TOC 
IPFIX Working GroupE. Boschi
Internet-DraftB. Trammell
Intended status: Standards TrackHitachi Europe
Expires: January 15, 2009L. Mark
 Fraunhofer IFAM
 T. Zseby
 Fraunhofer FOKUS
 July 14, 2008


Exporting Type Information for IPFIX Information Elements
draft-ietf-ipfix-exporting-type-02.txt

Status of this Memo

By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes aware will be disclosed, in accordance with Section 6 of BCP 79.

Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts.

Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as “work in progress.”

The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt.

The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html.

This Internet-Draft will expire on January 15, 2009.

Abstract

This document describes an extension to IPFIX to allow the encoding of IPFIX Information Model properties within an IPFIX Message stream. This enables the export of extended type information for enterprise-specific Information Elements, facilitating interoperability and reusability among a wide variety of applications and tools.



Table of Contents

1.  Introduction
    1.1.  IPFIX Documents Overview
2.  Terminology
3.  Type Information Export
    3.1.  informationElementDataType
    3.2.  informationElementDescription
    3.3.  informationElementName
    3.4.  informationElementRangeBegin
    3.5.  informationElementRangeEnd
    3.6.  informationElementSemantics
    3.7.  informationElementUnits
    3.8.  privateEnterpriseNumber
    3.9.  Information Element Type Options Template
    3.10.  Data Type and Semantics Restrictions
4.  Security Considerations
5.  IANA Considerations
6.  Acknowledgements
7.  References
    7.1.  Normative References
    7.2.  Informative References
Appendix A.  Examples
§  Authors' Addresses
§  Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements




 TOC 

1.  Introduction

IPFIX Templates provide limited information about the type of described data; indeed, they encode only the size of the fields defined by these Information Elements. There presently exists no mechanism to provide full type information for these Information Elements, as is defined for the Information Elements in the IPFIX Information Model.

This especially limits the interoperability of enterprise-specific Information Elements. It is not possible to use analysis tools on IPFIX records containing these partially defined Information Elements that have not been developed with a priori knowledge of their types, since such tools will not be able to decode them; these tools can only treat and store them as opaque octet arrays. However, if richer information is available, additional operations such as efficient storage, display, and limited analysis of records containing enterprise-specific Information Elements become possible, even for Collecting Processes that had not been specifically developed to understand them.

This document proposes a general mechanism to encode the full set of properties available for the definition of Information Elements within the IPFIX Information Model inline within an IPFIX Message stream using IPFIX Options. This mechanism may be used to fully define type information for Information Elements used within a message stream, without resort to an external reference or reliance on out-of-band configuration, thereby improving the interoperability of enterprise-specific Information Elements.

Note that the solution described in this draft is not intended as a replacement for registration with IANA of generally useful Information Elements. It introduces overhead and does not lead to real interoperability as provided by standardization. Therefore we highly recommend to standardize all new generally useful Information Elements by registering them with IANA. Standardization is straightforward, and the type information that needs to be specified in order to support the proposed solution provides a perfect basis for the description required for standardizing the Information Element.

It might happen that an Information Element previously described by the mechanism in this document later becomes an IANA-registered, standard Information Element. In such environments old and new version of the Information Element can coexist. A translation between Information Elements expressed by the described solution and standardized Information Elements is therefore not necessary, and is out of scope for this document.



 TOC 

1.1.  IPFIX Documents Overview

"Specification of the IPFIX Protocol for the Exchange of IP Traffic Flow Information" (Claise, B., “Specification of the IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX) Protocol for the Exchange of IP Traffic Flow Information,” January 2008.) [RFC5101] (informally, the IPFIX Protocol document) and its associated documents define the IPFIX Protocol, which provides network engineers and administrators with access to IP traffic flow information.

