metric": "delay-rt" } }, "endpoint-cost-map": { "ipv4:192.0.2.2": { "ipv4:192.0.2.89": 4, "ipv4:198.51.100.34": 3 } } }

Cost-Context Specification Considerations

"nominal":

Typically, network round-trip delay does not have a nominal value.

"sla":

See the "sla" entry in .

"estimation":

See the "estimation" entry in . For estimation by aggregation of routing protocol link metrics, the aggregation should include all links from the source to the destination and then back to the source; for estimation using IPPM, the IPPM metric MUST be round-trip delay (i.e., IPPM RTDelay* metrics). The statistical operator of the ALTO metric MUST be consistent with the IPPM statistical property (e.g., 95th percentile).

Cost Metric: Delay Variation (delay-variation)

Base Identifier The base identifier for this performance metric is "delay-variation".

Value Representation The metric value type is a single 'JSONNumber' type value conforming to the number specifications provided in . The number MUST be non-negative. The unit is expressed in microseconds.

Intended Semantics and Use

Intended Semantics:

To specify temporal and spatial aggregated delay variation (also called delay jitter) with respect to the minimum delay observed on the stream over the one-way delay from the specified source and destination, where the one-way delay is as defined in . A non-normative reference definition of the end-to-end one-way delay variation metric is provided in . Note that allows the specification of a generic selection function F to unambiguously define the two packets selected to compute delay variations. This document defines the specific case where F selects the packet with the smallest one-way delay as the "first" packet. The spatial aggregation level is specified in the query context (e.g., PID to PID, or endpoint to endpoint). Note that in statistics, variation is typically evaluated by the distance from samples relative to the mean. In the context of networking, it is more commonly defined from samples relative to the min. This definition follows the networking convention.

Use:

This metric could be used as a cost metric constraint attribute or as a returned cost metric in the response.

Delay Variation Value on Source-Destination Endpoint Pairs (Example 3) POST /endpointcost/lookup HTTP/1.1 Host: alto.example.com Content-Length: 245 Content-Type: application/alto-endpointcostparams+json Accept: application/alto-endpointcost+json,application/alto-error+json { "cost-type": { "cost-mode": "numerical", "cost-metric": "delay-variation" }, "endpoints": { "srcs": [ "ipv4:192.0.2.2" ], "dsts": [ "ipv4:192.0.2.89", "ipv4:198.51.100.34" ] } } HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Length: 252 Content-Type: application/alto-endpointcost+json { "meta": { "cost-type": { "cost-mode": "numerical", "cost-metric": "delay-variation" } }, "endpoint-cost-map": { "ipv4:192.0.2.2": { "ipv4:192.0.2.89": 0, "ipv4:198.51.100.34": 1 } } }

Cost-Context Specification Considerations

"nominal":

Typically, network delay variation does not have a nominal value.

"sla":

See the "sla" entry in .

"estimation":

See the "estimation" entry in . For estimation by aggregation of routing protocol link metrics, the default aggregation of the average of delay variations is the sum of the link delay variations; for estimation using IPPM, the IPPM metric MUST be delay variation (i.e., IPPM OWPDV* metrics). The statistical operator of the ALTO metric MUST be consistent with the IPPM statistical property (e.g., 95th percentile).

Cost Metric: Loss Rate (lossrate)

Base Identifier The base identifier for this performance metric is "lossrate".

Value Representation The metric value type is a single 'JSONNumber' type value conforming to the number specifications provided in . The number MUST be non-negative. The value represents the percentage of packet losses.

Intended Semantics and Use

Intended Semantics:

To specify the temporal and spatial aggregated one-way packet loss rate from the specified source and the specified destination. The base semantics of the metric is the Unidirectional Link Loss metric as defined in , , and , but instead of specifying the loss for a link, it is the aggregated loss of all links from the source to the destination. The spatial aggregation level is specified in the query context (e.g., PID to PID, or endpoint to endpoint).

Use:

This metric could be used as a cost metric constraint attribute or as a returned cost metric in the response.

