Technical Summary
This memo presents an access rate-measurement problem statement for test
protocols to measure IP Performance Metrics. The rate measurement scenario
has wide-spread attention of Internet access subscribers and seemingly all
industry players, including regulators. Key test protocol aspects require
the ability to control packet size on the tested path and enable
asymmetrical packet size testing in a controller-responder architecture.
Working Group Summary
A controversial topic regards the level of requirement for the capability
to control asymmetric packet sizes in two-way testing architectures. A few
participants felt that the document should not require asymmetric packet
sizes, even though there are a number of cases where it would appear
asymmetric packets sizes would be essential to measure the path capacity
accurately.
As a compromise, the author updated the document to require asymmetric
packet rate generation, and both symmetric and asymmetric packet sizes are
recommended. The many circumstances where asymmetric packet size testing is
needed are documented, and many of these circumstances would be unknown
prior to comparative tests using symmetric and asymmetric packet sizes.
Document Quality
The draft was reviewed by many members of WG. There are already standards
track protocol extension proposals that respond to the requirements in
this draft. At least one protocol solution has been implemented and
deployed.
Personnel
The document shepherd is Bill Cerveny.
The responsible area director is Spencer Dawkins.