"Architecture for IP Flow Information Export" (Sadasivan, G. and N. Brownlee, “Architecture Model for IP Flow Information Export,” October 2003.) [I‑D.ietf‑ipfix‑arch] (the IPFIX Architecture document) defines the architecture for the export of measured IP flow information out of an IPFIX Exporting Process to an IPFIX Collecting Process, and the basic terminology used to describe the elements of this architecture, per the requirements defined in "Requirements for IP Flow Information Export" (Quittek, J., Zseby, T., Claise, B., and S. Zander, “Requirements for IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX),” October 2004.) [RFC3917]. The IPFIX Protocol document [RFC5101] (Claise, B., “Specification of the IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX) Protocol for the Exchange of IP Traffic Flow Information,” January 2008.) then covers the details of the method for transporting IPFIX Data Records and Templates via a congestion-aware transport protocol from an IPFIX Exporting Process to an IPFIX Collecting Process.

"Information Model for IP Flow Information Export" (Quittek, J., Bryant, S., Claise, B., Aitken, P., and J. Meyer, “Information Model for IP Flow Information Export,” January 2008.) [RFC5102] (informally, the IPFIX Information Model document) describes the Information Elements used by IPFIX, including details on Information Element naming, numbering, and data type encoding.

This document references the Protocol and Architecture documents for terminology and extends the IPFIX Information Model to provide new Information Elements for the representation of Information Element properties. It draws data type definitions and data type semantics definitions from the Information Model; the encodings of these data types



 TOC 

2.  Terminology

Terms used in this document that are defined in the Terminology section of the IPFIX Protocol (Claise, B., “Specification of the IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX) Protocol for the Exchange of IP Traffic Flow Information,” January 2008.) [RFC5101] document are to be interpreted as defined there.

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 (Bradner, S., “Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels,” March 1997.) [RFC2119].



 TOC 

3.  Type Information Export

This section describes the mechanism used to encode Information Element type information within an IPFIX Message stream. This mechanism consists of an Options Template Record used to define Information Element type records, and a set of Information Elements required by these type records. We first specify the necessary Information Elements, followed by the structure of the Options Template describing the type records. Note that Information Element type records require one Information Element, informationElementId, that is defined in the PSAMP Information Model (Dietz, T., Claise, B., Aitken, P., Dressler, F., and G. Carle, “Information Model for Packet Sampling Exports,” October 2008.) [I‑D.ietf‑psamp‑info].



 TOC 

3.1.  informationElementDataType

Description:
A description of the abstract data type of an IPFIX information element. These are taken from the abstract data types defined in section 3.1 of the IPFIX Information Model (Quittek, J., Bryant, S., Claise, B., Aitken, P., and J. Meyer, “Information Model for IP Flow Information Export,” January 2008.) [RFC5102]; see that section for more information on the types described below. This field may take the following values:
ValueDescription
0x00 octetArray
0x01 unsigned8
0x02 unsigned16
0x03 unsigned32
0x04 unsigned64
0x05 signed8
0x06 signed16
0x07 signed32
0x08 signed64
0x09 float32
0x0A float64
0x0B boolean
0x0C macAddress
0x0D string
0x0E dateTimeSeconds
0x0F dateTimeMilliseconds
0x10 dateTimeMicroseconds
0x11 dateTimeNanoseconds
0x12 ipv4Address
0x13 ipv6Address

These types are registered in the IANA IPFIX Information Element Data Type subregistry. This subregistry is intended to assign numbers for type names, not to provide a mechanism for adding data types to the IPFIX Protocol, and as such requires a Standards Action (Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, “Guidelines for Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs,” October 1998.) [RFC2434] to modify.
Abstract Data Type:
unsigned8
ElementId:
TBD1
Status:
Proposed
Reference:
Section 3.1 of the IPFIX Information Model (Quittek, J., Bryant, S., Claise, B., Aitken, P., and J. Meyer, “Information Model for IP Flow Information Export,” January 2008.) [RFC5102]


