[rssac-caucus] Opening RSSAC-002 for revision

[Bruce E. Crabill]

On Oct 21, 2015, at 12:52 AM, Wessels, Duane <dwessels at verisign.com> wrote:
> 
> RSSAC has decided to open the RSSAC-002 "Measurements of the Root Server System"
> document for revision and is asking the Caucus to produce an update.  Based on
> implementation experience, three minor problems have been identified in the current
> document.

The following are notes from D-Root on RSSAC002. Some of the comments may have already mentioned by others...

- load-time:
    - In a system with a large number of sites,there may be a large variance in the time it takes to load specific sites. Should the metric reflect worst case, average, or what? This should be specified so that meaningful comparisons may be be made.
    - The examples in the document should not include the quotes in the keys.
- zone-size:
    - It would be nice if metric was based on something other than a specific implementation's zone traffic compressed message size. There appears to be differing opinions if that size includes the TCP 2-byte DNS message length prefix. A suggested alternative would be the sum of the uncompressed RR's in the answer set of the AXFR/IXFR response that implements the zone transfer.
    - The examples in the document should not include the quotes in the keys.
- traffic-volume:
    - Correct YAML syntax in example.
- traffic-sizes:
    - Why is the '0-15' range not included? They do appear to exist.
    - The TCP message size should not include the 2-byte length prefix, since that is really a transport header and not part of the DNS message itself.
    - Buckets with zero counts should be allowed to be ignored and not written to the output YAML file, as is done with the 'rcode-volume' metric.
- unique-sources:
    - Correct example indenting.
    - Question the usefulness of this metric. It appears to involve more work than it is worth.
- General:
    - Many metrics are written from the viewpoint that they represent a single server. The reality is that all RSOs have multiple sites and servers at each site and the document does not take into account about how metrics are to be merged to form a single value representing all the available values. The method should be specified.
    - Individual RSOs may wish to make available additional metrics, or alternate versions of the existing metrics. Should we specify a mechanism to support the definition of such metrics?