Loss Rate Value on Source-Destination Endpoint Pairs (Example 4) POST /endpointcost/lookup HTTP/1.1 Host: alto.example.com Content-Length: 238 Content-Type: application/alto-endpointcostparams+json Accept: application/alto-endpointcost+json,application/alto-error+json { "cost-type": { "cost-mode": "numerical", "cost-metric": "lossrate" }, "endpoints": { "srcs": [ "ipv4:192.0.2.2" ], "dsts": [ "ipv4:192.0.2.89", "ipv4:198.51.100.34" ] } } HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Length: 248 Content-Type: application/alto-endpointcost+json { "meta": { "cost-type": { "cost-mode": "numerical", "cost-metric": "lossrate" } }, "endpoint-cost-map": { "ipv4:192.0.2.2": { "ipv4:192.0.2.89": 0, "ipv4:198.51.100.34": 0.01 } } }

Cost-Context Specification Considerations

"nominal":

Typically, the packet loss rate does not have a nominal value, although some networks may specify zero losses.

"sla":

See the "sla" entry in .

"estimation":

See the "estimation" entry in . For estimation by aggregation of routing protocol link metrics, the default aggregation of the average loss rate is the sum of the link loss rates. But this default aggregation is valid only if two conditions are met: (1) link loss rates are low and (2) one assumes that each link's loss events are uncorrelated with every other link's loss events. When loss rates at the links are high but independent, the general formula for aggregating loss, assuming that each link is independent, is to compute end-to-end loss as one minus the product of the success rate for each link. Aggregation when losses at links are correlated can be more complex, and the ALTO server should be cognizant of correlated loss rates. For estimation using IPPM, the IPPM metric MUST be packet loss (i.e., IPPM OWLoss* metrics). The statistical operator of the ALTO metric MUST be consistent with the IPPM statistical property (e.g., 95th percentile).

Cost Metric: Hop Count (hopcount) The hop count (hopcount) metric is mentioned in as an example. This section further clarifies its properties.

Base Identifier The base identifier for this performance metric is "hopcount".

Value Representation The metric value type is a single 'JSONNumber' type value conforming to the number specifications provided in . The number MUST be a non-negative integer (greater than or equal to 0). The value represents the number of hops.

Intended Semantics and Use

Intended Semantics:

To specify the number of hops in the path from the specified source to the specified destination. The hop count is a basic measurement of distance in a network and can be exposed as the number of router hops computed from the routing protocols originating this information. A hop, however, may represent other units. The spatial aggregation level is specified in the query context (e.g., PID to PID, or endpoint to endpoint).

Use:

This metric could be used as a cost metric constraint attribute or as a returned cost metric in the response.

Hop Count Value on Source-Destination Endpoint Pairs (Example 5) POST /endpointcost/lookup HTTP/1.1 Host: alto.example.com Content-Length: 238 Content-Type: application/alto-endpointcostparams+json Accept: application/alto-endpointcost+json,application/alto-error+json { "cost-type": { "cost-mode": "numerical", "cost-metric": "hopcount" }, "endpoints": { "srcs": [ "ipv4:192.0.2.2" ], "dsts": [ "ipv4:192.0.2.89", "ipv4:198.51.100.34" ] } } HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Length: 245 Content-Type: application/alto-endpointcost+json { "meta": { "cost-type": { "cost-mode": "numerical", "cost-metric": "hopcount" } }, "endpoint-cost-map": { "ipv4:192.0.2.2": { "ipv4:192.0.2.89": 5, "ipv4:198.51.100.34": 3 } } }

Cost-Context Specification Considerations

"nominal":

Typically, the hop count does not have a nominal value.

"sla":

Typically, the hop count does not have an SLA value.

"estimation":

The exact estimation method is outside the scope of this document. An example of estimating hop count values is by importing from IGP routing protocols. It is RECOMMENDED that the "parameters" field of an "estimation" hop count define the meaning of a hop.

Throughput/Bandwidth Performance Metrics This section introduces three metrics related to throughput and bandwidth. Given a specified source and a specified destination, these metrics reflect the volume of traffic that the network can carry from the source to the destination.

Cost Metric: TCP Throughput (tput)

Base Identifier The base identifier for this performance metric is "tput".

Value Representation The metric value type is a single 'JSONNumber' type value conforming to the number specifications provided in . The number MUST be non-negative. The unit is bytes per second.

Intended Semantics and Use

Intended Semantics:

To give the throughput of a congestion control conforming TCP flow from the specified source to the specified destination. The throughput SHOULD be interpreted as only an estimation, and the estimation is designed only for bulk flows.

Use:

This metric could be used as a cost metric constraint attribute or as a returned cost metric in the response.