 TOC 

3.2.  informationElementDescription

Description:
A string containing a human-readable description of an Information Element.
Abstract Data Type:
string
ElementId:
TBD2
Status:
Proposed


 TOC 

3.3.  informationElementName

Description:
A string containing the name of an Information Element.
Abstract Data Type:
string
ElementId:
TBD3
Status:
Proposed


 TOC 

3.4.  informationElementRangeBegin

Description:
Contains the inclusive low end of the range of acceptable values for an Information Element.
Abstract Data Type:
unsigned64
Data Type Semantics:
quantity
ElementId:
TBD4
Status:
Proposed


 TOC 

3.5.  informationElementRangeEnd

Description:
Contains the inclusive high end of the range of acceptable values for an Information Element.
Abstract Data Type:
unsigned64
Data Type Semantics:
quantity
ElementId:
TBD5
Status:
Proposed


 TOC 

3.6.  informationElementSemantics

Description:
A description of the semantics of an IPFIX information element. These are taken from the data type semantics defined in section 3.2 of the IPFIX Information Model (Quittek, J., Bryant, S., Claise, B., Aitken, P., and J. Meyer, “Information Model for IP Flow Information Export,” January 2008.) [RFC5102]; see that section for more information on the types described below. This field may take the following values; the special value 0x00 (default) is used to note that no semantics apply to the field; it cannot be manipulated by a Collecting Process or File Reader that does not understand it a priori.
ValueDescription
0x00 default
0x01 quantity
0x02 totalCounter
0x03 deltaCounter
0x04 identifier
0x05 flags

These semantics are registered in the IANA IPFIX Information Element Semantics subregistry. This subregistry is intended to assign numbers for semantics names, not to provide a mechanism for adding semantics to the IPFIX Protocol, and as such requires a Standards Action (Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, “Guidelines for Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs,” October 1998.) [RFC2434] to modify.
Abstract Data Type:
unsigned8
ElementId:
TBD6
Status:
Proposed
Reference:
Section 3.2 of the IPFIX Information Model (Quittek, J., Bryant, S., Claise, B., Aitken, P., and J. Meyer, “Information Model for IP Flow Information Export,” January 2008.) [RFC5102]


 TOC 

3.7.  informationElementUnits

Description:
A description of the units of an IPFIX Information Element. These correspond to the units implicitly defined in the Information Element definitions in section 5 of the IPFIX Information Model (Quittek, J., Bryant, S., Claise, B., Aitken, P., and J. Meyer, “Information Model for IP Flow Information Export,” January 2008.) [RFC5102]; see that section for more information on the types described below. This field may take the following values; the special value 0x00 (none) is used to note that the field is unitless.
ValueNameNotes
0x0000 none  
0x0001 bits  
0x0002 octets  
0x0003 packets  
0x0004 flows  
0x0005 seconds  
0x0006 milliseconds  
0x0007 microseconds  
0x0008 nanoseconds  
0x0009 4-octet words for IPv4 header length
0x000A messages for reliability reporting
0x000B hops for TTL
0x000C entries for MPLS label stack

These types are registered in the IANA IPFIX Information Element Units subregistry; new types may be added on a First Come First Served (Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, “Guidelines for Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs,” October 1998.) [RFC2434] basis.
Abstract Data Type:
unsigned16
ElementId:
TBD7
Status:
Proposed
Reference:
Section 5 of the IPFIX Information Model (Quittek, J., Bryant, S., Claise, B., Aitken, P., and J. Meyer, “Information Model for IP Flow Information Export,” January 2008.) [RFC5102]


 TOC 

3.8.  privateEnterpriseNumber

Description:
A private enterprise number, as assigned by IANA. Within the context of an Information Element Type record, this element can be used along with the informationElementId element to scope properties to a specific Information Element. If this Information Element is present, then the Enterprise bit in the associated informationElementId Information Element SHOULD be cleared by the Exporting Process and SHOULD be ignored by the Collecting Process.
Abstract Data Type:
unsigned32
Data Type Semantics:
identifier
ElementId:
TBD8
Status:
Proposed
Reference:
Section 3.4.1 of the IPFIX Protocol (Claise, B., “Specification of the IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX) Protocol for the Exchange of IP Traffic Flow Information,” January 2008.) [RFC5101]; section 8.2.3 of the PSAMP Information Model (Dietz, T., Claise, B., Aitken, P., Dressler, F., and G. Carle, “Information Model for Packet Sampling Exports,” October 2008.) [I‑D.ietf‑psamp‑info].


