SIMPLE                                                      J. Rosenberg
Internet-Draft                                                     Cisco
Intended status: Informational                                  A. Houri
Expires: August 24, 2008                                             IBM
                                                       February 21, 2008


              Models for Intra-Domain Presence Federation
              draft-ietf-simple-intradomain-federation-00

Status of this Memo

   By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any
   applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware
   have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes
   aware will be disclosed, in accordance with Section 6 of BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups.  Note that
   other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-
   Drafts.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at
   http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt.

   The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
   http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html.

   This Internet-Draft will expire on August 24, 2008.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2008).

Abstract

   Presence federation involves the sharing of presence information
   across multiple presence systems.  Most often, presence federation is
   assumed to be between different organizations, such as between two
   enterprises or between and enterprise and a service provider.
   However, federation can occur within a single organization or domain.
   This can be the result of a multi-vendor network, or a consequence of
   a large organization that requires partitioning.  This document



Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008                [Page 1]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


   examines different use cases and models for intra-domain federation.


Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   2.  Intra-Domain Federation vs. Clustering . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   3.  Use Cases for Intra-Domain Federation  . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     3.1.  Scale  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     3.2.  Organizational Structures  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     3.3.  Multi-Vendor Requirements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     3.4.  Specialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   4.  Considerations for Federation Models . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
   5.  Partitioned  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     5.1.  Applicability  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
     5.2.  Routing  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
       5.2.1.  Centralized Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
       5.2.2.  Routing Proxy  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
       5.2.3.  Subdomaining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
       5.2.4.  Peer-to-Peer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
       5.2.5.  Forking  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
       5.2.6.  Provisioned Routing  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
     5.3.  Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
     5.4.  Presence Data  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   6.  Exclusive  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
     6.1.  Routing  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
       6.1.1.  Centralized Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
       6.1.2.  Routing Proxy  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
       6.1.3.  Subdomaining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
       6.1.4.  Peer-to-Peer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
       6.1.5.  Forking  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
     6.2.  Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
     6.3.  Presence Data  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
   7.  Unioned  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
     7.1.  Hierarchical Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
       7.1.1.  Routing  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
       7.1.2.  Policy and Identity  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
         7.1.2.1.  Root Only  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
         7.1.2.2.  Distributed Provisioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
         7.1.2.3.  Central Provisioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
       7.1.3.  Presence Data  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
     7.2.  Peer Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
       7.2.1.  Routing  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
       7.2.2.  Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
       7.2.3.  Presence Data  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
   8.  Summary  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
   9.  Future Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
   10. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35



Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008                [Page 2]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


   11. Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
   12. IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
   13. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
   Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 38














































Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008                [Page 3]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


1.  Introduction

   Presence refers to the ability, willingness and desire to communicate
   across differing devices, mediums and services [RFC2778].  Presence
   is described using presence documents [RFC3863] [RFC4479], exchanged
   using a SIP-based event package [RFC3856]

   Presence federation refers to the sharing of presence information
   across multiple presence systems.  This interconnection involves
   passing of subscriptions from one system to another, and then the
   passing of notifications in the opposite direction.

   Most often, presence federation is considered in the context of
   interconnection between different domains, also known as inter-domain
   presence federation
   [I-D.ietf-speermint-consolidated-presence-im-usecases].  For example,
   consider the network of Figure 1, which shows one model for inter-
   domain federation.  In this network, Alice belongs to the example.org
   domain, and Bob belongs to the example.com domain.  Alice subscribes
   to her buddy list on her presence server (which is also acting as her
   Resource List Server (RLS) [RFC4662]), and that list includes
   bob@example.com.  Alice's presence server generates a back-end
   subscription on the federated link between example.org and
   example.com.  The example.com presence server authorizes the
   subscription, and if permitted, generates notifications back to
   Alice's presence server, which are in turn passed to Alice.

























Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008                [Page 4]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


     .............................     ..............................
     .                           .     .                            .
     .                           .     .                            .
     .     alice@example.org     .     .      bob@example.com       .
     .      +------------+   SUB .     .      +------------+        .
     .      |            |   Bob .     .      |            |        .
     .      |  Presence  |------------------->|  Presence  |        .
     .      |   Server   |       .     .      |   Server   |        .
     .      |            |       .     .      |            |        .
     .      |            |<-------------------|            |        .
     .      |            |     NOTIFY  .      |            |        .
     .      +------------+       .     .      +------------+        .
     .          ^    |           .     .             ^              .
     .      SUB |    |           .     .             |PUB           .
     .    Buddy |    |NOTIFY     .     .             |              .
     .     List |    |           .     .             |              .
     .          |    |           .     .             |              .
     .          |    V           .     .             |              .
     .         +-------+         .     .        +-------+           .
     .         |       |         .     .        |       |           .
     .         |       |         .     .        |       |           .
     .         |       |         .     .        |       |           .
     .         +-------+         .     .        +-------+           .
     .                           .     .                            .
     .           Alice's         .     .           Bob's            .
     .             PC            .     .            PC              .
     .                           .     .                            .
     .............................     ..............................

              example.org                       example.com


                       Figure 1: Inter-Domain Model

   However, federation can happen within a domain as well.  We define
   intra-domain federation as the interconnection of presence servers
   within a single domain, where domain refers explicity to the right
   hand side of the @-sign in the SIP URI.


2.  Intra-Domain Federation vs. Clustering

   Intra-domain federation is the interconnection of presence servers
   within a single domain.  This is very similar to clustering, which is
   the tight coupling of a multiplicity of physical servers to realize
   scale and/or high availability.  Consequently, it is important to
   clarify the differences.




Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008                [Page 5]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


   Firstly, clustering implies a tight coupling of components.
   Clustering usually involves proprietary information sharing, such as
   database replication and state sharing, which in turn are tightly
   bound with the internal implementation of the product.  Intra-domain
   federation, on the other hand, is a loose coupling.  There is never
   database replication or state replication across federated systems.

   Secondly, clustering always occurs amongst components from the same
   vendor.  This is due to the tight coupling described above.  Intra-
   domain federation, on the other hand, can occur between servers from
   different vendors.  As described below, this is one of the chief use
   cases for intra-domain federation.

   Thirdly, clustering is almost always invisible to users.
   Communications between users within the same cluster almost always
   have identical functionality to communications between users on the
   same server within the cluster.  The cluster boundaries are
   invisible; indeed the purpose of a cluster is to build a system which
   behaves as if it were a single monolithic entity, even though it is
   not.  Federation, on the other hand, is often visible to users.
   There will frequently be loss of functionality when crossing a
   cluster.  Though this is not a hard and fast rule, it is a common
   differentiator.

   Fourthly, connections between federated systems almost always involve
   standards, whereas communications within a cluster often involves
   proprietary mechanisms.  Standards are needed for federation because
   the federated systems can be from different vendors, and thus
   agreement is needed to enable interoperation.

   Finally, a cluster will often have an upper bound on its size and
   capacity, due to some kind of constraint on the coupling between
   nodes in the cluster.  However, there is typically no limit, or a
   much larger limit, on the number of federated systems that can be put
   into a domain.  This is a consequence to their loose coupling.

   Though these rules are not hard and fast, they give general
   guidelines on the differences between clustering and intra-domain
   federation.


