IETF Network accounting developments

[Todd Boyle]

Here are some more readable whitepapers on Diameter, and other
IETF AAA (Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting topics.
http://www.interlinknetworks.com/references/

At 04:49 PM 6/17/02, I wrote:

> http://www.ietf.org/ids.by.wg/aaa.html
> http://www.ietf.org/ids.by.wg/none.html
> ...Policy Based Accounting, see sec. 7, accounting services.
> http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-irtf-aaaarch-pol-acct-04.txt
>
> There are nice formatted IETF stuff on zvon.
> and http://zvon.org/tmRFC/RFC2975/Output/index.html
> and http://www.doclib.org/rfc/rfc2975.html
> and http://www.doclib.org/rfc/rfc2903.html
>
> They have a good search engine as does IETF main site.
>
> What do you guys think of all this stuff?   I think it might
> be quite useful as a supporting layer beneath accounting
> application software, as well as obviously, networks such as
> Seattle Wireless.  I have been working at a semantic layer
> for several years, on accounting semantics.  One gets tired of
> searching for solutions at the level of application-to-application
> semantics because business application vendors control those
> decisions, not users.  Thus, one hungers for something that
> combines more layers of the stack...
>
> TOdd www.gldialtone.com/ueen.htm
> www.arapxml.net  etc.

Given that there is a well-specified, lower layer of the
stack that will have ubiquitous, well-tested code, why not
piggyback on it to replicate accounting messages for
physical goods and services as well as bandwidth, phone charges
and other telecoms uses?  That would be mutually reinforcing.

It would provide a platform for conducting all kinds of purchases,
sales and settlements to anybody who sells telecom services.

And for ordinary small businesses it provides a platform for
buying and selling some network resources, maybe including
IP telephone services, recovering costs of WiFi hotspots
or internet connectivity, etc.

Todd