 TOC 

3.9.  Information Element Type Options Template

The Information Element Type Options Template attaches type information to Information Elements used within Template Records, as scoped to an Observation Domain within a Transport Session. This provides a mechanism for representing an IPFIX Information Model inline within an IPFIX Message stream. Data Records described by this template are referred to as Information Element type records.

In deployments in which interoperability across vendor implementations of IPFIX is important, an Exporting Process exporting data using Templates containing enterprise-specific Information Elements SHOULD export an Information Element type record for each enterprise-specific Information Element it exports. Collecting Processes MAY use these type records to improve handling of unknown enterprise-specific Information Elements. Exporting Processes using enterprise-specific Information Elements to implement proprietary features MAY omit type records for those Information Elements.

Information Element type records MUST be handled by Collecting Processes as scoped to the Transport Session in which they are sent; this facility is not intended to provide a method for the permanent definition of Information Elements.

Similarly, for security reasons, type information for a given Information Element MUST NOT be re-defined by Information Element type records, and a Collecting Process MUST NOT allow an Information Element type record to replace its own internal definition of an Information Element. Information Element type records SHOULD NOT be duplicated in a given Observation Domain within a Transport Session. Once an Information Element type record has been exported for a given Information Element within a given Transport Session, all subsequent type records for that Information Element MUST be identical. Information Elements for which a Collecting Process receives conflicting semantic or type information MUST be ignored.

Note that while this template MAY be used to export information about any Information Element, including those registered with IANA, Exporting Processes SHOULD NOT export any type records that could be reasonably assumed to duplicate type information available at the Collecting Process. This mechanism is not intended as a replacement for Exporting and Collecting Processes keeping up to date with changes to the IANA registry; such an update mechanism is out of scope for this document.

The template SHOULD contain the following Information Elements as defined in the PSAMP Information Model (Dietz, T., Claise, B., Aitken, P., Dressler, F., and G. Carle, “Information Model for Packet Sampling Exports,” October 2008.) [I‑D.ietf‑psamp‑info] and in this document, above:

IEDescription
informationElementID The Information Element identifier of the Information Element described by this type record. This Information Element MUST be defined as a Scope Field. See the PSAMP Information Model (Dietz, T., Claise, B., Aitken, P., Dressler, F., and G. Carle, “Information Model for Packet Sampling Exports,” October 2008.) [I‑D.ietf‑psamp‑info] for a definition of this field.
privateEnterpriseNumber The Private Enterprise number of the Information Element described by this type record. This Information Element MUST be defined as a Scope Field.
informationElementDataType The storage type of the specified Information Element.
informationElementSemantics The semantic type of the specified Information Element.
informationElementUnits The units of the specified Information Element. This element SHOULD be omitted if the Information Element is a unitless quantity, or a not a quantity or counter.
informationElementRangeBegin The low end of the range of acceptable values for the specified Information Element. This element SHOULD be omitted if the beginning of the Information Element's acceptable range is defined by its data type.
informationElementRangeEnd The high end of the range of acceptable values for the specified Information Element. This element SHOULD be omitted if the end Information Element's acceptable range is defined by its data type.
informationElementName The name of the specified Information Element.
informationElementDescription A human readable description of the specified Information Element. This element MAY be omitted in the interest of export efficiency.