3.  Use Cases for Intra-Domain Federation

   There are several use cases that drive intra-domain federation.







Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008                [Page 6]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


3.1.  Scale

   One common use case for federation is an organization that is just
   very large, and their size exceeds the capacity that a single server
   or cluster can provide.  So, instead, the domain breaks its users
   into partitions (perhaps arbitrarily) and then uses intra-domain
   federation to allow the overall system to scale up to arbitrary
   sizes.  This is common practice today for service providers and large
   enterprises.

3.2.  Organizational Structures

   Another use case for intra-domain federation is a multi-national
   organization with regional IT departments, each of which supports a
   particular set of nationalities.  It is very common for each regional
   IT department to deploy and run its own servers for its own
   population.  In that case, the domain would end up being composed of
   the presence servers deployed by each regional IT department.
   Indeed, in many organizations, each regional IT department might end
   up using different vendors.  This can be a consequence of differing
   regional requirements for features (such as compliance or
   localization support), differing sales channels and markets in which
   vendors sell, and so on.

3.3.  Multi-Vendor Requirements

   Another use case for intra-domain federation is an organization that
   requires multiple vendors for each service, in order to avoid vendor
   lock in and drive competition between its vendors.  Since the servers
   will come from different vendors, a natural way to deploy them is to
   partition the users across them.  Such multi-vendor networks are
   extremely common in large service provider networks, many of which
   have hard requirements for multiple vendors.

   Typically, the vendors are split along geographies, often run by
   different local IT departments.  As such, this case is similar to the
   organizational division above.

3.4.  Specialization

   Another use case is where certain vendors might specialize in
   specific types of clients.  For example, one vendor might provide a
   mobile client (but no desktop client), while another provides a
   desktop client but no mobile client.  It is often the case that
   specific client applications and devices are designed to only work
   with their corresponding servers.  In an ideal world, clients would
   all implement to standards and this would not happen, but in
   practice, the vast majority of presence endpoints work only (or only



Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008                [Page 7]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


   work well) with the server from the same vendor.  A domain might want
   each user to have both a mobile client and a desktop client, which
   will require servers from each vendor, leading to intra-domain
   federation.

   Similarly, presence can contain rich information, including
   activities of the user (such as whether they are in a meeting or on
   the phone), their geographic location, and their mood.  This presence
   state is can be determined manually (where the user enters and
   updates the information), or automatically.  Automatic determination
   of these states is far preferable, since it put less burden on the
   user.  Determination of these presence states is done by taking "raw"
   data about the user, and using it to generate corresponding presence
   states.  This raw data can come from any source that has information
   about the user, including their calendaring server, their VoIP
   infrastructure, their VPN server, their laptop operating system, and
   so on.  Each of these components is typically made by different
   vendors, each of which is likely to integrate that data with their
   presence servers.  Consequently, presence servers from different
   vendors are likely to specialize in particular pieces of presence
   data, based on the other infrastructure they provide.  The overall
   network will need to contain servers from both vendors in order to
   combine the benefits of both.  This results in intra-domain
   federation.


4.  Considerations for Federation Models

   When considering architectures for intra-domain presence federation,
   several issues need to be considered:

   Routing:  How are subscriptions routed to the right presence
      server(s)?  This issue is more complex in intra-domain models,
      since the right hand side of the @-sign cannot be used to perform
      this routing.

   Policy and Identity:  Where do user policies reside, and what
      presence server(s) are responsible for executing that policy?
      What identities does the user have in each system and how do they
      relate?

   Data Ownership:  Which presence servers are responsible for which
      pieces of presence information, and how are those pieces composed
      to form a coherent and consistent view of user presence?

   The sections below describe several different models for intra-domain
   federation.  Each model is driven by a set of use cases, which are
   described in an applicability subsection for each model.  Each model



Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008                [Page 8]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


   description also discusses how routing, policy, and composition work.


5.  Partitioned

   In the partitioned model, a single domain has a multiplicity of
   presence servers, each of which manages a non-overlapping set of
   users.  That is, for each user in the domain, their presence data and
   policy reside on a single server.  Each "single server" may in fact
   be a cluster.

   Another important facet of the partitioned model is that, even though
   users are partitioned across different servers, they each share the
   same domain name in the right hand side of their URI, and this URI is
   what those users use when communicating with other users both inside
   and outside of the domain.  There are many reasons why a domain would
   want all of its users to share the same right-hand side of the @-sign
   even though it is partitioned internally:

   o  The partitioning may reflect organizational or geographical
      structures that a domain admistrator does not want to reflect
      externally.

   o  If each partition had a separate domain name (i.e.,
      engineering.example.com and sales.example.com), if a user changed
      organizations, this would necessitate a change in their URI.

   o  For reasons of vanity, users often like to have their URI (which
      appear on business cards, email, and so on), to be brief and
      short.

   o  If a watcher wants to add a presentity based on username and does
      not want to know, or does not know, which subdomain or internal
      dept the presentity belongs to, a single domain is needed.

   This model is illustrated in Figure 2.  As the model shows, the
   domain example.com has six users across three servers, each of which
   is handling two of the users.













Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008                [Page 9]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


   .....................................................................
   .                                                                   .
   .                                                                   .
   .                                                                   .
   .   joe@example.com      alice@example.com     padma@example.com    .
   .   bob@example.com      zeke@example.com      hannes@example.com   .
   .    +-----------+        +-----------+       +-----------+         .
   .    |           |        |           |       |           |         .
   .    |   Server  |        |   Server  |       |   Server  |         .
   .    |     1     |        |     2     |       |     3     |         .
   .    |           |        |           |       |           |         .
   .    +-----------+        +-----------+       +-----------+         .
   .                                                                   .
   .                                                                   .
   .                                                                   .
   .                           example.com                             .
   .....................................................................

                        Figure 2: Partitioned Model

5.1.  Applicability

   The partitioned model arises naturally in larger domains, such as an
   enterprise or service provider, where issues of scale, organizational
   structure, or multi-vendor requirements cause the domain to be
   managed by a multiplicity of independent servers.

   In cases where each user has an AoR that directly points to its
   partition (for example, us.example.com), that model becomes identical
   to the inter-domain federated model and is not treated here further.
   [[OPEN ISSUE: there are differences though, such as acess to a
   centralized database.  Is it worth adding this as a FOURTH model?]]

5.2.  Routing

   The partitioned intra-domain model works almost identically to an
   inter-domain federated model, with the primary difference being
   routing.  In inter-domain federation, the domain part of the URI can
   be used to route presence subscriptions from the watcher's domain to
   the domain of the presentity.  This is no longer the case in an
   intra-domain model.  Consider the case where Joe subscribes to his
   buddy list, which is served by his presence server (server 1 in
   Figure 2).  Alice is a member of Joe's buddy list.  How does server 1
   know that the back-end subscription to Alice needs to get routed to
   server 2?






Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 10]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


5.2.1.  Centralized Database


   .....................................................................
   .                         +-----------+                             .
   .           alice?        |           |                             .
   .       +---------------> |  Database |                             .
   .       |   server 2      |           |                             .
   .       |   +-------------|           |                             .
   .       |   |             +-----------+                             .
   .       |   |                                                       .
   .       |   |                                                       .
   .       |   |                                                       .
   .       |   |                                                       .
   .       |   |                                                       .
   .       |   |                                                       .
   .       |   V                                                       .
   .   joe@example.com      alice@example.com     padma@example.com    .
   .   bob@example.com      zeke@example.com      hannes@example.com   .
   .    +-----------+        +-----------+       +-----------+         .
   .    |           |        |           |       |           |         .
   .    |   Server  |        |   Server  |       |   Server  |         .
   .    |     1     |        |     2     |       |     3     |         .
   .    |           |        |           |       |           |         .
   .    +-----------+        +-----------+       +-----------+         .
   .                                                                   .
   .                                                                   .
   .                                                                   .
   .                           example.com                             .
   .....................................................................


                         Figure 3: Centralized DB

   One solution is to rely on a common, centralized database that
   maintains mappings of users to specific servers, shown in Figure 3.
   When Joe subscribes to his buddy list that contains Alice, server 1
   would query this database, asking it which server is responsible for
   alice@example.com.  The database would indicate server 2, and then
   server 1 would generate the backend SUBSCRIBE request towards server
   2.  This is a common technique in large email systems.  It is often
   implemented using internal sub-domains; so that the database would
   return alice@central.example.com to the query, and server 1 would
   modify the Request-URI in the SUBSCRIBE request to reflect this.

   Routing database solutions have the problem that they require
   standardization on a common schema and database protocol in order to
   work in multi-vendor environments.  For example, LDAP and SQL are



Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 11]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


   both possibilities.  There is variety in LDAP schema; one possibility
   is H.350.4, which could be adapted for usage here [RFC3944].

5.2.2.  Routing Proxy


   .....................................................................
   .                         +-----------+                             .
   .        SUB alice        |           |                             .
   .       +---------------> |  Routing  |                             .
   .       |                 |   Proxy   |                             .
   .       |                 |           |                             .
   .       |                 +-----------+                             .
   .       |                       |                                   .
   .       |                       |                                   .
   .       |                       |                                   .
   .       |                       |SUB Alice                          .
   .       |                       |                                   .
   .       |                       |                                   .
   .       |                       V                                   .
   .   joe@example.com      alice@example.com     padma@example.com    .
   .   bob@example.com      zeke@example.com      hannes@example.com   .
   .    +-----------+        +-----------+       +-----------+         .
   .    |           |        |           |       |           |         .
   .    |   Server  |        |   Server  |       |   Server  |         .
   .    |     1     |        |     2     |       |     3     |         .
   .    |           |        |           |       |           |         .
   .    +-----------+        +-----------+       +-----------+         .
   .                                                                   .
   .                                                                   .
   .                                                                   .
   .                           example.com                             .
   .....................................................................


                          Figure 4: Routing Proxy

   A similar solution is to rely on a routing proxy.  Instead of a
   centralized database, there would be a centralized SIP proxy farm.
   Server 1 would send subscriptions for users it doesn't serve to this
   server farm, and the servers would lookup the user in a database
   (which is now accessed only by the routing proxy), and the resulting
   subscriptions are sent to the correct server.  A redirect server can
   be used as well, in which case the flow is very much like that of a
   centralized database.

   Routing proxies have the benefit that they do not require a common
   database schema and protocol, but they do require a centralized



Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 12]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


   server function that sees all subscriptions, which can be a scale
   challenge.

5.2.3.  Subdomaining

   In this solution, each user is associated with a subdomain, and is
   provisioned as part of their respective presence server using that
   subdomain.  Consequently, each presence server thinks it is its own,
   separate domain.  However, when a user adds a presentity to their
   buddy list without the subdomain, they first consult a shared
   database which returns the subdomained URI to subscribe to.  This
   sub-domained URI can be returned because the user provided a search
   criteria, such as "Find Alice Chang", or provided the non-subdomained
   URI (alice@example.com).  This is shown in Figure 5





































Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 13]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


   .....................................................................
   .                         +-----------+                             .
   .    who is Alice?        |           |                             .
   . +---------------------->|  Database |                             .
   . |  alice@b.example.com  |           |                             .
   . | +---------------------|           |                             .
   . | |                     +-----------+                             .
   . | |                                                               .
   . | |                                                               .
   . | |                                                               .
   . | |                                                               .
   . | |                                                               .
   . | |                                                               .
   . | |                                                               .
   . | | joe@a.example.com   alice@b.example.com  padma@c.example.com  .
   . | | bob@a.example.com   zeke@b.example.com   hannes@c.example.com .
   . | |  +-----------+        +-----------+       +-----------+       .
   . | |  |           |        |           |       |           |       .
   . | |  |   Server  |        |   Server  |       |   Server  |       .
   . | |  |     1     |        |     2     |       |     3     |       .
   . | |  |           |        |           |       |           |       .
   . | |  +-----------+        +-----------+       +-----------+       .
   . | |                            ^                                  .
   . | |                            |                                  .
   . | |                            |                                  .
   . | |                            |                                  .
   . | |                            |                                  .
   . | |                            |                                  .
   . | |                     +-----------+                             .
   . | +-------------------->|           |                             .
   . |                       |  Watcher  |                             .
   . |                       |           |                             .
   . +-----------------------|           |                             .
   .                         +-----------+                             .
   .                                                                   .
   .                                                                   .
   .                                                                   .
   .                           example.com                             .
   .....................................................................


                          Figure 5: Subdomaining

   Subdomaining puts the burden of routing within the client.  The
   servers can be completely unaware that they are actually part of the
   same domain, and integrate with each other exactly as they would in
   an inter-domain model.  However, the client is given the burden of
   determining the subdomained URI from the original URI or buddy name,



Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 14]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


   and then subscribing directly to that server, or including the
   subdomained URI in their buddylist.  The client is also responsible
   for hiding the subdomain structure from the user and storing the
   mapping information locally for extended periods of time.  In cases
   where users have buddy list subscriptions, the client will need to
   resolve the buddy name into the sub-domained version before adding to
   their buddy list.

5.2.4.  Peer-to-Peer

   Another model is to utilize a peer-to-peer network amongst all of the
   servers, and store URI to server mappings in the distributed hash
   table it creates.  This has some nice properties but does require a
   standardized and common p2p protocol across vendors, which does not
   exist today.

5.2.5.  Forking

   Yet another solution is to utilize forking.  Each server is
   provisioned with the domain names or IP addresses of the other
   servers, but not with the mapping of users to each of those servers.
   When a server needs to create a back-end subscription for a user it
   doesn't have, it forks the SUBSCRIBE request to all of the other
   servers.  This request will be rejected with a 404 on the servers
   which do not handle that user, and accepted on the one that does.
   The approach assumes that presence servers can differentiate inbound
   SUBSCRIBE requests from end users (which cause back-end subscriptions
   to get forked) and from other servers (which do not cause back-end
   subscriptions).  This approach works very well in organizations with
   a relatively small number of servers (say, two or three), and becomes
   increasingly ineffective with more and more servers.

5.2.6.  Provisioned Routing

   Yet another solution is to provision each server with each user, but
   for servers that don't actually serve the user, the provisioning
   merely tells the server where to proxy the request.  This solution
   has extremely poor operational properties, requiring multiple points
   of provisioning across disparate systems.

5.3.  Policy

   A fundamental characteristic of the partitioned model is that there
   is a single point of policy enforcement (authorization rules and
   composition policy) for each user.






Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 15]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


5.4.  Presence Data

   Another fundamental characteristic of the partitioned model is that
   the presence data for a user is managed authoritatively on a single
   server.  In the example of Figure 2, the presence data for Alice
   lives on server 2 alone (recall that server two may be physically
   implemented as a multiplicity of boxes from a single vendor, each of
   which might have a portion of the presence data, but externally it
   appears to behave as if it were a single server).  A subscription
   from Bob to Alice may cause a transfer of presence information from
   server 2 to server 1, but server 2 remains authoritative and is the
   single root source of all data for Alice.


6.  Exclusive

   In the former (static) partitioned model, the mapping of a user to a
   specific server is done by some off-line configuration means.  The
   configuration assigns a user to a specific server and in order to use
   a different server, the user needs to change (or request the
   administrator to do so) the configuration.

   In some environments, this restriction of a user to use a particular
   server may be a limitation.  Instead, it is desirable to allow users
   to freely move back and forth between systems, though using only a
   single one at a time.  This is called Exclusive Federation.

   Some use cases where this can happen are:

   o  The organization is using multiple systems where each system has
      its own characteristics.  For example one server is tailored to
      work with some CAD (Computer Aided Design) system and provide
      presence and IM functionality along with the CAD system.  The
      other server is the default presence and IM server of the
      organization.  Users wish to be able to work with either system
      when they wish to, they also wish to be able to see the presence
      and IM with their buddies no matter which system their buddies are
      currently using.

   o  An enterprise wishes to test presence servers from two different
      vendors.  In order to do so they wish to install a server from
      each vendor and see which of the servers is better.  In the static
      partitioned model, a user will have to be statically assigned to a
      particular server and could not compare the features of the two
      servers.  In the dynamic partitioned model, a user may choose on
      whim which of the servers that are being tested to use.  They can
      move back and forth in case of problems.




Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 16]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


   o  An enterprise is currently using servers from one vendor, but has
      decided to add a second.  They would like to gradually migrate
      users from one to the other.  In order to make a smooth
      transition, users can move back and forth over a period of a few
      weeks until they are finally required to stop going back, and get
      deleted from their old system.

   o  A domain is using multiple clusters from the same vendor.  To
      simplify administration, users can connect to any of the clusters,
      perhaps one local to their site.  To accomplish this, the clusters
      are connected using exclusive federation.

6.1.  Routing

   Due to its nature, routing in the Exclusive federation model is more
   complex than the routing in the partitioned model.

   Association of a user to a server can not be known until the user
   publishes a presence document to a specific server or registers to
   that server.  Therefore, when Alice subscribes to Bob's presence
   information, the server that serves the subscription can not know on
   which server Bob's presence information may be published.

   In addition, a server may get a subscription to a user but the user
   may not be in any server yet.  The server should respond with empty
   notify and wait for the user to appear in one of the servers.  Once
   the user appears in one of the servers, the server should send the
   subscription to that server.

   A user may use two servers at the same time and have hers/his
   presence information on two servers.  This should be regarded as a
   conflict and one of the presence clients should be terminated or
   redirected to the other server.

   Fortunately, most of the routing approaches described for partitioned
   federation, excepting provisioned routing, can be adapted for
   exclusive federation.

6.1.1.  Centralized Database

   A centralized database can be used, but will need to support a test-
   and-set functionality.  With it, servers can check if a user is
   already in a specific server and set the user to the server if the
   user is not on another server.  If the user is already on another
   server a redirect (or some other error message) will be sent to that
   user.





Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 17]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


6.1.2.  Routing Proxy

   The routing proxy mechanism can be used.  However, it requires
   signaling from each presence server to the routing proxy to indicate
   that the user is now located on that server.  This can be done by
   having each server send a REGISTER request to the routing proxy, for
   that user, and setting the contact to itself.  The routing proxy
   would have a rule which requires only a single registered contact per
   user.  Using the registration event package [RFC3680], each presence
   server subscribes to the registration state for each user it is
   managing.  If the routing proxy sees a duplicate registration, it
   allows it and then uses a reg-event notification to the other
   presence server to de-register the user.

6.1.3.  Subdomaining

   Subdomaining is just a variation on the centralized database.
   Assuming the database supports a test-and-set mechanism, it can be
   used for exclusive federation.

6.1.4.  Peer-to-Peer

   Peer-to-peer routing is particularly well suited for exclusive
   federation.  Essentially, it provides a distributed registrar
   function that maps each AoR to the particular server that they are
   currently registered against.  When a UA registers to a particular
   server, that registration is written into the P2P network, such that
   queries for that user are directed to that presence server.

6.1.5.  Forking

   When a subscription is received by a server and the server does not
   already know that it serves the user, the server will fork the
   subscription request to all the servers.  If a response is not
   received in a certain timeout then the server will know that the user
   is not served by any server yet and should keep the subscription in
   waiting until the user will appear in one of the servers.

   In order to enable the servers that now have a "subscription in
   waiting" to the user to know that the user is now available in one of
   the servers, there should be some broadcast or subscription mechanism
   between the servers that will enable those servers to know about the
   appearance of the user in one of the servers.  This can be done using
   the registration event package.







Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 18]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


6.2.  Policy

   In the exclusive federation model, policy becomes more complicated.
   In the partitioned model, a user had their presence managed by the
   same server all of the time.  Thus, their policy can be provisioned
   and excecuted there.  With exclusive federation, a user can freely
   move back and forth between servers.  Consequently, their presence
   will be managed by only a single server at one time, but that server
   can change.

   The simplest solution is just to require the user to separately
   provision and manage policies on each server.  In many of the use
   cases above, exclusive federation is a transient situation that
   eventually settles into partitioned federation.  Thus, it may not be
   unreasonable to require the user to manage both policies during the
   transition.  It is also possible that each server provides different
   capabilities, and thus a user will receive different service
   depending on which server they are connected to.  Again, this may be
   an acceptable limitation for the use cases it supports.

6.3.  Presence Data

   As with the partitioned model, in the exclusive model, the presence
   data for a user resides on a single server at any given time.  This
   server owns all composition policies and procedures for collecting
   and distributing presence data.


7.  Unioned

   In the unioned model, each user is actually served by more than one
   presence server.  In this case, "served" implies two properties:

   o  A user is served by a server when that user is provisioned on that
      server, and

   o  That server is authoritative for some piece of presence state
      associated with that user

   In essence, in the unioned model, a user's presence data is
   distributed across many presence servers, while in the partitioned
   and exclusive models, its centralized in a single presence server.
   Furthermore, it is possible that the user is provisioned with
   different identifiers on each server.

