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ALTO Protocol
draft-ietf-alto-protocol-19

The information below is for an old version of the document.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 7285.
Authors Richard Alimi , Reinaldo Penno , Y. Richard Yang
Last updated 2013-10-02
Replaces draft-penno-alto-protocol
RFC stream Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
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Send notices to alto-chairs@tools.ietf.org, draft-ietf-alto-protocol@tools.ietf.org
draft-ietf-alto-protocol-19
ALTO WG                                                    R. Alimi, Ed.
Internet-Draft                                                    Google
Intended status: Standards Track                           R. Penno, Ed.
Expires: April 5, 2014                                     Cisco Systems
                                                            Y. Yang, Ed.
                                                         Yale University
                                                         October 2, 2013

                             ALTO Protocol
                    draft-ietf-alto-protocol-19.txt

Abstract

   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) Service provides
   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 Service.
   Although the ALTO Service would primarily be provided by ISPs, other
   entities such as content service providers could also operate an ALTO
   Service.  Applications that could use this service 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.

Requirements Language

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].

Status of this Memo

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   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
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   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on April 5, 2014.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2013 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
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) 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 Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     1.1.  Problem Statement  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     1.2.  Design Overview  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
   2.  Terminology  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
     2.1.  Endpoint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
     2.2.  Endpoint Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
     2.3.  Network Location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     2.4.  ALTO Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     2.5.  ALTO Information Base  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     2.6.  ALTO Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
   3.  Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     3.1.  ALTO Service and Protocol Scope  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     3.2.  ALTO Information Reuse and Redistribution  . . . . . . . . 11
   4.  ALTO Information Service Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
     4.1.  ALTO Information Services  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
       4.1.1.  Map Service  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
       4.1.2.  Map Filtering Service  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
       4.1.3.  Endpoint Property Service  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
       4.1.4.  Endpoint Cost Service  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
   5.  Network Map  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     5.1.  Provider-defined Identifier (PID)  . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     5.2.  Endpoint Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
       5.2.1.  IP Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     5.3.  Example Network Map  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
   6.  Cost Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
     6.1.  Cost Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
       6.1.1.  Cost Metric  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
       6.1.2.  Cost Mode  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
     6.2.  Cost Map Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
     6.3.  Network Map and Cost Map Dependency  . . . . . . . . . . . 18
     6.4.  Cost Map Update  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
   7.  Endpoint Properties  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
     7.1.  Endpoint Property Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
       7.1.1.  Endpoint Property Type: pid  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
   8.  Protocol Specification: General Processing . . . . . . . . . . 19
     8.1.  Overall Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
     8.2.  Notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
     8.3.  Basic Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
       8.3.1.  Client Discovering Information Resources . . . . . . . 21
       8.3.2.  Client Requesting Information Resources  . . . . . . . 21
       8.3.3.  Server Responding to IR Request  . . . . . . . . . . . 22
       8.3.4.  Client Handling Server Response  . . . . . . . . . . . 22
       8.3.5.  Authentication and Encryption  . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
       8.3.6.  Information Refreshing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
       8.3.7.  HTTP Cookies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
       8.3.8.  Parsing of Unknown Fields  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

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     8.4.  Server Response Encoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
       8.4.1.  Meta Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
       8.4.2.  Data Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
     8.5.  Protocol Errors  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
       8.5.1.  Media Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
       8.5.2.  Response Format and Error Codes  . . . . . . . . . . . 25
       8.5.3.  Overload Conditions and Server Unavailability  . . . . 26
   9.  Protocol Specification: Information Resource Directory . . . . 27
     9.1.  Information Resource Attributes  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
       9.1.1.  Resource ID  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
       9.1.2.  Media Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
       9.1.3.  Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
       9.1.4.  Accepts Input Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
       9.1.5.  Dependent Resources  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
     9.2.  Information Resource Directory (IRD) . . . . . . . . . . . 28
       9.2.1.  Media Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
       9.2.2.  Encoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
       9.2.3.  Example  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
       9.2.4.  Delegation using IRD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
       9.2.5.  Considerations of Using IRD  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
   10. Protocol Specification: Basic Data Types . . . . . . . . . . . 36
     10.1. PID Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
     10.2. Resource ID  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
     10.3. Version Tag  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
     10.4. Endpoints  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
       10.4.1. Address Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
       10.4.2. Endpoint Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
       10.4.3. Endpoint Prefixes  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
       10.4.4. Endpoint Address Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
     10.5. Cost Mode  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
     10.6. Cost Metric  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
     10.7. Cost Type  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
     10.8. Endpoint Property  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
       10.8.1. Resource Specific Endpoint Properties  . . . . . . . . 40
       10.8.2. Global Endpoint Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
   11. Protocol Specification: Service Information Resources  . . . . 41
     11.1. Meta Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
     11.2. Map Service  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
       11.2.1. Network Map  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
       11.2.2. Cost Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
     11.3. Map Filtering Service  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
       11.3.1. Filtered Network Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
       11.3.2. Filtered Cost Map  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
     11.4. Endpoint Property Service  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
       11.4.1. Endpoint Property  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
     11.5. Endpoint Cost Service  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
       11.5.1. Endpoint Cost  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
   12. Use Cases  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

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     12.1. ALTO Client Embedded in P2P Tracker  . . . . . . . . . . . 61
     12.2. ALTO Client Embedded in P2P Client: Numerical Costs  . . . 62
     12.3. ALTO Client Embedded in P2P Client: Ranking  . . . . . . . 63
   13. Discussions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
     13.1. Discovery  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
     13.2. Hosts with Multiple Endpoint Addresses . . . . . . . . . . 65
     13.3. Network Address Translation Considerations . . . . . . . . 65
     13.4. Endpoint and Path Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
   14. IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
     14.1. application/alto-* Media Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
     14.2. ALTO Cost Metric Registry  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
     14.3. ALTO Endpoint Property Type Registry . . . . . . . . . . . 69
     14.4. ALTO Address Type Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
     14.5. ALTO Error Code Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
   15. Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
     15.1. Authenticity and Integrity of ALTO Information . . . . . . 71
       15.1.1. Risk Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
       15.1.2. Protection Strategies  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
       15.1.3. Limitations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
     15.2. Potential Undesirable Guidance from Authenticated ALTO
           Information  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
       15.2.1. Risk Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
       15.2.2. Protection Strategies  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
     15.3. Confidentiality of ALTO Information  . . . . . . . . . . . 73
       15.3.1. Risk Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
       15.3.2. Protection Strategies  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
       15.3.3. Limitations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
     15.4. Privacy for ALTO Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
       15.4.1. Risk Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
       15.4.2. Protection Strategies  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
     15.5. Availability of ALTO Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
       15.5.1. Risk Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
       15.5.2. Protection Strategies  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
   16. Manageability Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
     16.1. Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
       16.1.1. Installation and Initial Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
       16.1.2. Migration Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
       16.1.3. Requirements on Other Protocols and Functional
               Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
       16.1.4. Impact and Observation on Network Operation  . . . . . 77
     16.2. Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
       16.2.1. Management Interoperability  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
       16.2.2. Management Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
       16.2.3. Fault Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
       16.2.4. Configuration Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
       16.2.5. Performance Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
       16.2.6. Security Management  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
   17. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

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     17.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
     17.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
   Appendix A.  Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
   Appendix B.  Design History and Merged Proposals . . . . . . . . . 83
   Appendix C.  Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

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1.  Introduction

1.1.  Problem Statement

   This document defines the ALTO Protocol, which provides a solution
   for the problem stated in [RFC5693].  Specifically, in today's
   networks, network information such as network topologies, link
   availability, routing policies, and path costs are hidden from the
   application layer, and many applications benefited from such hiding
   of network complexity.  However, new applications, such as
   application-layer overlays, can benefit from information about the
   underlying network infrastructure.  In particular, these modern
   network applications can be adaptive, and hence become more network-
   efficient (e.g., reduce network resource consumption) and achieve
   better application performance (e.g., accelerated download rate), by
   leveraging network-provided information.

   At a high level, the ALTO Protocol specified in this document is a
   unidirectional interface that allows a network to publish its network
   information such as network locations, costs between them at
   configurable granularities, and endhost properties to network
   applications.  The information published by the ALTO Protocol should
   benefit both the network and the applications (i.e., the consumers of
   the information).  Either the operator of the network or a third-
   party (e.g., an information aggregator) can retrieve or derive
   related information of the network and publish it using the ALTO
   Protocol.  When a network provides information through the ALTO
   Protocol, we say that the network provides the ALTO Service.

   To better understand the goal of the ALTO Protocol, we provide a
   short, non-normative overview of the benefits of ALTO to both
   networks and applications:

   o  A network that provides an ALTO Service can achieve better
      utilization of its networking infrastructure.  For example, by
      using ALTO as a tool to interact with applications, a network is
      able to provide network information to applications so that the
      applications can better manage traffic on more expensive or
      difficult-to-provision links such as long distance, transit or
      backup links.  During the interaction, the network can choose to
      protect its sensitive and confidential network state information,
      by abstracting real metric values into non-real numerical scores
      or ordinal ranking.

   o  An application that uses an ALTO Service can benefit from better
      knowledge of the network to avoid network bottlenecks.  For
      example, an overlay application can use information provided by
      the ALTO Service to avoid selecting peers connected via high-delay

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      links (e.g., some intercontinental links).  Using ALTO to
      initialize each node with promising ("better-than-random") peers,
      an adaptive peer-to-peer overlay may achieve faster, better
      convergence.

1.2.  Design Overview

   The ALTO Protocol specified in this document meets the ALTO
   requirements specified in [RFC5693], and unifies multiple protocols
   previously designed with similar intentions.  See Appendix A for a
   list of people and Appendix B for a list of proposals that have made
   significant contributions to this effort.

   The ALTO Protocol uses a REST-ful design [Fielding-Thesis], and
   encodes its requests and responses using JSON [RFC4627].  These
   designs are chosen because of their flexibility and extensibility.
   In addition, these designs make it possible for ALTO to be deployed
   at scale by leveraging existing HTTP [RFC2616] implementations,
   infrastructures and deployment experience.

2.  Terminology

   We use the following terms defined in [RFC5693]: Application, Overlay
   Network, Peer, Resource, Resource Identifier, Resource Provider,
   Resource Consumer, Resource Directory, Transport Address, Host
   Location Attribute, ALTO Service, ALTO Server, ALTO Client, ALTO
   Query, ALTO Reply, ALTO Transaction, Local Traffic, Peering Traffic,
   Transit Traffic.

   We also use the following additional terms: Endpoint Address, Network
   Location, ALTO Information, ALTO Information Base, and ALTO Service.

2.1.  Endpoint

   An Endpoint is an application or host that is capable of
   communicating (sending and/or receiving messages) on a network.

   An Endpoint is typically either a Resource Provider or Resource
   Consumer.

2.2.  Endpoint Address

   An Endpoint Address represents the communication address of an
   endpoint.  Common forms of Endpoint Addresses include IP address, MAC
   address, overlay ID, and phone number.  An Endpoint Address can be
   network-attachment based (e.g., IP address) or network-attachment
   agnostic (e.g., MAC address).

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   Each Endpoint Address has an associated Address Type, which indicates
   both its syntax and semantics.

2.3.  Network Location

   Network Location is a generic term denoting a single Endpoint or a
   group of Endpoints.  For instance, it can be a single IPv4 or IPv6
   address, an IPv4 or IPv6 prefix, or a set of prefixes.

2.4.  ALTO Information

   ALTO Information is a generic term referring to the network
   information sent by an ALTO Server.

2.5.  ALTO Information Base

   We use the term ALTO Information Base to refer to the internal
   representation of ALTO Information maintained by an ALTO Server.
   Note that the structure of this internal representation is not
   defined by this document.

2.6.  ALTO Service

   A network that provides ALTO Information through the ALTO Protocol is
   said to provide the ALTO Service.

3.  Architecture

   We now define the ALTO architecture and the ALTO Protocol's place in
   the overall architecture.

3.1.  ALTO Service and Protocol Scope

   Each network region in the global Internet can provide its ALTO
   Service, which conveys network information from the perspective of
   that network region.  A network region in this context can be an
   Autonomous System (AS), an ISP, a region smaller than an AS or ISP,
   or a set of ISPs.  The specific network region that an ALTO Service
   represents will depend on the ALTO deployment scenario and ALTO
   service discovery mechanism.

   The ALTO Service specified in this document defines network Endpoints
   (and aggregations thereof) and generic costs amongst them from the
   region's perspective.  The network Endpoints may include all
   Endpoints in the global Internet.  Hence, we say that the network
   information provided by the ALTO Service of a network region
   represents the "my-Internet view" of the network region.  One may

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   note that the "my-Internet view" defined in this document does not
   specify the internal topology of a network, and hence, we say that it
   provides a "single-switch" abstraction.  Extensions to this document
   may provide topology details in "my-Internet view".

   To better understand the ALTO Service and the role of the ALTO
   Protocol, we show in Figure 1 the overall ALTO system architecture.
   In this architecture, an ALTO Server prepares ALTO Information; an
   ALTO Client uses ALTO Service Discovery to identify an appropriate
   ALTO Server; and the ALTO Client requests available ALTO Information
   from the ALTO Server using the ALTO Protocol.

   The ALTO Information provided by the ALTO Server can be updated
   dynamically based on network conditions, or can be seen as a policy
   which is updated at a larger time-scale.

   +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
   |                         Network Region                            |
   |                                                                   |
   |                    +-----------+                                  |
   |                    | Routing   |                                  |
   |  +--------------+  | Protocols |                                  |
   |  | Provisioning |  +-----------+                                  |
   |  | Policy       |        |                                        |
   |  +--------------+\       |                                        |
   |                   \      |                                        |
   |                    \     |                                        |
   |  +-----------+      \+---------+                      +--------+  |
   |  |Dynamic    |       | ALTO    | ALTO Protocol        | ALTO   |  |
   |  |Network    |.......| Server  | ==================== | Client |  |
   |  |Information|       +---------+                      +--------+  |
   |  +-----------+      /                                /            |
   |                    /         ALTO SD Query/Response /             |
   |                   /                                /              |
   |          +----------+                  +----------------+         |
   |          | External |                  | ALTO Service   |         |
   |          | Interface|                  | Discovery (SD) |         |
   |          +----------+                  +----------------+         |
   |               |                                                   |
   +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
                   |
         +------------------+
         | Third Parties    |
         |                  |
         | Content Providers|
         +------------------+

                    Figure 1: Basic ALTO Architecture.

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   Figure 1 illustrates that the ALTO Information provided by an ALTO
   Server may be influenced (at the service provider's discretion) by
   other systems.  In particular, the ALTO Server can aggregate
   information from multiple systems to provide an abstract and unified
   view that can be more useful to applications.  Examples of other
   systems include (but are not limited to) static network configuration
   databases, dynamic network information, routing protocols,
   provisioning policies, and interfaces to outside parties.  These
   components are shown in the figure for completeness but are outside
   the scope of this specification.  Recall that while the ALTO Protocol
   may convey dynamic network information, it is not intended to replace
   near-real-time congestion control protocols.

   It may also be possible for an ALTO Server to exchange network
   information with other ALTO Servers (either within the same
   administrative domain or another administrative domain with the
   consent of both parties) in order to adjust exported ALTO
   Information.  Such a protocol is also outside the scope of this
   specification.

3.2.  ALTO Information Reuse and Redistribution

   ALTO Information may be useful to a large number of applications and
   users.  At the same time, distributing ALTO Information must be
   efficient and not become a bottleneck.

   The design of the ALTO Protocol allows integration with the existing
   HTTP caching infrastructure to redistribute ALTO Information.  If
   caching or redistribution is used, the response message to an ALTO
   Client may be returned from a third-party.

   Application-dependent mechanisms, such as P2P DHTs or P2P file-
   sharing, may be used to cache and redistribute ALTO Information.
   This document does not define particular mechanisms for such
   redistribution.

   Additional protocol mechanisms (e.g., expiration times and digital
   signatures for returned ALTO information) are left for future
   investigation.

4.  ALTO Information Service Framework

   The ALTO Protocol conveys network information through services, where
   each service defines a set of related functionalities.  An ALTO
   Client can query each service individually.  All of the services
   defined in ALTO are said to form the ALTO service framework and are
   provided through a common transport protocol, messaging structure and

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   encoding, and transaction model.  Functionalities offered in
   different services can overlap.

   The goals of the services defined in this document are to convey (1)
   Network Locations, which denote the locations of Endpoints at a
   network, (2) provider-defined costs for paths between pairs of
   Network Locations, and (3) network related properties of endhosts.
   The aforementioned goals are achieved by defining the Map Service,
   which provides the core ALTO information to clients, and three
   additional services: the Map Filtering Service, Endpoint Property
   Service, and Endpoint Cost Service.  Additional services can be
   defined in companion documents.  Below we give an overview of the
   services.  Details of the services will be presented in the following
   sections.

    .-----------------------------------------.
    | ALTO Information Services               |
    | .-----------. .----------. .----------. |
    | |    Map    | | Endpoint | | Endpoint | |
    | | Filtering | | Property | |   Cost   | |
    | |  Service  | | Service  | | Service  | |
    | `-----------' `----------' `----------' |
    | .-------------------------------------. |
    | |  Map Service                        | |
    | |  .-------------.  .--------------.  | |
    | |  | Network Map |  |  Cost Map    |  | |
    | |  `-------------'  `--------------'  | |
    | `-------------------------------------' |
    `-----------------------------------------'

                     Figure 2: ALTO Service Framework.

