Subject: WG ACTION: Multiparty Multimedia Session Control (mmusic)

From: IESG Secretary <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 93 17:49:48 -0400

A new working group has formed in the Transport Area of the
IETF.  For more information, please contact the working
group's chair(s), or the Transport Area's director.

John Stewart
IESG Secretary


Multiparty Multimedia Session Control (mmusic)
----------------------------------------------
 
 Charter 
 
 Chair(s):
     Eve Schooler  <[email-masked]>
     Abel Weinrib  <[email-masked]>
 
 Transport Area Director(s) 
     Allison Mankin  <[email-masked]>
 
 Mailing lists: 
     General Discussion:[email-masked]
     To Subscribe:      [email-masked]
     Archive:           venera.isi.edu:~/confctrl/confcrtl.mail
 
Description of Working Group:
 
  The demand for Internet teleconferencing has arrived, yet an
  infrastructure to support this demand is barely in place.  Multimedia
  session control, defined as the management and coordination of
  multiple sessions and their multiple users in multiple media (e.g.,
  audio, video), is one component of the infrastructure.  The
  Multiparty Multimedia Session Control Working Group is chartered to
  design and specify a protocol to perform these functions.
  
  The protocol will provide negotiation for session membership,
  underlying communication topology and media configuration.  In
  particular, the protocol will support a user initiating a multimedia
  multiparty session with other users (``calling'' other users) over the
  Internet by allowing a teleconferencing application on one workstation
  to explicitly rendezvous with teleconferencing applications running on
  remote workstations.  Defining a standard protocol will enable
  session-level interoperability between different teleconferencing
  implementations.
  
  The focus of the Working Group is to design a session negotiation
  protocol that is tailored to support tightly-controlled conferences.
  The MBONE currently carries primarily loosely-controlled sessions,
  i.e., sessions with little to no interaction among members and with no
  arbitration facility, security, or coordination of quality-of-service
  options for time-critical media.  Users may learn of available sessions
  using the ``sd'' utility or other out of band mechanisms (e.g., e-mail).
  However, there is clearly also a need for tightly-controlled sessions
  that provide mechanisms for directly contacting other users to initiate
  a session and for negotiating conference parameters such as membership,
  media encodings and encryption keys.  In addition, these sessions
  should support renegotiation during a session, for example to add or
  delete members or change the media encoding.  It is possible that the
  protocol will, in the limiting case, also support loosely-controlled
  sessions.
  
  The main goal of the Working Group will be to specify the session
  control protocol for use within teleconferencing software over the
  Internet.  The Working Group will focus on the aspects of the session
  control problem that are well understood, while keeping an eye on
  evolving research issues.  Toward this end, the Working Group has made
  an inventory of existing conferencing systems and their session control
  protocols.  The Working Group will document the requirements of the
  existing prototypes as a basis for the protocol development.  The
  Working Group will iteratively refine the protocol based on
  implementation and operational experience.

  Furthermore, the Working Group will coordinate with other efforts
  related to multimedia conferencing, such as directory services
  for cataloguing users and conferences, the RTP and RTCP protocols
  developed by the Audio/Video Transport working group, resource
  reservation and management at the network level, and schemes for
  multicast address allocation.  
 
 Goals and Milestones: 
 
   May 93 Hold an on-line working group meeting to discuss the conference 
          control framework, the relevant terminology, a functional taxonomy 
          and how different conversational styles place requirements on session
          protocols.                                                           

   Jun 93 Submit the Conference Session Control Protocol to the IESG for 
          consideration as an Experimental Protocol.                           

   Aug 93 Post an Internet-Draft describing the Session Control Requirements.  

   Nov 93 Post an Internet-Draft of the Session Control Protocol.              

   Mar 94 Submit a revised Internet-Draft based on implementation experience.