   This definition speaks specifically to ownership of presence data as
   the key property.  This rules out several cases which involve a mix
   of servers within the enterprise, but do not constitute intra-domain



Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 19]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


   unioned federation:

   o  A user utilizes an outbound SIP proxy from one vendor, which
      connects to a presence server from another vendor.  Even though
      this will result in presence subscriptions and notifications
      flowing between servers, and the user is potentially provisioned
      on both, there is no authoritative presence state in the outbound
      proxy, and so this is not intra-domain federation.

   o  A user utilizes a Resource List Server (RLS) from one vendor,
      which holds their buddy list, and accesses presence data from a
      presence server from another vendor.  This case is actually the
      partitioned case, not the unioned case.  Effectively, the buddy
      list itself is another "user", and it exists entirely on one
      server (the RLS), while the actual users on the buddy list exist
      entirely within another.  Consequently, this case does not have
      the property that a single presence resource exists on multiple
      servers at the same time.

   o  A user subscribes to the presence of a presentity.  This
      subscription is first passed to their presence server, which acts
      as a proxy, and instead sends the subscription to the UA of the
      user, which acts as a presence edge server.  In this model, it may
      appear as if there are two presence servers for the user (the
      actual server and their UA).  However, the server is acting as a
      proxy in this case.  There is only one source of presence
      information.

   The unioned models arise naturally when a user is using devices from
   different vendors, each of which has their own respective servers, or
   when a user is using different servers for different parts of their
   presence state.  For example, Figure 6 shows the case where a single
   user has a mobile client connected to presence server one and a
   desktop client connected to presence server two.

















Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 20]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


             alice@example.com           alice@example.com
              +------------+              +------------+
              |            |              |            |
              |  Presence  |              |  Presence  |
              |   Server   |--------------|   Server   |
              |     1      |              |     2      |
              |            |              |            |
              |            |              |            |
              +------------+              +------------+
                 \                                /
                  \                              /
                   \                            /
                    \                           /
                     \                         /
                      \                       /
                       \...................../.......
                        \                    /      .
                        .\                  /       .
                        . \  |         +--------+   .
                        .    |         |+------+|   .
                        .   +---+      ||      ||   .
                        .   |+-+|      ||      ||   .
                        .   |+-+|      |+------+|   .
                        .   |   |      +--------+   .
                        .   |   |      /------ /    .
                        .   +---+     /------ /     .
                        .            --------/      .
                        .                           .
                        .............................

                                  Alice

                         Figure 6: Unioned Case 1

   As another example, a user may have two devices from the same vendor,
   both of which are asociated with a single presence server, but that
   presence server has incomplete presence state about the user.
   Another presence server in the enterprise, due to its access to state
   for that user, has additional data which needs to be accessed by the
   first presence server in order to provide a comprehensive view of
   presence data.  This is shown in Figure 7.










Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 21]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


             alice@example.com           alice@example.com
              +------------+              +------------+
              |            |              |            |
              |  Presence  |              |  Presence  |
              |   Server   |--------------|   Server   |
              |     1      |              |     2      |
              |            |              |            |
              |            |              |            |
              +------------+              +------------+
                    ^                      |         |
                    |                      |         |
                    |                      |         |
              ///-------\\\                |         |
           ||| specialized |||             |         |
            || state       ||              |         |
              \\\-------///                |         |
                                   .............................
                                   .       |         |         .
                                   .     | |       +--------+  .
                                   .     |         |+------+|  .
                                   .    +---+      ||      ||  .
                                   .    |+-+|      ||      ||  .
                                   .    |+-+|      |+------+|  .
                                   .    |   |      +--------+  .
                                   .    |   |      /------ /   .
                                   .    +---+     /------ /    .
                                   .             --------/     .
                                   .                           .
                                   .                           .
                                   .............................
                                              Alice


                         Figure 7: Unioned Case 2

   Another use case for unioned federation are subscriber moves.
   Consider a domain which uses multiple presence servers, typically
   running in a partitioned configuration.  The servers are organized
   regionally so that each user is served by a presence server handling
   their region.  A user is moving from one region to a new job in
   another, while retaining their SIP URI.  In order to provide a smooth
   transition, ideally the system would provide a "make before break"
   functionality, allowing the user to be added onto the new server
   prior to being removed from the old.  During the transition period,
   especially if the user had multiple clients to be moved, they can end
   up with presence state existing on both servers at the same time.

   Another use case for unioned federation is multiple providers.



Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 22]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


   Consider a user in an enterprise, alice@example.com.  Example.com has
   a presence server deployed for all of its users.  In addition, Alice
   uses a public IM and presence provider.  Alice would like that users
   who connect to the public provider see presence state that comes from
   example.com, and vice-a-versa.  Interestingly, this use case isn't
   intra-domain federation at all, but rather, unioned inter-domain
   federation.

7.1.  Hierarchical Model

   The unioned intra-federation model can be realized in one of two ways
   - using a hierarchical structure or a peer structure.

   In the hierarchical model, presence subscriptions for the presentity
   in question are always routed first to one of the servers - the root
   - and then the root presence server subscribes to the next layer of
   presence servers (which may, in turn, subscribe to the presence state
   in other presence servers).  Each presence server composes the
   presence information it receives from its children, applying local
   authorization and composition policies, and then passes the results
   up to the higher layer.  This is shown in Figure 8.






























Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 23]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


                              +-----------+
            *-----------*     |           |
            |Auth and   |---->|  Presence | <--- root
            |Composition|     |   Server  |
            *-----------*     |           |
                              |           |
                              +-----------+
                                 /       ---
                                /           ----
                               /                ----
                              /                     ----
                             V                          -V
                   +-----------+                      +-----------+
                   |           |                      |           |
   *-----------*   |  Presence |      *-----------*   |  Presence |
   |Auth and   |-->|   Server  |      |Auth and   |-->|   Server  |
   |Composition|   |           |      |Composition|   |           |
   *-----------*   |           |      *-----------*   |           |
                   +-----------+                      +-----------+
                      |    ---
                      |       -----
                      |            -----
                      |                 -----
                      |                      -----
                      |                           -----
                      V                                --V
                   +-----------+                      +-----------+
                   |           |                      |           |
   *-----------*   |  Presence |      *-----------*   |  Presence |
   |Auth and   |-->|   Server  |      |Auth and   |-->|   Server  |
   |Composition|   |           |      |Composition|   |           |
   *-----------*   |           |      *-----------*   |           |
                   +-----------+                      +-----------+

                       Figure 8: Hierarchical Model

   Its important to note that this hierarchy defines the sequence of
   presence composition and policy application, and does not imply a
   literal message flow.  As an example, consider once more the use case
   of Figure 6.  Assume that presence server 1 is the root, and presence
   server 2 is its child.  When Bob's PC subscribes to Bob's buddy list
   (on presence server 2), that subscription will first go to presence
   server 2.  However, that presence server knows that it is not the
   root in the hierarchy, and despite the fact that it has presence
   state for Alice (who is on Bob's buddy list), it creates a back-end
   subscription to presence server 1.  Presence server 1, as the root,
   subscribes to Alice's state at presence server 2.  Now, since this
   subscription came from presence server 1 and not Bob directly,



Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 24]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


   presence server 2 provides the presence state.  This is received at
   presence server 1, which composes the data with its own state for
   Alice, and then provides the results back to presence server 2,
   which, having acted as an RLS, forwards the results back to Bob.
   Consequently, this flow, as a message sequence diagram, involves
   notifications passing from presence server 2, to server 1, back to
   server 2.  However, in terms of composition and policy, it was done
   first at the child node (presence server 2), and then those results
   used at the parent node (presence server 1).

