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rfc:rfc1673

Network Working Group R. Skelton Request for Comments: 1673 EPRI Category: Informational August 1994

         Electric Power Research Institute Comments on IPng

Status of this Memo

 This memo provides information for the Internet community.  This memo
 does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of
 this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

 This document was submitted to the IETF IPng area in response to RFC
 1550.  Publication of this document does not imply acceptance by the
 IPng area of any ideas expressed within.  Comments should be
 submitted to the big-internet@munnari.oz.au mailing list.

Executive Summary

 The question of the future of the Internet protocol (IP) is an issue
 of national if not international concern. It is critical to the
 building of a National Information Infrastructure, comparable to the
 adoption of basic standards for the industrial era such as railways,
 highways and electricity.
 The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) is a non-profit
 organization, with 700 voluntary utility members, managing a
 technical research and development program for the electric utility
 industry to improve power production, distribution and use. The
 electric power industry is a major user of computing and
 communications and is fully committed to open systems.
 While the industry is today a heavy user of the Internet Protocol
 Suite (IPS) it is following a long term strategy based on
 international standards developed by ISO and CCITT and national
 standards developed by the IEEE, ANSI and other standards bodies that
 employ formal review and voting procedures.
 This strategy is based on a survey of needs in all aspects of the
 electrical power supply enterprise.  It concluded that these needs
 are met more effectively by the current suite of OSI protocols and
 international standards under development. Therefore, EPRI developed
 the Utility Communications Architecture (UCA) specification for
 communications and the Database Access Integrated Services
 specification for data exchange both based on the OSI model and

Skelton [Page 1] RFC 1673 EPRI Comments on IPng August 1994

 international standards.
 These specifications have been incorporated into the Industry
 Government Open Systems Specification (IGOSS).  They are receiving
 favorable response and application by the industry and its suppliers
 as well as the support of the natural gas and waterworks industries.
 The issues facing the Internet community concerning growth and the
 address and routing limitations of IP in particular, provide an ideal
 opportunity for creating the  national uniform information transport
 superhighway. This is critical to the NII Agenda and the only
 proposal that will achieve this goal is one that is acceptable from
 both private and public sector viewpoints with both a national and an
 international perspective.
 EPRI also believes it is critically important that new requirements
 need to be achieved by convergence of efforts to develop additional
 standards.  Security, directory services, network management, and the
 ability to support real-time applications are four examples of where
 new convergent standards efforts are required.
 Just as society could not in the past accept multiple standards for
 the gauge of the nation's railways,  we can no longer accept multiple
 standards for information transport.

Engineering Considerations

 1. Mandatory Requirement.
    Inter networking must evolve to provide an industrial strength
    computing and communications environment for multiple uses of
    globally connected network resources.  Specifically the underlying
    transport must provide high integrity support for upper layer
    industrial OSI applications including but not limited to MMS  and
    TP. Use of interface layers such as RFC 1006 is not acceptable
    except as a transition strategy.
 2. Basic Requirements.
  1. Scaleability

The addressing scheme must have essentially an unlimited address

      space to encompass an arbitrarily large number of information
      objects.  Specifically it must solve the fundamental limitations
      of 32 bit formats, a format for 20 octets and above is considered
      suitable.

Skelton [Page 2] RFC 1673 EPRI Comments on IPng August 1994

  1. Routing table economy

Network addressing must achieve significant economy in routing

      database size with very large networks.
  1. Support for the existing Internet

The existing internetworking paradigm and existing OSI and IPS

      applications are to be supported.
 3. Key Engineering Considerations - A pragmatic solution.
  1. Available now

The solution must be available now using mature, internationally

      agreed standards and off-the-shelf implementations for hosts and
      routers.  The solution must leverage existing investments in
      standards development, deployment and experience while at the
      same time provide for all basic requirements.
  1. Ease of Transition

Any solution must provide an evolutionary transition path using

      an OSI.
  1. IP dual network layer strategy.

This must be achievable without modifications to existing

      inter-domain routing protocols while providing the ability to
      support proprietary protocols such as IPX and Appletalk.  The
      scheme must provide the ability to encompass other addressing
      schemes such as X.121 and E.164.  Existing SNMP and CMIP MIBs
      must be applicable and available.  Internet domain names need
      to be retained.
  1. Routing effectiveness

This key objective requires features such as route aggregation,

      service selection, and low frequency host advertisements; host
      routing intelligence should not be required.
  1. Flexible Efficient Administration

Operational needs will need to be met in an economic and

      flexible manner.  Addressing allocations can be either
      geographically based or based on carrier ID or both and will be
      administered by policy not network topology.  Simplified and
      robust configurability is required which includes the ability to
      identify resources e.g., multi-homed hosts and applications,
      instead of interfaces.
  1. Mobility

Dynamic addressing is required where hosts have the ability to

      learn their own network address with the minimum of human
      intervention.

Skelton [Page 3] RFC 1673 EPRI Comments on IPng August 1994

Security Considerations

 Security isses are not discussed in this memo.

Author's Address

 Ron Skelton
 Member of Technical Staff
 Advanced IT Group
 Electric Power Research Institute
 Palo Alto CA 94303
 EMail: RSKELTON@msm.epri.com

Skelton [Page 4]

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