IETF Asked to Study Prioritizing IP Traffic for Defense, Emergencies
PRAGUE -- A system to prioritize IP traffic is needed, U.S. Dept. of Defense and National Communications System (NCS-DHS) officials told the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) meeting here. “Some voice calls are more important, some chat sessions are more important, and even some single content in a chat session might be more important than others,” said Antonio Desimone of DoD. Traditional switched networks have tools to prioritize, but it’s still a problem in IP networks.
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The IETF could help with that, said authorities from NATO and other bodies. Precedence in communication also is of vital interest for emergencies, they said.
“We certainly work on this issue for our own networks,” Desimone said: “But we want to have something interoperable with networks of partners, like NATO for example.” NATO also voiced interest in IETF work on prioritizing voice and video, but failed to deliver details for the Prague session.
“We see common issues,” said An Nguyen of the NCS DHS, noting that communication is moving more to IP-based systems, “What we need is a way to mark a call where priority treatment is necessary, some sort of mark that something is urgent,” he said. Desimone cited a need to look at data flowing over public networks like the Internet and commercial networks.
There’s work done in the IETF on the availability and reliability of IP communication in emergencies, as well as in a special “Internet Emergency Preparedness Working Group” (IPREP) begun years ago. IPREP tackles issues like “conveying information about the priority of specific phone calls that originate in a VoIP environment through gateways to the PSTN”, according to its charter, plus “access and transport for database and information distribution applications relevant to managing the crisis like the ‘I am Alive’ database” or “interpersonal communication among crisis management personnel using electronic mail and instant messaging.”
“It starts getting more complex when you integrate more things and bring more people in,” said Brian Rosen, referring to migration of public safety to IP networks and integration of public and private partners there. Rosen used the example of linking bus drivers’ communication to public authorities. “When you need to evacuate a large number of people, the best are school buses,” he said: “But when you want to expand your network to include those guys, you want also to make sure that their chat does not influence the policeman doing his work.”
Authorities and developers are in the same boat on crisis communications, bit the idea of having an “important- bit” for the Internet doesn’t appeal to all in the IETF. In Prague, Jon Peterson, an IETF area director, predicted trouble getting prioritized applications accepted on the Net, since “there they are just competing with other applications.” Desimone and supporters said some e-mails must be delivered in a given time, such as 7 minutes.
For that to happen, every server in different networks would have to identify the precedence and place the respective packet, whether voice or mail or video, in the express lane. “To realize this in the servers is controversial in the IETF,” Cisco engineer Fred Baker, former IETF chmn. and moderator of the session in Prague, adding that wasn’t sure if and in what way the IETF would take it up. Baker said his main concern for such a system would be making sure such priority is “only used by the authorized people,” and that would be difficult.