TCP Throughput Value on Source-Destination Endpoint Pairs (Example 6) POST /endpointcost/lookup HTTP/1.1 Host: alto.example.com Content-Length: 234 Content-Type: application/alto-endpointcostparams+json Accept: application/alto-endpointcost+json,application/alto-error+json { "cost-type": { "cost-mode": "numerical", "cost-metric": "tput" }, "endpoints": { "srcs": [ "ipv4:192.0.2.2" ], "dsts": [ "ipv4:192.0.2.89", "ipv4:198.51.100.34" ] } } HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Length: 251 Content-Type: application/alto-endpointcost+json { "meta": { "cost-type": { "cost-mode": "numerical", "cost-metric": "tput" } }, "endpoint-cost-map": { "ipv4:192.0.2.2": { "ipv4:192.0.2.89": 256000, "ipv4:198.51.100.34": 128000 } } }

Cost-Context Specification Considerations

"nominal":

Typically, TCP throughput does not have a nominal value and SHOULD NOT be generated.

"sla":

Typically, TCP throughput does not have an SLA value and SHOULD NOT be generated.

"estimation":

The exact estimation method is outside the scope of this document. It is RECOMMENDED that the "parameters" field of an "estimation" TCP throughput metric include the following information: (1) the congestion control algorithm and (2) the estimation methodology. To specify (1), it is RECOMMENDED that the "parameters" field (object) include a field named "congestion-control-algorithm", which provides a URI for the specification of the algorithm; for example, for an ALTO server to provide estimation of the throughput of a CUBIC congestion control flow, its "parameters" field includes the "congestion-control-algorithm" field, with value being set to the URI for ; for an ongoing congestion control algorithm such as BBR, a link to its specification can be added. To specify (2), the "parameters" field includes as many details as possible; for example, for the TCP Cubic throughout estimation, the "parameters" field specifies that the throughput is estimated by setting _C_ to 0.4, and the equation in , Figure 8 is applied; as an alternative, the methodology may be based on the NUM model or the model described in . The exact specification of the "parameters" field is outside the scope of this document.

Cost Metric: Residual Bandwidth (bw-residual)

Base Identifier The base identifier for this performance metric is "bw-residual".

Value Representation The metric value type is a single 'JSONNumber' type value that is non-negative. The unit of measurement is bytes per second.

Intended Semantics and Use

Intended Semantics:

To specify temporal and spatial residual bandwidth from the specified source to the specified destination. The base semantics of the metric is the Unidirectional Residual Bandwidth metric as defined in , , and , but instead of specifying the residual bandwidth for a link, it is the residual bandwidth of the path from the source to the destination. Hence, it is the minimal residual bandwidth among all links from the source to the destination. When the max statistical operator is defined for the metric, it typically provides the minimum of the link capacities along the path, as the default value of the residual bandwidth of a link is its link capacity . The spatial aggregation unit is specified in the query context (e.g., PID to PID, or endpoint to endpoint). The default statistical operator for residual bandwidth is the current instantaneous sample; that is, the default is assumed to be "cur".

Use:

This metric could be used as a cost metric constraint attribute or as a returned cost metric in the response.

Residual Bandwidth Value on Source-Destination Endpoint Pairs (Example 7) POST /endpointcost/lookup HTTP/1.1 Host: alto.example.com Content-Length: 241 Content-Type: application/alto-endpointcostparams+json Accept: application/alto-endpointcost+json,application/alto-error+json { "cost-type": { "cost-mode": "numerical", "cost-metric": "bw-residual" }, "endpoints": { "srcs": [ "ipv4:192.0.2.2" ], "dsts": [ "ipv4:192.0.2.89", "ipv4:198.51.100.34" ] } } HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Length: 255 Content-Type: application/alto-endpointcost+json { "meta": { "cost-type": { "cost-mode": "numerical", "cost-metric": "bw-residual" } }, "endpoint-cost-map": { "ipv4:192.0.2.2": { "ipv4:192.0.2.89": 0, "ipv4:198.51.100.34": 2000 } } }

Cost-Context Specification Considerations

"nominal":

Typically, residual bandwidth does not have a nominal value.

"sla":

Typically, residual bandwidth does not have an SLA value.

"estimation":

See the "estimation" entry in . The current ("cur") residual bandwidth of a path is the minimal residual bandwidth of all links on the path.

Cost Metric: Available Bandwidth (bw-available)

Base Identifier The base identifier for this performance metric is "bw-available".

Value Representation The metric value type is a single 'JSONNumber' type value that is non-negative. The unit of measurement is bytes per second.