4.1.  ALTO Information Services

4.1.1.  Map Service

   The Map Service provides batch information to ALTO Clients in the
   form of Network Map and Cost Map. A Network Map (See Section 5)
   provides a full set of Network Location groupings defined by the ALTO
   Server and the Endpoints contained within each grouping.  A Cost Map
   (see Section 6) provides costs between a defined groupings.

   These two maps can be thought of (and implemented as) as simple files
   with appropriate encoding provided by the ALTO Server.

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4.1.2.  Map Filtering Service

   Resource constrained ALTO Clients may benefit from filtering of query
   results at the ALTO Server.  This avoids that an ALTO Client first
   spends network bandwidth and CPU cycles to collect results and then
   performs client-side filtering.  The Map Filtering Service allows
   ALTO Clients to query an ALTO Server on Network Map and Cost Map
   based on additional parameters.

4.1.3.  Endpoint Property Service

   This service allows ALTO Clients to look up properties for individual
   Endpoints.  An example property of an Endpoint is its Network
   Location (i.e., its grouping defined by the ALTO Server).  Another
   example property is its connectivity type such as ADSL (Asymmetric
   Digital Subscriber Line), Cable, or FTTH (Fiber To The Home).

4.1.4.  Endpoint Cost Service

   Some ALTO Clients may also benefit from querying for costs and
   rankings based on Endpoints.  The Endpoint Cost Service allows an
   ALTO Server to return either numerical costs or ordinal costs
   (rankings) directly amongst Endpoints.

5.  Network Map

   An ALTO Network Map defines a grouping of network endpoints.  In this
   document, we use Network Map to refer to the syntax and semantics of
   how an ALTO Server distributes the grouping.  This document does not
   discuss the internal representation of this data structure within the
   ALTO Server.

   The definition of Network Map is based on the observation that in
   reality, many endpoints are close by to one another in terms of
   network connectivity.  By treating a group of close-by endpoints
   together as a single entity, an ALTO Server indicates aggregation of
   these endpoints due to their proximity.  This aggregation can also
   lead to greater scalability without losing critical information when
   conveying other network information (e.g., when defining Cost Map).

5.1.  Provider-defined Identifier (PID)

   One issue is that proximity varies depending on the granularity of
   the ALTO information configured by the provider.  In one deployment,
   endpoints on the same subnet may be considered close; while in
   another deployment, endpoints connected to the same Point of Presence
   (PoP) may be considered close.

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   ALTO introduces provider-defined Network Location identifiers called
   Provider-defined Identifiers (PIDs) to provide an indirect and
   network-agnostic way to specify an aggregation of network endpoints
   that may be treated similarly, based on network topology, type, or
   other properties.  Specifically, a PID is a US-ASCII string of type
   PIDName (see Section 10.1) and its associated set of Endpoint
   Addresses.  As we discussed above, there can be many different ways
   of grouping the endpoints and assigning PIDs.  For example, a PID may
   denote a subnet, a set of subnets, a metropolitan area, a PoP, an
   autonomous system, or a set of autonomous systems.  Interpreting the
   PIDs defined in a Network Map using the "single-switch" abstraction,
   one can consider that each PID represents an abstract port (PoP) that
   connects a set of endpoints.

   A key use case of PIDs is to specify network preferences (costs)
   between PIDs instead of individual endpoints.  This allows cost
   information to be more compactly represented and updated at a faster
   time scale than the network aggregations themselves.  For example, an
   ISP may prefer that endpoints associated with the same PoP (Point-of-
   Presence) in a P2P application communicate locally instead of
   communicating with endpoints in other PoPs.  The ISP may aggregate
   endhosts within a PoP into a single PID in the Network Map. The cost
   may be encoded to indicate that Network Locations within the same PID
   are preferred; for example, cost(PID_i, PID_i) == c and cost(PID_i,
   PID_j) > c for i != j.  Section 6 provides further details on using
   PIDs to represent costs in an ALTO Cost Map.

5.2.  Endpoint Addresses

   The endpoints aggregated into a PID are denoted by endpoint
   addresses.  There are many types of addresses, such as IP addresses,
   MAC addresses, or overlay IDs.  This specification only considers IP
   addresses.

5.2.1.  IP Addresses

   When either an ALTO Client or an ALTO Server needs to determine which
   PID in a Network Map contains a particular IP address, longest-prefix
   matching MUST be used.

   A Network Map MUST define a PID for each possible address in the IP
   address space for all of the address types contained in the map.  A
   RECOMMENDED way to satisfy this property is to define a PID with the
   shortest enclosing prefix of the addresses provided in the map.  For
   a map with full IPv4 reachability, this would mean including the
   0.0.0.0/0 prefix in a PID; for full IPv6 reachability, this would be
   the ::/0 prefix.

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   Each endpoint MUST map into exactly one PID.  Since longest-prefix
   matching is used to map an endpoint to a PID, this can be
   accomplished by ensuring that no two PIDs contain an identical IP
   prefix.

5.3.  Example Network Map

   Figure 3 illustrates an example Network Map. PIDs are used to
   identify network-agnostic aggregations.

   .-----------------------------------------------------------.
   | An ALTO Network Map                                       |
   |                                                           |
   |  .-----------------------------------.  .---------------. |
   |  | NetLoc: PID-1                     |  | NetLoc: PID-2 | |
   |  |  .------------------------------. |  |    ...        | |
   |  |  | 192.0.2.0/24                 | |  `---------------` |
   |  |  | .--------------------------. | |                    |
   |  |  | | Endpoint: 192.0.2.34     | | |  .---------------. |
   |  |  | `--------------------------` | |  | NetLoc: PID-3 | |
   |  |  `------------------------------` |  |    ...        | |
   |  |  .------------------------------. |  `---------------` |
   |  |  | 198.51.100.0/25              | |                    |
   |  |  | .--------------------------. | |  .---------------. |
   |  |  | | Endpoint: 198.51.100.100 | | |  | NetLoc: PID-4 | |
   |  |  | `--------------------------` | |  |    ...        | |
   |  |  `------------------------------` |  `---------------` |
   |  `-----------------------------------`                    |
   |                                                           |
   `-----------------------------------------------------------`

                      Figure 3: Example Network Map.

6.  Cost Map

   An ALTO Server indicates preferences amongst network locations in the
   form of Path Costs.  Path Costs are generic costs and can be
   internally computed by a network provider according to its own
   policy.

   For a given Network Map, an ALTO Cost Map defines Path Costs pairwise
   amongst sets of source and destination Network Locations defined by
   PIDs defined in the Network Map. Each Path Cost is the end-to-end
   cost when a unit of traffic goes from the source to the destination.

   Since cost is directional from the source to the destination, an
   application, when using ALTO Information, may independently determine

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   how the Resource Consumer and Resource Provider are designated as the
   source or destination in an ALTO query, and hence how to utilize the
   Path Cost provided by ALTO Information.  For example, if the cost is
   expected to be correlated with throughput, a typical application
   concerned with bulk data retrieval may use the Resource Provider as
   the source, and Resource Consumer as the destination.

   One advantage of separating ALTO information into a Network Map and a
   Cost Map is that the two components can be updated at different time
   scales.  For example, Network Maps may be stable for a longer time
   while Cost Maps may be updated to reflect dynamic network conditions.

   As used in this document, a Cost Map refers to the syntax and
   semantics of the information distributed by the ALTO Server.  This
   document does not discuss the internal representation of this data
   structure within the ALTO Server.

6.1.  Cost Types

   Path Costs have attributes:

   o  Metric: identifies what the costs represent;

   o  Mode: identifies how the costs should be interpreted.

   The combination of a metric and a mode defines a Cost Type.  Certain
   queries for Cost Maps allow the ALTO Client to indicate the desired
   Cost Type.  For a given ALTO Server, the combination of Cost Type and
   Network Map defines a key.  In other words, an ALTO Server MUST NOT
   define two Cost Maps with the same Cost Type, Network Map pair.

6.1.1.  Cost Metric

   The Metric attribute indicates what the cost represents.  For
   example, an ALTO Server could define costs representing air-miles,
   hop-counts, or generic routing costs.

   Cost metrics are indicated in protocol messages as strings.

6.1.1.1.  Cost Metric: routingcost

   An ALTO Server MUST offer the 'routingcost' Cost Metric.

   This Cost Metric conveys a generic measure for the cost of routing
   traffic from a source to a destination.  A lower value indicates a
   higher preference for traffic to be sent from a source to a
   destination.

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   Note that an ISP may internally compute routing cost using any method
   that it chooses (e.g., air-miles or hop-count) as long as it conforms
   to these semantics.

6.1.2.  Cost Mode

   The Mode attribute indicates how costs should be interpreted.
   Specifically, the Mode attribute indicates whether returned costs
   should be interpreted as numerical values or ordinal rankings.

   It is important to communicate such information to ALTO Clients, as
   certain operations may not be valid on certain costs returned by an
   ALTO Server.  For example, it is possible for an ALTO Server to
   return a set of IP addresses with costs indicating a ranking of the
   IP addresses.  Arithmetic operations that would make sense for
   numerical values, do not make sense for ordinal rankings.  ALTO
   Clients may handle such costs differently.

   Cost Modes are indicated in protocol messages as strings.

   An ALTO Server MUST support at least one of 'numerical' and 'ordinal'
   modes.  An ALTO Client SHOULD be cognizant of operations when a
   desired Cost Mode is not supported.  For example, an ALTO Client
   desiring numerical costs may adjust its behaviors if only the ordinal
   Cost Mode is available.  Alternatively, an ALTO Client desiring
   ordinal costs may construct ordinal costs from retrieved numerical
   values, if only the numerical Cost Mode is available.

6.1.2.1.  Cost Mode: numerical

   This Cost Mode is indicated by the string 'numerical'.  This mode
   indicates that it is safe to perform numerical operations (e.g.
   normalization or computing ratios for weighted load-balancing) on the
   returned costs.  The values are floating-point numbers.

6.1.2.2.  Cost Mode: ordinal

   This Cost Mode is indicated by the string 'ordinal'.  This mode
   indicates that the costs values in a Cost Map are a ranking (relative
   to all other values in a Cost Map), with a lower value indicating a
   higher preference.  The values are non-negative integers.  Ordinal
   cost values in a Cost Map need not be unique nor contiguous.  In
   particular, it is possible that two entries in a map have an
   identical rank (ordinal cost value).  This document does not specify
   any behavior by an ALTO Client in this case; an ALTO Client may
   decide to break ties by random selection, other application
   knowledge, or some other means.

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   It is important to note that the values in the Cost Map provided with
   the ordinal Cost Mode are not necessarily the actual costs known to
   the ALTO Server.

6.2.  Cost Map Structure

   A query for a Cost Map either explicitly or implicitly includes a
   list of Source Network Locations and a list of Destination Network
   Locations.  (Recall that a Network Location can be an endpoint
   address or a PID.)

   Specifically, assume that a query has a list of multiple Source
   Network Locations, say [Src_1, Src_2, ..., Src_m], and a list of
   multiple Destination Network Locations, say [Dst_1, Dst_2, ...,
   Dst_n].

   The ALTO Server will return the Path Cost for each of the m*n
   communicating pairs (i.e., Src_1 -> Dst_1, ..., Src_1 -> Dst_n, ...,
   Src_m -> Dst_1, ..., Src_m -> Dst_n).  If the ALTO Server does not
   define a Path Cost for a particular pair, it may be omitted.  We
   refer to this structure as a Cost Map.

   If the Cost Mode is 'ordinal', the Path Cost of each communicating
   pair is relative to the m*n entries.

6.3.  Network Map and Cost Map Dependency

   If a Cost Map contains PIDs in the list of Source Network Locations
   or the list of Destination Network Locations, the Path Costs are
   generated based on a particular Network Map (which defines the PIDs).
   Version Tags are introduced to ensure that ALTO Clients are able to
   use consistent information even though the information is provided in
   two maps.

   A Version Tag is a tuple of (1) an ID for the resource (e.g., a
   Network Map), and (2) a tag (an opaque string) associated with the
   version of that resource.  A Network Map distributed by an ALTO
   Server includes its Version Tag. A Cost Map referring to PIDs also
   includes Version Tag for the Network Map on which it is based.

   Two Network Maps are the same if they have the same Version Tag.
   Whenever the content of the Network Map maintained by an ALTO Server
   changes, tag MUST also be changed.  Possibilities of setting the tag
   component include the last-modified timestamp for the Network Map, or
   a hash of its contents, where the collision probability is considered
   zero in practical deployment scenarios.

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6.4.  Cost Map Update

   An ALTO Server can update a Cost Map at any time.  Hence, the same
   Cost Map retrieved from the same ALTO Server but from different
   requests can be inconsistent.

7.  Endpoint Properties

   An endpoint property defines a network-aware property of an endpoint.

7.1.  Endpoint Property Type

   For each endpoint and an endpoint property type, there can be a value
   for the property.  The type of an Endpoint property is indicated in
   protocol messages as a string.  The value depends on the specific
   property.  For example, for a property such as whether an endpoint is
   metered, the value is a true or false value.

7.1.1.  Endpoint Property Type: pid

   An ALTO Server MUST define the 'pid' Endpoint Property Type for each
   Network Map that it provides.

8.  Protocol Specification: General Processing

   This section first specifies general client and server processing.
   The details of specific services will be covered in the following
   sections.

8.1.  Overall Design

   The ALTO Protocol uses a REST-ful design.  There are two primary
   components to this design:

   o  Information Resources: An ALTO Server provides a set of network
      information resources.  Each information resource has a media type
      [RFC2046].  An ALTO Client may construct an HTTP request for a
      particular information resource (including any parameters, if
      necessary), and the ALTO Server returns the requested information
      resource in an HTTP response.

   o  Information Resource Directory (IRD): An ALTO Server provides to
      ALTO Clients a list of available information resources and the URI
      at which each is provided.  This document refers to this list as
      the Information Resource Directory.  ALTO Clients consult the
      directory to determine the services provided by an ALTO Server.

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8.2.  Notation

   This document uses 'JSONString', 'JSONNumber', 'JSONBool' to indicate
   the JSON string, number, and boolean types, respectively.  The type
   'JSONValue' indicates a JSON value, as specified in Section 2.1 of
   [RFC4627].

   We use an adaptation of the C-style struct notation to define the
   fields (names/values) of JSON objects.  An optional field is enclosed
   by [ ], and an array is indicated by two numbers in angle brackets,
   <m..n>, where m indicates the minimal number of values, and n is the
   maximum.  When we write * for n, it means no upper bound.  In the
   definitions, the JSON names of the fields are case sensitive.

   For example, the definition below defines a new type Type4, with
   three field members (or fields for short) named "name1", "name2", and
   "name3" respectively.  The field named "name3" is optional, and the
   field named "name2" is an array of at least one value.

   object {
     Type1   name1;
     Type2   name2<1..*>;
     [Type3 name3;]
   } Type4;

   We also define dictionary maps (or maps for short) from strings to
   JSON values.  For example, the definition below defines a Type3
   object as a map.  Type1 must be defined as string, and Type2 can be
   defined as any type.

   object-map {
     Type1   -> Type2;
   } Type3;

   We use subtyping to denote that one type is derived from another
   type.  The example below denotes that TypeDerived is derived from
   TypeBase.  TypeDerived includes all fields defined in TypeBase.  If
   TypeBase does not have a field named "name1", TypeDerived will have a
   new field named "name1".  If TypeBase already has a field named
   "name1" but with a different type, TypeDerived will have a field
   named "name1" with the type defined in TypeDerived (i.e., Type1 in
   the example).

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   object {
     Type1   name1;
   } TypeDerived : TypeBase;

   Note that despite the notation, no standard, machine-readable
   interface definition or schema is provided in this document.
   Extension documents may document these as necessary.

8.3.  Basic Operations

   The ALTO Protocol employs standard HTTP [RFC2616].  It is used for
   discovering available Information Resources at an ALTO Server and
   retrieving Information Resources.  ALTO Clients and ALTO Servers use
   HTTP requests and responses carrying ALTO-specific content with
   encoding as specified in this document, and MUST be compliant with
   [RFC2616].

8.3.1.  Client Discovering Information Resources

   To discover available Information Resources, an ALTO Client requests
   Information Resource Directories.  Informally, an Information
   Resource Directory enumerates URIs at which an ALTO Server offers
   Information Resources.

   Specifically, using the ALTO Discovery protocol, an ALTO Client
   obtains a URI through which it can request an Information Resource
   Directory (IRD).  We refer to this IRD as the Root IRD of the ALTO
   Client.  Each entry in an IRD indicates a URI at which an ALTO Server
   accepts requests, and returns either an Information Resource or an
   Information Resource Directory that references additional Information
   Resources.  Beginning with its Root IRD and following links to IRDs
   recursively, an ALTO Client can discover all Information Resources
   available to it.  We refer to this set of Information Resources as
   the Information Resource Closure of the ALTO Client.  By inspecting
   its Information Resource Closure, an ALTO Client can determine
   whether an ALTO Server supports the desired Information Resource, and
   if it is supported, the URI at which it is available.

