Remote Network Monitoring (rmonmib)

Last Modified: 2006-03-24

Additional information is available at tools.ietf.org/wg/rmonmib

Chair(s):

Andy Bierman <ietf@andybierman.com>

Operations and Management Area Director(s):

Dan Romascanu <dromasca@avaya.com>

David Kessens <david.kessens@nokia.com>

Operations and Management Area Advisor:

David Kessens <david.kessens@nokia.com>

Technical Advisor(s):

Steven Waldbusser <waldbusser@nextbeacon.com>

Matthew Zekauskas <matt@internet2.edu>

Mailing Lists:

General Discussion: rmonmib@ietf.org
To Subscribe: http://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/rmonmib
Archive: http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/rmonmib/index.html

Description of Working Group:

Steve Waldbusser is TA for SNMP/MIB related matters
Matt Zekauskas is TA for Transport Retaled matters

The RMON MIB Working Group is chartered to define a set of managed
objects for remote monitoring of networks. These objects will be the
minimum necessary to provide the ability to monitor multiple network
layers of traffic in remote networks; providing fault, configuration,
and performance management, and will be consistent with the SNMP
framework and existing SNMP standards.

The following list of features for this RMON has been previously
discussed in relation to existing RMON functionality and is included
to focus these RMON activities. It is recognized that other issues
may be considered and that certain of the following issues may not
be part of the final specification(s):

1. Application Performance Measurement

Monitoring support for the measurement and characterization
of network application protocols, striving to measure an
application user's experience as closely as possible.
The RMON-2 MIB (RFC 2021) contains a protocol directory
that will be used to identify applications for monitoring
purposes.

While it is important to measure the performance of computing
and network resources, these measurements don't give an insight
to the actual service delivered to end-users. This end-user
experience is best measured by the response-time and availability
of application transactions because users interact directly
with applications. This working group will create extensions
to the RMON-2 MIB that will allow Application Performance
Measurements to be retrieved with SNMP, no matter which
technology is used to perform the measurements.

The goal of the working group is to provide a common framework
and set of MIB objects, within the current RMON framework,
for the identification and characterization of application
responsiveness and availability, and the reporting of
test results produced by such mechanisms. Common metrics and
derived metrics will be characterized and reported in a manner
consistent with the IP Performance Metrics Framework (RFC 2330).

It is an explicit non-goal of the working group to select
one or more mechanisms as the preferred or standard RMON
application performance measurement mechanism. However, it is
possible that one or more standard mechanisms will be
developed in the future, after significant implementation
experience has been gained by the working group.

2. Differentiated Services Statistics Collection

Monitoring support for Differentiated Services (DS) statistics
collection, for the purpose of DS codepoint usage analysis
and possibly other statistics related to DS deployment and
performance tuning.

3. Interface TopN Reporting

It is often too slow or difficult to determine the
busiest ports in devices such as high port-density switches,
using existing RMON mechanisms.
New monitoring support is needed for quickly determining
the most congested (highest utilized) physical ports and
links in an RMON-capable device with multiple interfaces.

4. TR-RMON MIB Advancement

The Token Ring RMON MIB (RFC 1513) is ready for standards
track advancement. An interoperability and deployment survey
has already been completed, but the MIB must be updated in
SMIv2 format before it can be advanced on the standards track.

5. Transport Performance Measurement

There is a need for standardized means to collect and report
selectable performance metrics and statistics derived from
the monitoring of network packets and transport protocol states.
The monitoring covers both passive and active traffic generation
sources. Monitoring support for the these measurements can
provide a drill-down capability to provide insight into the
performance of the lower-level transactions which comprise the
overall performance of a network application.

The goal of the working group is to provide a common framework
and set of MIB objects, within the current RMON framework,
for the identification and characterization of transaction-level
performance, and the reporting of test results produced by such
mechanisms. Common metrics and derived statistics will be
characterized and reported in a manner consistent with the
IP Performance Metrics Framework (RFC 2330).

6. SMON MIB Advancement

The SMON MIB (RFC 2613) is ready for standards
track advancement. An interoperability and deployment survey
will be completed, and submitted to the IESG.
It is possible that minor enhancements and corrections to
RFC 2613 will be made, based on the survey findings and
working group input.

7. RMON-2 MIB Advancement

The RMON-2 MIB (RFC 2021) is ready for standards
track advancement. An interoperability and deployment survey
will be completed, and submitted to the IESG.
It is possible that minor enhancements and corrections to
RFC 2021 will be made, based on the survey findings and
working group input.

8. RMON PI Reference Advancement

The RMON Protocol Identifiers Reference (RFC 2895) is ready
for standards track advancement. An interoperability and
deployment survey will be completed, and submitted to the
IESG. It is possible that minor enhancements and corrections
to RFC 2895 will be made, based on the survey findings and
working group input.

9. Synthetic Sources for Performance Monitoring

Mechanisms are needed for the remote control of synthetic
packet sources and destinations, for the purpose of
enhancing remote performance monitoring capabilities within
IP networks and services. These mechanisms must utilize
the RMON protocol directory for protocol encapsulation
identification. Any interactions with the
RMON Framework or dependencies on specific RMON MIB objects
(if any) will be specified as well.