Intended Semantics and Use

Intended Semantics:

To specify temporal and spatial available bandwidth from the specified source to the specified destination. The base semantics of the metric is the Unidirectional Available Bandwidth metric as defined in , , and , but instead of specifying the available bandwidth for a link, it is the available bandwidth of the path from the source to the destination. Hence, it is the minimal available bandwidth among all links from the source to the destination. The spatial aggregation unit is specified in the query context (e.g., PID to PID, or endpoint to endpoint). The default statistical operator for available bandwidth is the current instantaneous sample; that is, the default is assumed to be "cur".

Use:

This metric could be used as a cost metric constraint attribute or as a returned cost metric in the response.

Available Bandwidth Value on Source-Destination Endpoint Pairs (Example 8) POST /endpointcost/lookup HTTP/1.1 Host: alto.example.com Content-Length: 244 Content-Type: application/alto-endpointcostparams+json Accept: application/alto-endpointcost+json,application/alto-error+json { "cost-type": { "cost-mode": "numerical", "cost-metric": "bw-available" }, "endpoints": { "srcs": [ "ipv4:192.0.2.2" ], "dsts": [ "ipv4:192.0.2.89", "ipv4:198.51.100.34" ] } } HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Length: 255 Content-Type: application/alto-endpointcost+json { "meta": { "cost-type": { "cost-mode": "numerical", "cost-metric": "bw-available" } }, "endpoint-cost-map": { "ipv4:192.0.2.2": { "ipv4:192.0.2.89": 0, "ipv4:198.51.100.34": 2000 } } }

Cost-Context Specification Considerations

"nominal":

Typically, available bandwidth does not have a nominal value.

"sla":

Typically, available bandwidth does not have an SLA value.

"estimation":

See the "estimation" entry in . The current ("cur") available bandwidth of a path is the minimum of the available bandwidth of all links on the path.

Operational Considerations The exact measurement infrastructure, measurement conditions, and computation algorithms can vary between different networks and are outside the scope of this document. Both the ALTO server and the ALTO clients, however, need to be cognizant of the operational issues discussed in the following subsections. Also, the performance metrics specified in this document are similar in that they may use similar data sources and have similar issues in their calculation. Hence, this document specifies issues that the performance metrics might have in common and also discusses challenges regarding the computation of ALTO performance metrics ().

Source Considerations The addition of the "cost-source" field solves a key issue: an ALTO server needs data sources to compute the cost metrics described in this document, and an ALTO client needs to know the data sources to better interpret the values. To avoid information that is too fine grained, this document introduces "cost-source" to indicate only the high-level types of data sources: "estimation", "nominal", or "sla", where "estimation" is a type of measurement data source, "nominal" is a type of static configuration, and "sla" is a type that is based more on policy. For example, for "estimation", the ALTO server may use log servers or the Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (OAM) system as its data source, as recommended by . In particular, the cost metrics defined in this document can be computed using routing systems as the data sources.

Metric Timestamp Considerations Despite the introduction of the additional "cost-context" information, the metrics do not have a field to indicate the timestamps of the data used to compute the metrics. To indicate this attribute, the ALTO server SHOULD return an HTTP Last-Modified value to indicate the freshness of the data used to compute the performance metrics. If the ALTO client obtains updates through an incremental update mechanism , the client SHOULD assume that the metric is computed using a snapshot at the time that is approximated by the receiving time.

Backward-Compatibility Considerations One potential issue introduced by the optional "cost-source" field is backward compatibility. Consider the case where an IRD defines two "cost-type" entries with the same "cost-mode" and "cost-metric", but one with "cost-source" being "estimation" and the other being "sla". In such a case, an ALTO client that is not aware of the extension will not be able to distinguish between these two types. A similar issue can arise even with a single "cost-type" whose "cost-source" is "sla": an ALTO client that is not aware of this extension will ignore this field and instead consider the metric estimation. To address the backward-compatibility issue, if a "cost-metric" is "routingcost" and the metric contains a "cost-context" field, then it MUST be "estimation"; if it is not, the client SHOULD reject the information as invalid.

Computation Considerations The metric values exposed by an ALTO server may result from additional processing of measurements from data sources to compute exposed metrics. This may involve data processing tasks such as aggregating the results across multiple systems, removing outliers, and creating additional statistics. The computation of ALTO performance metrics can present two challenges.