7.1.1.  Routing

   In the hierarchical model, each presence server needs to be
   provisioned with the root, its parent and its children presence
   servers for each presentity it handles.  These relationships could in
   fact be different on a presentity-by-presentity basis; however, this
   is complex to manage.  In all likelihood, the parent and child
   relationships are identical for each presentities.  The overall
   routing algorithm can be described thusly:

   o  If a SUBCRIBE is received from the parent node for this
      presentity, perform subscriptions to each child node for this
      presentity, and then take the results, apply composition and
      authorization policies, and propagate to the parent.

   o  If a SUBSCRIBE is received from a node that is not the parent node
      for this presentity, proxy the SUBSCRIBE to the parent node.  This
      includes cases where the node that sent the SUBSCRIBE is a child
      node.

   This routing rule is relatively simple, and in a two-server system is
   almost trivial to provision.  Interestingly, it works in cases where
   some users are partitioned and some are unioned.  When the users are
   partitioned, this routing algorithm devolves into the forking
   algorithm of Section 5.2.5.  This points to the forking algorithm as
   the a good choice since it can be used for both partitioned and
   unioned.

   An important property of the routing in the hierarchical model is
   that the sequence of composition and policy operations are identical
   for all watchers to that presentity, regardless of which presence
   server they are associated with.  The result is that the overall
   presence state provided to a watcher is always consistent and
   independent of the server the watcher is connected to.  We call this
   property the *consistency property*, and it is an important metric in
   assessing the correctness of a federated presence system.





Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 25]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


7.1.2.  Policy and Identity

   Policy and identity are a clear challenge in the unioned model.

   Firstly, since a user is provisioned on many servers, it is possible
   that the identifier they utilize could be different on each server.
   For example, on server 1, they could be joe@example.com, whereas on
   server 2, they are joe.smith@example.com.  In cases where the
   identifiers are not equivalent, a mapping function needs to be
   provisioned.  This ideally happens on the server performing the back-
   end subscription.

   Secondly, the unioned model will result in back-end subscriptions
   extending from one presence server to another presence server.  These
   subscriptions, though made by the presence server, need to be made
   on-behalf-of the user that originally requested the presence state of
   the presentity.  Since the presence server extending the back-end
   subscription will not often have credentials to claim identity of the
   watcher, asserted identity using techniques like P-Asserted-ID
   [RFC3325] are required, along with the associated trust relationships
   between servers.  Optimizations, such as view sharing
   [I-D.rosenberg-simple-view-sharing] can help improve performance.

   The principle challenge in a unioned presence model is policy,
   including both authorization and composition policies.  There are
   three potential solutions to the administration of policy in the
   hierarchical model (only two of which apply in the peer model, as
   we'll discuss below.  These are root-only, distributed provisioned,
   and central provisioned.

7.1.2.1.  Root Only

   In the root-only policy model, authorization policy and composition
   policy are applied only at the root of the tree.  This is shown in
   Figure 9.
















Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 26]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


                              +-----------+
            *-----------*     |           |
            |Auth and   |---->|  Presence | <--- root
            |Composition|     |   Server  |
            *-----------*     |           |
                              |           |
                              +-----------+
                                 /       ---
                                /           ----
                               /                ----
                              /                     ----
                             V                          -V
                   +-----------+                      +-----------+
                   |           |                      |           |
                   |  Presence |                      |  Presence |
                   |   Server  |                      |   Server  |
                   |           |                      |           |
                   |           |                      |           |
                   +-----------+                      +-----------+
                      |    ---
                      |       -----
                      |            -----
                      |                 -----
                      |                      -----
                      |                           -----
                      V                                --V
                   +-----------+                      +-----------+
                   |           |                      |           |
                   |  Presence |                      |  Presence |
                   |   Server  |                      |   Server  |
                   |           |                      |           |
                   |           |                      |           |
                   +-----------+                      +-----------+

                            Figure 9: Root Only

   As long as the subscription request came from its parent, every child
   presence server would automatically accept the subscription, and
   provide notifications containing the full presence state it is aware
   of.  Any composition performed by a child presence server would need
   to be lossless, in that it fully combines the source data without
   loss of information, and also be done without any per-user
   provisioning or configuration, operating in a default or
   administrator-provisioned mode of operation.

   The root-only model has the benefit that it requires the user to
   provision policy in a single place (the root).  However, it has the
   drawback that the composition and policy processing may be performed



Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 27]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


   very poorly.  Presumably, there are multiple presence servers in the
   first place because each of them has a particular speciality.  That
   speciality may be lost in the root-only model.  For example, if a
   child server provides geolocation information, the root presence
   server may not have sufficient authorization policy capabilities to
   allow the user to manage how that geolocation information is provided
   to watchers.

7.1.2.2.  Distributed Provisioning

   The distributed provisioned model looks exactly like the diagram of
   Figure 8.  Each presence server is separately provisioned with its
   own policies, including what users are allowed to watch, what
   presence data they will get, and how it will be composed.

   One immediate concern is whether the overall policy processing, when
   performed independently at each server, is consistent, sane, and
   provides reasonable degrees of privacy.  It turns out that it can, if
   some guidelines are followed.

   Firstly, consider basic "yes/no" authorization policies.  Lets say a
   presentity, Alice, provides an authorization policy in server 1 where
   Bob can see her presence, but on server 2, provides a policy where
   Bob cannot.  If presence server 1 is the root, the subscription is
   accepted there, but the back-end subscription to presence server 2
   would be rejected.  As long as presence server 1 then rejects the
   subscription, the system provides the correct behavior.  This can be
   turned into a more general rule:

   o  To guarantee privacy safety, if the back-end subscription
      generated by a presence server is denied, that server must deny
      the triggering subscription in turn, regardless of its own
      authorization policies.  This means that a presence server cannot
      send notifications on its own until it has confirmed subscriptions
      from downstream servers.

   Things get more complicated when one considers authorization policies
   whose job is to block access to specific pieces of information, as
   opposed to blocking a user completely.  For example, lets say Alice
   wants to allow Bob to see her presence, but not her geolocation
   information.  She provisions a rule on server 1 that blocks
   geolocation information, but grants it on server 2.  The correct mode
   of operation in this case is that the overall system will block
   geolocation from Bob. But will it?  In fact, it will, if a few
   additional guidelines are followed:

   o  If a presence server adds any information to a presence document
      beyond the information received from its children, it must provide



Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 28]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


      authorization policies that govern the access to that information.

   o  If a presence server does not understand a piece of presence data
      provided by its child, it should not attempt to apply its own
      authorization policies to access of that information.

   o  A presence server should not add information to a presence
      document that overlaps with information that can be added by its
      parent.  Of course, it is very hard for a presence server to know
      whether this information overlaps.  Consequently, provisioned
      composition rules will be required to realize this.

   If these rules are followed, the overall system provides privacy
   safety and the overall policy applied is reasonable.  This is because
   these rules effectively segment the application of policy based on
   specific data, to the servers that own the corresponding data.  For
   example, consider once more the geolocation use case described above,
   and assume server 2 is the root.  If server 1 has access to, and
   provides geolocation information in presence documents it produces,
   then server 1 would be the only one to provide authorization policies
   governing geolocation.  Server 2 would receive presence documents
   from server 1 containing (or not) geolocation, but since it doesn't
   provide or control geolocation, it lets that information pass
   through.  Thus, the overall presence document provided to the watcher
   will contain gelocation if Alice wanted it to, and not otherwise, and
   the controls for access to geolocation would exist only on server 1.