 TOC 

3.10.  Data Type and Semantics Restrictions

Note that the informationElementSemantics values defined in section 3.2 of [RFC5102] (Quittek, J., Bryant, S., Claise, B., Aitken, P., and J. Meyer, “Information Model for IP Flow Information Export,” January 2008.) are primarily intended to differentiate semantic interpretation of numeric values, and that not all combinations of the informationElementDataType and informationElementSemantics Information Elements are valid; e.g., a counter cannot be encoded as an IPv4 address. The following are acceptable values of informationElementSemantics:

Information Element type records containing invalid combinations of informationElementSemantics and informationElementDataType MUST NOT be sent by Exporting Processes, and MUST be ignored by Collecting Processes.

Future standards actions that modify the Information Element Data Type subregistry or the Information Element Semantics subregistry should contain a Data Type and Semantics Restrictions sections such as this one to define allowable combinations of type and semantics information.



 TOC 

4.  Security Considerations

The same security considerations as for the IPFIX Protocol (Claise, B., “Specification of the IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX) Protocol for the Exchange of IP Traffic Flow Information,” January 2008.) [RFC5101] apply.



 TOC 

5.  IANA Considerations

This document specifies the creation of several new IPFIX Information Elements in the IPFIX Information Element registry located at http://www.iana.org/assignments/ipfix, as defined in section 3 above. IANA has assigned the following Information Element numbers for their respective Information Elements as specified below:

IANA has created an Information Element Data Type subregistry for the values defined for the informationElementSemantics Information Element. Entries may be added to this subregistry subject to a Standards Action (Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, “Guidelines for Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs,” October 1998.) [RFC2434].

[NOTE for IANA: Please create a new Information Element Data Type subregistry as specified in the paragraph above, with values taken from section 3.1 of this document.]

IANA has created an Information Element Semantics subregistry for the values defined for the informationElementSemantics Information Element. Entries may be added to this subregistry subject to a Standards Action (Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, “Guidelines for Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs,” October 1998.) [RFC2434].

[NOTE for IANA: Please create a new Information Element Semantics subregistry as specified in the paragraph above, with values taken from section 3.6 of this document.]

IANA has created an Information Element Units subregistry for the values defined for the informationElementUnits Information Element. Entries may be added to this subregistry on an Expert Review (Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, “Guidelines for Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs,” October 1998.) [RFC2434] basis.

[NOTE for IANA: Please create a new Information Element Units subregistry as specified in the paragraph above, with values taken from section 3.7 of this document.]



 TOC 

6.  Acknowledgements

Thanks to Paul Aitken and Gerhard Muenz for the detailed reviews, and to David Moore for first raising this issue to the IPFIX mailing list.



 TOC 

7.  References



 TOC 

7.1. Normative References

[RFC5101] Claise, B., “Specification of the IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX) Protocol for the Exchange of IP Traffic Flow Information,” RFC 5101, January 2008 (TXT).
[RFC5102] Quittek, J., Bryant, S., Claise, B., Aitken, P., and J. Meyer, “Information Model for IP Flow Information Export,” RFC 5102, January 2008 (TXT).
[I-D.ietf-psamp-info] Dietz, T., Claise, B., Aitken, P., Dressler, F., and G. Carle, “Information Model for Packet Sampling Exports,” draft-ietf-psamp-info-11 (work in progress), October 2008 (TXT).


 TOC 

7.2. Informative References

[RFC3917] Quittek, J., Zseby, T., Claise, B., and S. Zander, “Requirements for IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX),” RFC 3917, October 2004 (TXT).
[I-D.ietf-ipfix-arch] Sadasivan, G. and N. Brownlee, “Architecture Model for IP Flow Information Export,” draft-ietf-ipfix-arch-02 (work in progress), October 2003 (TXT).
[RFC5103] Trammell, B. and E. Boschi, “Bidirectional Flow Export Using IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX),” RFC 5103, January 2008 (TXT).
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., “Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels,” BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997 (TXT, HTML, XML).
[RFC2434] Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, “Guidelines for Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs,” BCP 26, RFC 2434, October 1998 (TXT, HTML, XML).