Configuration Parameter Considerations Performance metrics often depend on configuration parameters, and exposing such configuration parameters can help an ALTO client to better understand the exposed metrics. In particular, an ALTO server may be configured to compute a TE metric (e.g., packet loss rate) at fixed intervals, say every T seconds. To expose this information, the ALTO server may provide the client with two pieces of additional information: (1) when the metrics were last computed and (2) when the metrics will be updated (i.e., the validity period of the exposed metric values). The ALTO server can expose these two pieces of information by using the HTTP response headers Last-Modified and Expires.

Aggregation Computation Considerations An ALTO server may not be able to measure the performance metrics to be exposed. The basic issue is that the "source" information can often be link-level information. For example, routing protocols often measure and report only per-link loss and not end-to-end loss; similarly, routing protocols report link-level available bandwidth and not end-to-end available bandwidth. The ALTO server then needs to aggregate these data to provide an abstract and unified view that can be more useful to applications. The server should be aware that different metrics may use different aggregation computations. For example, the end-to-end latency of a path is the sum of the latencies of the links on the path; the end-to-end available bandwidth of a path is the minimum of the available bandwidth of the links on the path; in contrast, aggregating loss values is complicated by the potential for correlated loss events on different links in the path.

Security Considerations The properties defined in this document present no security considerations beyond those in Section of the base ALTO specification . However, concerns addressed in Sections , , and of remain of utmost importance. Indeed, TE performance is highly sensitive ISP information; therefore, sharing TE metric values in numerical mode requires full mutual confidence between the entities managing the ALTO server and the ALTO client. ALTO servers will most likely distribute numerical TE performance to ALTO clients under strict and formal mutual trust agreements. On the other hand, ALTO clients must be cognizant of the risks attached to such information that they would have acquired outside formal conditions of mutual trust. To mitigate confidentiality risks during information transport of TE performance metrics, the operator should address the risk of ALTO information being leaked to malicious clients or third parties through such attacks as person-in-the-middle (PITM) attacks. As specified in Section "Protection Strategies" of , the ALTO server should authenticate ALTO clients when transmitting an ALTO information resource containing sensitive TE performance metrics. Section "Authentication and Encryption" of specifies that ALTO server implementations as well as ALTO client implementations MUST support the "https" URI scheme and Transport Layer Security (TLS) .

IANA Considerations

ALTO Cost Metrics Registry IANA created and now maintains the "ALTO Cost Metrics" registry, as listed in , Table 3. This registry is located at . IANA has added the following entries to the "ALTO Cost Metrics" registry. ALTO Cost Metrics Registry

Identifier	Intended Semantics	Reference
delay-ow	See	RFC 9439
delay-rt	See	RFC 9439
delay-variation	See	RFC 9439
lossrate	See	RFC 9439
hopcount	See	RFC 9439
tput	See	RFC 9439
bw-residual	See	RFC 9439
bw-available	See	RFC 9439

ALTO Cost Source Types Registry IANA has created the "ALTO Cost Source Types" registry. This registry serves two purposes. First, it ensures the uniqueness of identifiers referring to ALTO cost source types. Second, it provides references to particular semantics of allocated cost source types to be applied by both ALTO servers and applications utilizing ALTO clients. A new ALTO cost source type can be added after IETF Review , to ensure that proper documentation regarding the new ALTO cost source type and its security considerations has been provided. The RFC(s) documenting the new cost source type should be detailed enough to provide guidance to both ALTO service providers and applications utilizing ALTO clients as to how values of the registered ALTO cost source type should be interpreted. Updates and deletions of ALTO cost source types follow the same procedure. Registered ALTO address type identifiers MUST conform to the syntactical requirements specified in . Identifiers are to be recorded and displayed as strings. Requests to add a new value to the registry MUST include the following information:

Identifier:

The name of the desired ALTO cost source type.

Intended Semantics:

ALTO cost source types carry with them semantics to guide their usage by ALTO clients. Hence, a document defining a new type should provide guidance to both ALTO service providers and applications utilizing ALTO clients as to how values of the registered ALTO endpoint property should be interpreted.

Security Considerations:

ALTO cost source types expose information to ALTO clients. ALTO service providers should be made aware of the security ramifications related to the exposure of a cost source type.

