Subject: ALARM-MIB shared indices and row pointers for alarmModelEntry & ituAlarmEntry

From: David Partain <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 14:31:14 +0100

Hi all,

In looking at the indexing and the various RowPointers in the
ALARM-MIB, my brain started hurting.  I realize that may be based
on its capacity...

In any case, the alarmModelEntry has:

->Indices:
  1: alarmListName
  2: alarmModelIndex
  3: alarmModelState

and alarmModelSpecificPointer, a RowPointer which might be a
pointer to an ituAlarmEntry

Then we have the ituAlarmEntry, which has:
->Indices
  1: alarmListName (shared)
  2: alarmModelIndex (shared)
  3: ituAlarmPerceivedSeverity

and that in turn has ituAlarmGenericModel, a RowPointer to the
"corresponding row in the alarmModelTable." So, we not only
have shared indices, we also have circular RowPointers.

Why do we need the pointer from the ituAlarmTable back to
the alarmModelTable?

I suggest that ituAlarmGenericModel be removed.  Why?

1) In general: maintaining references pointing both ways
   in an agent system is tricky

2) It is not needed, since a manager should start in the base
   table alarmModelEntry and follow the pointers to specific
   tables, not the opposite

3) Fewer OID columns in table retrieval

Cheers,

dlp