>No. The immutability property is necessary for both of the
>existing QOS standards, and is necessary for any QOS mechanism
>that doesn't require an explicit chain of SLAs along the entire
>path (an unlikely scenario in a dynamically routed internet).
If immutability would make the flow label field useful for
diffserv and intserv, then I have no objection to it being
immutable. I think that making intserv/diffserv more useful
and/or efficient would be a fine use for the flow lable.
Could we get a draft that explains how the flow label would be
used for diffserv/intserv? One that justifies the need for
immutability?
Assuming that immutability would actually make the flow
label more useful for diffserv/intserv, I would accept the
minor changes to the base IPv6 spec (adding immutability) that
Tony sent. But, I have not seen any draft that would make this
single change.
The current draft (in the subject) says a lot more
than this. First, it recaps parts of the IPv6 Appendix,
without really making it clear what parts of that Appendix
it is (and is not) intending to standardize.
The draft also states that a given source/desination/FL
combination will uniquely identify a flow. This is not
true -- some knowledge of lifetimes, or some restrictions
against flow label re-use would be needed to make this
true.
Anyway, how a flow is identified shouldn't be defined as
part of the base IPv6 specification. Each signalling
(or other flow management) mechanism should define how
flows are identified for its use -- and this may differ
for different mechanisms.
So -- what I'd like to see:
- A draft that explains how the flow label
would be used for intserv and/or
diffserv that explains what properties
are necessary for that use (i.e.
length, immutability, values, etc.)
- A draft that proposes the simple change
to the IPv6 spec that Tony sent.
Do you think that is reasonable?
Margaret
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