W3C

– DRAFT –
Web & Networks IG #21: Edge Computing

04 March 2022

Attendees

Present
DanDruta, Dom, Eric, LarryZhao, Max, MichaelMcCool, PeipeiGuo, PiersO'Hanlon, SongXu, Sudeep, Uaqi
Regrets
-
Chair
Dan, Song, Sudeep
Scribe
dom

Meeting minutes

Sudeep: Welcome to this new IG call; there has been activity over the past 2 months on which it's useful to share updates
… today's agenda includes general updates, and then a focus on edge computing
… first a presentation on the value proposition of offload for stakeholders
… then a review of the use cases and requirements with PRs that have been raised

General updates

Sudeep: TPAC may be an hybrid event in September, with physical location in Vancouver
… any thoughts on TPAC, feasibility for a potential IG meeting?

Michael: I'm based in Canada so can reach Vancouver fairly easily, but only meaningful if there is enough people showing up
… maybe simpler to stay to virtual only

eric: my personal feeling: the past 2 years of zoom meetings have impacted the value of F2F meetings, relationship building, etc

DanD: +1 to eric
… The IETF is having a hybrid in Vienna - we're going to see how that works out
… getting back to F2F would a boost to our ability to cooperate
… personally, Vancouver should be reasonably easy to reach

dom: with TPAC built for hybrid, but with China not being able to travel, a short hybrid meeting in TPAC combined with lots of discussions for those that can travel would be most valuable

McCool: let's also discuss this over email

joint meeting with Games CG

Sudeep: we met with the Games CG a couple of weeks ago
… Song presented the work of the IG, and the CG participants shared their perspective
… highlighted the distinction between indy vs AAA games, with varying impact of network
… overall, the topics of latency, monitoring are ones they look at
… we opened up the conversation around edge

dom: they noted that the dependency on network and the interest on edge was more likely for AAA games
… also, hoping to be able to share a summary from one of the CG participants around the current limitations of network APIs on the Web

Song: received interest on our Web & Networks IG presentation from Chinese colleagues who got it translated and shared on the W3C Chinese community
… which triggered further interest, e.g. from https://dappworks.cn

eric: the CG didn't seem to spend a lot time on AAA games

ac Eric_Siow
… We need to find problem statement that resonates to a broader set of stakeholders
… including with more outreach

Slideset: https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2022Mar/att-0000/Edge_Web-WNIG-Mar2022-McCool.pdf

Edge Computing and the Web

McCool: this slideset is about setting up the problem
… skipping the first slides in the interest of time
… we need to gather and organize use cases
… but my focus today is how to organize stakeholders

[ Slide 4 ]

McCool: Rather than looking at specific companies, we're looking at business models with which our problem statements resonate, which I've organized in categories
… some companies cumulate 5 or 6 of these models

[ Slide 5 ]

McCool: then for each of these business models, I look at what opportunities would emerge from solving the issue at hand
… business opportunities specifically
… I plan to bring this as PR to the use cases document
… we've starting validating with specific companies on whether this matches their pain points

Dom: I like the model & the categories

Max: good starting point - we need to validate this with industry stakeholders
… to reflect real industry input

McCool: let's iterate on corrections via a pull request
… once it's in the document, we can iterate with feedback from other companies

Dom: +1

Max: sure

Song: I'm interested in the categories and descriptions of stakeholders
… the developers I'm in touch with may not necessarily have great clarity on business considerations
… this content will help them with moving the conversations with their business people

McCool: we'll also to include the fact that some companies will consider the edge as a threat to their business

[ Slide 6 ]

McCool: we'll want to derive requirements from use cases, with security & privacy applied throughout
… I have prepared a PR that extends the requirements table, some of which has a dependency on the use cases PR
… part of what we discuss is prioritizing use cases, which may lead to a prioritization of requirements
… I've given a short name to each requirement to make it easier to refer to them
… We'll also need a terminology section (e.g. edge cloud / edge resource / edge client)

Expand Requirements Table PR

McCool: [review expanded requirements from PR]

Max: I've brought a PR with additional use cases, incl on Video Conference where edge may help a mobile terminal with more limited resources

Pull request: Add more use cases #4

Max: [review other proposed additional use cases]
… We need some mechanism to deal with the PR - if no objection, I'm happy to merge them
… we could also organize ad-hoc meetings
… I'm happy to help with the mechanics of repo management

McCool: +1 on having someone responsible for merging
… and then iterate with one-on-one meetings if needed

Max: will do

dom: thanks a lot for moving forward; we should look towards getting this published as first public interest group note
… the chairs and I will caucus to support you towards that

Sudeep: Michael, you raised an issue about terminology - any plan on how to address it?

Michael: I can create a PR for the basic structure for the terminology
… I'm looking for input on terms that need definitions

sudeep: any other W3C group that may have define these terms?

dom: probably not in W3C; but we should re-use external definitions where they match our needs

mccool: part of the challenges is that there are so many definitions to choose from

dand: re business models, one of the challenges is that it really matters who "pays" for the edge resources
… on whose behalf is the resource allocation done
… e.g. if the client does it, it's usually associated to caching / optimization proxy
… when the server does it, it's associated more with a CDN
… understanding that dynamic is critical for the Web
… also key to the trust model

mccool: 100% agree
… under security, one of the requirements will be who has control, who do I trust and why

Sudeep: thank you all for the progress and plan for moving forward

Slideset: https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2022Mar/att-0000/Edge_Web-WNIG-Mar2022-McCool.pdf

Minutes manually created (not a transcript), formatted by scribe.perl version 185 (Thu Dec 2 18:51:55 2021 UTC).

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No scribenick or scribe found. Guessed: dom

Maybe present: DanD, McCool, Michael, Song