IANA has registered the identifiers "nominal", "sla", and "estimation" as listed in the table below. ALTO Cost Source Types Registry

Identifier	Intended Semantics	Security Considerations	Reference
nominal	Values in nominal cases ()		RFC 9439
sla	Values reflecting Service Level Agreement ()		RFC 9439
estimation	Values by estimation ()		RFC 9439

References Normative References IANA In many standards track documents several words are used to signify the requirements in the specification. These words are often capitalized. This document defines these words as they should be interpreted in IETF documents. This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. This document describes extensions to the OSPF protocol version 2 to support intra-area Traffic Engineering (TE), using Opaque Link State Advertisements. This document describes extensions to the Intermediate System to Intermediate System (IS-IS) protocol to support Traffic Engineering (TE). This document extends the IS-IS protocol by specifying new information that an Intermediate System (router) can place in Link State Protocol Data Units (LSP). This information describes additional details regarding the state of the network that are useful for traffic engineering computations. [STANDARDS-TRACK] This document describes a framework and a process for developing Performance Metrics of protocols and applications transported over IETF-specified protocols. These metrics can be used to characterize traffic on live networks and services. This memo documents an Internet Best Current Practice. Applications using the Internet already have access to some topology information of Internet Service Provider (ISP) networks. For example, views to Internet routing tables at Looking Glass servers are available and can be practically downloaded to many network application clients. What is missing is knowledge of the underlying network topologies from the point of view of ISPs. In other words, what an ISP prefers in terms of traffic optimization -- and a way to distribute it. The Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) services defined in this document provide network information (e.g., basic network location structure and preferences of network paths) with the goal of modifying network resource consumption patterns while maintaining or improving application performance. The basic information of ALTO is based on abstract maps of a network. These maps provide a simplified view, yet enough information about a network for applications to effectively utilize them. Additional services are built on top of the maps. This document describes a protocol implementing the ALTO services. Although the ALTO services would primarily be provided by ISPs, other entities, such as content service providers, could also provide ALTO services. Applications that could use the ALTO services are those that have a choice to which end points to connect. Examples of such applications are peer-to-peer (P2P) and content delivery networks. In certain networks, such as, but not limited to, financial information networks (e.g., stock market data providers), network performance information (e.g., link propagation delay) is becoming critical to data path selection. This document describes common extensions to RFC 3630 "Traffic Engineering (TE) Extensions to OSPF Version 2" and RFC 5329 "Traffic Engineering Extensions to OSPF Version 3" to enable network performance information to be distributed in a scalable fashion. The information distributed using OSPF TE Metric Extensions can then be used to make path selection decisions based on network performance. Note that this document only covers the mechanisms by which network performance information is distributed. The mechanisms for measuring network performance information or using that information, once distributed, are outside the scope of this document. Many protocols make use of points of extensibility that use constants to identify various protocol parameters. To ensure that the values in these fields do not have conflicting uses and to promote interoperability, their allocations are often coordinated by a central record keeper. For IETF protocols, that role is filled by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). To make assignments in a given registry prudently, guidance describing the conditions under which new values should be assigned, as well as when and how modifications to existing values can be made, is needed. This document defines a framework for the documentation of these guidelines by specification authors, in order to assure that the provided guidance for the IANA Considerations is clear and addresses the various issues that are likely in the operation of a registry. This is the third edition of this document; it obsoletes RFC 5226. RFC 2119 specifies common key words that may be used in protocol specifications. This document aims to reduce the ambiguity by clarifying that only UPPERCASE usage of the key words have the defined special meanings. JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is a lightweight, text-based, language-independent data interchange format. It was derived from the ECMAScript Programming Language Standard. JSON defines a small set of formatting rules for the portable representation of structured data. This document removes inconsistencies with other specifications of JSON, repairs specification errors, and offers experience-based interoperability guidance. This document specifies version 1.3 of the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol. TLS allows client/server applications to communicate over the Internet in a way that is designed to prevent eavesdropping, tampering, and message forgery. This document updates RFCs 5705 and 6066, and obsoletes RFCs 5077, 5246, and 6961. This document also specifies new requirements for TLS 1.2 implementations. In certain networks, such as, but not limited to, financial information networks (e.g., stock market data providers), network-performance criteria (e.g., latency) are becoming as critical