Technical University Braunschweig - Computer Science - Operating Systems and Computer Networks

The SNMP community has expressed a need to see the Structure of Management Information (v2), RFCs 1902, 1903 and 1904, advance to Standard status.

A number of hopefully minor issues have been raised related to these documents; it is clear that some work, hopefully just clarifications, is needed before we can advance the documents.

In order to get this work done rapidly and throughly, the O&M ADs have asked a small team to work out proposed new documents, well in advance of the August IETF, that can be reviewed there and hopefully advanced to Standard in a reasonably short time.

This team consists of:

• Keith McCloghrie
• Dave Perkins
• Juergen Schoenwaelder

A special mailing list has been created for the team, smi-dt@ops.ietf.org. A publicly visible list of issues raised and resolved will be maintained. The initial schedule is as follows:

• July 1: List of issues to resolve is completed
• August 1: Initial drafts of new documents are published
• August 23-28: Review BOF held at Chicago IETF
• October: Final documents, internal last call
• November: IETF Last Call
• December: Documents published as Standard

This work is NOT about adding new functionality, but is intended to make sure that we have an SMI specification that, in the words of RFC 1602, is "characterized by a high degree of technical maturity and by a generally held belief that the specified protocol or service provides significant benefit to the Internet community".

We believe that the essential portion of this work for the SMI is to make sure that we have clear, unambiguous specifications for all parts of the SMI language, which in fact conforms to the widespread usage of this language in the community.

Note that the work is NOT done as part of the SNMPv3 group; we think that this part of the whole SNMP puzzle is better done outside, leaving the SNMPv3 group free to concentrate on protocol issues.

WHAT WE NEED TO DO:

Before July 1: Make sure each and every issue you have with the current documents is described clearly in a message to smi-dt@ops.ietf.org

In July: Make sure you know where the issues list is, and that you feel that the issues you raised are correctly described there, either as the issue you raised, or as part of another issue. (At this time, it's not a Good Thing to raise new, minor issues; the team will need some time to work out the ones they have!)

In August: Make sure you *read* the new documents, consider whether your issues have been adequately addressed (whether they are accepted or rejected), and whether you have outstanding issues with the new documents.

With the assistance of the IETF community, we think we can make progress.

Harald Tveit Alvestrand
IETF Area Director, Operations and Management