This was the second meeting which was intended to determine the usefulness
of chartering a working group on web caching and replication. The meeting
started with a brief overview of the charter followed by a more in-depth
coverage of the areas of interest which had been identified on the mailing
list, specifically,
client to proxy-cache communication,
draft-melve-clientcache-com-00.txt
inter-cache communication,
draft-melve-intercache-comproto-00.txt
cache to network-device communication
and requirements for a caching / replication infrastructure.
There was consensus that an initial emphasis should be placed on
documenting what was currently available, though not necessarily labelling
this as "Best Current Practice". Warning
about doing both documentation of current practice and protocol development at
the same time, there is a need for understanding the field before developing
new protocols (if you do not know what you are talking about, you should not
try to implement it)
There are several proprietary protocols in use, among these are
WCCP which is used for network element to proxy communication and WPAD for
client configuration. Public documentation as (at least) informational RFCs
would be helpful before new work is done. The proponents of these protocols
agreed to document these and push them through the IETF process in parallel
with the initial WREC work.
Web replication is not yet widely deployed, whereas web caching
proxies are, particularly outside the US. Comments were made about
documenting how the current caching proxy infrastructure relates to
overall design principles of the Internet, and how a
caching and replication infrastructure is currently built.
The consensus in the meeting was that a working group in this area should
(first) define the design goals or research issues before embarking on
specific protocol development. In addition, the initial work should include
a document which provided both a taxonomy of existing caching / replication
developments and terminologies which would be used as a reference for later
work an that the current drafts (draft-melve-*) could be merged to form the
basis for this. Any existing protocols would in parallel be submitted by
their various proponents as informational RFCs after an editing review by
the working group. It was further agreed that the defined goals and
milestones would need to be re-worked and re-ordered and that the time line
should be shortened to end at the Summer 1999 IETF meeting. After this
time, the charter would be re-visited to look at providing a framework for
future caching / replication development within the IETF.
