Interface to the Routing System
charter-ietf-i2rs-00-06

It is envisioned that users of the I2RS interfaces will be management applications,
network controllers, and user applications that make specific demands on the network.

The I2RS working group works to develop a high-level framework and architecture that
describes the basic building-blocks necessary to enable the specific use cases, and that
will lead to an understanding of the abstract informational models and requirements for
encodings and protocols for the I2RS interfaces. Small and well-scoped use cases are
critical to constrain the scope of the work and achieve sufficient focus for the working
group to deliver successful outcomes. Initial work within the working group will be
limited to a single administrative domain.

The working group is chartered to work on the following items:

• High-level architecture and framework for I2RS including considerations of policy and
  security.

• Tightly scoped key use cases for operational use of I2RS as follows:
  o Interactions with the Routing Information Base (RIB). Allowing read and write
  access to the RIB, but no direct access to the Forwarding Information Base (FIB).
  o Control and analysis of the operation of the Border gateway Protocol (BGP) including
  the setting and activation of policies related to the protocol.
  o Control, optimization, and choice of traffic exit points from networks based on more
  information than provided by the dynamic control plane.
  o Distributed reaction to network-based attacks through quickly modification of the
  control plane behavior to reroute traffic for one destination while leaving a
  standard mechanisms (filters, metrics, and policy) in place for other routes.
  o Service layer routing to improve on existing hub-and-spoke traffic.
  o The ability to extract information about topology from the network. Injection and
  creation of topology will not be considered as an initial work item.

  Other use cases may be adopted by the working group only through rechartering.

• Abstract information models consistent with the use cases.

• Requirements for I2RS protocols and encoding languages.

• An analysis of existing IETF and other protocols and encoding languages against the
  requirements.

The working group is not currently chartered to develop protocols, encoding languages, or
data models. The objective of this work effort is to arrive at common standards for these
items, but these items are dependent on the progress of the topics listed above. Work for
these items will be conducted in this working group only after a re-charter, and/or may
be carried out in another working group with specific responsibility for the protocol or
encoding language.

Goals and Milestones:

Jul 2013 : Request publication of an Informational document defining the problem statement
Jul 2013 : Request publication of an Informational document defining the highlevel
architecture and framework
Aug 2013 : Request publication of Informational documents describing use cases
Sep 2013 : Request publication of an Informational document defining the protocol
requirements
Sep 2013 : Request publication of an Informational document defining encoding language
requirements
Nov 2013 : Request publication of Standards Track documents specifying information models
Nov 2013 : Request publication of an Informational document providing an analysis of
existing IETF and other protocols and encoding languages against the
requirements
Dec 2013 : Consider re-chartering