   See Section 9.2 for a detailed specification on IRDs.

8.3.2.  Client Requesting Information Resources

   Where possible, the ALTO Protocol uses the HTTP GET method to request
   resources.  However, some ALTO services provide Information Resources
   that are the function of one or more input parameters.  Input
   parameters are encoded in the HTTP request's entity body, and the
   ALTO Client MUST use the HTTP POST method to send the parameters.

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   When requesting an ALTO Information Resource that requires input
   parameters specified in a HTTP POST request, an ALTO Client MUST set
   the Content-Type HTTP header to the media type corresponding to the
   format of the supplied input parameters.

8.3.3.  Server Responding to IR Request

   Upon receiving a request for an Information Resource that the ALTO
   Server can provide, the ALTO Server MUST return the requested
   Information Resource.  In other cases, to be more informative
   ([I-D.ietf-httpbis-p2-semantics]), the ALTO Server MAY provide the
   ALTO Client with an Information Resource Directory indicating how to
   reach the desired information resource, or return an ALTO error
   object; see Section 8.5 for more details on ALTO error handling.

   It is possible for an ALTO Server to leverage caching HTTP
   intermediaries to respond to both GET and POST requests by including
   explicit freshness information (see Section 14 of [RFC2616]).
   Caching of POST requests is not widely implemented by HTTP
   intermediaries, however an alternative approach is for an ALTO
   Server, in response to POST requests, to return an HTTP 303 status
   code ("See Other") indicating to the ALTO Client that the resulting
   Information Resource is available via a GET request to an alternate
   URL.  HTTP intermediaries that do not support caching of POST
   requests could then cache the response to the GET request from the
   ALTO Client following the alternate URL in the 303 response if the
   response to the subsequent GET request contains explicit freshness
   information.

   The ALTO Server MUST indicate the type of its response using a media
   type (i.e., the Content-Type HTTP header of the response).

8.3.4.  Client Handling Server Response

8.3.4.1.  Using Information Resources

   This specification does not indicate any required actions taken by
   ALTO Clients upon successfully receiving an Information Resource from
   an ALTO Server.  Although ALTO Clients are suggested to interpret the
   received ALTO Information and adapt application behavior, ALTO
   Clients are not required to do so.

8.3.4.2.  Handling Server Response and IRD

   After receiving an Information Resource Directory, the Client can
   consult it to determine if any of the offered URIs contain the
   desired Information Resource.  However, an ALTO Client MUST NOT
   assume that the media type returned by the ALTO Server for a request

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   to a URI is the media type advertised in the IRD or specified in its
   request (i.e., the client must still check the Content-Type header).
   The expectation is that the media type returned should normally be
   the media type advertised and requested, but in some cases it may
   legitimately not be so.

   In particular, it is possible for an ALTO Client to receive an
   Information Resource Directory from an ALTO Server as a response to
   its request for a specific Information Resource.  In this case, the
   ALTO Client may ignore the response or still parse the response.  To
   indicate that an ALTO Client will always check if a response is an
   Information Resource Directory, the ALTO Client can indicate in the
   "Accept" header of a HTTP request that it can accept Information
   Resource Directory; see Section 9.2 for the media type.

8.3.4.3.  Handling Error Conditions

   If an ALTO Client does not successfully receive a desired Information
   Resource from a particular ALTO Server (i.e., server response
   indicates error or there is no response), the Client can either
   choose another server (if one is available) or fall back to a default
   behavior (e.g., perform peer selection without the use of ALTO
   information, when used in a peer-to-peer system).

8.3.5.  Authentication and Encryption

   When server and/or client authentication, encryption, and/or
   integrity protection are required, an ALTO Server MUST support SSL/
   TLS [RFC5246] as a mechanism.  For cases such as a public ALTO
   service or deployment scenarios where there is an implicit trust
   relationship between the client and the server and the network
   infrastructure connecting them is secure, SSL/TLS may not be
   necessary.  See [RFC6125] for considerations regarding verification
   of server identity.

8.3.6.  Information Refreshing

   An ALTO Client MAY determine the frequency at which ALTO Information
   is refreshed based on information made available via HTTP.

8.3.7.  HTTP Cookies

   If cookies are included in an HTTP request received by an ALTO
   Server, they MUST be ignored.

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8.3.8.  Parsing of Unknown Fields

   This document only details object fields used by this specification.
   Extensions may include additional fields within JSON objects defined
   in this document.  ALTO implementations MUST ignore unknown fields
   when processing ALTO messages.

8.4.  Server Response Encoding

   Though each type of ALTO Server response (i.e., an Information
   Resource Directory, an individual Information Resource, or an error
   message) has its distinct syntax and hence its unique Media Type,
   they are designed to have a similar structure: a meta field providing
   meta definitions, and another field containing the data, if needed.

   Specifically, we define the base type of each ALTO Server response as
   ResponseEntityBase:

   object {
     ResponseMeta           meta;
   } ResponseEntityBase;

   with field:

   meta  meta-information pertaining to the response.

8.4.1.  Meta Information

   Meta information is encoded as a map object for flexibility.
   Specifically, ResponseMeta is defined as:

   object-map {
     JSONString -> JSONValue
   } ResponseMeta;

8.4.2.  Data Information

   The data component of the response encodes the response-specific
   data.  In this document, we derive five types from ResponseEntityBase
   to add different types of data component: InforResourceDirectory
   (Section 9.2.2), InfoResourceNetworkMap (Section 11.2.1.6),
   InfoResourceCostMap (Section 11.2.2.6),
   InfoResourceEndpointProperties (Section 11.4.1.6), and
   InfoResourceEndpointCostMap (Section 11.5.1.6).

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8.5.  Protocol Errors

   If there is an error processing a request, an ALTO Server SHOULD
   return additional ALTO-layer information, if it is available, in the
   form of an ALTO Error Resource encoded in the HTTP response' entity
   body.  If no ALTO-layer information is available, an ALTO Server may
   omit an ALTO Error resource from the response.

   With or without additional ALTO-layer error information, an ALTO
   Server MUST set an appropriate HTTP status code.  It is important to
   note that the HTTP Status Code and ALTO Error Resource have distinct
   roles.  An ALTO Error Resource provides detailed information about
   why a particular request for an ALTO Resource was not successful.
   The HTTP status code indicates to HTTP processing elements (e.g.,
   intermediaries and clients) how the response should be treated.

8.5.1.  Media Type

   The media type for an ALTO Error Response is "application/
   alto-error+json".

8.5.2.  Response Format and Error Codes

   An ALTO Error Response MUST include the "code" key in the "meta"
   field of the response.  The value of "code" MUST be an ALTO Error
   Code defined in Table 1.  Note that the ALTO Error Codes defined in
   Table 1 are limited to support the error conditions needed for
   purposes of this document.  Additional status codes may be defined in
   companion or extension documents.

   +-----------------------+-------------------------------------------+
   | ALTO Error Code       | Description                               |
   +-----------------------+-------------------------------------------+
   | E_SYNTAX              | Parsing error in request (including       |
   |                       | identifiers)                              |
   | E_MISSING_FIELD       | A eequired JSON field is missing          |
   | E_INVALID_FIELD_TYPE  | The type of the value of a JSON field is  |
   |                       | invalid                                   |
   | E_INVALID_FIELD_VALUE | The value of a JSON field is invalid      |
   +-----------------------+-------------------------------------------+

                    Table 1: Defined ALTO Error Codes.

   After an ALTO Server receives a query message, it needs to verify the
   syntactic and semantic validity of the query.  The following
   paragraphs in this section are intended to illustrate the usage of
   the error codes defined above during the verification.  An individual
   implementation may define its message processing in a different

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   order.

   In the first step after an ALTO Server receives a query, it checks
   the syntax of the query (i.e., whether the JSON structure can be
   parsed), and indicates a syntax error using the error code E_SYNTAX.

   A query without syntax errors may still be invalid.  An error case is
   that the query misses a required field.  The server indicates such an
   error using error code E_MISSING_FIELD.  This document defines
   required fields for Network Map Filtering (Section 11.3.1.3), Cost
   Map Filtering (Section 11.3.2.3), Endpoint Properties
   (Section 11.4.1.3), and Endpoint Cost (Section 11.5.1.3).  For an
   E_MISSING_FIELD error, the server may include the optional "field"
   key in the "meta" field of the response, to indicate the missing
   field.

   A query with correct query fields might use a wrong type for a field.
   For example, a request could use a JSONString when a JSONNumber is
   expected.  The server indicates such an error using error code
   E_INVALID_FIELD_TYPE.  The server may include the optional "field"
   key in the "meta" field of the response, to indicate the field that
   contains the wrong type.

   A query with correct query fields and types of values for the fields
   may specify a wrong value for a field.  For example, a cost map
   filtering query may specify a wrong value of CostMode in the "cost-
   type" field (Section 11.3.2.3).  The server indicates such an error
   with error code E_INVALID_FIELD_VALUE.  For an E_INVALID_FIELD_VALUE
   error, the server may include the optional "field" key in the "meta"
   field of the response, to indicate the field that contains the wrong
   value.  The server may also include the optional "value" key in the
   "meta" field of the response to indicate the wrong value that
   triggered the error.

   If multiple errors are present in a single request (e.g., a request
   uses a JSONString when a JSONNumber is expected and a required field
   is missing), then the ALTO Server MUST return exactly one of the
   detected errors.  However, the reported error is implementation
   defined, since specifying a particular order for message processing
   encroaches needlessly on implementation techniques.

8.5.3.  Overload Conditions and Server Unavailability

   If an ALTO Server detects that it cannot handle a request from an
   ALTO Client due to excessive load, technical problems, or system
   maintenance, it SHOULD do one of the following:

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   o  Return an HTTP 503 ("Service Unavailable") status code to the ALTO
      Client.  As indicated by [RFC2616], a the Retry-After HTTP header
      may be used to indicate when the ALTO Client should retry the
      request.

   o  Return an HTTP 307 ("Temporary Redirect") status code indicating
      an alternate ALTO Server that may be able to satisfy the request.

   The ALTO Server MAY also terminate the connection with the ALTO
   Client.

   The particular policy applied by an ALTO Server to determine that it
   cannot service a request is outside of the scope of this document.

9.  Protocol Specification: Information Resource Directory

   As we discussed, an ALTO Client starts by retrieving an Information
   Resource Directory, which specifies the attributes of individual
   Information Resources that an ALTO Server provides.

9.1.  Information Resource Attributes

   In this document, each Information Resource has five attributes
   associated with it, including its assigned ID, its response format,
   its capabilities, its accepted input parameters, and other resources
   that it may depend on.  The function of an Information Resource
   Directory is to publishes these attributes.

9.1.1.  Resource ID

   Each Information Resource that an ALTO Client can request MUST be
   assigned an ID that is unique amongst all Information Resources in
   the Information Resource Closure of the client.  The ID SHOULD remain
   stable even when the data provided by that resource changes.  For
   example, even though the number of PIDs in a Network Map may be
   adjusted, its Resource ID should remain the same.  Similarly, if the
   entries in a Cost Map are updated, its Resource ID should remain the
   same.  IDs SHOULD NOT be re-used for different resources over time.

9.1.2.  Media Type

   ALTO uses Media Type [RFC2046] to uniquely indicate the data format
   used to encode the content to be transmitted between an ALTO Server
   and an ALTO Client in the HTTP entity body.

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9.1.3.  Capabilities

   The Capabilities attribute of an Information Resource indicates
   specific capabilities that the server can provide.  For example, if
   an ALTO Server allows an ALTO Client to specify cost constraints when
   the Client requests a Cost Map Information Resource, then the Server
   advertises the cost-constraints capability of the Cost Map
   Information Resource.

9.1.4.  Accepts Input Parameters

   An ALTO Server may allow an ALTO Client to supply input parameters
   when requesting certain Information Resources.  The associated
   accepts attribute of an Information Resource is a Media Type, which
   indicates how the Client specifies the input parameters as contained
   in the entity body of the HTTP POST request.

9.1.5.  Dependent Resources

   The information provided in an Information Resource may use
   information provided in some other resources (e.g., a Cost Map uses
   the PIDs defined in a Network Map).  The uses attribute conveys such
   information.

9.2.  Information Resource Directory (IRD)

   An ALTO Server uses Information Resource Directory to publish
   available Information Resources and their aforementioned attributes.
   Since resource selection happens after consumption of the Information
   Resource Directory, the format of the Information Resource Directory
   is designed to be simple with the intention of future ALTO Protocol
   versions maintaining backwards compatibility.  Future extensions or
   versions of the ALTO Protocol SHOULD be accomplished by extending
   existing media types or adding new media types, but retaining the
   same format for the Information Resource Directory.

   An ALTO Server MUST make an Information Resource Directory available
   via the HTTP GET method to a URI discoverable by an ALTO Client.
   Discovery of this URI is out of scope of this document, but could be
   accomplished by manual configuration or by returning the URI of an
   Information Resource Directory from the ALTO Discovery Protocol
   [I-D.ietf-alto-server-discovery].  For recommendations on how the URI
   may look like, see [I-D.ietf-alto-server-discovery].

9.2.1.  Media Type

   The media type to indicate an information directory is "application/
   alto-directory+json".

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9.2.2.  Encoding

   An Information Resource Directory response may include in "meta" the
   "cost-types" key, whose value is of type IRDMetaCostTypes defined
   below, where CostType is defined in Section 10.7:

   object-map {
     JSONString -> CostType;
   } IRDMetaCostTypes;

   The function of "cost-types" is to assign names to a set of CostTypes
   that can be used in one or more "resources" entries in the IRD to
   simplify specification.  The names defined in "cost-types" in an IRD
   are local to the IRD.

   For a Root IRD, "meta" MUST include the "default-alto-network-map"
   key, which specifies the Resource ID of a Network Map. When there are
   multiple Network Maps defined in an IRD (e.g., with different levels
   of granularity), the "default-alto-network-map" key provides a
   guideline to simple clients that use only one Network Map.

   The data component of an Information Resource Directory response is
   named "resources", which is a JSON object of type IRDResourceEntries:

   object {
     IRDResourceEntries resources;
   } InfoResourceDirectory : ResponseEntityBase;

   object-map {
     ResourceID  -> IRDResourceEntry;
   } IRDResourceEntries;

   object {
     JSONString      uri;
     JSONString      media-type;
     [JSONString     accepts;]
     [Capabilities   capabilities;]
     [ResourceID     uses<0..*>;]
   } IRDResourceEntry;

   object {
     ...

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   } Capabilities;

   An IRDResourceEntries object is a dictionary map keyed by
   ResourceIDs, where ResourceID is defined in Section 10.2.  The value
   of each entry specifies:

   uri  A URI at which the ALTO Server provides one or more Information
      Resources, or an Information Resource Directory indicating
      additional Information Resources.  URIs can be relative to the URI
      of the IRD and MUST be resolved according to Section 5 of
      [RFC3986].

   media-type  The media type of Information Resource (see
      Section 9.1.2) available via GET or POST requests to the
      corresponding URI or "application/alto-directory+json", which
      indicates that the response for a request to the URI will be an
      Information Resource Directory for URIs discoverable via the URI.

   accepts  The media type of input parameters (see Section 9.1.4)
      accepted by POST requests to the corresponding URI.  If this field
      is not present, it MUST be assumed to be empty.

   capabilities  A JSON Object enumerating capabilities of an ALTO
      Server in providing the Information Resource at the corresponding
      URI and Information Resources discoverable via the URI.  If this
      field is not present, it MUST be assumed to be an empty object.
      If a capability for one of the offered Information Resources is
      not explicitly listed here, an ALTO Client may either issue an
      OPTIONS HTTP request to the corresponding URI to determine if the
      capability is supported, or assume its default value documented in
      this specification or an extension document describing the
      capability.

   uses  A list of Resource IDs, defined in the same IRD, that define
      the resources on which this resource directly depends.  An ALTO
      Server SHOULD include in this list any resources that the ALTO
      Client would need to retrieve in order to interpret the contents
      of this resource.  For example, a Cost Map resource should include
      in this list the Network Map on which it depends.  ALTO Clients
      may wish to consult this list in order to pre-fetch necessary
      resources.

   If an entry has an empty list for "accepts", then the corresponding
   URI MUST support GET requests.  If an entry has a non-empty
   "accepts", then the corresponding URI MUST support POST requests.  If
   an ALTO Server wishes to support both GET and POST on a single URI,
   it MUST specify two entries in the Information Resource Directory.

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9.2.3.  Example

   The following is an example Information Resource Directory returned
   by an ALTO Server to an ALTO Client.  Assume it is the Root IRD of
   the Client.

