CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_

Reported by James Davin/MIT

SNMP Minutes

SIP MIB

Tracy Cox of Bellcore presented the current MIB for the SMDS Interface
Protocol.  It was noted that the document largely exports those objects
found in an SMDS switch that conforms to the Bellcore TA for SMDS.
Numerous minor editorial comments were made and accepted.

Once this editing is complete, the Working Group recommends this
document to the IESG for consideration as a Proposed Standard.

Ether-Like MIB

Chuck Davin, the Area Director, reported that the IAB had concerns
regarding the ether-like MIB which had been produced by the Working
Group and recommended by the IESG for entry onto the standards track.
These concerns were in the area of 14 mandatory objects which might not
be available on a chipset that is minimally 802.3-compliant.

The Working Group met in an ad hoc fashion the next day to edit the
document to include the objects as optional.  A liaison statement for
the IAB, expressing the concern of the Working Group was unanimously
adopted.  (The minutes of this ad hoc group are below).

At the open plenary, the liaison statement was read.  Although the
ensuing discussion lasted nearly 1-1/2 hours, some points were
crystalized:  the IAB Chair, Vint Cerf, noted that the ``IAB had
consulted it's 802.3 expert to consider the matter''.  Vint continued by
saying that the IAB's expert, IAB member Tony Lauck of DEC, had been on
vacation, and this delayed the disposition of the MIB. Jeffrey Case, a
member of the SNMP Working Group, disagreed with Cerf, noting that the
IAB's 802.3 expert was not on vacation--as ``the IAB's expert in this
matter was not a member of the IAB nor any of his employees, but rather
the IESG and the Working Group which produced the MIB.'' Another SNMP
Working Group member, Karl Auerbach, observed that to a mean-spirited
observer it might appear that one vendor, i.e., DEC, had purposely
interfered with the MIB out of self-interest.  Auerbach prefaced his
remarks by indicating that he wasn't advocating that perspective.
Nonetheless this raised several issues concerning the propriety of the
IAB's actions and their reporting structure, which was subsequently
discussed ad nauseum.

List of MIBs

Dave Perkins of SynOptics presented a comprehensive list of all known
MIBs.  This document will be revised on a regular basis and likely made
available via ftp/mail.


                                  1





Implementation Reports

The Chair queried the group of their implementation of various
management technologies on the standards track:


Manager Agent
Concise Definitions high high
MIB-II high high
Token Bus ~15 1/2
Token Ring ~15 4
Interface Extensions ~10 5
DS1 ~5 1-1/2
DS3 ~5 0



Because of the near-universal implementation of Concise/MIB-II, these
documents are being recommended by the Working Group to the IESG for
advancement.  On the remaining documents, Manager vendors complained of
a lack of agents to test with.  This issue will be raised again after
the Interop SNMP Solutions Showcase.  Hopefully this will provide better
implementation experience.


Minutes of the Ad Hoc Meeting
Chair:  Frank Kastenholz
Date:  Thursday, August 1, 1991
An ad hoc meeting of the SNMP Working Group convened the morning of
August 1, 1991 to revise the Ethernet MIB according to feedback from the
IAB.

The IAB, after reviewing the Ethernet MIB, expressed concern about
several of the variables of the MIB and their mandatory status.
Specifically, the IAB felt that implementation of the following
variables not be required in order for an implementation to claim
compliance with the MIB:



dot3MacSublayerStatus
dot3MulticastReceiveStatus
dot3TxEnabled
dot3StatsSQETestErrors
dot3StatsDeferredTransmissions
dot3StatsLateCollisions
dot3StatsExcessiveCollisions
dot3StatsInternalMacTransmitErrors
dot3StatsCarrierSenseErrors
dot3StatsExcessiveDeferrals
dot3StatsFrameTooLongs
dot3StatsInRangeLengthErrors
dot3StatsOutOfRangeLengthFields


                                  2





dot3StatsInternalMacReceiveErrors



The Working Group discussed several different strategies for revising
the MIB per the IAB's comments.  These included:


  o Splitting the dot3Table and dot3StatsTable each into two tables,
    giving a total of four tables.  Each of the original tables would
    be split into a table containing the variables acceptable to the
    IAB and a table containing the variables with which the IAB had
    concerns.

    This option was rejected when it was realized that the dot3Table
    would be split into two tables, one containing two variables and
    the other containing three.  Such small tables were considered to
    be very inefficient by the Working Group.

  o Assigning optional STATUS to the variables that the IAB had an
    issue with.

    This option was rejected when it was explained that the unit of
    conformance for MIBs is the mib group.



