In a fit of frustration several months ago I took a stab at a different
charter. I've gone through it again and added one sentence and submit it
for consideration as we try to address the IAB concerns. I believe some of
the problems we have been having in getting an approved charter are because
of the framing of the problem. Here's the way I would like to see the
problem framed: distributed applications.
Description of Working Group:
The Internet facilitates the deployment of distributed web applications that
both offload the origin servers and enable improvements in the user
experience. One existing and widely deployed distribution model uses
proxies for caching, content insertion and adaptation. There are many
problems with this currently deployed model that stem from a lack of
integration with the endpoint systems.
The Open Pluggable Edge Services (OPES) working group is to define a
framework and protocols to both authorize and invoke services as part of a
distributed application. These distributed applications may be
server-centric (i.e., an administrative domain that includes the origin
server) and they may be client-centric (i.e., an administrative domain that
includes the user agent).
The applications of interest use HTTP and RTP/RTSP to deliver content to
their users. The OPES framework is to provide for policy from the content
origin and/or content consumer that controls the edge services to be applied
to application messages. OPES is expressly not chartered to modify the HTTP
or RTP/RTSP protocols; rather, the working group is to define an out-of-band
mechanism for communicating the policies of the distributed application.
There are two key tasks of this working group. The working group will
investigate the authorization and service invocation policy requirements and
define one or more methods for specifying and distributing the edge server
policy. The working group will also investigate the service invocation
requirements and define one or more protocols for calling services that are
remote from the edge server. As part of these two tasks, the working group
will develop a framework for these edge server functions and will evaluate
the applicability of the IETF Policy Framework and AAA architecture and the
ICAP and SOAP protocols as well as any other appropriate technologies.
As these problems are addressed, there are a set of considerations specified
in RFCxxx (draft-iab-opes-00.txt) that must be addressed as solutions are
developed.
Deliverables:
Scenarios & Framework (info drafts) - Mar 2002 timeframe
Policy & Callout Requirements (info drafts) - Jul 2002 timeframe
Policy and Callout protocols (std drafts) - Dec 2002 timeframe