   GET /directory HTTP/1.1
   Host: alto.example.com
   Accept: application/alto-directory+json,application/alto-error+json

   HTTP/1.1 200 OK
   Content-Length: TBA
   Content-Type: application/alto-directory+json

   {
     "meta" : {
        "cost-types": {
           "num-routing": {
              "cost-mode"  : "numerical",
              "cost-metric": "routingcost",
              "description": "My default"
           },
           "num-hop":     {
              "cost-mode"  : "numerical",
              "cost-metric": "hopcount"
           },
           "ord-routing": {
              "cost-mode"  : "ordinal",
              "cost-metric": "routingcost"
           },
           "ord-hop":     {
              "cost-mode"  : "ordinal",
              "cost-metric": "hopcount"
           }
        },
        "default-alto-network-map" : "my-default-network-map"
     },
     "resources" : {
        "my-default-network-map" : {
           "uri" : "http://alto.example.com/networkmap",
           "media-type" : "application/alto-networkmap+json"
        },
        "numerical-routing-cost-map" : {
           "uri" : "http://alto.example.com/costmap/num/routingcost",

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           "media-type" : "application/alto-costmap+json",
           "capabilities" : {
              "cost-type-names" : [ "num-routing" ]
           },
           "uses": [ "my-default-network-map" ]
        },
        "numerical-hopcount-cost-map" : {
           "uri" : "http://alto.example.com/costmap/num/hopcount",
           "media-type" : "application/alto-costmap+json",
           "capabilities" : {
              "cost-type-names" : [ "num-hop" ]
           },
           "uses": [ "my-default-network-map" ]
        },
        "custom-maps-resources" : {
           "uri" : "http://custom.alto.example.com/maps",
           "media-type" : "application/alto-directory+json"
        },
        "endpoint-property" : {
           "uri" : "http://alto.example.com/endpointprop/lookup",
           "media-type" : "application/alto-endpointprop+json",
           "accepts" : "application/alto-endpointpropparams+json",
           "capabilities" : {
             "prop-types" : [ "my-default-network-map.pid",
                              "priv:ietf-example-prop" ]
           },
        },
        "endpoint-cost" : {
           "uri" : "http://alto.example.com/endpointcost/lookup",
           "media-type" : "application/alto-endpointcost+json",
           "accepts" : "application/alto-endpointcostparams+json",
           "capabilities" : {
              "cost-constraints" : true,
              "cost-type-names" : [ "num-routing", "num-hop",
                                    "ord-routing", "ord-hop"]
           }
        }
     }
   }

   Specifically, the "cost-types" key of "meta" of the example IRD
   defines names for four cost types in this IRD.  For example, "num-
   routing" in the example is the name that refers to a Cost Type with
   Cost Mode being "numerical" and Cost Metric being "routingcost".
   This name is used in the second entry of "resources", which defines a
   Cost Map. In particular, the "cost-type-names" of its "capabilities"
   specifies that this resource supports a Cost Type named as "num-

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   routing".  The ALTO Client looks up the name "num-routing" in "cost-
   types" of the IRD to obtain the Cost Type named as "num-routing".
   The last entry of "resources" uses all four names defined in "cost-
   types".

   Another key defined in "meta" of the example IRD is "default-alto-
   network-map", which has value "my-default-network-map", which is the
   Resource ID of a Network Map that will be defined in "resources".

   The "resources" field of the example IRD defines six Information
   Resources.  For example, the second entry, which is assigned a
   Resource ID "numerical-routing-cost-map", provides a Cost Map, as
   indicated by the media-type "application/alto-costmap+json".  The
   Cost Map is based on the Network Map defined with Resource ID "my-
   default-network-map".  As another example, the last entry, which is
   assigned Resource ID "endpoint-cost", provides the Endpoint Cost
   Service, which is indicated by the media-type "application/
   alto-endpointcost+json".  An ALTO Client should use uri
   "http://alto.example.com/endpointcost/lookup" to access the service.
   The ALTO Client should format its request body to be the
   "application/alto-endpointcostparams+json" media type, as specified
   by the "accepts" attribute of the Information Resource.  The "cost-
   type-names" field of the "capabilities" attribute of the Information
   Resource includes four defined cost types specified in the "cost-
   types" key of "meta" of the IRD.  Hence, one can verify that the
   Endpoint Cost Information Resource supports both Cost Metrics
   'routingcost' and 'hopcount', each available for both 'numerical' and
   'ordinal'.  When requesting the Information Resource, an ALTO Client
   can specify cost constraints, as indicated by the "cost-constraints"
   field of the "capabilities" attribute.

9.2.4.  Delegation using IRD

   ALTO Information Resource Directory provides flexibility to provide
   ALTO Service (e.g., delegation to another domain).  Consider the
   preceding example.  Assume that the ALTO Server running at
   alto.example.com wants to delegate some Information Resources to a
   separate subdomain: "custom.alto.example.com".  In particular, assume
   that the maps available via this subdomain are filtered Network Maps,
   filtered Cost Maps, and some pre-generated maps for the "hopcount"
   and "routingcost" Cost Metrics in the "ordinal" Cost Mode.  The
   fourth entry of "resources" in the preceding example IRD implements
   the delegation.  The entry has a media-type of "application/
   alto-directory+json", and an ALTO Client can discover the Information
   Resources available at "custom.alto.example.com" if its request to
   "http://custom.alto.example.com/maps" is successful:

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   GET /maps HTTP/1.1
   Host: custom.alto.example.com
   Accept: application/alto-directory+json,application/alto-error+json

   HTTP/1.1 200 OK
   Content-Length: TBA
   Content-Type: application/alto-directory+json

   {
     "meta" : {
        "cost-types": {
           "num-routing": {
              "cost-mode"  : "numerical",
              "cost-metric": "routingcost",
              "description": "My default"
           },
           "num-hop":     {
              "cost-mode"  : "numerical",
              "cost-metric": "hopcount"
           },
           "ord-routing": {
              "cost-mode"  : "ordinal",
              "cost-metric": "routingcost"
           },
           "ord-hop":     {
              "cost-mode"  : "ordinal",
              "cost-metric": "hopcount"
           }
        }
     },
     "resources" : {
        "filtered-network-map" : {
           "uri" : "http://custom.alto.example.com/networkmap/filtered",
           "media-type" : "application/alto-networkmap+json",
           "accepts" : "application/alto-networkmapfilter+json",
           "uses": [ "my-default-network-map" ]
        },
        "filtered-cost-map" : {
           "uri" : "http://custom.alto.example.com/costmap/filtered",
           "media-type" : "application/alto-costmap+json",
           "accepts" : "application/alto-costmapfilter+json",
           "capabilities" : {
              "cost-constraints" : true,
              "cost-type-names"  : [ "num-routing", "num-hop",
                                     "ord-routing", "ord-hop" ]

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           },
           "uses": [ "my-default-network-map" ]
        },
        "ordinal-routing-cost-map" : {
           "uri" : "http://custom.alto.example.com/ord/routingcost",
           "media-type" : "application/alto-costmap+json",
           "capabilities" : {
              "cost-type-names" : [ "ord-routing" ]
           },
           "uses": [ "my-default-network-map" ]
        },
        "ordinal-hopcount-cost-map" : {
           "uri" : "http://custom.alto.example.com/ord/hopcount",
           "media-type" : "application/alto-costmap+json",
           "capabilities" : {
              "cost-type-names" : [ "ord-hop" ],
           },
           "uses": [ "my-default-network-map" ]
        }
     }
   }

   Note that the subdomain does not define Network Map, and uses the
   Network Map with Resource ID "my-default-network-map" defined in the
   Root IRD.

9.2.5.  Considerations of Using IRD

9.2.5.1.  ALTO Client

   This document specifies no requirements or constraints on ALTO
   Clients with regards to how they process an Information Resource
   Directory to identify the URI corresponding to a desired Information
   Resource.  However, some advice is provided for implementors.

   It is possible that multiple entries in the directory match a desired
   Information Resource.  For instance, in the example in Section 9.2.3,
   a full Cost Map with "numerical" Cost Mode and "routingcost" Cost
   Metric could be retrieved via a GET request to
   "http://alto.example.com/costmap/num/routingcost", or via a POST
   request to "http://custom.alto.example.com/costmap/filtered".

   In general, it is preferred for ALTO Clients to use GET requests
   where appropriate, since it is more likely for responses to be
   cachable.  However, an ALTO Client may need to use POST, for example,
   to get ALTO costs or properties that are for a restricted set of PIDs
   or Endpoints, or to update cached information previously acquired via

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   GET requests."

9.2.5.2.  ALTO Server

   This document indicates that an ALTO Server may or may not provide
   the Information Resources specified in the Map Filtering Service.  If
   these resources are not provided, it is indicated to an ALTO Client
   by the absence of a Network Map or Cost Map with any media types
   listed under "accepts".

10.  Protocol Specification: Basic Data Types

   This section details the format of basic data types.

10.1.  PID Name

   A PID Name is encoded as a US-ASCII string.  The string MUST be no
   more than 64 characters, and MUST NOT contain characters other than
   alphanumeric characters (code points 0x30-0x39, 0x41-0x5A, and 0x61-
   0x7A), the hyphen ('-', code point 0x2D), the colon (':', code point
   0x3A), the at ('@', code point 0x40), the underline ('_', code point
   0x5F), or the '.' separator (code point 0x2E).  The '.' separator is
   reserved for future use and MUST NOT be used unless specifically
   indicated in this document, or an extension document.

   The type 'PIDName' is used in this document to indicate a string of
   this format.

10.2.  Resource ID

   A Resource ID uniquely identifies an particular resource (e.g., a
   Network Map) within an ALTO Server (see Section 9.2).

   A Resource ID is encoded as a US-ASCII string with the same format as
   that of PIDName.

   The type 'ResourceID' is used in this document to indicate a string
   of this format.

10.3.  Version Tag

   A Version Tag is defined as:

   object {
     ResourceID resource-id;
     JSONString tag;

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   } VersionTag;

   The 'resource-id' attribute is the Resource ID of a resource (e.g., a
   Network Map) defined in the Information Resource Directory, and 'tag'
   is a case-sensitive US-ASCII string.  The 'tag' string MUST be no
   more than 64 characters, and MUST NOT contain any ASCII character
   below 0x21 or above 0x7E.

   Two values of the VersionTag are equal if and only if both the the
   'resource-id' attributes are byte-for-byte equal and the 'tag'
   attributes are byte-for-byte equal.

10.4.  Endpoints

   This section defines formats used to encode addresses for Endpoints.
   In a case that multiple textual representations encode the same
   Endpoint address or prefix (within the guidelines outlined in this
   document), the ALTO Protocol does not require ALTO Clients or ALTO
   Servers to use a particular textual representation, nor does it
   require that ALTO Servers reply to requests using the same textual
   representation used by requesting ALTO Clients.  ALTO Clients must be
   cognizant of this.

10.4.1.  Address Type

   Address Types are encoded as US-ASCII strings consisting of only
   alphanumeric characters (code points 0x30-0x39, 0x41-0x5A, and 0x61-
   0x7A).  This document defines the address type 'ipv4' to refer to
   IPv4 addresses, and 'ipv6' to refer to IPv6 addresses.  All Address
   Type identifiers appearing in an HTTP request or response with an
   'application/alto-*' media type MUST be registered in the ALTO
   Address Type registry (see Section 14.4).

   The type 'AddressType' is used in this document to indicate a string
   of this format.

10.4.2.  Endpoint Address

   Endpoint Addresses are encoded as US-ASCII strings.  The exact
   characters and format depend on the type of endpoint address.

   The type 'EndpointAddr' is used in this document to indicate a string
   of this format.

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10.4.2.1.  IPv4

   IPv4 Endpoint Addresses are encoded as specified by the 'IPv4address'
   rule in Section 3.2.2 of [RFC3986].

10.4.2.2.  IPv6

   IPv6 Endpoint Addresses are encoded as specified in Section 4 of
   [RFC5952].

10.4.2.3.  Typed Endpoint Addresses

   When an Endpoint Address is used, an ALTO implementation must be able
   to determine its type.  For this purpose, the ALTO Protocol allows
   endpoint addresses to also explicitly indicate their type.

   Typed Endpoint Addresses are encoded as US-ASCII strings of the
   format 'AddressType:EndpointAddr' (with the ':' character as a
   separator).  The type 'TypedEndpointAddr' is used to indicate a
   string of this format.

10.4.3.  Endpoint Prefixes

   For efficiency, it is useful to denote a set of Endpoint Addresses
   using a special notation (if one exists).  This specification makes
   use of the prefix notations for both IPv4 and IPv6 for this purpose.

   Endpoint Prefixes are encoded as US-ASCII strings.  The exact
   characters and format depend on the type of endpoint address.

   The type 'EndpointPrefix' is used in this document to indicate a
   string of this format.

10.4.3.1.  IPv4

   IPv4 Endpoint Prefixes are encoded as specified in Section 3.1 of
   [RFC4632].

10.4.3.2.  IPv6

   IPv6 Endpoint Prefixes are encoded as specified in Section 7 of
   [RFC5952].

10.4.4.  Endpoint Address Group

   The ALTO Protocol includes messages that specify potentially large
   sets of endpoint addresses.  Endpoint Address Groups provide a more
   efficient way to encode such sets, even when the set contains

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   endpoint addresses of different types.

   An Endpoint Address Group is defined as:

   object-map {
     AddressType -> EndpointPrefix<0..*>;
   } EndpointAddrGroup;

   In particular, an Endpoint Address Group is a JSON object
   representing a map, where each key is the string corresponding to an
   address type, and the corresponding value is an array listing
   prefixes of addresses of that type.

   The following is an example with both IPv4 and IPv6 endpoint
   addresses:

   {
     "ipv4": [
       "192.0.2.0/24",
       "198.51.100.0/25"
     ],
     "ipv6": [
       "2001:db8:0:1::/64",
       "2001:db8:0:2::/64"
     ]
   }

10.5.  Cost Mode

   A Cost Mode is encoded as a US-ASCII string.  The string MUST either
   have the value 'numerical' or 'ordinal'.

   The type 'CostMode' is used in this document to indicate a string of
   this format.

10.6.  Cost Metric

   A Cost Metric is encoded as a US-ASCII string.  The string MUST be no
   more than 32 characters, and MUST NOT contain characters other than
   alphanumeric characters (code points 0x30-0x39, 0x41-0x5A, and 0x61-
   0x7A), the hyphen ('-', code point 0x2D), the colon (':', code point
   0x3A), the underline ('_', code point 0x5F), or the '.' separator
   (0x2E).  The '.' separator is reserved for future use and MUST NOT be
   used unless specifically indicated by a companion or extension

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   document.

   Identifiers prefixed with 'priv:' are reserved for Private Use
   [RFC5226].  Identifiers prefixed with 'exp:' are reserved for
   Experimental use.  For an identifier with the 'priv:' or 'exp:'
   prefix, an additional string (e.g., company identifier or random
   string) MUST follow to reduce potential collisions.  For example, a
   short string after 'exp:' to indicate the starting time of a specific
   experiment is recommended.  All other identifiers that appear in an
   HTTP request or response with an 'application/alto-*' media type and
   indicate Cost Metrics MUST be registered in the ALTO Cost Metrics
   registry Section 14.2.

   The type 'CostMetric' is used in this document to indicate a string
   of this format.

10.7.  Cost Type

   The combination of a CostMetric and a CostMode defines a CostType:

   object {
     CostMetric cost-metric;
     CostMode   cost-mode;
     [JSONString description;]
   } CostType;

   'description', if present, MUST contain a US-ASCII string with a
   human-readable description of the cost-metric and cost-mode.  An ALTO
   Client MAY present this string to a developer, as part of a discovery
   process.  But the field SHOULD NOT be interpreted by an ALTO Client.

10.8.  Endpoint Property

   We distinguish two types of Endpoint Properties: Resource Specific
   Endpoint Properties and Global Endpoint Properties.  The type
   'EndpointPropertyType' is used in this document to indicate a US-
   ASCII string denoting either a Resource Specific Endpoint Property or
   a Global Endpoint Property.

10.8.1.  Resource Specific Endpoint Properties

   We define only one Resource Specific Endpoint Property in this
   document: pid.  It has the following format: a Resource ID, followed
   by the '.' separator (0x2E), followed by "pid".  An example is "my-
   default-networkmap.pid".

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10.8.2.  Global Endpoint Properties

   An Global Endpoint Property is encoded as a US-ASCII string.  The
   string MUST be no more than 32 characters, and MUST NOT contain
   characters other than alphanumeric characters (code points 0x30-0x39,
   0x41-0x5A, and 0x61-0x7A), the hyphen ('-', code point 0x2D), the
   colon (':', code point 0x3A), or the underline ('_', code point
   0x5F).  Note that the '.' separator is not allowed so that there is
   no ambiguity on whether an endpoint property is global or resource
   specific.

   Identifiers prefixed with 'priv:' are reserved for Private Use
   [RFC5226].  Identifiers prefixed with 'exp:' are reserved for
   Experimental use.  For an identifier with the 'priv:' or 'exp:'
   prefix, an additional string (e.g., company identifier or random
   string) MUST follow to reduce potential collisions.  For example, a
   short string after 'exp:' to indicate the starting time of a specific
   experiment is recommended.  All other identifiers for Endpoint
   Properties appearing in an HTTP request or response with an
   'application/alto-*' media type MUST be registered in the ALTO
   Endpoint Property registry Section 14.3.

11.  Protocol Specification: Service Information Resources

   This section documents the individual Information Resources defined
   to provide the services defined in this document.

