InfoMagic Standards 1994 January/InfoMagic Standards - January 1994.iso/inet/ietf/osids/93mar.min

Text File | 1993-05-17 | 20KB | 609 lines

CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_


Reported by Ed Reed/Xerox

Minutes of the OSI Directory Services Working Group (OSIDS)

The Working Group began with introductions and was followed by a review
of the Agenda and the Minutes of the November 1992 meeting.  The Minutes
were accepted without comment.  The session continued with the Liaison
Reports.


  1. WG-NAP (Erik Huizer)
     There are three task forces working:

       o Work that Panos-Gavriil Tsigaridas is doing.
       o Data Management - how to get data into the directory, and keep
         it up to date and accurate.
       o Legal and Privacy issues - going to publish first results as an
         analysis of Dutch and other regulations recently published.


  2. NADF (Tim Howes)
     Decided to open to users, but as non-voting members.  Piloting
     continues.

  3. DISI (Tim Howes)
     Reformed under the Integrated Directory Services Working Group,
     with the addition of Whois++, want to address general directory
     issues.

  4. AARNet (Mark Prior)
     One of the divisions of Telecom have joined the pilot.  Currently
     doing a Whois++ startup.  Trying to get a new binary distribution
     of ISODE 8.0 ready.

  5. Paradise
     The First project ended with 1992.  Next Project (transition) will
     run sixteen months.  Now also has Inrea as a partner.  Using Quipu
     and Pizzaro implementations.  DE now will perform very broad
     (c=??/cn=name) searches.  China, Slovenia (means ISODE 8.0
     required), Croatia, Slovakia have joined.  A question was raised
     about the issue of intellectual property rights associated with DE
     and other Paradise tools.

  6. NREN-NIS (Sri Sataluri/Mark Kosters)
     Internic will begin providing services April 1.  - Internic

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     personal listings will be available.  Will provide DE access, and
     other X.500 services and WAIS. Plan to make WAIS info avail via
     X.500, too, but not immediately.  Plan to make registration data
     available via X.500.

  7. DOD
     Defense messaging system will take over the old switches including
     Autodin.  Will be X.400 based, and are building an X.500 directory
     support.

  8. Integrated Services Panel (US/GSA)
     There's a newsletter describing efforts available.  Directory
     services now are flat file, with X.500 direction.


Progression of Standards (Erik Huizer)


   o Published the Strategy Document.
     There was a long discussion which had been prompted by John Curran
     but he was unable to be here to discuss.

   o LDAP
     It was not clear whether the Document was published, but it had
     left the IESG. There may be a block of some sort - Tim Howes took
     an action to see if it's being held up in the IAB.


No other documents are pending immediate progression.  DSA Metrics will
be discussed later.

Experiment Progress

    DIT Counting
    Character Set
    JPEG
        Concluded at previous meeting, other than for publication of
new approach in updated RFC1274
    QOS
        DE QOS:  - Paul Barker
            Feature Added to latest DE
            Those familiar with Directory Knowledge
                * Which org's data likely to be available
                * Likely to be returned tolerably quickly
                * attempts to provide naive user with some info
            Doesn't follow OSI-DS 15
                * coverage - 1 out of 62 GB orgs have QOS attributes

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                * Data vs DSA - emphasis should be on data avail,
                    rather than DSA avail
                * Response time - no attempt made in OSI-DS 15 to indicate
                    likely response time
                * Credibility - values self-assigned.

            Approach used
                DE uses simple database of information availability and
                response times
                    - "result" of each query added to QOS database
                    ((query times > threshhold time) &&
                       info for that query is database))
                    users told how long query usually takes
                                   or
                     user told if query unlikely to succeed on basis
                      of recent failures


                Shortcomings of current approach
                    Database built only from 'simple' query mod
                       power searching provides much more information
                    No account taken of when a query is made (time of day)
                    More hysteresis is needed
                    Abandons are not recorded
                    no timestamping of information
                    Database trimming tools are needed
                    Database is too simple at the moment.



The Group has not concluded that the draft OSI-DS 15 should be
abandoned, if more of the values specified there are in fact
implemented.  The question is whether DSA and DUA implementors will
build OSI-DS 15 approaches, or not.