10. RMON Framework

Documentation is needed which clarifies the remote network
monitoring framework, and describes the inter-relationships and
dependencies between the various RMON MIB modules. A conceptual
model is needed to help administrators and developers better
understand data sources, the protocol directory, and the existing
RMON statistical collections. Undocumented 'RMON folklore', as
well
as the limitations and appropriate application of various
implementation techniques will also be addressed.

11. Real-time Application QoS Monitoring MIB

There is a need to extend the RMON framework to monitor end
devices
such as IP Phones, pagers, Instant Message Clients, Cell Phones,
and PDA devices. An end-to-end user experience of the quality of
service (QoS) and performance for such an application is a
combination of device performance and transport network
performance. Monitoring should be performed at the application
layer that reflects a specific end user experience on a
particular
IP end point, reflecting specific transport network performance

There is a need to extend the RMON framework to monitor end devices
such as IP Phones, pagers, Instant Message Clients, Cell Phones,
and PDA devices. An end-to-end user experience of the quality of
service (QoS) and performance for such an application is a combination
of device performance and transport network performance. Monitoring
should be performed at the application layer that reflects a specific
end user experience on a particular IP end point, reflecting specific
transport network performance.

This working group will extend the RMON Framework to allow Real-time
Application QoS information of these types of end devices to be
retrieved with SNMP, independent of the technology used to
perform the measurements.

The WG will define a common framework and set of MIB objects,
within the current RMON framework, for the identification and
characterization of application QoS parameters, and the reporting
of the on-going measurement reports produced by these mechanisms.
Common metrics and derived metrics will be characterized and reported
in a manner consistent with the IP Performance Metrics Framework
(RFC 2330).

The WG will also define a set of RAQMON Application level QoS PDUs
to have common formats of reporting statistics between a RAQMON
Data Source and a RAQMON Report Collector. These Common
RAQMON PDUs will be transported over existing protocols, such as
RTCP or SNMP.

The measurement methodology is out of the scope of the RAQMON work
and will be in conformance with the IPPM WG recommendations, and
also may take into account considerations from application-specific
(IM and telephony) WGs as needed. This WG will consider the
cases for transport of RAQMON PDUs, including how RTCP might be
used and still meet security/privacy goals.

Security aspects related to RAQMON reports will be cognizant of
privacy and anonymity issues while being responsive to the needs
of measurement applications.

Goals and Milestones:

Done		Activation of working group, call for suggested MIB modules.
Done		Reach agreement on the functional scope of the charter, and finalize the document deliverables.
Done		Submit initial Internet-Draft for Differentiated Services Monitoring
Done		Submit initial Internet-Draft for Interface TopN Reporting
Done		Submit initial Internet-Draft for TR-RMON MIB in SMIv2 Format
Done		Begin Working Group Last Call for TR-RMON MIB in SMIv2 Format
Done		Submit initial Internet-Draft for Application Performance Metrics
Done		Begin Working Group Last Call for Differentiated Services Monitoring
Done		Begin Working Group Last Call for Interface TopN Reporting
Done		Submit Final Draft of Differentiated Services Monitoring to IESG for standards track action
Done		Begin Working Group Last Call for Application Performance Metrics
Done		Submit Final Draft of Application Performance Metrics to IESG for standards track action
Done		Submit Final Draft of Interface TopN Reporting to IESG for standards track action
Done		Call for MIB Modules for Synthetic Sources for Performance Monitoring
Done		Call for RMON-2 Implementation reports
Done		Call for RMON-PI Implementation reports
Done		Submit initial Internet-Draft for Synthetic Sources for Performance Monitoring
Done		Submit initial Internet-Draft for the RMON Framework
Done		Submit Final Draft of TR-RMON MIB in SMIv2 Format
Done		Complete RMON-PI Implementation Report
Done		Begin WG Last Call for Transport Performance Measurement
Done		Begin WG Last Call for Synthetic Sources for Performance Monitoring
Done		Submit Final RMON-2 Implementation Report to IESG
Done		Submit Final SMON Implementation Report to IESG
Done		Complete RMON-2 Implementation Report
Done		Submit Final RMON-PI Implementation Report to IESG
Done		Complete SMON Implementation Report
Done		Begin WG Last Call for RMON Framework
Done		Publish initial Internet-Draft for the Extensions to RMON Framework for RAQMON
Done		Publish initial Internet-Draft for the RAQMON PDU Types
Done		Submit Final Draft of Transport Performance Measurement to IESG for standards track action
Done		Submit Final Draft of Synthetic Sources for Performance Monitoring to IESG for standards track action
Done		Publish initial Internet-Draft for the RAQMON MIB
Done		Submit Final Draft of RMON Framework to IESG for standards track action
Done		Begin Working Group Last Call for the Extensions to RMON Framework for RAQMON document
Done		Begin Working Group Last Call for the RAQMON PDU Types document
Done		Begin Working Group Last Call for the RAQMON MIB document
Done		Submit initial draft for RMON Protocol Macros for IPv6
Done		Submit the RAQMON PDU Types document to the IESG for publication consideration as a Proposed Standard
Done		Begin WG Last Call for RMON Protocol Macros for IPv6
Done		Submit the RAQMON MIB document to the IESG for publication consideration as a Proposed Standard
Done		Submit the Extensions to RMON Framework for RAQMON document to the IESG for publication consideration as an Informational RFC
Done		Submit final draft of RMON Protocol Macros for IPv6 to the IESG

No Current Internet-Drafts

Request For Comments:

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