11.1.  Meta Information

   For the "meta" field of the response to an individual Information
   Resource, we define two generic keys: "vtag", which is the Version
   Tag of the current Information Resource; and "dependent-vtags", which
   is an array of Version Tags, to indicate the Version Tags of the
   resources that this resource depends on.

11.2.  Map Service

   The Map Service provides batch information to ALTO Clients in the
   form of two types of maps: a Network Map and Cost Map.

11.2.1.  Network Map

   A Network Map Information Resource defines a set of PIDs, and for
   each PID, lists the network locations (endpoints) within the PID.  An
   ALTO Server MUST provide at least one Network Map.

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11.2.1.1.  Media Type

   The media type of Network Map is "application/alto-networkmap+json".

11.2.1.2.  HTTP Method

   A Network Map resource is requested using the HTTP GET method.

11.2.1.3.  Accept Input Parameters

   None.

11.2.1.4.  Capabilities

   None.

11.2.1.5.  Uses

   None.

11.2.1.6.  Response

   The "meta" field of a Network Map response MUST include "vtag", which
   is the Version Tag of the retrieved Network Map.

   The data component of a Network Map response is named "network-map",
   which is a JSON object of type NetworkMapData:

   object {
     NetworkMapData network-map;
   } InfoResourceNetworkMap : ResponseEntityBase;

   object-map {
     PIDName -> EndpointAddrGroup;
   } NetworkMapData;

   Specifically, a NetworkMapData object is a dictionary map keyed by
   PIDs, and each value representing the associated set of endpoint
   addresses of a PID.

   The returned Network Map MUST include all PIDs known to the ALTO
   Server.

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11.2.1.7.  Example

   GET /networkmap HTTP/1.1
   Host: alto.example.com
   Accept: application/alto-networkmap+json,application/alto-error+json

   HTTP/1.1 200 OK
   Content-Length: TBA
   Content-Type: application/alto-networkmap+json

   {
     "meta" : {
       "vtag": [
         {"resource-id": "my-default-network-map",
          "tag": "1266506139"
         }
       ]
     },
     "network-map" : {
       "PID1" : {
         "ipv4" : [
           "192.0.2.0/24",
           "198.51.100.0/25"
         ]
       },
       "PID2" : {
         "ipv4" : [
           "198.51.100.128/25"
         ]
       },
       "PID3" : {
         "ipv4" : [
           "0.0.0.0/0"
         ],
         "ipv6" : [
           "::/0"
         ]
       }
     }
   }

   Note that the encoding of a Network Map response was chosen for
   readability and compactness.  If lookup efficiency at runtime is

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   crucial, then the returned Network Map can be transformed into data
   structures offering more efficient lookup.  For example, one may
   store the Network Map as a trie-based data structure, which may allow
   efficient longest-prefix matching of IP addresses.

11.2.2.  Cost Map

   A Cost Map resource lists the Path Cost for each pair of source/
   destination PID defined by the ALTO Server for a given Cost Metric
   and Cost Mode.  This resource MUST be provided for at least the
   'routingcost' Cost Metric.

11.2.2.1.  Media Type

   The media type of Cost Map is "application/alto-costmap+json".

11.2.2.2.  HTTP Method

   A Cost Map resource is requested using the HTTP GET method.

11.2.2.3.  Accept Input Parameters

   None.

11.2.2.4.  Capabilities

   The capabilities of an ALTO Server URI providing an unfiltered cost
   map is a JSON Object of type CostMapCapabilities:

   object {
     JSONString cost-type-names<1..1>;
   } CostMapCapabilities;

   with field:

   cost-type-names  Note that the array MUST include a single CostType
      name defined by key "cost-types" in "meta" of the IRD.  This is
      because an unfiltered Cost Map (accept == "") is requested via an
      HTTP GET that accepts no input parameters.  As a contrast, for
      filtered cost maps (see Section 11.3.2), the array can have
      multiple elements.

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11.2.2.5.  Uses

   The Resource ID of the Network Map based on which the Cost Map will
   be defined.  Recall (Section 6) that the combination of a Network Map
   and a CostType defines a key.  In other words, an ALTO Server MUST
   NOT define two Cost Maps with the same Cost Type, Network Map pair.

11.2.2.6.  Response

   The "meta" field of a Cost Map response MUST include the "dependent-
   vtags" key, whose value is a single-element array to indicate the
   Version Tag of the Network Map used, where the Network Map is
   specified in "uses" of the IRD.  The "meta" MUST also include "cost-
   type", to indicate the Cost Type (Section 10.7) of the Cost Map.

   The data component of a Cost Map response is named "cost-map", which
   is a JSON object of type CostMapData:

   object {
     CostMapData cost-map;
   } InfoResourceCostMap : ResponseEntityBase;

   object-map {
     PIDName -> DstCosts;
   } CostMapData;

   object-map {
     PIDName -> JSONValue;
   } DstCosts;

   Specifically, a CostMapData object is a dictionary map object, with
   each key being the PIDName string identifying the corresponding
   Source PID, and value being a type of DstCosts, which denotes the
   associated costs from the Source PID to a set of destination PIDs (
   Section 6.2).  An implementation of the protocol in this document
   SHOULD assume that the cost is a JSONNumber and fail to parse if it
   is not, unless the implementation is using an extension to this
   document that indicates when and how costs of other data types are
   signaled.

   The returned Cost Map MUST include the Path Cost for each (Source
   PID, Destination PID) pair for which a Path Cost is defined.  An ALTO
   Server MAY omit entries for which a Path Cost is not defined (e.g.,
   both the Source and Destination PIDs contain addresses outside of the
   Network Provider's administrative domain).

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   Similar to Network Map, the encoding of Cost Map was chosen for
   readability and compactness.  If lookup efficiency at runtime is
   crucial, then the returned Cost Map can be transformed into data
   structures offering more efficient lookup.  For example, one may
   store a Cost Map as a matrix.

11.2.2.7.  Example

   GET /costmap/num/routingcost HTTP/1.1
   Host: alto.example.com
   Accept: application/alto-costmap+json,application/alto-error+json

   HTTP/1.1 200 OK
   Content-Length: TBA
   Content-Type: application/alto-costmap+json

   {
     "meta" : {
       "dependent-vtags" : [
         {"resource-id": "my-default-network-map",
          "tag": "1266506139"
         }
       ],
       "cost-type" : {"cost-mode"  : "numerical",
                      "cost-metric": "routingcost"
       }
     },
     "cost-map" : {
       "PID1": { "PID1": 1,  "PID2": 5,  "PID3": 10 },
       "PID2": { "PID1": 5,  "PID2": 1,  "PID3": 15 },
       "PID3": { "PID1": 20, "PID2": 15  }
     }
   }

   Similar to the Network Map case, we considered array-based encoding
   for "map", but chose the current encoding for clarity.

11.3.  Map Filtering Service

   The Map Filtering Service allows ALTO Clients to specify filtering
   criteria to return a subset of the full maps available in the Map
   Service.

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11.3.1.  Filtered Network Map

   A Filtered Network Map is a Network Map Information Resource
   (Section 11.2.1) for which an ALTO Client may supply a list of PIDs
   to be included.  A Filtered Network Map MAY be provided by an ALTO
   Server.

11.3.1.1.  Media Type

   Since a Filtered Network Map is still a Network Map, it uses the
   media type defined for Network Map at Section 11.2.1.1.

11.3.1.2.  HTTP Method

   A Filtered Network Map is requested using the HTTP POST method.

11.3.1.3.  Accept Input Parameters

   An ALTO Client supplies filtering parameters by specifying media type
   "application/alto-networkmapfilter+json" with HTTP POST body
   containing a JSON Object of type ReqFilteredNetworkMap, where:

   object {
     PIDName pids<0..*>;
     [AddressType address-types<0..*>;]
   } ReqFilteredNetworkMap;

   with fields:

   pids  Specifies list of PIDs to be included in the returned Filtered
      Network Map. If the list of PIDs is empty, the ALTO Server MUST
      interpret the list as if it contained a list of all currently-
      defined PIDs.  The ALTO Server MUST interpret entries appearing
      multiple times as if they appeared only once.

   address-types  Specifies list of address types to be included in the
      returned Filtered Network Map. If the "address-types" field is not
      specified, or the list of address types is empty, the ALTO Server
      MUST interpret the list as if it contained a list of all address
      types known to the ALTO Server.  The ALTO Server MUST interpret
      entries appearing multiple times as if they appeared only once.

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11.3.1.4.  Capabilities

   None.

11.3.1.5.  Uses

   The Resource ID of the Network Map based on which the filtering is
   performed.

11.3.1.6.  Response

   The format is the same as unfiltered Network Map. See
   Section 11.2.1.6 for the format.

   The ALTO Server MUST only include PIDs in the response that were
   specified (implicitly or explicitly) in the request.  If the input
   parameters contain a PID name that is not currently defined by the
   ALTO Server, the ALTO Server MUST behave as if the PID did not appear
   in the input parameters.  Similarly, the ALTO Server MUST only
   enumerate addresses within each PID that have types which were
   specified (implicitly or explicitly) in the request.  If the input
   parameters contain an address type that is not currently known to the
   ALTO Server, the ALTO Server MUST behave as if the address type did
   not appear in the input parameters.

   The Version Tag included in the "vtag" of the response MUST
   correspond to the full (unfiltered) Network Map Information Resource
   from which the filtered information is provided.  This ensures that a
   single, canonical Version Tag is used independent of any filtering
   that is requested by an ALTO Client.

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11.3.1.7.  Example

   POST /networkmap/filtered HTTP/1.1
   Host: custom.alto.example.com
   Content-Length: TBA
   Content-Type: application/alto-networkmapfilter+json
   Accept: application/alto-networkmap+json,application/alto-error+json

   {
     "pids": [ "PID1", "PID2" ]
   }

   HTTP/1.1 200 OK
   Content-Length: TBA
   Content-Type: application/alto-networkmap+json

   {
     "meta" : {
       "vtag" : [
         {"resource-id": "my-default-network-map",
          "tag": "1266506139"
         }
       ]
     },
     "network-map" : {
       "PID1" : {
         "ipv4" : [
           "192.0.2.0/24",
           "198.51.100.0/24"
         ]
       },
       "PID2" : {
         "ipv4": [
           "198.51.100.128/24"
         ]
       }
     }
   }

11.3.2.  Filtered Cost Map

   A Filtered Cost Map is a Cost Map Information Resource
   (Section 11.2.2) for which an ALTO Client may supply additional
   parameters limiting the scope of the resulting Cost Map. A Filtered
   Cost Map MAY be provided by an ALTO Server.

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11.3.2.1.  Media Type

   Since a Filtered Cost Map is still a Cost Map, it uses the media type
   defined for Cost Map at Section 11.2.2.1.

11.3.2.2.  HTTP Method

   A Filtered Cost Map is requested using the HTTP POST method.

11.3.2.3.  Accept Input Parameters

   The input parameters for a Filtered Map are supplied in the entity
   body of the POST request.  This document specifies the input
   parameters with a data format indicated by the media type
   "application/alto-costmapfilter+json", which is a JSON Object of type
   ReqFilteredCostMap, where:

   object {
     CostType   cost-type;
     [JSONString constraints<0..*>;]
     [PIDFilter  pids;]
   } ReqFilteredCostMap;

   object {
     PIDName srcs<0..*>;
     PIDName dsts<0..*>;
   } PIDFilter;

   with fields:

   cost-type  The CostType (Section 10.7) for the returned costs.  The
      cost-metric and cost-mode fields MUST match one of the supported
      Cost Types indicated in this resource's capabilities
      (Section 11.3.2.4).  The ALTO Client SHOULD omit the description
      field, and if present, the ALTO Server MUST ignore the description
      field.

   constraints  Defines a list of additional constraints on which
      elements of the Cost Map are returned.  This parameter MUST NOT be
      specified if this resource's capabilities ( Section 11.3.2.4)
      indicate that constraint support is not available.  A constraint
      contains two entities separated by whitespace: (1) an operator,
      'gt' for greater than, 'lt' for less than, 'ge' for greater than
      or equal to, 'le' for less than or equal to, or 'eq' for equal to;
      (2) a target cost value.  The cost value is a number that MUST be
      defined in the same units as the Cost Metric indicated by the

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      cost-metric parameter.  ALTO Servers SHOULD use at least IEEE 754
      double-precision floating point [IEEE.754.2008] to store the cost
      value, and SHOULD perform internal computations using double-
      precision floating-point arithmetic.  If multiple 'constraint'
      parameters are specified, they are interpreted as being related to
      each other with a logical AND.

   pids  A list of Source PIDs and a list of Destination PIDs for which
      Path Costs are to be returned.  If a list is empty, the ALTO
      Server MUST interpret it as the full set of currently-defined
      PIDs.  The ALTO Server MUST interpret entries appearing in a list
      multiple times as if they appeared only once.  If the "pids" field
      is not present, both lists MUST be interpreted by the ALTO Server
      as containing the full set of currently-defined PIDs.

11.3.2.4.  Capabilities

   The URI providing this resource supports all capabilities documented
   in Section 11.2.2.4 (with identical semantics), plus additional
   capabilities.  In particular, the capabilities are defined by a JSON
   object of type FilteredCostMapCapabilities:

   object {
     JSONString cost-type-names<1..*>;
     JSONBool cost-constraints;
   } FilteredCostMapCapabilities;

   with fields:

   cost-type-names  See Section 11.2.2.4 and note that the array can
      have 1 to many cost types.

   cost-constraints  If true, then the ALTO Server allows cost
      constraints to be included in requests to the corresponding URI.
      If not present, this field MUST be interpreted as if it specified
      false.  ALTO Clients should be aware that constraints may not have
      the intended effect for cost maps with the 'ordinal' Cost Mode
      since ordinal costs are not restricted to being sequential
      integers.

11.3.2.5.  Uses

   The Resource ID of the Network Map based on which the Cost Map will
   be filtered.

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11.3.2.6.  Response

   The format is the same as an unfiltered Cost Map. See
   Section 11.2.2.6  for the format.

   The "dependent-vtags" key in the "meta" field specifies a single
   element, which is the Version Tag of the Network Map used in
   filtering.  ALTO Clients should verify that the Version Tag included
   in the response is consistent with the Version Tag of the Network Map
   used to generate the request (if applicable).  If it is not, the ALTO
   Client may wish to request an updated Network Map, identify changes,
   and consider requesting a new Filtered Cost Map.

   The returned Cost Map MUST contain only source/destination pairs that
   have been indicated (implicitly or explicitly) in the input
   parameters.  If the input parameters contain a PID name that is not
   currently defined by the ALTO Server, the ALTO Server MUST behave as
   if the PID did not appear in the input parameters.

   If any constraints are specified, Source/Destination pairs for which
   the Path Costs do not meet the constraints MUST NOT be included in
   the returned Cost Map. If no constraints were specified, then all
   Path Costs are assumed to meet the constraints.

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11.3.2.7.  Example

   POST /costmap/filtered HTTP/1.1
   Host: custom.alto.example.com
   Content-Type: application/alto-costmapfilter+json
   Accept: application/alto-costmap+json,application/alto-error+json

   {
     "cost-type" : {"cost-mode": "numerical",
                    "cost-metric": "routingcost"
     },
     "pids" : {
       "srcs" : [ "PID1" ],
       "dsts" : [ "PID1", "PID2", "PID3" ]
     }
   }

   HTTP/1.1 200 OK
   Content-Length: TBA
   Content-Type: application/alto-costmap+json

   {
     "meta" : {
       "dependent-vtags" : [
         {"resource-id": "my-default-network-map",
          "tag": "1266506139"
         }
       ],
       "cost-type": {"cost-mode" : "numerical",
                     "cost-metric" : "routingcost"
       }
     },
     "cost-map" : {
          "PID1": { "PID1": 0,  "PID2": 1,  "PID3": 2 }
     }
   }

11.4.  Endpoint Property Service

   The Endpoint Property Service provides information about Endpoint
   properties to ALTO Clients.

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11.4.1.  Endpoint Property

   An Endpoint Property resource provides information about properties
   for individual endpoints.  It MAY be provided by an ALTO Server.

11.4.1.1.  Media Type

   The media type of Endpoint Property is "application/
   alto-endpointprop+json".

11.4.1.2.  HTTP Method

   The Endpoint Property resource is requested using the HTTP POST
   method.

11.4.1.3.  Accept Input Parameters

   An ALTO Client supplies the endpoint properties to be queried through
   a media type "application/alto-endpointpropparams+json", and
   specifies in the HTTP POST entity body a JSON Object of type
   ReqEndpointProp:

   object {
     EndpointPropertyType  properties<1..*>;
     TypedEndpointAddr     endpoints<1..*>;
   } ReqEndpointProp;

   with fields:

   properties  List of endpoint properties to be returned for each
      endpoint.  Each specified property MUST be included in the list of
      supported properties indicated by this resource's capabilities
      (Section 11.4.1.4).  The ALTO Server MUST interpret entries
      appearing multiple times as if they appeared only once.

   endpoints  List of endpoint addresses for which the specified
      properties are to be returned.  The ALTO Server MUST interpret
      entries appearing multiple times as if they appeared only once.

