CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_

Reported by Einar Stefferud/NMA and Ray Freiwirth/RCI

Minutes of the IFIP Electronic Mail Management BOF (EMAILMGT)

Three EMAILMGT BOF Sessions were held at the Columbus IETF, under a
special arrangement for the IFIP WG 6.5/6.6 Chartered EMailMgt Working
Group to meet with the IETF to both draw on IETF attendance for
participation, and to bring additional IFIP participation into IETF.

IFIP WG 6.5/6.6 and the EMAILMGT participants are very pleased and
grateful for the opportunity to serve and support IETF interests, and to
draw on IETF resources.

First Session

Several Documents were distributed during the first BOF session, and the
mailing lists for the various EMailMgt Task Teams and working groups
were announced.

Distributed Documents EMGT-93-02 through EMGT-93-14.


The main EMailMgt list is:                <[email protected]>
To subscribe to the list:         <[email protected]>

Requirements Document Task Team:        <[email protected]>
To subscribe to the list:       <[email protected]>

MO/MIB Document Task Team                        <[email protected]>
To subscribe to the list:                 <[email protected]>

Modeling Document Task Team:               <[email protected]>
To subscribe to the list:          <[email protected]>

IETF Mail and Directory Mgt MIB WG:        <[email protected]>
To subscribe to the list:          <[email protected]>

Ray Freiwirth led a review of the current EMailMgt Draft Requirements
Document (EMGT 93-006).  The emphasis of the meeting was on terminology
and making sure that everybody understood the terms as used, and
everyone understood the functions associated with the terms.

One major area of discussion was how to identify a user that becomes an
``email manager'' for some functions that are allowed for that user by
the real manager.  It was decided that no special term is needed for
such a user.

The following sentence was added to the definition of ``user'':


    ``Has capability to monitor its own mailbox, local environment
    and remote logs, files, etc.  as may be allowed''.


Some current definitions will be further modified with regard to minor
spelling/phrasing problems.  The concept of a Relative Domain is still
being discussed.  It is not clear if the concept and definition of
Manager Responsibility Area (MRA) needs to be expanded.  We are trying
to avoid the confusion that would follow from using the term ``domain''
in yet another context with yet another meaning.

It was noted that it is important for the document to state clearly that
the EMailMgt requirements are not dictating a new kind of management,
but rather calls for use of existing methods and tools to meet EMailMgt
requirements.

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Second Session

Harald Alvestrand lead a discussion of his Draft EMailMgt Modeling
Document (EMGT 93-002).

The concept of a gateway needs to be clearly defined in the diagrams to
show how Gateways fit into the EMail infrastructure (e.g., when they sit
astride two different EMail environments).  Omission of gateways would
imply that EMail Gateways are outside the scope of EMailMgt!  They
obviously are not.

It was generally agreed that most of the model diagrams need revision.
The Dataflows diagram needs more work to indicate interchange between
Management Responsibility Areas.

Some managers will use information to reconfigure systems, which implies
that there are different time-frames for different data flows.

The following questions were raised regarding general terminology.


  o Why not define ``customer'' as defined in the English language?
    Answer:  Because we need a clear a distinction between a user and
    customer.  A customer makes value judgments.  Users do not, unless
    they also happen to be customers at the same time.

  o Why not define mail service as just a mail transfer service?
    Answer:  Inside the mail system there are many objects to be
    managed.  Some of these objects might be managed by a single EMail
    manager, by a group of EMail managers or by a ``user/manager'' or
    just by a user.

  o Where does Message Store fit into this model?
    Answer:  We need to identify split User Agent and Mail Box
    functionality, and call out that a user can manage part of the
    mailbox.  The model needs better definition of users having some of
    the capabilities of a manager, and of users having some manager
    roles.


In Section 3.2:  the diagram needs to be expanded to show all the
services that were identified in the requirements document (i.e.,
Security, Routing, etc.).  This relates directly to the ability to
manage the EMail portion of the data that resides in any of the
services, and the ability to use their services:  Directory; Network
Management; Logging; etc.

Detailing of both MTA and UA model diagrams should be modified to show
more dimension with respect to sources, queues and sinks (flow detail).

Third Session

This session was dedicated to reconciling all differences between the

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use of terms in the Requirements and Modeling Documents.  This was
determined to be the key high priority objective of this set of EMailMgt
meetings.

Ray Freiwirth lead the discussion, following the requirements document.
With the work of the previous two days and a better understanding of the
model document, great strides were made in reconciliation.

Requirements Section 2 needs to be better aligned with the model
document, especially paragraph 4.

For Requirements section 3.3.2 (Remote Email Service), there was a
general discussion about IMAP. Somebody should cross-participate in the
IMAP Group to make sure and that both Groups are aligned.

The number one GOAL for both documents is to achieve alignment on the
one hand, and comprehensiveness on the other.  We are working to
identify all the relevant elements and entities that require management
and show how they relate to to each other in the overall model.

Final Observations

We could never have achieved our goals for this meeting without holding
three separate session on three separate days.  The final session on
Friday was critical to pull everything back together in the end.

It is noted that the next EMailMgt meetings are scheduled for June (OIW
at NIST) and July (IETF at Amsterdam).  Other meetings of EMailMgt Task
Teams are also planned, and will be announced on the EMailMgt mailing
list.

Since the next meetings are several months into the future, we plan to
complete edits of the EMailMgt Requirements and Modeling Documents and
publish them as Internet-Drafts to obtain wider distribution and to
facilitate more robust discussions on the main mailing list.  The
Internet-Drafts should be published by the end of April at which time we
will begin the process of review, comment, revision, and adoption of
these documents using consensus methods in the EMailMgt mailing list,
based on the published Internet-Drafts.

Attendees

Harald Alvestrand        [email protected]
Jules Aronson            [email protected]
Robert Beer              [email protected]
Richard Bjers            [email protected]
Cyrus Chow               [email protected]
Steve DeJarnett          [email protected]
Urs Eppenberger          [email protected]
Erik Fair                [email protected]
Francois Fluckiger       [email protected]
Ned Freed                [email protected]


                                  3





Raphael Freiwirth        [email protected]
Marcello Frutig          [email protected]
Christine Garland        [email protected]
Kenneth Goodwin          [email protected]
Jeroen Houttuin          [email protected]
Barbara Jennings         [email protected]
Thomas Johannsen         [email protected]
Kenneth Key              [email protected]
Jim Knowles              [email protected]
Sylvain Langlois         [email protected]
Bruce Mackey             [email protected]
Ignacio Martinez         [email protected]
Keith Moore              [email protected]
Brad Passwaters          [email protected]
Jim Romaguera            [email protected]
Yzhak Ronen              [email protected]
Gary Rowe                [email protected]
Chris Shaw               [email protected]
Sue Smith                smiths.es.net
Einar Stefferud          [email protected]
Panos-Gavriil Tsigaridas [email protected]



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