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SNMP Agent Extensibility (agentx)

NOTE: This charter is a snapshot of that in effect at the time of the 38th IETF Meeting in Memphis, Tennessee. It may now be out-of-date.

Chair(s): 

Bob Natale <natale@acec.com>

Operations and Management Area Director(s): 

Scott Bradner <sob@harvard.edu>
Michael O'Dell <mo@uu.net>
Deirdre Kostick <kostick@qsun.att.com>

Mailing Lists: 

General Discussion:agentx@fv.com
To Subscribe: agentx-request@fv.com
In Body: Subject: subscribe
Archive: ftp://ftp.fv.com/pub/agentx/

Description of Working Group: 

Note: Dale Francisco of Stratacom <dfrancisco@strata.com is the WG editor. 

The goal of this working group is to define standards-track technology for SNMP Agent extensibility. The resulting technology specification will allow independently developed sub-agents to communicate with a master-agent running on an Internet device. 

The technology specification will consist of:

(mandatory) a platform-independent protocol which supports intra-agent communication within a device or local area network; 
(optional) a MIB module, which, when implemented by a master-agent, allows an SNMP-based management application to monitor and control the intra-agent communication service; and, (optional) a programmatic interface to the services offered by that protocol. 
The working group is explicitly directed to develop a solution which is adequate to achieve transparency with respect to whether a SNMP request is processed by a master-agent and/or one or more sub-agents; simultaneously, the working group is further directed to use good engineering judgement is developing an approach with the smallest reasonable "footprint" to achieve intra-agent communication. As a consequence, if the working group may choose to avoid complete transparency, if, at its discretion, this proves too costly. In this case, the working group should document its decision for this engineering trade-off.

Although the working group will solicit existing specifications and experience in this area, it will produce a vendor-neutral technology specification.

Goals and Milestones:

Done		First meeting at Dallas IETF.
Done		Meet at LA IETF.
Apr 96		Post first Internet-Draft(s) for SNMP Agent Extensibility.
May 96		Post revised Internet-Draft(s) on SNMP Agent Extensibility.
Jun 96		Post final Internet-Drafts of AgentX protocol.
Jul 96		Submit initial Agentx MIB and API as Internet-Drafts.
Sep 96		Submit revised versions of Agentx MIB and API Internet-Drafts.
Oct 96		Collecting and evaluate implementation reports.
Nov 96		Conduct Agentx interoperability testing.
Dec 96		Submit final versions of AgentX MIB and API Internet-Drafts.
Dec 96		Submit final set of Internet-Drafts on SNMP Agent Extensibility to IESG for consideration as a Proposed Standard.

Internet-Drafts: 

· Agent Extensibility (AgentX) Protocol Version 1

No Request For Comments 

Current Meeting Report

Slides