   The second major concern on distributed provisioning is that it is
   confusing for users.  However, in the model that is described here,
   each server would necessarily be providing distinct rules, governing
   the information it uniquely provides.  Thus, server 2 would have
   rules about who is allowed to see geolocation, and server 1 would
   have rules about who is allowed to subscribe overall.  Though not
   ideal, there is certainly precedent for users configuring policies on
   different servers based on the differing services provided by those
   servers.  Users today provision block and allow lists in email for
   access to email servers, and separately in IM and presence
   applications for access to IM.

7.1.2.3.  Central Provisioning

   The central provisioning model is a hybrid between root-only and
   distributed provisioning.  Each server does in fact execute its own
   authorization and composition policies.  However, rather than the
   user provisioning them independently in each place, there is some
   kind of central portal where the user provisions the rules, and that
   portal generates policies for each specific server based on the data
   that the corresponding server provides.  This is shown in Figure 10.



Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 29]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


                         +---------------------+
                         |provisioning portal  |
                         +---------------------+
                           .  .    .     .   .
                           .  .    .     .   .
                           .  .    .     .   .......................
 ...........................  .    .     .                         .
 .                            .    .     .                         .
 .                            .    .     .                         .
 .  ...........................    .     .............             .
 .  .                              .                 .             .
 .  .         ......................                 .             .
 .  .         V            +-----------+             .             .
 .  .    *-----------*     |           |             .             .
 .  .    |Auth and   |---->|  Presence | <--- root   .             .
 .  .    |Composition|     |   Server  |             .             .
 .  .    *-----------*     |           |             .             .
 .  .                      |           |             .             .
 .  .                      +-----------+             .             .
 .  .                        |      ----             .             .
 .  .                        |          -------      .             .
 .  .                        |                 -------             .
 .  .                        |                       .-------      .
 .  .                        V                       .       ---V  V
 .  .                    +-----------+               .      +-----------+
 .  .                    |           |               V      |           |
 .  .    *-----------*   |  Presence |      *-----------*   |  Presence |
 .  ....>|Auth and   |-->|   Server  |      |Auth and   |-->|   Server  |
 .       |Composition|   |           |      |Composition|   |           |
 .       *-----------*   |           |      *-----------*   |           |
 .                       +-----------+                      +-----------+
 .                         /       --
 .                        /          ----
 .                       /               ---
 .                      /                   ----
 .                     /                        ---
 .                    /                            ----
 .                   V                                 -V
 .              +-----------+                      +-----------+
 V              |           |                      |           |
*-----------*   |  Presence |      *-----------*   |  Presence |
|Auth and   |-->|   Server  |      |Auth and   |-->|   Server  |
|Composition|   |           |      |Composition|   |           |
*-----------*   |           |      *-----------*   |           |
                +-----------+                      +-----------+

                      Figure 10: Central Provisioning




Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 30]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


   Centralized provisioning brings the benefits of root-only (single
   point of user provisioning) with those of distributed provisioning
   (utilize full capabilities of all servers).  Its principle drawback
   is that it requires another component - the portal - which can
   represent the union of the authorization policies supported by each
   server, and then delegate those policies to each corresponding
   server.

   For both the centralized and distributed provisioning approaches, the
   hierarchical model suffers overall from the fact that the root of the
   policy processing may not be tuned to the specific policy needs of
   the device that has subscribed.  For example, in the use case of
   Figure 6, presence server 1 may be providing composition policies
   tuned to the fact that the device is wireless with limited display.
   Consequently, when Bob subscribes from his mobile device, is presence
   server 2 is the root, presence server 2 may add additional data and
   provide an overall presence document to the client which is not
   optimized for that device.  This problem is one of the principal
   motivations for the peer model, described below.

7.1.3.  Presence Data

   The hierarhical model is based on the idea that each presence server
   in the chain contributes some unique piece of presence information,
   composing it with what it receives from its child, and passing it on.
   For the overall presence document to be reasonable, several
   guidelines need to be followed:

   o  A presence server must be prepared to receive documents from its
      peer containing information that it does not understand, and to
      apply unioned composition policies that retain this information,
      adding to it the unique information it wishes to contribute.

   o  A user interface rendering some presence document provided by its
      presence server must be prepared for any kind of presence document
      compliant to the presence data model, and must not assume a
      specific structure based on the limitations and implementation
      choices of the server to which it is paired.

   If these basic rules are followed, the overall system provides
   functionality equivalent to the combination of the presence
   capabilities of the servers contained within it, which is highly
   desirable.

7.2.  Peer Model

   In the peer model, there is no one root.  When a watcher subscribes
   to a presentity, that subscription is processed first by the server



Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 31]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


   to which the watcher is connected (effectively acting as the root),
   and then the subscription is passed to other child presence servers.
   In essence, in the peer model, there is a per-watcher hierarchy, with
   the root being a function of the watcher.  Consider the use case in
   Figure 6 If Bob has his buddy list on presence server 1, and it
   contains Alice, presence server 1 acts as the root, and then performs
   a back-end subscription to presence server 2.  However, if Joe has
   his buddy list on presence server 2, and his buddy list contains
   Alice, presence server 2 acts as the root, and performs a back-end
   subscription to presence server 1.  This is shown in Figure 11.



           alice@example.com           alice@example.com
            +------------+              +------------+
            |            |<-------------|            |<--------+
     SUB    |  Presence  |              |  Presence  |         |
     List w/|   Server   |              |   Server   |  SUB    |
     Alice  |     1      |              |     2      |  List w/|
      +---->|            |------------->|            |  Alice  |
      |     |            |              |            |         |
      |     +------------+              +------------+         |
      |        \                                /              |
      |         \                              /               |
      |          \                            /                |
      |           \                           /                |
      |            \                         /                 |
      |             \                       /                  |
   ...|........      \...................../.......   .........|........
   .          .       \                    /      .   .                .
   .          .       .\                  /       .   .    +--------+  .
   .   |      .       . \  |         +--------+   .   .    |+------+|  .
   .   |      .       .    |         |+------+|   .   .    ||      ||  .
   .  +---+   .       .   +---+      ||      ||   .   .    ||      ||  .
   .  |+-+|   .       .   |+-+|      ||      ||   .   .    |+------+|  .
   .  |+-+|   .       .   |+-+|      |+------+|   .   .    +--------+  .
   .  |   |   .       .   |   |      +--------+   .   .    /------ /   .
   .  |   |   .       .   |   |      /------ /    .   .   /------ /    .
   .  +---+   .       .   +---+     /------ /     .   .  --------/     .
   .          .       .            --------/      .   .                .
   .          .       .                           .   .                .
   ............       .............................   ..................

      Bob                       Alice                       Joe


                           Figure 11: Peer Model




Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 32]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


   Whereas the hierarchical model clearly provides the consistency
   property, it is not obvious whether a particular deployment of the
   peer model provides the consistency property.  It ends up being a
   function of the composition policies of the individual servers.  If
   Pi() represents the composition and authorization policies of server
   i, and takes as input one or more presence documents provided by its
   children, and outputs a presence document, the overall system
   provides consistency when:


                Pi(Pj()) = Pj(Pi())

   which is effectively the commutativity property.