The Working Group settled on the following strategy:



  o The Ethernet MIB will be divided into two tables.  Each table will
    comprise a separate MIB Group.  One table will contain the objects
    which the IAB found acceptable and implementation of that group
    will be mandatory.  The second table will contain all variables
    with which the IAB had an issue and implementation of that table
    will be optional.

    The text on the MIB document that allows returning 0 for variables
    for which there is no underlying hardware support will be removed.


The Working Group believes that this MIB structure is less useful than
the structure as submitted to the IAB because the requirements for
conformance have been reduced.  Vendors can implement only the mandatory
group and be able to claim compliance with the MIB. However, the Working
Group believes that this group does not contain all variables that are
necessary for effective management of Ethernet-like interfaces.

The Working Group also believes that several extremely useful variables,
as determined by implementation experience, will not be widely
implemented because those variables have been moved to the optional


                                  3





portion of the MIB. Specifically, implementation and operational
experience have shown the following five variables to be extremely
valuable in detecting and diagnosing network problems:


 1. dot3StatsDeferredTransmissions
 2. dot3StatsLateCollisions
 3. dot3StatsExcessiveCollisions
 4. dot3StatsExcessiveDeferrals
 5. dot3StatsFrameTooLongs


The Working Group then developed the following statement for including
in the the Minutes of the meeting.  The Working Group also directed the
Chair to read this statement in the open IESG meeting on August 1, 1991.


                          LIAISON STATEMENT


The IETF meetings, unlike others, are open.  All parties, even IAB
members, are encouraged to attend and make their positions known and
have them argued in the open.  It is important to appreciate that
development of technology does not occur in a vacuum for a community as
large as the internet.  It is also important to appreciate that the
needs of the community must be met in a timely fashion.

IETF has worked over two years on the Ethernet MIB. The MIB was approved
by the Working Group, the IETF plenary, and the IESG. Only at that late
date, the IAB unilaterally raised issues that had been previously
resolved.  Because of the pressing needs of the community we feel
coerced into revising the ethernet MIB as we have done today.
Unfortunately the technical merit of this document has suffered owing to
the lack of 802.3 expertise available to us on such short notice.  As a
result of this decline in technical quality, this document is less
useful for management, and the manageability of the internet will
suffer.

It must be emphasized that during the two years of preparation, numerous
802.3 experts contributed to the process and all the issues later raised
by the IAB were thoroughly discussed, repeatedly argued, and resolved to
the satisfaction of the experts.  We feel that the editing session,
hastily convened owing to the misplaced paternalism of the IAB, has
undone some of the work of those experts.



                                  4





Attendees

Steve Alexander          [email protected]
Karl Auerbach            [email protected]
James Barnes             [email protected]
Steve Bostock            [email protected]
David Bridgham           [email protected]
John Burruss             [email protected]
Jeffrey Case             [email protected]
Chi Chu                  [email protected]
Gigi Chu                 [email protected]
Henry Clark              [email protected]
John Cook                [email protected]
Tracy Cox                [email protected]
Dave Cullerot            [email protected]
James Davin              [email protected]
Gary Ellis               [email protected]
Mike Erlinger            [email protected]
Jeff Fried               [email protected]
Shari Galitzer           [email protected]
Shawn Gallagher          [email protected]
Kenneth Goodwin          [email protected]
Phillip Hasse            [email protected]
Ron Jacoby               [email protected]
Mike Janson              [email protected]
Frank Kastenholz         [email protected]
Manu Kaycee              [email protected]
Mark Kepke               [email protected]
Kenneth Key              [email protected]
Christopher Kolb         [email protected]
Deidre Kostick           [email protected]
Bobby Krupczak           [email protected]
Cheryl Krupczak          [email protected]
Chao-Yu Liang
Shane MacPhillamy        [email protected]
Ron Mackey               [email protected]
Keith McCloghrie         [email protected]
Evan McGinnis            [email protected]
Robert Meierhofer
Lynn Monsanto            [email protected]
Karen O'Donoghue         [email protected]
Michael Patton           [email protected]
David Perkins            [email protected]
John Pickens             [email protected]
Brian Price              [email protected]
Marshall Rose            [email protected]
Jonathan Saperia         [email protected]
Mark Schaefer            [email protected]
John Seligson            [email protected]
Timon Sloane             [email protected]
Bob Stewart              [email protected]
Emil Sturniolo           [email protected]
Bruce Taber              [email protected]
Maurice Turcotte         [email protected]

                                  5





David Waitzman           [email protected]
Drew Wansley             [email protected]
David Ward               [email protected]
Gerard White             [email protected]
Linda Winkler            [email protected]
Mark Wood                [email protected]
Joseph Zur               [email protected]



                                  6

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