Subject: Re: snmpconf PM MIB issue #6 CLOSED - counter32Delta and counterRate

From: David Partain <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 14:57:54 +0200

Greetings,

Previously, I wrote:

> > Issue:  When Steve presented counter32Delta and counterRate,
> > there was a fair bit of discussion on whether they were right
> > as they are. More thought and discussion is required.
> >
> > There have been no discussion and no questions.  As such,
> > I assume that everyone understands how these two accessor
> > functions work and that the description is clear.
> >
> > If you have questions, please bring them up quickly.

This elicited responses from Steve W. and Bob Moore.

Steve Waldbusser wrote, regarding PM issue #6:

>   Some work really does need to be done here, so it is premature to
> close it.

The last exchange on this topic is at
http://www.snmp.com/snmpconf/mailing-list/msg00786.html

Solving the problem, as I understand it and as described in the
mail referenced above, requires some amount of MIB knowledge.
I don't know how we're going to solve this in the PM MIB module
or in the language.  I believe this _must_ be a script issue,
just as it's a management application issue today.

I hesitate to un-close this issue without any proposals of how to
fix the problem...

With kind regards,

--
David Partain                  [email-masked]
Ericsson Radio Systems AB      Tel:    +46 13 28 41 44
Research and Innovation        Fax:    +46 13 28 75 67
P.O. Box 1248                  http://linlab.ericsson.se/~epkpart
SE-581 12  Linköping, Sweden

---

From: Chris Elliott <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 10:10:46 -0400 (EDT)

Ok, here's a proposal.

For counter32Delta, the issue is a non-issue as good coding practices
would have the script writer test the discontinuity object before calling
counter32Delta. We could add another example to the counter32Delta
description, this time using readVar to get the target object and it's
discontinuity object (if any) and testing for a discontinuity before
calling counter32Delta.

For counterRate it seems to me that we need to add a new parameter to the
call that is the discontinuity object. If it's null then one doesn't exist
(or the script developer was too lasy to find/type it.)

I don't believe that these routines need to test for sysUpTime
discontinuities as any action that resets sysUpTime should also reset the
policies running. If, for an implementation, this is not true, then that
implementation needs to test for sysUpTime discontinuities in the
counterRate code. Doing so for counter32Delta requires changing the
script--which is more ugly. I suggest we explicitly state what should
happen in relation to resets of sysUpTime. My suggestion is that we should
require that the scripting environment be reset if sysUpTime is reset.

Chris.

> I hesitate to un-close this issue without any proposals of how to

Chris Elliott  CCIE# 2013       |         |
Customer Diagnostic Engineer   |||       |||
RTP, NC, USA                  |||||     |||||
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