[e2e] a new IRTF group on Transport Models

[Sally Floyd]

I am proposing a new IRTF group, the Transport Models Research
Group, whose goal is to improve our methodologies for evaluating
transport protocols.  This is likely to be a mailing-list-only
research group, and the proposed charter is on the web site at
"http://www.icir.org/tmrg/".  People who are interested could
look at the web site, or join the mailing list.  Any feedback
(on the tmrg mailing list) would be welcome.

The proposed charter is appended below.

As a part of this effort, I have also produced a first pass
at a document on metrics for evaluating congestion control
mechanisms, "Metrics for the Evaluation of Congestion Control
Mechanisms", available from
"http://www.icir.org/floyd/papers/draft-floyd-transport-metrics-00.txt".
Any feedback or contributions would be welcome.

Thanks.

- Sally
http://www.icir.org/floyd/

Proposed charter:

The Transport Models Research Group (TMRG) is chartered to produce
a series of documents on Models for the Evaluation of Transport
Protocols.  The documents will include a survey of models used in
simulations, analysis, and experiments for the evaluation of transport
protocols.  The output of the research group will also include a
broad set of simulation test suites, and a set of recommendations
for test suites for experiments in test beds.  The goal of the work
is to improve our methodologies for evaluating transport protocols.

The first set of documents will consider models for the evaluation
of congestion control mechanisms.  This work will include the
simulation test suites and recommendations for experiments mentioned
above.  Later documents are expected to address models for the
evaluation of other aspects of transport protocols (e.g., connection
establishment, security, perhaps QoS mechanisms).

The models produced by this group will not have any formal relationship
to the IETF standards process.  That is, this research group will
not produce recommendations for the IETF on using simulation or
experimental test suites to evaluate transport-related features for
standardization.  At the same time, one intended use of the test
suites is for comparative evaluations of different proposed congestion
control mechanisms.

This research group is not chartered to discuss the design of new
congestion control mechanisms, or to discuss modifications to
existing congestion control mechanisms, except in terms of the
models needed for the evaluation of such mechanisms.  The group is
also not chartered to produce evaluations of specific congestion
control mechanisms.