Internet DRAFT - draft-ietf-whip-wps-reqs-summary

draft-ietf-whip-wps-reqs-summary



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          draft-ietf-whip-wps-reqs-summary-01.txt        WHIP Working Group
          INTERNET DRAFT                                           Dec 1994



                  Requirements for an Internet White Pages Service

                            Fri Dec  9 18:43:46 CST 1994


                                  C. Allan Cargille
                                         MCI
                                ACargille@mcimail.com





          This draft document is being circulated for comment.

          If consensus is reached it will be submitted to the RFC editor
          for publication as an Informational RFC, to provide information
          for the Internet community.

          Please send comments to the author, or to the IETF IDS
          (Integrated Directory Services) Working Group mailing list,
          "ids@merit.edu".

          This document is an Internet Draft.  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
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          by other documents at any time.  It is not appropriate to use
          Internet Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than
          as a "working draft" or "work in progress."

          Please check the I-D abstract listing contained in each Internet
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          Internet Draft.

          Abstract:

               RFC1588 reported on a meeting held in November 1993 to
               discuss the future of and approaches to a white pages
               directory services for the Internet.  This document
               summarizes the requirements for an Internet white pages
               service from that RFC, and can be used to measure proposed
               solutions against these requirements.




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          1.  Introduction

          RFC1588 reported on a meeting held in November 1993 to discuss
          the future of and approaches to a white pages directory services
          for the Internet.  This document summarizes the requirements for
          an Internet white pages service from that RFC, and can be used to
          measure proposed solutions against these requirements.

          Because this document is intended to summarize information
          presented in RFC1588, detailed citations (ie, quotation marks and
          page numbers) are not utilized.


          2.  What do I need to know to be able to read this document?

          The only critical background reading is contained in RFC1588
          [ref].  To be more knowledgeable about the directory protocols
          involved, one might read information on X.500 [refs to X.500 doc
          and summary RFCs] and the WHOIS++ protocol [rfc].  RFC1588
          contains additional references.


          3.  Acknowledgements

          Appendix I of RFC1588 contains a summary list of requirements,
          which served as a starting point for this document (pp. 33-35).
          That list was initially developed by Chris Weider and amended by
          other discussion and meeting participants.  Those participants
          are listed in RFC1588 (p 31).  Jon Postel and Celeste Anderson
          wrote and edited RFC1588 following the meeting.


          4.  Requirements

          Listed below are all the requirements which I found based on a
          detailed pass through 1588.  These are not in priority or order.
          Some may be conflicting goals.  In a following draft, I will
          organize these into logical groupings and provide text describing
          the intent or need for each.  Some requirements may apply to
          specific Internet WPS technologies.  Please feel free to
          recommend additional requirements -- the working group should
          have the authority to add to or delete from this list:


               Support Searching - Searching is the ability to find people
               given some information about them.

               Fast Searching

               Support Retrieval - Retrieval is defined as obtaining
               additional information associated with a person, such as an
               address, telephone number, email mailbox, or security
               certificate.


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               Support Security Certificates - The Internet WPS should
               support the storage and retrieval of security certificates
               or public keys.

               Accommodate multiple technologies

               Simple

               Common Ground approach

               Lowest Common Denominator

               High Functionality

               Low Entry Cost (cookbook info on how to bring up new server)

               Take advantage of deployed technology / existing
               infrastructure (X.500 and other)

               Reliable

               Standardized naming scheme

               Encourage multiple clients

               Encourage multiple servers

               Support interaction between servers

               Support access to servers of various protocols

               Fast Searching / "reasonable" search response time

               Support additional data in records

               Contain accurate data

               Be Scalable to the whole Internet

               Support fuzzy searching

               Local Management

               Decentralized authority

               Support Access Control

               (Possibly) Support multiple transport protocols

               Support Descriptive Naming / Logical searches

               Support Multiple interfaces



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               Support multiple clients

               Be Flexible (in data contained?)

               Have low resource requirements

               Be Inexpensive (product cost and staff time)

               Ability to migrate in future

               Ability to externalize existing local directory to Internet
               (with minimum effort) -- or --

               Ability to easily export local directory info to Internet
               WPS (data conversion tools?)

               Ability to automate Internet WPS queries

               Consistency in responses to queries

               Possibly - allow site to choose level of complexity they
               choose to deploy

               Complexity proportionate with site needs

               Software freely available / public domain versions
               (especially Unix)

               Reliable infrastructure (root servers / centroid servers)

               Clear mechanisms defined for new sites to join Internet WPS

               Easy for new sites to join Internet WPS

               Assistance available for new sites to join Internet WPS

               Ability to limit information exposed outside an organization

               Easy to build client software (user agents)

               Replication (?)

               Easy to install servers

               Client-server protocol easy to debug / experiment with

               Simple centralized organization registration procedures (if
               used at all)

               Data up to date

               Ability to develop & deploy high performance servers for
               upper layers of tree (if tree structure used) or centroids


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               Protocol simplicity -- one developer can implement a server
               on the order of one week's time.

               Efficient implementations -- disk based storage, reasonable
               disk and memory requirements for servers

               Adds value if run strictly as local service

               Local service easy to integrate into global service

               (?) Replication of data -- at what level?

               Ability for local sites to decide what protocol or
               technology they choose to deploy or externalize

               Access controls over data

               If update is supported, then authentication must be
               supported

               Contains mechanism to prevent trawling of data

               Supports data protection needs of various countries

               Consistent naming conventions

               Naming conventions that support searching based on
               information that users are likely to know and search on

               Cookbooks for administrators

               Complete User guides available

               Ability to limit number of servers contacted in a search

               Ability to specify info in query to properly limit query

               (CAC) Ability to return info which allows user to
               intelligently limit query

               Some scheme for fast searching, most likely by indexing

               "Live" data used to populate Internet WPS, to avoid stale
               data

               Possibly - standard query language from DSA to current
               databases

               Standard protocol for directory queries

               Standard query format

               Standard field names


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               Data maintained by local organization

               Extensible/flexible but consistent naming scheme

               Clear idea of naming authorities

               High QOS from lowest common denominator (since that is what
               the service will be judged as)

               Security ?

               Easy navigation

               Ability to handle multi-media information?

               Protocol support for maintenance of data

               Ability to change protocol rapidly to correct deficiencies

               Reasonably painless upgrade path for organizations

               Widely deployed clients

               Stable APIs (for implementations)

               Shallow learning curve for novice users (client and server
               administrator)

               Easy mechanism for maintaining data

               Supportable infrastructure

               Ability to handle rapidly changing data ?


          5.  Author's Information

          C. Allan Cargille
          Senior Engineer
          MCI Telecommunications
          2424 Garden of the Gods Road
          Colorado Springs, CO  80919  USA

          Internet:  ACargille@mcimail.com
          X.400:     TBA

          Voice:  +1 (719) 535-1736
          Fax:    TBA







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          6.  References

          [1]  RFC1588

          [2,3,4]
               X.500 reference, RFCs

          [5]  Whois++ reference















































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