to data-path selection as other metrics. This document describes extensions to IS-IS Traffic Engineering Extensions (RFC 5305). These extensions provide a way to distribute and collect network-performance information in a scalable fashion. The information distributed using IS-IS TE Metric Extensions can then be used to make path-selection decisions based on network performance. Note that this document only covers the mechanisms with which network-performance information is distributed. The mechanisms for measuring network performance or acting on that information, once distributed, are outside the scope of this document. This document obsoletes RFC 7810. This document defines new BGP - Link State (BGP-LS) TLVs in order to carry the IGP Traffic Engineering Metric Extensions defined in the IS-IS and OSPF protocols. The Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) protocol (RFC 7285) provides network-related information, called network information resources, to client applications so that clients can make informed decisions in utilizing network resources. This document presents a mechanism to allow an ALTO server to push updates to ALTO clients to achieve two benefits: (1) updates can be incremental, in that if only a small section of an information resource changes, the ALTO server can send just the changes and (2) updates can be immediate, in that the ALTO server can send updates as soon as they are available. The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is a stateless application-level protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypertext information systems. This document describes the overall architecture of HTTP, establishes common terminology, and defines aspects of the protocol that are shared by all versions. In this definition are core protocol elements, extensibility mechanisms, and the "http" and "https" Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) schemes. This document updates RFC 3864 and obsoletes RFCs 2818, 7231, 7232, 7233, 7235, 7538, 7615, 7694, and portions of 7230. Informative References ACM CoNEXT '19 Proceedings of the ACM on Measurement and Analysis of Computing Systems, Vol. 3, No. 3, Article No. 59, pp. 1-31 SREcon15 Europe IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Volume 28, Issue 601, pp. 2475-2488 EXFO This document adapts the [RFC6349] Framework for TCP Throughput Testing to the [RFC9000] QUIC protocol. The adapted framework describes a practical methodology for measuring end-to-end QUIC Throughput in a managed IP network. The goal of the methodology is to provide a better indication in regard to user experience. In this framework, QUIC, UDP, and IP parameters are specified to optimize QUIC Throughput. Work in Progress The purpose of this memo is to define a general framework for particular metrics to be developed by the IETF's IP Performance Metrics effort. This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. This memo defines a metric for round-trip delay of packets across Internet paths. [STANDARDS-TRACK] The One-way Active Measurement Protocol (OWAMP), specified in RFC 4656, provides a common protocol for measuring one-way metrics between network devices. OWAMP can be used bi-directionally to measure one-way metrics in both directions between two network elements. However, it does not accommodate round-trip or two-way measurements. This memo specifies a Two-Way Active Measurement Protocol (TWAMP), based on the OWAMP, that adds two-way or round-trip measurement capabilities. The TWAMP measurement architecture is usually comprised of two hosts with specific roles, and this allows for some protocol simplifications, making it an attractive alternative in some circumstances. [STANDARDS-TRACK] This memo defines a metric for one-way delay of packets across Internet paths. It builds on notions introduced and discussed in the IP Performance Metrics (IPPM) Framework document, RFC 2330; the reader is assumed to be familiar with that document. This memo makes RFC 2679 obsolete. Many Internet applications are used to access resources such as pieces of information or server processes that are available in several equivalent replicas on different hosts. This includes, but is not limited to, peer-to-peer file sharing applications. The goal of Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) is to provide guidance to applications that have to select one or several hosts from a set of candidates capable of providing a desired resource. This memo discusses deployment-related issues of ALTO. It addresses different use cases of ALTO such as peer-to-peer file sharing and Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) and presents corresponding examples. The document also includes recommendations for network administrators and application designers planning to deploy ALTO, such as recommendations on how to generate ALTO map information. This document defines the core of the QUIC transport protocol. QUIC provides applications with flow-controlled streams for structured communication, low-latency connection establishment, and network path migration. QUIC includes security measures that ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability in a range of deployment circumstances. Accompanying documents describe the integration of TLS for key negotiation, loss detection, and an exemplary congestion control algorithm.

Acknowledgments The authors of this document would like to thank for the highly informative, thorough AD reviews and comments. We thank , , , , , , , and for their reviews and comments. We thank , , , , , , , , and for discussions and comments that improved this document.

Authors' Addresses Huawei

Yuhua District 101 Software Avenue Nanjing Jiangsu 210012 China bill.wu@huawei.com

Yale University

51 Prospect St. New Haven CT 06520 United States of America yry@cs.yale.edu

Samsung

younglee.tx@gmail.com

Huawei

India dhruv.ietf@gmail.com

Nokia Networks France

France sabine.randriamasy@nokia-bell-labs.com

Telefonica

Madrid Spain luismiguel.contrerasmurillo@telefonica.com