Extensible Supply-chain Discovery Service Problem Statement

This document discusses the requirements of an application layer protocol which can meet the needs of today's complex and dynamic supply chains. Currently, supply chain communication traffic travels over the Internet using existing Internet protocols. This is a temporary solution for a growing niche. This document elaborates on issues that would arise if this trend continues. Also, this document outlines a set of design concerns that an application layer protocol needs to address in order to be deployable in a real-world supply chain. Comments are solicited and should be addressed to the mailing list at esds@ietf.org and/or the author(s).