[Bridge-mib] Future directions

["Harrington, David" <dbh at enterasys.com>]

Hi,

The bridgemib work has stalled, and we're working to un-stall it.

We have been in discussions with IEEE 802.1, and they are willing to
write their own mibs because this will help them produce mibs
contemporaneously with the managed functionality. I will be providing
MIB Doctor reviews for them during the transition, and possibly after
the transition. IEEE 802.1 plans to publish mibs as part of their
standard in their normal PDF format, and also make the mibs available in
text format for import into mib compilers and applications.

I have been working with Bert, and our current expectation is that the
Bridgemib WG will finalize the existing bridgemib WG documents, and then
presumably close down. I am working to get the four remaining documents
finalized and into WG last call.

Bert raised a good point; we should ask what the implementers and
deployers of the mibs would like as a future direction. So let me
stimulate some discussion, so the powers-that-be in IETF and IEEE have
some guidance:

1) Do you agree with having the IEEE write their own mibs?
2) Will you participate in the IEEE 802.1 process for developing the mib
modules?
3) Do you agree the bridgemib WG should be closed down, since it will
have completed its charter?

For future mibs produced by IEEE:
4) Should they also be published as RFCs? 
If they are published as RFCs, this would probably be as Informational
only. The IEEE standard would be the official version, and to the degree
we could achieve it, the IETF might publish a mirror copy. 
5) Synchronization between IEEE/IETF review/publishing cycles has proven
difficult, so we are considering publishing Informational RFCs with only
a pointer to the IEEE standard. Would that suffice?

For existing 802.1-related MIBs (1493, 1525, 2674, et al):
6) Should these be moved to the IEEE?
7) If not, why not? How should the IETF mib modules be maintained as the
IEEE 802.1 technologies change?
8) If yes, what should we do with the existing standards? Would making
them Historic and replacing them with Informational RFCs that point to
the IEEE standards documents suffice?

David Harrington            
dbh@enterasys.com
Director, Network Management Architecture
Office of the CTO, Enterasys Networks


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