Re: [Netconf] A question on NETCONF versus RESTful webservices

[Andy Bierman <andy at netconfcentral.com>]

Graham Phillips wrote:
> Hello,
>
>  
>
>  
>
> I am a proponent of NETCONF and am trying to promote it within my 
> organization, Netscaler/Citrix.
>
>  
>
> I am running into some difficultly selling NETCONF to my colleges who 
> have build a prototype using a RESTful web services approach.   In this 
> approach they are using JSON over HTTP.   The retrieval of individual 
> configuration entities is handled by mapping the request to an HTTP GET 
> request on a particular URL (eg. GET device_ip_address/entity_X/name).  
> Setting of configuration entities are mapped to HTTP POST requests.
>
>  
>
> Can anyone give me some ideas how I might sell the NETCONF idea to 
> non-believers?


There are many reasons that NETCONF/YANG are better suited
for embedded networking devices.  This is probably the
wrong list for a detailed discussion.

For many reasons, managing a router as if it
was just an XML instance document that can be
peeked and poked with data just doesn't work.
On the other end, asking a router to provide
complex transaction capability found in an SQL server
is too heavy-weight.  NETCONF is somewhere in between.

Try these links for more info:
http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/netconf/trac/wiki
http://www.netconfcentral.org/
http://www.yang-central.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome


> I think some advantages of NETCONF are:
>
>             1) That it is a standard that has been adopted by large 
> network vendors (ie Juniper and Cisco)
>
>                         Any others?
>
>             2) I suspect that it has been adopted by network management 
> vendors.  Do we have any vendor names?
>
>  
>
> One question that I have been asked is how easier is it to wrap 
> client-side language-bindings around the NETCONF protocol.  For example, 
> in the web services world, one has a WSDL file, and client side language 
> binding can be automatically generated.    How does one achieve this 
> stub generation with NETCONF?  Can this be achieve with the NETCONF over 
> SOAP scheme.

People may or may not be working on YANG translation
tools which would help here.  The best part about
NETCONF is YANG, and that's not quite here yet.
Complex networking services require complex APIs to manage.
NETCONF/YANG provides the building blocks for such APIs.


>  
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> Thank you.
>
> --Graham Phillips
>
>  

Andy