Apple engineer Stuart Cheshire has proposed extending the existing multicast DNS (mDNS) specifications to make Bonjour work better with enterprise networks. Cheshire, the man behind Apple's Bonjour and its underlying Zeroconf zero-configuration networking technologies, made his proposal during a meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force in Atlanta, Georgia this week, according to Network World.
Cheshire's proposal responded to complaints from EDUCAUSE and numerous network administrators from colleges and universities all across the US. EDUCAUSE, a non-profit association for IT professionals that work in higher education environments, created a petition in August to pressure Apple to improve and expand its Bonjour technology so it can work better on enterprise networks like those used on college campuses.
Bonjour, along with underlying standards like DNS-Based Service Discovery (DNS-SD) and mDNS, enable AirPrinting from iPads to wireless printers, or streaming video from devices to Apple TVs. However, these technologies are designed to only work over a single local network subnet.
That limitation is no problem for most homes with a single wireless router, but it can be a headache for corporate or education networks which might have multiple wireless routers covering large areas like office spaces, classrooms, and lecture halls. For instance, an iPad connected to the wireless network might not be able to show a presentation via AirPlay to an Apple TV connected to a lecture hall's projector that is wired to a different router. Or, an executive in a conference room might not be able to print a document via AirPrint to the printer located a few doors down.
Furthermore, Bonjour can also create a lot of unnecessary traffic on large networks, flooding it with multicast data from dozens or hundreds of devices broadcasting services like network printing, file sharing, and AirPlay streaming.
"We targeted Bonjour at home networks, but over the last 10 years multicast DNS—what Apple calls Bonjour—has become very popular," Cheshire told Network World. "Every network printer uses Bonjour. TiVo, home video recorders, and cameras use it. iPads and iPhones use it, and we are starting to get a lot of demand from customers [who are concerned] that they won't be able to print from iPads to a printer in the next building."
Cheshire, along with Kerry Lynn of the IEEE, has submitted a draft proposal to create the DNS-SD/mDNS Extensions Working Group, which would extend those protocols and "enable service discovery beyond the local link." Doing so within the framework of the IETF allows all interested parties, including network admins and router vendors, to "cooperate and develop efficient and scalable solutions."
"The software that already exists in Apple Bonjour, and Linux Avahi, has some wide-area capabilities. We have some tools to build with, but we have not put it together right," Cheshire admitted. "The question is whether there is interest in the IETF to step in and do it better."
Representatives from Xirrus, Cisco, CheckPoint, and IBM support the measure.
"There's a recognition of the problem and a willingness to work on it," IBM's Thomas Narten told Network World. He expects the IETF will make significant progress on defining an improved standard before the IETF meets next in March 2013.
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