Internet - Draft A . Zamfir

This document describes a protocol independent encoding for flow characteristics (a.k.a. metadata). A flow is defined as a set of IP packets passing through a network in a given direction. All packets belonging to a particular flow have a set of common properties (e.g. IP, port, transport). Flow metadata exposes key characteristics of the flow such as the originating application, the type of media in use (e.g. audio, video) and others as defined in [I-D.eckert-intarea-flow-metadata-framework]. The flow characteristics are expressed in terms of information elements. These information elements are signaled either out of band or in band but always along the same path of the flow associated with the application. [I-D.eckert-intarea-flow-metadata-framework] defines the overall framework for flow metadata and the definition of the flow characteristics, whereas this document captures the encoding of these characteristics. The mapping of flow metadata encoding to different signaling protocols is outside the scope of this document. Status of This Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current InternetDrafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. 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." This Internet-Draft will expire on January 10, 2014. Eckert, et al. Expires January 10, 2014 [Page 1] Internet-Draft Flow Metadata Encoding July 2013