There is some overlap between this experiment and the MADMAN efforts.
Gavriil Tsigaridas reported some of their efforts have raised an issue
with DS-15's use, or lack of, object type data in the QOS database.  One
approach is to just record information about times to find people.

Information is probably only of interest at the local level - views are
too different from other places via other access mechanisms.

There is some value to share the implementation approach taken, but this
is an experiment, still.

Seems like we've gone far enough on DS-15, and we should look in some
other direction.  DS-15 is complementary, but should be extended with
interface native information which doesn't belong in the directory.
Paul will see if he can make what he's done available for others to
implement.

A poll of the Group indicated continued interest in developing OSI-DS
15, but no there were no volunteers to be the editor.

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Schema Working Group

A previous meeting chartered a small subgroup to look at this.  That
Group never got together.  There have been other issues (JPEG, etc.,)
which have come up needing help, too, but still no volunteers to edit.

Panos Gavriil Tsigaridas' Document

Panos asked people to please read his document.  Applications need the
ability to use a common repository for information about management
information, there would be a valuable synergy.

Charter Review

Steve and Erik each published Draft Charters.  Steve doesn't think it
makes sense to put things into the Charter which need to be done, if
there's not support from the Working Group members to do them.  He
proposes four:


  1. Liaisons
  2. Schema Coordination
  3. DSA/DUA Metrics
  4. IP address representation


Erik points out we need to be stricter in our procedures and resources
as the IETF grows - specifically with regard to Charter and time
schedules.  Only if there are concrete objectives and times will the
Charter be renewed.  Erik's list includes:


  1. Non-white pages use of the directory
  2. Test strategies
  3. Schema management
  4. Guidelines for technical implementation, migration to 1993, and
     database coupling.


Paradise has an objective including interoperation of directory
services.  Interoperation is more properly a target of pilot projects,
with which the Group wants to liaison, but that should not be part of
this Group's Charter.

Perhaps if the Group defined where the holes in the standard exist which
preclude interoperability, and publishes RFCs to fill the holes, then at
least there would be a unified face to the implementors.  For instance,
Siemans has delivered an RFC based product, which goes beyond the OSI
Standard, when pressed by pilot managers.

To some extent, this seems to be a necessary activity, in spite of the
continuing claims by vendors that the extensions are non-standard, and


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will be obsoleted by the next standard.

(Erik) - IDS will focus on general problems relating to directory
services, while OSIDS will focus on X.500 specific issues.

Metrics

Roland - Has been testing the Siemens DSA. Has also had to look at
interoperability testing.  There are holes in the standards - schema
handling, access control, etc.  There appears to be holes in the
metrics, too - they report good results, when you know there are
problems.

Paradise - Paul Barker

Discussed new data management tools in more detail - which will be
available shortly.  Archie-like service based on X.500...begins with a
leap of faith that it makes sense to record information about documents
in the directory.  The presentation provided an overview of the approach
to be taken.

The sense of the Group was that the it should take the project being
done as a work item.  Paul will edit the papers he's done towards an
RFC.

Representing WHOIS data in the X.500 Directory (Sri Sataluri)

The objective is to provide access to information about network entities
and to define a schema for representing that data.  A concern was
expressed that that approach may simply be replicating a centralized
database, and not really distributing it - but there was disagreement
with that concern.

Charting Networks in the Directory (OSI-DS 37-39) - Glenn Mansfield and
Thomas Johannsen

The presentation included background, problem discussion and a
description of a proposed solution.  The objective is to provide a
distributed map of the network.

Not only topology, but the policies, costs, services, properties,
administration and management attributes, and contacts.  Many kinds of
applications can use the information, but network management is the main
thrust of the effort.

CONMAN Project is addressing configuration management.  SOFTPAGES
Project is addressing cost computation, using the configuration

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information from CONMAN, etc.  In addition, file server contents is
indexed in the directory.