11.4.1.4.  Capabilities

   This resource may be defined across multiple types of endpoint
   properties.  The capabilities of an ALTO Server URI providing
   Endpoint Properties are defined by a JSON Object of type
   EndpointPropertyCapabilities:

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   object {
     EndpointPropertyType prop-types<1..*>;
   } EndpointPropertyCapabilities;

   with field:

   prop-types  The Endpoint Properties (see Section 10.8) supported by
      the corresponding URI.

   In particular, the Information Resource Closure MUST provide the look
   up of pid for every Network Map defined.

11.4.1.5.  Uses

   None.

11.4.1.6.  Response

   The "dependent-vtags" key in the "meta" field of the response MUST
   include the Version Tags of all Network Maps whose 'pid' is queried.

   The data component of an Endpoint Properties response is named
   "endpoint-properties", which is a JSON object of type
   EndpointPropertyMapData, where:

   object {
     EndpointPropertyMapData endpoint-properties;
   } InfoResourceEndpointProperties : ResponseEntityBase;

   object-map {
     TypedEndpointAddr -> EndpointProps;
   } EndpointPropertyMapData;

   object {
     EndpointPropertyType -> JSONValue;
   } EndpointProps;

   Specifically, an EndpointPropertyMapData object has one member for
   each endpoint indicated in the input parameters (with the name being
   the endpoint encoded as a TypedEndpointAddr).  The requested
   properties for each endpoint are encoded in a corresponding
   EndpointProps object, which encodes one name/value pair for each
   requested property, where the property names are encoded as strings
   of type EndpointPropertyType.  An implementation of the protocol in
   this document SHOULD assume that the property value is a JSONString

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   and fail to parse if it is not, unless the implementation is using an
   extension to this document that indicates when and how property
   values of other data types are signaled.

   The ALTO Server returns the value for each of the requested endpoint
   properties for each of the endpoints listed in the input parameters.

   If the ALTO Server does not define a requested property's value for a
   particular endpoint, then it MUST omit that property from the
   response for only that endpoint.

11.4.1.7.  Example

  POST /endpointprop/lookup HTTP/1.1
  Host: alto.example.com
  Content-Length: TBA
  Content-Type: application/alto-endpointpropparams+json
  Accept: application/alto-endpointprop+json,application/alto-error+json

  {
    "properties" : [ "my-default-networkmap.pid",
                     "priv:ietf-example-prop" ],
    "endpoints"  : [ "ipv4:192.0.2.34",
                     "ipv4:203.0.113.129" ]
  }

  HTTP/1.1 200 OK
  Content-Length: TBA
  Content-Type: application/alto-endpointprop+json

  {
    "meta" : {
      "dependent-vtags" : [
        {"resource-id": "my-default-network-map",
         "tag": "1266506139"
        }
      ]
    },
    "endpoint-properties": {
      "ipv4:192.0.2.34"    : { "my-default-network-map.pid": "PID1",
                               "priv:ietf-example-prop": "1" },
      "ipv4:203.0.113.129" : { "my-default-network-map.pid": "PID3" }
    }
  }

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11.5.  Endpoint Cost Service

   The Endpoint Cost Service provides information about costs between
   individual endpoints.

   In particular, this service allows lists of Endpoint prefixes (and
   addresses, as a special case) to be ranked (ordered) by an ALTO
   Server.

11.5.1.  Endpoint Cost

   An Endpoint Cost resource provides information about costs between
   individual endpoints.  It MAY be provided by an ALTO Server.

   It is important to note that although this resource allows an ALTO
   Server to reveal costs between individual endpoints, an ALTO Server
   is not required to do so.  A simple alternative would be to compute
   the cost between two endpoints as the cost between the PIDs
   corresponding to the endpoints.  See Section 15.3 for additional
   details.

11.5.1.1.  Media Type

   The media type of Endpoint Cost is "application/
   alto-endpointcost+json".

11.5.1.2.  HTTP Method

   The Endpoint Cost resource is requested using the HTTP POST method.

11.5.1.3.  Accept Input Parameters

   An ALTO Client supplies the endpoint cost parameters through a media
   type "application/alto-endpointcostparams+json", with an HTTP POST
   entity body of a JSON Object of type ReqEndpointCostMap:

   object {
     CostType          cost-type;
     [JSONString       constraints<0..*>;]
     EndpointFilter    endpoints;
   } ReqEndpointCostMap;

   object {
     [TypedEndpointAddr srcs<0..*>;]
     [TypedEndpointAddr dsts<0..*>;]
   } EndpointFilter;

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   with fields:

   cost-type  The Cost Type (Section 10.7) to use for returned costs.
      The cost-metric and cost-mode fields MUST match one of the
      supported Cost Types indicated in this resource's capabilities (
      Section 11.5.1.4).  The ALTO Client SHOULD omit the description
      field, and if present, the ALTO Server MUST ignore the description
      field.

   constraints  Defined equivalently to the "constraints" input
      parameter of a Filtered Cost Map (see Section 11.3.2).

   endpoints  A list of Source Endpoints and Destination Endpoints for
      which Path Costs are to be returned.  If the list of Source or
      Destination Endpoints is empty (or not included), the ALTO Server
      MUST interpret it as if it contained the Endpoint Address
      corresponding to the client IP address from the incoming
      connection (see Section 13.3 for discussion and considerations
      regarding this mode).  The Source and Destination Endpoint lists
      MUST NOT be both empty.  The ALTO Server MUST interpret entries
      appearing multiple times in a list as if they appeared only once.

11.5.1.4.  Capabilities

   In this document, we define EndpointCostCapabilities the same as
   FilteredCostMapCapabilities.  See Section 11.3.2.4.

11.5.1.5.  Uses

   It is important to note that although this resource allows an ALTO
   Server to reveal costs between individual endpoints, an ALTO Server
   is not required to do so.  A simple implementation of an ECS resource
   may compute the cost between two endpoints as the cost between the
   PIDs corresponding to the endpoints, using one of the exposed network
   and cost maps defined by the server.  However, to preserve
   flexibility, the ECS resource MAY omit declaring in the "uses"
   attribute the network map and/or cost map on which it depends.

11.5.1.6.  Response

   The "meta" field of an Endpoint Cost response MUST include the "cost-
   type" key, to indicate the Cost Type used.

   The data component of an Endpoint Cost response is named "endpoint-
   cost-map", which is a JSON object of type EndpointCostMapData:

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   object {
     EndpointCostMapData endpoint-cost-map;
   } InfoResourceEndpointCostMap : ResponseEntityBase;

   object-map {
     TypedEndpointAddr -> EndpointDstCosts;
   } EndpointCostMapData;

   object-map {
     TypedEndpointAddr -> JSONValue;
   } EndpointDstCosts;

   Specifically, an EndpointCostMapData object is a dictionary map with
   each key representing a TypedEndpointAddr string identifying the
   Source Endpoint specified in the input parameters.  For each Source
   Endpoint, a EndpointDstCosts dictionary map object denotes the
   associated cost to each Destination Endpoint specified in input
   parameters.  An implementation of the protocol in this document
   SHOULD assume that the cost value is a JSONNumber and fail to parse
   if it is not, unless the implementation is using an extension to this
   document that indicates when and how costs of other data types are
   signaled.  If the ALTO Server does not define a cost value from a
   Source Endpoint to a particular Destination Endpoint, it MAY be
   omitted from the response.

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11.5.1.7.  Example

  POST /endpointcost/lookup HTTP/1.1
  Host: alto.example.com
  Content-Length: TBA
  Content-Type: application/alto-endpointcostparams+json
  Accept: application/alto-endpointcost+json,application/alto-error+json

  {
    "cost-type": {"cost-mode" : "ordinal",
                  "cost-metric" : "routingcost"},
    "endpoints" : {
      "srcs": [ "ipv4:192.0.2.2" ],
      "dsts": [
        "ipv4:192.0.2.89",
        "ipv4:198.51.100.34",
        "ipv4:203.0.113.45"
      ]
    }
  }

  HTTP/1.1 200 OK
  Content-Length: TBA
  Content-Type: application/alto-endpointcost+json

  {
    "meta" : {
      "cost-type": {"cost-mode" : "ordinal",
                    "cost-metric" : "routingcost"
      }
    },
    "endpoint-cost-map" : {
      "ipv4:192.0.2.2": {
        "ipv4:192.0.2.89"    : 1,
        "ipv4:198.51.100.34" : 2,
        "ipv4:203.0.113.45"  : 3
      }
    }
  }

12.  Use Cases

   The sections below depict typical use cases.  While these use cases
   focus on peer-to-peer applications, ALTO can be applied to other

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   environments such as CDNs [I-D.jenkins-alto-cdn-use-cases].

12.1.  ALTO Client Embedded in P2P Tracker

   Many currently-deployed P2P systems use a Tracker to manage swarms
   and perform peer selection.  Such a P2P Tracker can already use a
   variety of information to perform peer selection to meet application-
   specific goals.  By acting as an ALTO Client, the P2P Tracker can use
   ALTO information as an additional information source to enable more
   network-efficient traffic patterns and improve application
   performance.

   A particular requirement of many P2P trackers is that they must
   handle a large number of P2P clients.  A P2P tracker can obtain and
   locally store ALTO information (the Network Map and Cost Map) from
   the ISPs containing the P2P clients, and benefit from the same
   aggregation of network locations done by ALTO Servers.

   .---------.   (1) Get Network Map    .---------------.
   |         | <----------------------> |               |
   |  ALTO   |                          |  P2P Tracker  |
   | Server  |   (2) Get Cost Map       | (ALTO Client) |
   |         | <----------------------> |               |
   `---------'                          `---------------'
                                           ^     |
                             (3) Get Peers |     | (4) Selected Peer
                                           |     v     List
             .---------.                 .-----------.
             | Peer 1  | <-------------- |   P2P     |
             `---------'                 |  Client   |
                 .      (5) Connect to   `-----------'
                 .        Selected Peers     /
             .---------.                    /
             | Peer 50 | <------------------
             `---------'

               Figure 4: ALTO Client Embedded in P2P Tracker

   Figure 4 shows an example use case where a P2P tracker is an ALTO
   Client and applies ALTO information when selecting peers for its P2P
   clients.  The example proceeds as follows:

   1.  The P2P Tracker requests from the ALTO Server using the Network
       Map query the Network Map covering all PIDs.  The Network Map
       includes the IP prefixes contained in each PID, allowing the P2P
       tracker to locally map P2P clients into PIDs.

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   2.  The P2P Tracker requests from the ALTO Server the Cost Map
       amongst all PIDs identified in the preceding step.

   3.  A P2P Client joins the swarm, and requests a peer list from the
       P2P Tracker.

   4.  The P2P Tracker returns a peer list to the P2P client.  The
       returned peer list is computed based on the Network Map and Cost
       Map returned by the ALTO Server, and possibly other information
       sources.  Note that it is possible that a tracker may use only
       the Network Map to implement hierarchical peer selection by
       preferring peers within the same PID and ISP.

   5.  The P2P Client connects to the selected peers.

   Note that the P2P tracker may provide peer lists to P2P clients
   distributed across multiple ISPs.  In such a case, the P2P tracker
   may communicate with multiple ALTO Servers.

12.2.  ALTO Client Embedded in P2P Client: Numerical Costs

   P2P clients may also utilize ALTO information themselves when
   selecting from available peers.  It is important to note that not all
   P2P systems use a P2P tracker for peer discovery and selection.
   Furthermore, even when a P2P tracker is used, the P2P clients may
   rely on other sources, such as peer exchange and DHTs, to discover
   peers.

   When an P2P Client uses ALTO information, it typically queries only
   the ALTO Server servicing its own ISP.  The my-Internet view provided
   by its ISP's ALTO Server can include preferences to all potential
   peers.

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   .---------.   (1) Get Network Map    .---------------.
   |         | <----------------------> |               |
   |  ALTO   |                          |  P2P Client   |
   | Server  |   (2) Get Cost Map       | (ALTO Client) |
   |         | <----------------------> |               |    .---------.
   `---------'                          `---------------' <- |  P2P    |
             .---------.                 /  |      ^    ^    | Tracker |
             | Peer 1  | <--------------    |      |     \   `---------'
             `---------'                    |    (3) Gather Peers
                 .      (4) Select Peers    |      |       \
                 .        and Connect      /   .--------.  .--------.
             .---------.                  /    |  P2P   |  |  DHT   |
             | Peer 50 | <----------------     | Client |  `--------'
             `---------'                       | (PEX)  |
                                               `--------'

               Figure 5: ALTO Client Embedded in P2P Client

   Figure 5 shows an example use case where a P2P Client locally applies
   ALTO information to select peers.  The use case proceeds as follows:

   1.  The P2P Client requests the Network Map covering all PIDs from
       the ALTO Server servicing its own ISP.

   2.  The P2P Client requests the Cost Map amongst all PIDs from the
       ALTO Server.  The Cost Map by default specifies numerical costs.

   3.  The P2P Client discovers peers from sources such as Peer Exchange
       (PEX) from other P2P Clients, Distributed Hash Tables (DHT), and
       P2P Trackers.

   4.  The P2P Client uses ALTO information as part of the algorithm for
       selecting new peers, and connects to the selected peers.

12.3.  ALTO Client Embedded in P2P Client: Ranking

   It is also possible for a P2P Client to offload the selection and
   ranking process to an ALTO Server.  In this use case, the ALTO Client
   gathers a list of known peers in the swarm, and asks the ALTO Server
   to rank them.

   As in the use case using numerical costs, the P2P Client typically
   only queries the ALTO Server servicing its own ISP.

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   .---------.                          .---------------.
   |         |                          |               |
   |  ALTO   | (2) Get Endpoint Ranking |  P2P Client   |
   | Server  | <----------------------> | (ALTO Client) |
   |         |                          |               |    .---------.
   `---------'                          `---------------' <- |  P2P    |
             .---------.                 /  |      ^    ^    | Tracker |
             | Peer 1  | <--------------    |      |     \   `---------'
             `---------'                    |    (1) Gather Peers
                 .      (3) Connect to      |      |       \
                 .        Selected Peers   /   .--------.  .--------.
             .---------.                  /    |  P2P   |  |  DHT   |
             | Peer 50 | <----------------     | Client |  `--------'
             `---------'                       | (PEX)  |
                                               `--------'

           Figure 6: ALTO Client Embedded in P2P Client: Ranking

   Figure 6 shows an example of this scenario.  The use case proceeds as
   follows:

   1.  The P2P Client discovers peers from sources such as Peer Exchange
       (PEX) from other P2P Clients, Distributed Hash Tables (DHT), and
       P2P Trackers.

   2.  The P2P Client queries the ALTO Server's Ranking Service,
       including discovered peers as the set of Destination Endpoints,
       and indicates the 'ordinal' Cost Mode.  The response indicates
       the ranking of the candidate peers.

   3.  The P2P Client connects to the peers in the order specified in
       the ranking.

13.  Discussions

13.1.  Discovery

   The discovery mechanism by which an ALTO Client locates an
   appropriate ALTO Server is out of scope for this document.  This
   document assumes that an ALTO Client can discover an appropriate ALTO
   Server.  Once it has done so, the ALTO Client may use the Information
   Resource Directory (see Section 9.2) to locate an Information
   Resource with the desired ALTO Information.

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13.2.  Hosts with Multiple Endpoint Addresses

   In practical deployments, a particular host can be reachable using
   multiple addresses (e.g., a wireless IPv4 connection, a wireline IPv4
   connection, and a wireline IPv6 connection).  In general, the
   particular network path followed when sending packets to the host
   will depend on the address that is used.  Network providers may
   prefer one path over another.  An additional consideration may be how
   to handle private address spaces (e.g., behind carrier-grade NATs).

   To support such behavior, this document allows multiple endpoint
   addresses and address types.  With this support, the ALTO Protocol
   allows an ALTO Service Provider the flexibility to indicate
   preferences for paths from an endpoint address of one type to an
   endpoint address of a different type.

13.3.  Network Address Translation Considerations

   At this day and age of NAT v4<->v4, v4<->v6 [RFC6144], and possibly
   v6<->v6[I-D.mrw-nat66], a protocol should strive to be NAT friendly
   and minimize carrying IP addresses in the payload, or provide a mode
   of operation where the source IP address provide the information
   necessary to the server.

   The protocol specified in this document provides a mode of operation
   where the source network location is computed by the ALTO Server
   (i.e., the the Endpoint Cost Service) from the source IP address
   found in the ALTO Client query packets.  This is similar to how some
   P2P Trackers (e.g., BitTorrent Trackers - see "Tracker HTTP/HTTPS
   Protocol" in [BitTorrent]) operate.

   There may be cases where an ALTO Client needs to determine its own IP
   address, such as when specifying a source Endpoint Address in the
   Endpoint Cost Service.  It is possible that an ALTO Client has
   multiple network interface addresses, and that some or all of them
   may require NAT for connectivity to the public Internet.

