Network Management Area

Director(s):

   o James Davin:  jrd@ptt.lcs.mit.edu

Area Summary reported by James Davin/MIT

A number of Working Groups met at the St.  Louis IETF meeting.  Brief
summaries of their activities are presented below.  More detailed
accounts are presented in the Minutes for each Working Group.

Also, at the St.  Louis meeting, the SNMP Network Management Directorate
met and considered five items of business.


  1. The Ethernet-like Interfaces MIB, as amended by the SNMP Working
     Group at St.  Louis, was discussed and reviewed positively.

  2. The IP over AppleTalk MIB produced by the IP over Appletalk Working
     Group was discussed and reviewed positively.

  3. The state of the SMDS Interface Protocol MIB introduced to the SNMP
     Working Group at St.  Louis was discussed.

  4. The current draft of the OSPF MIB produced by the OSPF Working
     Group was given a preliminary review in anticipation of its
     imminent completion.  A list of comments was provided to the
     author.

  5. A document describing enhancements to the SNMP administrative model
     to provide better support for security and proxy configurations was
     discussed at length and reviewed positively after amendments
     designed to minimize change to existing infrastructure.  The
     updated version of this document was subsequently distributed for
     wider review to the SNMP Security Working Group.


Internet Accounting (acct)

The Internet Accounting Working Group met at St.  Louis and focused on
definition of MIB objects for the collection of accounting information.
They also spent some time on minor revisions of the accounting
architecture document, which will be distributed soon as an Internet
Draft.  The Accounting Working Group is also coordinating with the
Remote LAN Monitoring and Operational Statistics Working Group to assure

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that no redundant MIB instrumentation is defined.



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Bridge MIB (bridge)

The Bridge MIB Working Group met and, with specific amendments,
recommended their consensus document for consideration as a Proposed
Standard.  One strictly informational question will be resolved via
electronic mail.  The approved Bridge MIB text will be distributed by
electronic mail for working members to verify the agreed amendments.
The revised text will be available before the next meeting.

During the Bridge MIB Working Group meeting, and also in the IETF
Plenary session, presentations were made to clarify the IETF policy on
the translation of network management definitions developed by other
standards bodies into the SNMP idiom.  A letter that addresses the
particular case of the Bridge MIB effort has been incorporated into the
Bridge MIB Working Group Minutes.  Its three enumerated points capture
the general policy for ``importing'' MIBs adopted by the IESG.

Character MIB (charmib)

The Character MIB Working Group met and reviewed the current working
documents.  These were recommended by the Working Group for
consideration as Proposed Standards with specific amendments.  Revised
text reflecting these amendments will be available soon.

FDDI MIB (fddimib)

The FDDI MIB Working Group met and accomplished all goals set at its
previous meeting.  Work on defining instrumentation was completed, as
was work on mapping actions in the ANSI specifications into appropriate
SNMP MIB objects.  The need for 64-bit integer MIB objects was obviated,
and a document defining two SNMP traps to model FDDI events was
introduced at this meeting.

Management Services Interface (msi)

The Management Services Interface Working Group met briefly at the St.
Louis meeting and adjourned owing to low attendance and the absence of
key individuals.  The Working Group affirmed its decision that the
interface is only relevant to management stations.  Those assembled
reviewed the list of outstanding issues and found two particularly
problematic:  (a) the translation between the OSI and SNMP information
models and (b) the tension between the usefulness of an opaquely defined
interface and the need to offer guidance to implementors.

DECNet Phase IV MIB (decnetiv)


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The DECNet Phase IV MIB Working Group made many changes to the current
document including significant reduction in the number of objects.  The
definition of events was relegated to a distinct document, generic
portions of the X.25 instrumentation were excised, and the definition of
conformance groups was revised.  The Working Group reached consensus on
the text as amended.  Revised text will be available within four weeks.

Remote Lan Monitoring (rlanmib)

The Remote LAN Monitoring Working Group met and reviewed most of the
current draft in detail.  A revised draft will be posted to the mailing
list soon.  An interim Working Group meeting will be held in 4--6 weeks
to continue discussion.

SNMP

The SNMP Working Group met and considered two documents.  The Working
Group recommended the Ethernet-like Interfaces MIB, with very minor
amendments, for consideration by the IESG as a Proposed Standard.  The
approved text will be posted to the Working Group mailing list soon
after the meeting.  A document defining a SMDS Interface Protocol MIB
was introduced to the Working Group in a presentation made by Kaj Tesink
of Bellcore.  The Working Group will consider this document further in
subsequent meetings.



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