The consensus of the Group was that the it should be dealing with the
problems described here.  A subgroup of volunteers agreed to meet over
dinner and plan work (Paul Barker, Tim Howes, Thomas Johannsen, Mark
Knopper (silent volunteer) (missed dinner), Mark Kosters, Ruth Lang,
Sylvain Langlois, Bruce Mackey, Glen Mansfield, Ed Reed, Sheri Repucci,
Sri Sataluri, Mark Smith and Scott Williamson

This group identified a list of documents to be published, and accepted
volunteers to edit the them.


   o Roadmap (Steve H-K)
   o IP Addressing Schema (Glenn, Thomas, Mark Ko, Sri)
   o Network Objects Schema (Thomas, Sri, Ed, Mark Ko.)
   o RFC1279 Revision (Mark Ko.)
   o Naming Layout (Sri)
   o Transition Plan for Existing Services and Deployment (Scott, Glenn)
   o Business Process Model (Operations Guidelines) - Glenn
   o Security and Privacy (Tim)
   o OSI Addressing (to be determined)
   o XNS Addressing (Ed)


Abstract:  Charting Networks in the Directory.  Work in progress at AIC,
WIDE, Tohoku University.

There is a dearth of information about the network
- Interconnections, policy of transit n/w's, contact persons, ..
The present status of the n/w info is piecemeal and diverse
- geographical separations [ the various NICS, ...]
- specific Usage oriented  [ DNS, whois, ....     ]
A Unified view is proposed- something like a global annotated n/w map
showing interconnections and their properties and policies
        the functions/services of the elements
        admin/mgmt related info
form the base of Directory Services
name , address , manager, policy, route, ...

The Map may be used for
Conf mgmt : see n/w configuration, designing/administration/planning
Route mgmt: checking optimality of paths, support route servers, ...
Fault mgmt: alternate paths, ..
Service mgmt: information on servers/services, Managers, users,


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By definition the Map is Huge, quasi-static, geographically distributed and
        requires distributed control & maintenance

X.500 based distributed directory provides the base for such a map

Points Addressed in the Proposal:
-Scalability, distribution of control & maintenance, preservation of
 admin/political boundaries < X.500 based model
-Simple representation      < should be close to the real world
-Minimize data duplication  < images like organizationRole to be used
-Use existing services/info [ DNS, NIC ] for bootstrapping
-Address evolving technologies/problems [ supernetting, ..]
The network Map:
- comprises of networks, nodes, interfaces
Images:
- allow several functional images of the same physical n/w
  OSI/IP/SNA descriptions of the same n/w is possible

The Applications that are coming up:
- ConMan Project
- Configuration info supplements other mgmt info
- Displays map, finds manager who should be contacted
        - Suggests bypasses in case of problems
        - SoftPages Project
- Target is to optimize document retrieval
- The "Map" gives the cost [function of speed, tariff, ...]
  from the user to the ftp servers
- The "Map" also contains info about the servers and contents
- The "cheapest" server from the user is found
- NIC info server
- provides a single-window whois-type service

Status:
- Pilots have been implemented         [ Thomas will present ]
- experimentation has been carried out [ Thomas will present ]

Plan of Action
- develop strategies/tools for populating the Directory
- take the pilot to wider [ national -> international] arena
link NICs, Maps
- develop nice UAs, applications
Time Frame
- Next IETF:
More Results, population, coverage, usage.
Bootstrapping strategies.



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Notes to talk of Thomas Johannsen:

Implementation of OSI-DS 37-39 in national pilot done.

Aim: representing
 - networks
 - IP numbers
 - ftp archives

Interaction of following information supported by references
and tree structure:
 - white spaces namespace
 - network descriptions
 - IP number namespace
 - DNS namespace

1) Networks in the Directory:
   Populating

   => in general no config database available
   => upload existing data from WHOIS, BITNET.NODES, DNS...
   => gathering data "by hand" from network admins, ...

   ==> Technical and administrative support needed.

   NIC support

   experimental upload of parts of JNIC-WHOIS database into
   X.500 done.

   Autoconvert for part of JNICs database (IP numbers 133.*.0.0) produces:

   X.500 object   number

   organization   194
   organizationalUnit  247
   pilotPerson  429
   IPnetwork   228
   IPgroup  228

   => uploading WHOIS to X.500 helps populating white pages
   space, too!

   Problems of autoconvert:

   - non-unique use of org-names
   - addition of organizational entries over DSA boundaries difficult
   - X.500 access rights

   X.500 based whois responder as user agent provides access to
   white pages and non-white pages information. Send mail to
   [e-mail] with subject 'help'.