   If a public IP address is required for a network interface, the ALTO
   Client SHOULD use the Session Traversal Utilities for NAT (STUN)
   [RFC5389].  If using this method, the host MUST use the "Binding
   Request" message and the resulting "XOR-MAPPED-ADDRESS" parameter
   that is returned in the response.  Using STUN requires cooperation
   from a publicly accessible STUN server.  Thus, the ALTO Client also
   requires configuration information that identifies the STUN server,
   or a domain name that can be used for STUN server discovery.  To be
   selected for this purpose, the STUN server needs to provide the
   public reflexive transport address of the host.

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   ALTO Clients should be cognizant that the network path between
   Endpoints can depend on multiple factors, e.g., source address, and
   destination address used for communication.  An ALTO Server provides
   information based on Endpoint Addresses (more generally, Network
   Locations), but the mechanisms used for determining existence of
   connectivity or usage of NAT between Endpoints are out of scope of
   this document.

13.4.  Endpoint and Path Properties

   An ALTO Server could make available many properties about Endpoints
   beyond their network location or grouping.  For example, connection
   type, geographical location, and others may be useful to
   applications.  This specification focuses on network location and
   grouping, but the protocol may be extended to handle other Endpoint
   properties.

14.  IANA Considerations

14.1.  application/alto-* Media Types

   This document requests the registration of multiple media types,
   listed in Table 2.

      +-------------+------------------------------+----------------+
      | Type        | Subtype                      | Specification  |
      +-------------+------------------------------+----------------+
      | application | alto-directory+json          | Section 9.2    |
      | application | alto-networkmap+json         | Section 11.2.1 |
      | application | alto-networkmapfilter+json   | Section 11.3.1 |
      | application | alto-costmap+json            | Section 11.2.2 |
      | application | alto-costmapfilter+json      | Section 11.3.2 |
      | application | alto-endpointprop+json       | Section 11.4.1 |
      | application | alto-endpointpropparams+json | Section 11.4.1 |
      | application | alto-endpointcost+json       | Section 11.5.1 |
      | application | alto-endpointcostparams+json | Section 11.5.1 |
      | application | alto-error+json              | Section 8.5    |
      +-------------+------------------------------+----------------+

                    Table 2: ALTO Protocol Media Types.

   Type name:  application

   Subtype name:  This documents requests the registration of multiple
      subtypes, as listed in Table 2.

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   Required parameters:  n/a

   Optional parameters:  n/a

   Encoding considerations:  Encoding considerations are identical to
      those specified for the 'application/json' media type.  See
      [RFC4627].

   Security considerations:  Security considerations relating to the
      generation and consumption of ALTO Protocol messages are discussed
      in Section 15.

   Interoperability considerations:  This document specifies format of
      conforming messages and the interpretation thereof.

   Published specification:  This document is the specification for
      these media types; see Table 2 for the section documenting each
      media type.

   Applications that use this media type:  ALTO Servers and ALTO Clients
      either standalone or embedded within other applications.

   Additional information:

      Magic number(s):  n/a

      File extension(s):  This document uses the mime type to refer to
         protocol messages and thus does not require a file extension.

      Macintosh file type code(s):  n/a

   Person & email address to contact for further information:  See
      "Authors' Addresses" section.

   Intended usage:  COMMON

   Restrictions on usage:  n/a

   Author:  See "Authors' Addresses" section.

   Change controller:  Internet Engineering Task Force
      (mailto:iesg@ietf.org).

14.2.  ALTO Cost Metric Registry

   This document requests the creation of an ALTO Cost Metric registry,
   listed in Table 3, to be maintained by IANA.

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                   +-------------+---------------------+
                   | Identifier  | Intended Semantics  |
                   +-------------+---------------------+
                   | routingcost | See Section 6.1.1.1 |
                   | priv:       | Private use         |
                   | exp:        | Experimental use    |
                   +-------------+---------------------+

                        Table 3: ALTO Cost Metrics.

   This registry serves two purposes.  First, it ensures uniqueness of
   identifiers referring to ALTO Cost Metrics.  Second, it provides
   references to particular semantics of allocated Cost Metrics to be
   applied by both ALTO Servers and applications utilizing ALTO Clients.

   New ALTO Cost Metrics are assigned after Expert Review [RFC5226].
   The Expert Reviewer will generally consult the ALTO Working Group or
   its successor.  Expert Review is used to ensure that proper
   documentation regarding ALTO Cost Metric semantics and security
   considerations has been provided.  The provided documentation 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 Metric should be interpreted.  Updates and
   deletions of ALTO Cost Metrics follow the same procedure.

   Registered ALTO Cost Metric identifiers MUST conform to the
   syntactical requirements specified in Section 10.6.  Identifiers are
   to be recorded and displayed as ASCII strings.

   Identifiers prefixed with 'priv:' are reserved for Private Use.
   Identifiers prefixed with 'exp:' are reserved for Experimental use.

   Requests to add a new value to the registry MUST include the
   following information:

   o  Identifier: The name of the desired ALTO Cost Metric.

   o  Intended Semantics: ALTO Costs carry with them semantics to guide
      their usage by ALTO Clients.  For example, if a value refers to a
      measurement, the measurement units must be documented.  For proper
      implementation of the ordinal Cost Mode (e.g., by a third-party
      service), it should be documented whether higher or lower values
      of the cost are more preferred.

   o  Security Considerations: ALTO Costs expose information to ALTO
      Clients.  As such, proper usage of a particular Cost Metric may
      require certain information to be exposed by an ALTO Service
      Provider.  Since network information is frequently regarded as

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      proprietary or confidential, ALTO Service Providers should be made
      aware of the security ramifications related to usage of a Cost
      Metric.

   This specification requests registration of the identifier
   'routingcost'.  Semantics for the this Cost Metric are documented in
   Section 6.1.1.1, and security considerations are documented in
   Section 15.3.

14.3.  ALTO Endpoint Property Type Registry

   This document requests the creation of an ALTO Endpoint Property
   Types registry, listed in Table 4, to be maintained by IANA.

                    +------------+--------------------+
                    | Identifier | Intended Semantics |
                    +------------+--------------------+
                    | pid        | See Section 7.1.1  |
                    | priv:      | Private use        |
                    | exp:       | Experimental use   |
                    +------------+--------------------+

                  Table 4: ALTO Endpoint Property Types.

   The maintenance of this registry is similar to that of the preceding
   ALTO Cost Metrics.

14.4.  ALTO Address Type Registry

   This document requests the creation of an ALTO Address Type registry,
   listed in Table 5, to be maintained by IANA.

   +------------+-----------------+-----------------+------------------+
   | Identifier | Address         | Prefix Encoding | Mapping to/from  |
   |            | Encoding        |                 | IPv4/v6          |
   +------------+-----------------+-----------------+------------------+
   | ipv4       | See             | See             | Direct mapping   |
   |            | Section 10.4.2  | Section 10.4.3  | to IPv4          |
   | ipv6       | See             | See             | Direct mapping   |
   |            | Section 10.4.2  | Section 10.4.3  | to IPv6          |
   +------------+-----------------+-----------------+------------------+

                       Table 5: ALTO Address Types.

   This registry serves two purposes.  First, it ensures uniqueness of
   identifiers referring to ALTO Address Types.  Second, it states the
   requirements for allocated Address Type identifiers.

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   New ALTO Address Types are assigned after Expert Review [RFC5226].
   The Expert Reviewer will generally consult the ALTO Working Group or
   its successor.  Expert Review is used to ensure that proper
   documentation regarding the new ALTO Address Types and their security
   considerations has been provided.  The provided documentation should
   indicate how an address of a registered type is encoded as an
   EndpointAddr and, if possible, a compact method (e.g., IPv4 and IPv6
   prefixes) for encoding a set of addresses as an EndpointPrefix.
   Updates and deletions of ALTO Address Types follow the same
   procedure.

   Registered ALTO Address Type identifiers MUST conform to the
   syntactical requirements specified in Section 10.4.1.  Identifiers
   are to be recorded and displayed as ASCII strings.

   Requests to add a new value to the registry MUST include the
   following information:

   o  Identifier: The name of the desired ALTO Address Type.

   o  Endpoint Address Encoding: The procedure for encoding an address
      of the registered type as an EndpointAddr (see Section 10.4.2).

   o  Endpoint Prefix Encoding: The procedure for encoding a set of
      addresses of the registered type as an EndpointPrefix (see
      Section 10.4.3).  If no such compact encoding is available, the
      same encoding used for a singular address may be used.  In such a
      case, it must be documented that sets of addresses of this type
      always have exactly one element.

   o  Mapping to/from IPv4/IPv6 Addresses: If possible, a mechanism to
      map addresses of the registered type to and from IPv4 or IPv6
      addresses should be specified.

   o  Security Considerations: In some usage scenarios, Endpoint
      Addresses carried in ALTO Protocol messages may reveal information
      about an ALTO Client or an ALTO Service Provider.  Applications
      and ALTO Service Providers using addresses of the registered type
      should be made aware of how (or if) the addressing scheme relates
      to private information and network proximity.

   This specification requests registration of the identifiers 'ipv4'
   and 'ipv6', as shown in Table 5.

14.5.  ALTO Error Code Registry

   This document requests the creation of an ALTO Error Code registry,
   listed in Table 1, to be maintained by IANA.

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15.  Security Considerations

   Some environments and use cases of ALTO require consideration of
   security attacks on ALTO Servers and Clients.  In order to support
   those environments interoperably, the ALTO requirements document
   [RFC6708] outlines minimum-to-implement authentication and other
   security requirements.  Below we consider the threats and protection
   strategies.

15.1.   Authenticity and Integrity of ALTO Information

15.1.1.  Risk Scenarios

   An attacker may want to provide false or modified ALTO Information
   Resources or Information Resource Directory to ALTO Clients to
   achieve certain malicious goals.  As an example, an attacker may
   provide false endpoint properties.  For example, suppose that a
   network supports an endpoint property named "hasQuota" which reports
   if the endpoint has usage quota.  An attacker may want to generate a
   false reply to lead to unexpected charges to the endpoint.  An attack
   may also want to provide false Cost Map. For example, by faking a
   Cost Map that highly prefers a small address range or a single
   address, the attacker may be able to turn a distributed application
   into a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) tool.

   Depending on the network scenario, an attacker can attack
   authenticity and integrity of ALTO Information Resources using
   various techniques, including, but not limited to, sending forged
   DHCP replies in an Ethernet, DNS poisoning, and installing a
   transparent HTTP proxy that does some modifications.

15.1.2.  Protection Strategies

   ALTO protects the authenticity and integrity of ALTO Information
   (both Information Directory and individual Information Resources) by
   leveraging the authenticity and integrity mechanisms in TLS.  In
   particular, the ALTO Protocol requires that HTTP over TLS [RFC2818]
   MUST be supported, when protecting the authenticity and integrity of
   ALTO Information is required.  The rules in [RFC2818] for a client to
   verify server identity using server certificates MUST be supported.
   ALTO Providers who request server certificates and certification
   authorities who issue ALTO-specific certificates SHOULD consider the
   recommendations and guidelines defined in [RFC6125]

   Software engineers developing and service providers deploying ALTO
   should make themselves familiar with up-to-date Best Current
   Practices on configuring HTTP over TLS.

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15.1.3.  Limitations

   The protection of HTTP over TLS for ALTO depends on that the domain
   name in the URI for the Information Resources is not comprised.  This
   will depend on the protection implemented by service discovery.

   A deployment scenario may require redistribution of ALTO information
   to improve scalability.  When authenticity and integrity of ALTO
   information are still required, then ALTO Clients obtaining ALTO
   information through redistribution must be able to validate the
   received ALTO information.  Support for this validation is not
   provided in this document, but may be provided by extension
   documents.

15.2.  Potential Undesirable Guidance from Authenticated ALTO
       Information

15.2.1.  Risk Scenarios

   The ALTO Service makes it possible for an ALTO Provider to influence
   the behavior of network applications.  An ALTO Provider may be
   hostile to some applications and hence try to use ALTO Information
   Resources to achieve certain goals [RFC5693]: "redirecting
   applications to corrupted mediators providing malicious content, or
   applying policies in computing Cost Map based on criteria other than
   network efficiency."  See [I-D.ietf-alto-deployments] for additional
   discussions on faked ALTO Guidance.

   A related scenario is that an ALTO Server could unintentionally give
   "bad" guidance.  For example, if many ALTO Clients follow the Cost
   Map or Endpoint Cost guidance without doing additional sanity checks
   or adaptation, more preferable hosts and/or links could get
   overloaded while less preferable ones remain idle; see AR-14 of
   [RFC6708] for related application considerations.

15.2.2.  Protection Strategies

   To protect applications from undesirable ALTO Information Resources,
   it is important to note that there is no protocol mechanism to
   require conforming behaviors on how applications use ALTO Information
   Resources.  An application using ALTO may consider including a
   mechanism to detect misleading or undesirable results from using ALTO
   Information Resources.  For example, if throughput measurements do
   not show "better-than-random" results when using the Cost Map to
   select resource providers, the application may want to disable ALTO
   usage or switch to an external ALTO Server provided by an
   "independent organization" (see AR-20 and AR-21 in [RFC 6708]).  If
   the first ALTO Server is provided by the access network service

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   provider and the access network service provider tries to redirect
   access to the external ALTO Server back to the provider's ALTO Server
   or try to tamper with the responses, the preceding authentication and
   integrity protection can detect such a behavior.

15.3.  Confidentiality of ALTO Information

15.3.1.  Risk Scenarios

   Although in many cases ALTO Information Resources may be regarded as
   non-confidential information, there are deployment cases where ALTO
   Information Resources can be sensitive information that can pose
   risks if exposed to unauthorized parties.  We discuss the risks and
   protection strategies for such deployment scenarios.

   For example, an attacker may infer details regarding the topology,
   status, and operational policies of a network through the Network and
   Cost Maps.  As a result, a sophisticated attacker may be able to
   infer more fine-graind topology information than an ISP hosting an
   ALTO Server intends to disclose.  The attacker can leverage the
   information to mount effective attacks such as focusing on high-cost
   links.

   Revealing some endpoint properties may also reveal additional
   information than the Provider intended.  For example, when adding the
   line bitrate as one endpoint property, such information may be
   potentially linked to the income of the habitants at the network
   location of an endpoint.

   In [RFC6708] Section 5.2.1, three types of risks associated with the
   confidentiality of ALTO Information Resources are identified: risk
   type (1) Excess disclosure of the ALTO service provider's data to an
   authorized ALTO Client; risk type (2) Disclosure of the ALTO service
   provider's data (e.g., network topology information) to an
   unauthorized third party; and risk type (3) Excess retrieval of the
   ALTO service provider's data by collaborating ALTO Clients.  Section
   10 of [I-D.ietf-alto-deployments] also discusses information leakage
   from ALTO.

15.3.2.  Protection Strategies

   To address risk types (1) and (3), the Provider of an ALTO Server
   must be cognizant that the network topology and provisioning
   information provided through ALTO may lead to attacks.  ALTO does not
   require any particular level of details of information disclosure,
   and hence the Provider should evaluate how much information is
   revealed and the associated risks.

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   To address risk type (2), the ALTO Protocol need confidentiality.
   Since ALTO requires that HTTP over TLS MUST be supported, the
   confidentiality mechanism is provided by HTTP over TLS.

   For deployment scenarios where client authentication is desired to
   address risk type (2), ALTO requires that HTTP Digestion
   Authentication MUST be supported to achieve ALTO Client
   Authentication to limit the number of parties with whom ALTO
   information is directly shared.  Depending on the use-case and
   scenario, an ALTO Server may apply other access control techniques to
   restrict access to its services.  Access control can also help to
   prevent Denial-of-Service attacks by arbitrary hosts from the
   Internet.  See [I-D.ietf-alto-deployments] for a more detailed
   discussion on this issue.

15.3.3.  Limitations

   ALTO Information Providers should be cognizant that encryption only
   protects ALTO information until it is decrypted by the intended ALTO
   Client.  Digital Rights Management (DRM) techniques and legal
   agreements protecting ALTO information are outside of the scope of
   this document.

15.4.  Privacy for ALTO Users

15.4.1.  Risk Scenarios

   The ALTO Protocol provides mechanisms in which the ALTO Client
   serving a user can send messages containing Network Location
   Identifiers (IP addresses or fine-grained PIDs) to the ALTO Server.
   This is particularly true for the Endpoint Property, Endpoint Cost,
   and fine-grained Filtered Map services.  The ALTO Server or a third-
   party who is able to intercept such messages can store and process
   obtained information in order to analyze user behaviors and
   communication patterns.  The analysis may correlate information
   collected from multiple clients to deduce additional application/
   content information.  Such analysis can lead to privacy risks.  For a
   more comprehensive classification of related risk scenarios, see
   cases 4, 5, and 6 in [RFC 6708], Section 5.2.

15.4.2.  Protection Strategies

   To protect user privacy, an ALTO Client should be cognizant about
   potential ALTO Server tracking through client queries.  An ALTO
   Client may consider the possibility of relying only on Network Map
   for PIDs and Cost Map amongst PIDs to avoid passing IP addresses of
   other endpoints (e.g., peers) to the ALTO Server.  When specific IP
   addresses are needed (e.g., when using the Endpoint Cost Service), an

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   ALTO Client may consider obfuscation techniques such as specifying a
   broader address range (i.e., a shorter prefix length) or by zeroing
   out or randomizing the last few bits of IP addresses.  Note that
   obfuscation may yield less accurate results.

