Management Frame Priority SG Input

1. Management Frame Priority SG Input Authors: Date: 2009-09-15 Allan Thomson, Cisco Systems

2. Abstract As identified by 09/0817r1 using AC_VO for all 802.11 Management frames is of concern This presentation suggests the focal areas of the study group and proposes some ideas for the PAR and 5c Allan Thomson, Cisco Systems

3. Introduction • Management Frames are primarily used to control and monitor behavior of the clients connected to the infrastructure to ensure a stable, efficient medium for all connected clients • No one client should have preference over another • The AP provides the coordination point to manage the medium (“it has a central role in priority”) • There are some use cases and management tasks that can be performed using management frames at lower priority in certain environments without risking the stability of the network • Based on this, the next few slides propose some guidelines for the SG Allan Thomson, Cisco Systems

4. Study Group Focus #1: Use Cases • The SG should focus on management frames that have clearly identified use cases that *can* operate at lower priority without affecting the stability or operational efficiency of the network • A list of management frames can be found in 09/0426r9 • Action: Identify use cases and the associated management frames that can operate and benefit from lower priority options Allan Thomson, Cisco Systems

5. Study Group Focus #2: Benefit • The SG should focus on use cases where there is a clear benefit to customer environments with lowered management priority • It is important to identify use cases that *can* run at lowered priority • It is important to quantify the benefits to other applications such as VoIP and Video applications e.g reduced jitter • Action: Define in the PAR/5c a set of benefits/criteria that justifies the lowered priority for the set of management frames identified by the use cases (e.g. performance improvement by X%, reduced errors by Y%...etc) Allan Thomson, Cisco Systems

6. Study Group Focus #3: Existing Standards and Amendments • The SG should focus on solving problems for existing networks and products that have a clear issue with high priority management frames • Mechanisms defined in the TG could be available for future amendments • Action: Focus of the PAR/5c should be on EXISTING management frames defined in 802.11 base standard and approved (ratified or in-progress) amendments only Allan Thomson, Cisco Systems

7. Study Group Focus #4: Infrastructure BSS • The SG should focus on solving problems where the AP plays an integral role in managing the medium • Do not consider IBSS environments where each client has an equal priority to all other clients and has no authority to assume a higher priority • Action: Limit scope of the PAR/5c to Infrastructure BSS environments only Allan Thomson, Cisco Systems

8. Study Group Focus #5: Flexibility • The SG should ensure that any mechanism developed for management frame priority can be adapted to the customer’s unique environments • No one rule of priority can apply to all environments or all customers or all times or all devices • Action: Define requirements in the PAR/5c to ensure that such a management frame priority scheme can be adapted post-market and per customer environment Allan Thomson, Cisco Systems

9. Study Group Focus #6: Security • The SG should ensure that no security holes or issues are introduced by introduction of lowered management frames priority • Action: Define requirements in the PAR/5c to ensure 11w/11r/11i security mechanisms are not compromised and can be introduced across all products effectively while lowered priority management frames are used Allan Thomson, Cisco Systems

10. Study Group Focus #7: Market Applicability • The SG should ensure that any management frame priority scheme can be deployed to existing 802.11-2007 baseline devices to ensure maximum market appeal • 802.11n is coming to market and will have a huge market appeal • Action: Define requirements in the PAR/5c to ensure the management frame priority scheme contains modes of operation that can be deployed on 802.11-2007 and newer shipping (i.e. 11n) devices Allan Thomson, Cisco Systems

11. Study Group Focus #8: Backward Compatibility • The SG should ensure that any new mechanism we adopt is compatible with existing 802.11 networks • For example, pre-QoSMAN TG devices that use high priority management frames all of the time should continue to be considered high priority management frames after the introduction of QoSMAN devices • Action: Define requirements in the PAR/5c to ensure the new management priority frame mechanism is compatible with legacy devices Allan Thomson, Cisco Systems

12. Study Group Focus #9: Management Frame Definition • TGv and TGz have mechanisms to communicate management frames inside tunnels using data frames and associated priority • Action: Define scope of the PAR/5c to ensure that management frame content transmitted either directly (i.e. action frame) or over a tunnel such as a data frame tunnel is considered part of the TG Allan Thomson, Cisco Systems

13. Study Group Focus #10: Latency vs Transmission Reliability • Some consider “priority” to only mean latency of access to the medium • Some consider “priority” to also include transmission reliability • i.e. whether a frame is received by another client or gets dropped due to congestion on the network or within an AP or STA • Priority certainly affects latency and transmission reliability • Action: Define requirements in the PAR/5c to ensure that both latency and transmission reliability of management frames are considered in any new mechanism Allan Thomson, Cisco Systems

14. Straw Polls • Do you agree with Focus Area X? Allan Thomson, Cisco Systems