Internet Stream Protocol V2 (st2) --------------------------------- Charter Current status: active working group Chair(s): Luca Delgrossi Steve DeJarnett Internet Area Director(s) Stev Knowles David Piscitello Mailing lists: General Discussion:st@ibminet.awdpa.ibm.com To Subscribe: st-request@ibminet.awdpa.ibm.com Archive: ibminet.awdpa.ibm.com:~/pub/st/st-archive Description of Working Group: The Stream Protocol Working Group was formed to clarify and refine the existing specification of the Stream Protocol, Version 2 (ST-II) contained in RFC 1190. Since ST is a protocol that is already used in audio-visual and reserved-resource applications and services, the focus of this group is near-term and its primary purpose is to provide a specification that corrects errors in the existing ST specification and makes it easier to implement ST in a manner that is likely to be interoperable with other ST implementations. The ST Working Group intends to address several areas of the ST specification including: a) the formal definition of states and state transitions; b) the removal of mechanisms which are too complicated as currently designed and which have not shown any use in practice; c) address the ambiguities caused by the current implementation subsets; d) definition of a clear IP encapsulation mechanism; e) minor revisions suggested by experience with ST. These modifications are expected to reduce implementation time and to improve the utility and interoperability of existing and future ST implementations. The working group may also provide guidance on the use of standard routing protocols to support ST and on the format and use of flow specifications. Finally, particular attention will be given to the specification of groups of streams as required for the efficient sharing of resources. Input from current ST developers and application developers will be solicited to help clarify issues that the working group should address. It is the goal of the ST Working Group to produce a refined ST specification that can be used to rapidly satisfy operational requirements. The result of this group is expected to be an Experimental RFC. It is not the intention of this Working Group to define a new communication or resource reservation protocol. ST is part of the ongoing IETF efforts to develop protocols that address resource reservation issues. It is possible that future IETF Working Groups will produce other operational protocol options in this area. Related work by other IETF Working Groups shall be carefully monitored to see if the actions of this Working Group should be revised. In particular it is expected that there will be interaction with the AVT Working Group relating to issues of running RTP over ST. Internet-Drafts: No Current Internet drafts.