7.2.1.  Routing

   Routing in the peer model works similarly to the hierarchical model.
   Each presence server would be configured with the children it has
   when it acts as the root.  The overall routing algorithm then works
   as follows:

   o  If a presence server receives a subscription for a presentity from
      a particular watcher, and it already has a different subscription
      (as identified by dialog identifiers) for that presentity from
      that watcher, it rejects the second subscription with an
      indication of a loop.  This algorithm does rule out the
      possibility of two instances of the same watcher subscribing to
      the same presentity.

   o  If a presence server receives a subscription for a presentity from
      a watcher and it doesn't have one yet for that pair, it processes
      it and generates back end subscriptions to each configured child.
      If a back-end subscription generates an error due to loop, it
      proceeds without that back-end input.

   For example, consider Bob subscribing to Alice.  Bob's client is
   supported by server 1.  Server 1 has not seen this subscription
   before, so it acts as the root and passes it to server 2.  Server 2
   hasn't seen it before, so it accepts it (now acting as the child),
   and sends the subscription to ITS child, which is server 1.  Server 1
   has already seen the subscription, so it rejects it.  Now server 2
   basically knows its the child, and so it generates documents with
   just its own data.

   As in the hierarchical case, it is possible to intermix partitioned
   and peer models for different users.  In the partitioned case, the
   routing for hierarchical devolves into the forking routing described
   in Section 5.2.5.  However, intermixing peer and exclusive federation



Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 33]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


   for different users is challenging.  [[OPEN ISSUE: need to think
   about this more.]]

7.2.2.  Policy

   The policy considerations for the peer model are very similar to
   those of the hierarchical model.  However, the root-only policy
   approach is non-sensical in the peer model, and cannot be utilized.
   The distributed and centralized provisioning approaches apply, and
   the rules described above for generating correct results provide
   correct results in the peer model as well.

   In addition, the policy processing in the peer model eliminates the
   problem described in Section 7.1.2.3.  The problem is that
   composition and authorization policies may be tuned to the needs of
   the specific device that is connected.  In the hierarchical model,
   the wrong server for a particular device may be at the root, and the
   resulting presence document poorly suited to the consuming device.
   This problem is alleviated in the peer model.  The server that is
   paired or tuned for that particular user or device is always at the
   root of the tree, and its composition policies have the final say in
   how presence data is presented to the watcher on that device.

7.2.3.  Presence Data

   The considerations for presence data and composition in the
   hierarchical model apply in the peer model as well.  The principle
   issue is consistency, and whether the overall presence document for a
   watcher is the same regardless of which server the watcher connects
   from.  As mentioned above, consistency is a property of commutativity
   of composition, which may or may not be true depending on the
   implementation.

   Interestingly, in the use case of Figure 7, a particular user only
   ever has devices on a single server, and thus the peer and
   hierarchical models end up being the same, and consistency is
   provided.


8.  Summary

   This document doesn't make any recommendation as to which models is
   best.  Each model has different areas of applicability and are
   appropriate in a particular deployment.







Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 34]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


9.  Future Considerations

   There are some additional concepts that can be considered, which have
   not yet been explored.  One of them is routing of PUBLISH requests
   between systems.  This can be used as part of the unioned models and
   requires further discussion.

   It is also worth considering IM in these different models.  For
   example, the issues for routing IM (and any session in general) are
   identical to presence routing.  Perhaps a separate document.

   Another big issue is data federation.  For the unioned models in
   particular, there is typically a desire to be able to add a buddy on
   one system and have it appear on another, or to add a user to a
   whitelist on one system and have that reflect in the other.  This
   requires some kind of standardized data interfaces and is for further
   consideration.


10.  Acknowledgements

   The author would like to thank Paul Fullarton, David Williams, Sanjay
   Sinha, and Paul Kyzivat for their comments.


11.  Security Considerations

   The principle issue in intra-domain federation is that of privacy.
   It is important that the system meets user expectations, and even in
   cases of user provisioning errors or inconsistencies, it provides
   appropriate levels of privacy.  This is an issue in the unioned
   models, where user privacy policies can exist on multiple servers at
   the same time.  The guidelines described here for authorization
   policies help ensure that privacy properties are maintained.


12.  IANA Considerations

   There are no IANA considerations associated with this specification.


13.  Informative References

   [RFC2778]  Day, M., Rosenberg, J., and H. Sugano, "A Model for
              Presence and Instant Messaging", RFC 2778, February 2000.

   [RFC3863]  Sugano, H., Fujimoto, S., Klyne, G., Bateman, A., Carr,
              W., and J. Peterson, "Presence Information Data Format



Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 35]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


              (PIDF)", RFC 3863, August 2004.

   [RFC4479]  Rosenberg, J., "A Data Model for Presence", RFC 4479,
              July 2006.

   [RFC3856]  Rosenberg, J., "A Presence Event Package for the Session
              Initiation Protocol (SIP)", RFC 3856, August 2004.

   [RFC4662]  Roach, A., Campbell, B., and J. Rosenberg, "A Session
              Initiation Protocol (SIP) Event Notification Extension for
              Resource Lists", RFC 4662, August 2006.

   [RFC3944]  Johnson, T., Okubo, S., and S. Campos, "H.350 Directory
              Services", RFC 3944, December 2004.

   [RFC3325]  Jennings, C., Peterson, J., and M. Watson, "Private
              Extensions to the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) for
              Asserted Identity within Trusted Networks", RFC 3325,
              November 2002.

   [RFC3680]  Rosenberg, J., "A Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Event
              Package for Registrations", RFC 3680, March 2004.

   [I-D.ietf-speermint-consolidated-presence-im-usecases]
              Houri, A., "Presence & Instant Messaging Peering Use
              Cases",
              draft-ietf-speermint-consolidated-presence-im-usecases-03
              (work in progress), November 2007.

   [I-D.rosenberg-simple-view-sharing]
              Rosenberg, J., Donovan, S., and K. McMurry, "Optimizing
              Federated Presence with View Sharing",
              draft-rosenberg-simple-view-sharing-00 (work in progress),
              November 2007.


Authors' Addresses

   Jonathan Rosenberg
   Cisco
   Edison, NJ
   US

   Phone: +1 973 952-5000
   Email: jdrosen@cisco.com
   URI:   http://www.jdrosen.net





Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 36]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


   Avshalom Houri
   IBM
   Science Park, Rehovot
   Israel

   Email: avshalom@il.ibm.com













































Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 37]


Internet-Draft      Intra-Domain Presence Federation       February 2008


Full Copyright Statement

   Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2008).

   This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions
   contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors
   retain all their rights.

   This document and the information contained herein are provided on an
   "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS
   OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY, THE IETF TRUST AND
   THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS
   OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF
   THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED
   WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.


Intellectual Property

   The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any
   Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to
   pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in
   this document or the extent to which any license under such rights
   might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has
   made any independent effort to identify any such rights.  Information
   on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be
   found in BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any
   assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an
   attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of
   such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this
   specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at
   http://www.ietf.org/ipr.

   The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any
   copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary
   rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement
   this standard.  Please address the information to the IETF at
   ietf-ipr@ietf.org.


Acknowledgment

   Funding for the RFC Editor function is provided by the IETF
   Administrative Support Activity (IASA).





Rosenberg & Houri        Expires August 24, 2008               [Page 38]