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 2) Pilot Directory configuration (for OSI-DS-38/39)

   3 DSAs form isolated pilot world for experiments

   number of objects in pilot DSAs:

   object  Sazae  Saki  Guppy  total
   organization  8  3  193  204
   org.-Unit  19  11  244  274
   pilotPerson  34  7  416  457
   network  13  0 0  13
   ipNw'Image  41  8  202  251
   node  71  0 0  71
   ipNd'Image  80  5  2  87
   port 49  0  0  49
   ipPortImage  83  8      3  94
   del.Block 0 0 24  24
   ipGroup 0 0 244  244
   ipReference 0 0 65  65
   fileServer  8  4      3  15
   file  12287  2839 7895  23021
   total 12693  2885  9291  24869

3) Soft Pages Project (OSI-DS-39)

   aim: reduce unnecessary ftp traffic

   - provide help for efficient and network optimized file retrieval
   - use of network connection properties
   - representation of contents of fileservers in the Directory

   Maintaining SoftPages:
   - initial loading of all filenames into the Directory (once
   only)
   - daily addition and deleteion of new or outdated files
     (number of files depends on size and activity of fileserver)
   - final deletion of all filenames from Directory when fileserver goes
     out of operation (once only)

   => can be done by crontab job which reads ls-lR, builds diff
      to previous entry and has DUA functionality (add/del in DIB)

   estimated size of ftp servers to track: typically 3000 -
   10000 files; with several tens to hundreds changes per day.

   Bulk loading tests performed on pilot DSAs.
   Summary: addition of 10000 file objects takes approx. 30 minutes
            daily updates takes about 1 minute

   Using SPP

     Searching filenames as
      - full match,
      - leading substring match,

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      - non-leading substring match.

     Result of tests: searching one object takes about 1 second
     for amount of up to 10000 objects in one ftp-mirror.

   Investigating impact of SPP


   cost = f (speed, traffic, charge, priority)

   cost calculation in experiment done by using ftpd-logs and
   simplified backbone network map of Japan Internet.

  - randomly chosen logs of 5 ftp sites
  - scanned about 35000 anonymous get operations
  - checked for filename, size, date against 45 ftp sites
  - IF file was found in ls-lR of a cheaper ftp site THEN
          non-optimal retrieval.


   results expressed as non-optimality ratios:

    no. of files  32 %
    bytes         38 %
    total cost    50 %

4) Summary

Non-white pages X.500 usage by several applications,
e.g. NIC control, ConMan project, SoftPages project.



Attendees

Claudio Allocchio        [e-mail]
Jules Aronson            [e-mail]
Paul Barker              [e-mail]
Russell Blaesing         [e-mail]
John Boatright           [e-mail]
George Chang             [e-mail]
Wayne Clark              [e-mail]
Robert Cooney            [e-mail]
Simon Coppins            [e-mail]
Thomas DeWitt            [e-mail]
Marcello Frutig          [e-mail]
Roland Hedberg           [e-mail]
Marco Hernandez          [e-mail]
Gerd Holzhauer           [e-mail]
Jeroen Houttuin          [e-mail]
Tim Howes                [e-mail]
Erik Huizer              [e-mail]
Barbara Jennings         [e-mail]

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Thomas Johannsen         [e-mail]
Kevin Jordan             [e-mail]
David Katinsky           [e-mail]
Steve Kille              [e-mail]
Mark Knopper             [e-mail]
Mark Kosters             [e-mail]
Lakshman Krishnamurthy   [e-mail]
Mary La Roche            [e-mail]
Ruth Lang                [e-mail]
Sylvain Langlois         [e-mail]
Bruce Mackey             [e-mail]
Bill Manning             [e-mail]
Glenn Mansfield          [e-mail]
Judy Nasar               [e-mail]
Geir Pedersen            [e-mail]
Mark Prior               [e-mail]
Edward Reed              [e-mail]
Sheri Repucci            [e-mail]
Jim Romaguera            [e-mail]
Yzhak Ronen              [e-mail]
Marshall Rose            [e-mail]
Srinivas Sataluri        [e-mail]
Mark Smith               [e-mail]
Larry Snodgrass          [e-mail]
Catherine Summers        [e-mail]
Louisa Thomson           [e-mail]
Panos-Gavriil Tsigaridas [e-mail]
Alan Williamson          [e-mail]
Russ Wright              [e-mail]



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