15.5.  Availability of ALTO Service

15.5.1.  Risk Scenarios

   An attacker may want to disable ALTO Service as a way to disable
   network guidance to large scale applications.In particular, queries
   which can be generated with low effort but result in expensive
   workloads at the ALTO Server could be exploited for Denial-of-Service
   attacks.  For instance, a simple ALTO query with n Source Network
   Locations and m Destination Network Locations can be generated fairly
   easily but results in the computation of n*m Path Costs between pairs
   by the ALTO Server (see Section 5.2).

15.5.2.  Protection Strategies

   ALTO Provider should be cognizant of the workload at the ALTO Server
   generated by certain ALTO Queries, such as certain queries to the Map
   Service, the Map Filtering Service and the Endpoint Cost (Ranking)
   Service.  One way to limit Denial-of-Service attacks is to employ
   access control to the ALTO Server.  The ALTO Server can also indicate
   overload and reject repeated requests that can cause availability
   problems.  More advanced protection schemes such as computational
   puzzles [I-D.jennings-sip-hashcash] may be considered in an extension
   document.

   An ALTO Provider should also leverage the fact that the Map Service
   allows ALTO Servers to pre-generate maps that can be distributed to
   many ALTO Clients.

16.  Manageability Considerations

   This section details operations and management considerations based
   on existing deployments and discussions during protocol development.
   It also indicates where extension documents are expected to provide
   appropriate functionality discussed in [RFC5706] as additional
   deployment experience becomes available.

16.1.  Operations

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16.1.1.  Installation and Initial Setup

   The ALTO Protocol is based on HTTP.  Thus, configuring an ALTO Server
   may require configuring the underlying HTTP server implementation to
   define appropriate security policies, caching policies, performance
   settings, etc.

   Additionally, an ALTO Service Provider will need to configure the
   ALTO information to be provided by the ALTO Server.  The granularity
   of the topological map and the cost map is left to the specific
   policies of the ALTO Service Provider.  However, a reasonable default
   may include two PIDs, one to hold the endpoints in the provider's
   network and the second PID to represent full IPv4 and IPv6
   reachability (see Section 5.2.1), with the cost between each source/
   destination PID set to 1.  Another operational issue that the ALTO
   Service Provider needs to consider is that the filtering service can
   degenerate into a full map service when the filtering input is empty.
   Although this choice as the degeneration behavior provides
   continuity, the operational impact should be considered.

   Implementers employing an ALTO Client should attempt to automatically
   discover an appropriate ALTO Server.  Manual configuration of the
   ALTO Server location may be used where automatic discovery is not
   appropriate.  Methods for automatic discovery and manual
   configuration are discussed in [I-D.ietf-alto-server-discovery].

   Specifications for underlying protocols (e.g., TCP, HTTP, SSL/TLS)
   should be consulted for their available settings and proposed default
   configurations.

16.1.2.  Migration Path

   This document does not detail a migration path for ALTO Servers since
   there is no previous standard protocol providing the similar
   functionality.

   There are existing applications making use of network information
   discovered from other entities such as whois, geo-location databases,
   or round-trip time measurements, etc.  Such applications should
   consider using ALTO as an additional source of information; ALTO need
   not be the sole source of network information.

16.1.3.  Requirements on Other Protocols and Functional Components

   The ALTO Protocol assumes that HTTP client and server implementations
   exist.  It also assumes that JSON encoder and decoder implementations
   exist.

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   An ALTO Server assumes that it can gather sufficient information to
   populate Network and Cost maps.  "Sufficient information" is
   dependent on the information being exposed, but likely includes
   information gathered from protocols such as IGP and EGP Routing
   Information Bases (see Figure 1).  Specific mechanisms have been
   proposed (e.g., [I-D.medved-alto-svr-apis]) and are expected to be
   provided in extension documents.

16.1.4.  Impact and Observation on Network Operation

   ALTO presents a new opportunity for managing network traffic by
   providing additional information to clients.  The potential impact to
   network operation is large.

   Deployment of an ALTO Server may shift network traffic patterns.
   Thus, an ALTO Service Provider should consider impacts on (or
   integration with) traffic engineering and the deployment of a
   monitoring service to observe the effects of ALTO operations.  Note
   that ALTO-specific monitoring and metrics are discussed in 6.3 of
   [I-D.ietf-alto-deployments] and future versions of that document.  In
   particular, an ALTO Service Provider may observe that ALTO Clients
   are not bound to ALTO Server guidance as ALTO is only one source of
   information.

   An ALTO Service Provider should ensure that appropriate information
   is being exposed.  Privacy implications for ISPs are discussed in
   Section 15.3.  Both ALTO Service Providers and those using ALTO
   Clients should be aware of the impact of incorrect or faked guidance
   (see Section 10.3 of [I-D.ietf-alto-deployments] and future versions
   of that document).

16.2.  Management

16.2.1.  Management Interoperability

   A common management API would be desirable given that ALTO Servers
   may typically be configured with dynamic data from various sources,
   and ALTO Servers are intended to scale horizontally for fault-
   tolerance and reliability.  A specific API or protocol is outside the
   scope of this document, but may be provided by an extension document.

   Logging is an important functionality for ALTO Servers and, depending
   on the deployment, ALTO Clients.  Logging should be done via syslog
   [RFC5424].

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16.2.2.  Management Information

   A Management Information Model (see Section 3.2 of [RFC5706] is not
   provided by this document, but should be included or referenced by
   any extension documenting an ALTO-related management API or protocol.

16.2.3.  Fault Management

   Monitoring ALTO Servers and Clients is described in Section 6.3 of
   [I-D.ietf-alto-deployments] and future versions of that document.

16.2.4.  Configuration Management

   Standardized approaches and protocols to configuration management for
   ALTO are outside the scope of this document, but this document does
   outline high-level principles suggested for future standardization
   efforts.

   An ALTO Server requires at least the following logical inputs:

   o  Data sources from which ALTO Information is derived.  This can
      either be raw network information (e.g., from routing elements) or
      pre-processed ALTO-level information in the form of a Network Map,
      Cost Map, etc.

   o  Algorithms for computing the ALTO information returned to clients.
      These could either return information from a database, or
      information customized for each client.

   o  Security policies mapping potential clients to the information
      that they have privilege to access.

   Multiple ALTO Servers can be deployed for scalability.  A centralized
   configuration database may be used to ensure they are providing the
   desired ALTO information with appropriate security controls.  The
   ALTO information (e.g., Network Maps and Cost Maps) being served by
   each ALTO Server, as well as security policies (HTTP authentication,
   SSL/TLS client and server authentication, SSL/TLS encryption
   parameters) intended to serve the same information should be
   monitored for consistency.

16.2.5.  Performance Management

   An exhaustive list of desirable performance information from a ALTO
   Servers and ALTO Clients are outside of the scope of this document.
   The following is a list of suggested ALTO-specific to be monitored
   based on the existing deployment and protocol development experience:

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   o  Requests and responses for each service listed in a Information
      Directory (total counts and size in bytes).

   o  CPU and memory utilization

   o  ALTO map updates

   o  Number of PIDs

   o  ALTO map sizes (in-memory size, encoded size, number of entries)

16.2.6.  Security Management

   Section 15 documents ALTO-specific security considerations.
   Operators should configure security policies with those in mind.
   Readers should refer to HTTP [RFC2616] and SSL/TLS [RFC5246] and
   related documents for mechanisms available for configuring security
   policies.  Other appropriate security mechanisms (e.g., physical
   security, firewalls, etc) should also be considered.

17.  References

17.1.  Normative References

   [IEEE.754.2008]
              Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers,
              "Standard for Binary Floating-Point Arithmetic", IEEE
              Standard 754, August 2008.

   [RFC2046]  Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail
              Extensions (MIME) Part Two: Media Types", RFC 2046,
              November 1996.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC2616]  Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H.,
              Masinter, L., Leach, P., and T. Berners-Lee, "Hypertext
              Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1", RFC 2616, June 1999.

   [RFC2818]  Rescorla, E., "HTTP Over TLS", RFC 2818, May 2000.

   [RFC3986]  Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
              Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66,
              RFC 3986, January 2005.

   [RFC4627]  Crockford, D., "The application/json Media Type for

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              JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)", RFC 4627, July 2006.

   [RFC4632]  Fuller, V. and T. Li, "Classless Inter-domain Routing
              (CIDR): The Internet Address Assignment and Aggregation
              Plan", BCP 122, RFC 4632, August 2006.

   [RFC5226]  Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an
              IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 5226,
              May 2008.

   [RFC5246]  Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security
              (TLS) Protocol Version 1.2", RFC 5246, August 2008.

   [RFC5389]  Rosenberg, J., Mahy, R., Matthews, P., and D. Wing,
              "Session Traversal Utilities for NAT (STUN)", RFC 5389,
              October 2008.

   [RFC5424]  Gerhards, R., "The Syslog Protocol", RFC 5424, March 2009.

   [RFC5693]  Seedorf, J. and E. Burger, "Application-Layer Traffic
              Optimization (ALTO) Problem Statement", RFC 5693,
              October 2009.

   [RFC5952]  Kawamura, S. and M. Kawashima, "A Recommendation for IPv6
              Address Text Representation", RFC 5952, August 2010.

   [RFC6125]  Saint-Andre, P. and J. Hodges, "Representation and
              Verification of Domain-Based Application Service Identity
              within Internet Public Key Infrastructure Using X.509
              (PKIX) Certificates in the Context of Transport Layer
              Security (TLS)", RFC 6125, March 2011.

   [RFC6708]  Kiesel, S., Previdi, S., Stiemerling, M., Woundy, R., and
              Y. Yang, "Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO)
              Requirements", RFC 6708, September 2012.

17.2.  Informative References

   [BitTorrent]
              "Bittorrent Protocol Specification v1.0",
              <http://wiki.theory.org/BitTorrentSpecification>.

   [Fielding-Thesis]
              Fielding, R., "Architectural Styles and the Design of
              Network-based Software Architectures", University of
              California, Irvine, Dissertation 2000, 2000.

   [I-D.akonjang-alto-proxidor]

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              Akonjang, O., Feldmann, A., Previdi, S., Davie, B., and D.
              Saucez, "The PROXIDOR Service",
              draft-akonjang-alto-proxidor-00 (work in progress),
              March 2009.

   [I-D.ietf-alto-deployments]
              Stiemerling, M., Kiesel, S., Previdi, S., and M. Scharf,
              "ALTO Deployment Considerations",
              draft-ietf-alto-deployments-07 (work in progress),
              July 2013.

   [I-D.ietf-alto-server-discovery]
              Kiesel, S., Stiemerling, M., Schwan, N., Scharf, M., and
              S. Yongchao, "ALTO Server Discovery",
              draft-ietf-alto-server-discovery-10 (work in progress),
              September 2013.

   [I-D.ietf-httpbis-p2-semantics]
              Fielding, R. and J. Reschke, "Hypertext Transfer Protocol
              (HTTP/1.1): Semantics and Content",
              draft-ietf-httpbis-p2-semantics-24 (work in progress),
              September 2013.

   [I-D.jenkins-alto-cdn-use-cases]
              Niven-Jenkins, B., Watson, G., Bitar, N., Medved, J., and
              S. Previdi, "Use Cases for ALTO within CDNs",
              draft-jenkins-alto-cdn-use-cases-03 (work in progress),
              June 2012.

   [I-D.medved-alto-svr-apis]
              Medved, J., Ward, D., Peterson, J., Woundy, R., and D.
              McDysan, "ALTO Network-Server and Server-Server APIs",
              draft-medved-alto-svr-apis-00 (work in progress),
              March 2011.

   [I-D.mrw-nat66]
              Wasserman, M. and F. Baker, "IPv6-to-IPv6 Network Prefix
              Translation", draft-mrw-nat66-16 (work in progress),
              April 2011.

   [I-D.p4p-framework]
              Alimi, R., Pasko, D., Popkin, L., Wang, Y., and Y. Yang,
              "P4P: Provider Portal for P2P Applications",
              draft-p4p-framework-00 (work in progress), November 2008.

   [I-D.saumitra-alto-multi-ps]
              Das, S., Narayanan, V., and L. Dondeti, "ALTO: A Multi
              Dimensional Peer Selection Problem",

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              draft-saumitra-alto-multi-ps-00 (work in progress),
              October 2008.

   [I-D.saumitra-alto-queryresponse]
              Das, S. and V. Narayanan, "A Client to Service Query
              Response Protocol for ALTO",
              draft-saumitra-alto-queryresponse-00 (work in progress),
              March 2009.

   [I-D.shalunov-alto-infoexport]
              Shalunov, S., Penno, R., and R. Woundy, "ALTO Information
              Export Service", draft-shalunov-alto-infoexport-00 (work
              in progress), October 2008.

   [I-D.wang-alto-p4p-specification]
              Wang, Y., Alimi, R., Pasko, D., Popkin, L., and Y. Yang,
              "P4P Protocol Specification",
              draft-wang-alto-p4p-specification-00 (work in progress),
              March 2009.

   [P4P-SIGCOMM08]
              Xie, H., Yang, Y., Krishnamurthy, A., Liu, Y., and A.
              Silberschatz, "P4P: Provider Portal for (P2P)
              Applications", SIGCOMM 2008, August 2008.

   [RFC5706]  Harrington, D., "Guidelines for Considering Operations and
              Management of New Protocols and Protocol Extensions",
              RFC 5706, November 2009.

   [RFC6144]  Baker, F., Li, X., Bao, C., and K. Yin, "Framework for
              IPv4/IPv6 Translation", RFC 6144, April 2011.

Appendix A.  Acknowledgments

   Thank you to Sebastian Kiesel (University of Stuttgart) and Jan
   Seedorf (NEC) for substantial contributions to the Security
   Considerations section.  Ben Niven-Jenkins (Velocix), Michael Scharf
   and Sabine Randriamasy (Alcatel-Lucent) gave substantial feedback and
   suggestions on the protocol design.  We are particularly grateful to
   the substantial contributions of Wendy Roome (Alcatel-Lucent).

   We would like to thank the following people whose input and
   involvement was indispensable in achieving this merged proposal:

      Obi Akonjang (DT Labs/TU Berlin),

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      Saumitra M. Das (Qualcomm Inc.),

      Syon Ding (China Telecom),

      Doug Pasko (Verizon),

      Laird Popkin (Pando Networks),

      Satish Raghunath (Juniper Networks),

      Albert Tian (Ericsson/Redback),

      Yu-Shun Wang (Microsoft),

      David Zhang (PPLive),

      Yunfei Zhang (China Mobile).

   We would also like to thank the following additional people who were
   involved in the projects that contributed to this merged document:
   Alex Gerber (ATT), Chris Griffiths (Comcast), Ramit Hora (Pando
   Networks), Arvind Krishnamurthy (University of Washington), Marty
   Lafferty (DCIA), Erran Li (Bell Labs), Jin Li (Microsoft), Y. Grace
   Liu (IBM Watson), Jason Livingood (Comcast), Michael Merritt (ATT),
   Ingmar Poese (DT Labs/TU Berlin), James Royalty (Pando Networks),
   Damien Saucez (UCL) Thomas Scholl (ATT), Emilio Sepulveda
   (Telefonica), Avi Silberschatz (Yale University), Hassan Sipra (Bell
   Canada), Georgios Smaragdakis (DT Labs/TU Berlin), Haibin Song
   (Huawei), Oliver Spatscheck (ATT), See-Mong Tang (Microsoft), Jia
   Wang (ATT), Hao Wang (Yale University), Ye Wang (Yale University),
   Haiyong Xie (Yale University).

Appendix B.  Design History and Merged Proposals

   The ALTO Protocol specified in this document consists of
   contributions from

   o  P4P [I-D.p4p-framework], [P4P-SIGCOMM08],
      [I-D.wang-alto-p4p-specification];

   o  ALTO Info-Export [I-D.shalunov-alto-infoexport];

   o  Query/Response [I-D.saumitra-alto-queryresponse],
      [I-D.saumitra-alto-multi-ps];

   o  ATTP [ATTP]; and

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   o  Proxidor [I-D.akonjang-alto-proxidor].

Appendix C.  Authors

   [[CmtAuthors: RFC Editor: Please move information in this section to
   the Authors' Addresses section at publication time.]]

   Stefano Previdi
   Cisco

   Email: sprevidi@cisco.com

   Stanislav Shalunov
   BitTorrent

   Email: shalunov@bittorrent.com

   Richard Woundy
   Comcast

   Richard_Woundy@cable.comcast.com

Authors' Addresses

   Richard Alimi (editor)
   Google
   1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
   Mountain View  CA
   USA

   Email: ralimi@google.com

   Reinaldo Penno (editor)
   Cisco Systems
   170 West Tasman Dr
   San Jose  CA
   USA

   Email: repenno@cisco.com

Alimi, et al.             Expires April 5, 2014                [Page 84]
Internet-Draft                ALTO Protocol                 October 2013

   Y. Richard Yang (editor)
   Yale University
   51 Prospect St
   New Haven  CT
   USA

   Email: yry@cs.yale.edu

Alimi, et al.             Expires April 5, 2014                [Page 85]