 TOC 

Appendix A.  Examples

The following example illustrates how the type information extension mechanism defined in this document may be used to describe the semantics of enterprise-specific Information Elements. The Information Elements used in this example are as follows:

An Exporting Process exporting flows containing these Information Elements might use a Template like the following:




                     1                   2                   3

 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|          Set ID = 2           |          Length =  52         |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|      Template ID = 256        |        Field Count = 9        |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|0| flowStartSeconds        150 |       Field Length =  4       |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|0| sourceIPv4Address         8 |       Field Length =  4       |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|0| destinationIPv4Address   12 |       Field Length =  4       |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|0| sourceTransportPort       7 |       Field Length =  2       |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|0| destinationTransportPort 11 |       Field Length =  2       |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|0| octetTotalCount          85 |       Field Length =  4       |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|1| (initialTCPFlags)        14 |       Field Length =  1       |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|                  Private Enterprise Number                    |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|1| (unionTCPFlags)          15 |       Field Length =  1       |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|                  Private Enterprise Number                    |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|0| protocolIdentifier        4 |       Field Length =  1       |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

 Figure 1: Template with Enterprise-Specific IEs 

However, a Collecting Process receiving Data Sets described by this Template can only treat the enterprise-specific Information Elements as opaque octets; specifically, there is no hint to the collector that they contain flag information. To use the type information extension mechanism to address this problem, the Exporting Process would first export the Information Element Type Options Template described in section 3.9 above:




                     1                   2                   3

 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|          Set ID = 3           |          Length =  26         |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|      Template ID = 257        |        Field Count = 4        |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|    Scope Field Count = 2      |0| priv.EnterpriseNumber  TBD8 |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|       Field Length = 4        |0| informationElementId    303 |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|       Field Length = 2        |0| inf.El.DataType        TBD1 |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|       Field Length = 1        |0| inf.El.Semantics       TBD6 |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|       Field Length = 1        |0| inf.El.Name            TBD3 |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|     Field Length = 65536      |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

 Figure 2: Example Information Element Type Options Template 

Then, the Exporting Process would then export two records described by the Example Information Element Type Options Template to describe the enterprise-specific Information Elements:




                     1                   2                   3

 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|          Set ID = 257         |          Length =  50         |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|                  Private Enterprise Number                    |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|X|         IE 14               |0x01 unsigned8 |0x05 flags     |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|   15 length   |                                               |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+                                               |

|                      "initialTCPFlags"                        |

|                                                               |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|                  Private Enterprise Number                    |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|X|         IE 15               |0x01 unsigned8 |0x05 flags     |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|   13 length   |                                               |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+        "unionTCPFlags"                        |

|                               +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

|                               |

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

 Figure 3: Type Information Extension Example 



 TOC 

Authors' Addresses

  Elisa Boschi
  Hitachi Europe
  c/o ETH Zurich
  Gloriastrasse 35
  8092 Zurich
  Switzerland
Phone:  +41 44 632 70 57
Email:  elisa.boschi@hitachi-eu.com
  
  Brian Trammell
  Hitachi Europe
  c/o ETH Zurich
  Gloriastrasse 35
  8092 Zurich
  Switzerland
Phone:  +41 44 632 70 13
Email:  brian.trammell@hitachi-eu.com
  
  Lutz Mark
  Fraunhofer IFAM
  Weiner Str. 12
  38259 Bremen
  Germany
Phone:  +49 421 2246206
Email:  lutz.mark@ifam.fraunhofer.de
  
  Tanja Zseby
  Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems
  Kaiserin-Augusta-Allee 31
  10589 Berlin
  Germany
Phone:  +49 30 3463 7153
Email:  tanja.zseby@fokus.fraunhofer.de


 TOC 

Full Copyright Statement

Intellectual Property