Subject: PolTerm Draft

From: Shai Herzog <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 01:51:28 -0500

Based on the discussion today at the Policy WG, here is my text regarding
policy terminology:

- Policy resolution says:

   "When presented with policies from multiple policy domains, through which
   a communication must pass, it is necessary to find a common policy
   supported by all the domains".

   I don't remember seeing anywhere (in any of the architectural docs)
   such a weird End-to-End policy consensus (negotiations, resolution,
   whatever). Such an approach can only makes sense for micro-flows
   (RSVP style) and I don't think anyone suggest resolving policy across
   multiple domains for each micro flow. The model we are familiar assume
   bilateral policy negotiation/resolution. I suggest the following text
   instead:

   "Policy negotiations/resolution:

   The process by which neighboring policy domains, each with it's own
   controlling policy communicate to find a common policy satisfactory
   to both (if available).
   A cascading set of bilateral policy negotiations may, but
   not necessarily produce meaningful end-to-end policy."

- Policy Control: usually used to denote "policy authority over an
   enforcement device". (e.g., the PDP performs policy control over
   the PEP). Interestingly enough, in the term "Policy evaluation" the
   term "policy control" is used in its proper way (unlike this
   definition... ;-)

- Policy conflict resolution:

   There are two different terms regarding conflicts:
   conflict avoidance and conflict resolution.

   Avoidance: evaluate policy in a way that stops after finding one match,
           therefore, the system never knows whether there was (or wasn't)
           another match with a conflicting action.

   Detection/Resolution:
           This is a more complicated process where evaluation finds
           multiple matches, with conflicting actions, and there is a
           need to decide which of the conflicting actions should govern.
           There are multiple ways for conflict resolution, but they do NOT
           involve simple rule match priority (since this would
           be the equivalent of the avoidance thing).
           Instead one can evaluate "best match" (e.g., IP Address match),
           "union of actions" (e.g., RSVP Flowspec merging),
           "most restrictive", "most liberal" etc.

- The term "Policy feasibility" is kind of vague.
   One person's "safely" is another person's "bad". I suggest that there
   is no objective way of defining it. In fact, I believe there isn't
   any need for this term and and that this is a by-product of a system
   quality, rather than a "policy process".

In the spirit of Keith's suggestion regarding the three proposed
levels of policies: Administrator-defined, Device-independent,
Device-dependent policy. I'd like to propose using

Abstract, device-free Policy.
Standard Device Policy
Proprietary Device Policy

Shai

__________________________________________________________________
Shai Herzog, Founder & CTO   IPHighway Inc.   Tel : (914) 654-4810
55 New York Avenue                            Main: (508) 620-1141
Framingham, MA 01701                          Fax : (212) 656-1006

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From: Dhiman Barman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 15:11:24 +0530

Hi,
   May I know if any one has looked into COPS implementation in practice. 
Any pointers will be of great help ? Thanks.                      

-- 
Cheers
Dhiman

Man who sleep in cathouse by day, sleep in doghouse by night.

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From: Yoram Ramberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 17:47:31 -0600

Cisco is about to ship an early release of its COPS-QPM 1.0, a COPS based 
QoS policy manager. You can probably find some info on the Cisco WEB site 
(or at least find an address to send questions). I don't think this is the 
only offering out there, but I hear it is the one closest to being a real 
commercial product. Note that only a small set of devices now supports 
COPS. It is expected to proliferate in the coming months and years.

*Yoram

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From: Shai Herzog <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 19:31:33 -0500

>COPS. It is expected to proliferate in the coming months and years.

IPHighway OPS 2.0 policy server has built-in COPS support.
We also offer a royalty free COPS client code for embedded devices.

Both products are in full release (not beta).

Shai

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From: [email-masked] (SteveJ)
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 17:25:32 -0800

But not to everyone!

----------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Jackowski
President/CEO
Deterministic Networks, Inc.
1341 Pacific Avenue
Santa Cruz, Ca 95060

Office: (831) 421-0388 x18
Home office: (831) 426-4001
Mobile: (408) 813-6294
Fax: (831) 421-0394
www.DeterministicNetworks.com
----- Original Message -----
From: Shai Herzog <[email-masked]>
To: Yoram Ramberg <[email-masked]>; Dhiman Barman
<[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
Sent: Monday, March 27, 2000 4:31 PM
Subject: Re: COPS Implementation

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From: Shai Herzog <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 21:12:49 -0500

...Previously, in pre-release we limited distribution to beta
site/testers, but it is widely available now.

We can certainly provide you with it now.

Shai

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From: "Jon Sjoberg" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 06:11:19 -0800

When we say "COPS", are we talking just the base protocol, or "for RSVP" or
"for provisioning"?

BTW, Nortel Networks was shipping COPS for diff-serv (before it became
provisioning) last year some time in the AN and BN product lines.

>-----Original Message-----
>From: [email-masked]
>[mailto:[email-masked]]On Behalf Of Shai Herzog
>Sent: Monday, March 27, 2000 6:13 PM
>To: SteveJ; Yoram Ramberg; Dhiman Barman; [email-masked]

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From: Dhiman Barman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 17:12:54 +0530

> provisioning) last year some time in the AN and BN product lines.

  What I intended to know was about the base protocol. Better it would
be even, if I can get the "provisioning" features also. 

Cheers
Dhiman 

Let the machine do the dirty work.  - Elements of Programming Style

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From: Shai Herzog <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 01:57:22 -0500

>When we say "COPS", are we talking just the base protocol, or "for RSVP" or

COPS-PR (off course, COPS-PR is still a moving target, but it seem to
converge nicely ;-)

>provisioning) last year some time in the AN and BN product lines.

Yeah, I'm aware of it. The more, the merrier. ;-)

The convergence of COPS-PR + the interops done two weeks ago should
get us closer to production level interoperable implementations.

Shai