Subject: [OPSAWG] call for opsawg agenda time requests

From: [email-masked] (Scott O. Bradner)
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 2009 07:58:31 -0400 (EDT)

please send requests for agenda time slots for the opsawq session in Hiroshima
to the opsawg list asap

Scott

---

From: "Juergen Quittek" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:57:23 +0200

I would like to have a slot for presenting the draft on
requirements for monitoring of power states and energy consumption
http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-quittek-power-monitoring-requirements-00.txt

Thanks,

    Juergen

---

From: Tina TSOU <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:10:12 +0800

> Network configuration problem statement
> http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-tsou-network-configuration-problem-statement-00.txt

B. R.
Tina
http://tinatsou.weebly.com/contact.html

On Oct 22, 2009, at 10:57 PM, Juergen Quittek wrote:

> _______________________________________________
> OPSAWG mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/opsawg

---

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:32:56 +0900

Scott,

I'd like to have a slot at the opsawg session in Hiroshima 
to take a presentation about the update of our network 
virtulization model.

"Virtual Network Management Information Model"
http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-okita-ops-vnetmodel-01.txt

Regards,

Hideki Okita

---

From: "David Harrington" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:51:53 -0400

Hi,

I did a quick read of this document. I have a concern.

The IETF decided years ago that a MIB module was the preferred
mechanism for explicitly documenting an IETF standards-track data
model and (implicitly) the IETF standards-track information model.

Once the IETF began to accept that having only one data modeling
language (the SMI) might not be adequate, the IETF struggled with the
question of "how do we deal with multiple modeling languages?", and we
started to pay attention to the distinction between data model and
information model. RFC3444 was published as output of the NMRG to help
clarify the distinction.

The informational model in
http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-okita-ops-vnetmodel-01.txt is similar to
the information model that is implicit in the ENTITY-MIB data model
design. 

I would not like to see anybody make the mistake of thinking that this
Informational document represents IETF consensus on an information
model for managing virtual networks. This document needs to be very
clear that the IETF already has consensus on an (implicit) information
model for managing physical entities, logicial entities, and the
mappings between them. 

I think defining an information model for the management of virtual
networks is very important work, and I think this document really
misses an opportunity to help **standardize** how virtual network
management systems present information to NMS clients. This document
would be terrific if it extracted and documented the information model
implicit in the existing IETF standard ENTITY-MIB, and went on to
discuss whether the existing information model does or does not meet
the needs of real-world implementations/deployments. 

If the existing implicit information model does meet real-world needs,
then I think such a document might become a BCP or an Informational
guideline for managing virtual networks. If the existing implicit
information does not meet real-world needs, then the document could be
a justification for an IETF standards track information model that
meets needs better than the current implicit information model.

Unfortunately, the current document does not even mention that there
is an information model implicit in the ENTITY-MIB standard, which
makes me question whether this document should be published as an RFC
without a clear statement that it ignores, and may be in conflict
with, existing IETF standards.

dbh

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] 
> [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of 
> [email-masked]
> Sent: Monday, October 26, 2009 7:33 AM
> To: [email-masked]
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: [OPSAWG] call for opsawg agenda time requests
> 
> Scott,
> 
>

---

From: "Romascanu, Dan (Dan)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:59:51 +0100

See in-line. 

Regards,

Dan

> [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of David Harrington
> Sent: Monday, October 26, 2009 2:52 PM
> To: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
> Cc: [email-masked]
> The IETF decided years ago that a MIB module was the 
> preferred mechanism for explicitly documenting an IETF 
> standards-track data model and (implicitly) the IETF 
> standards-track information model.
> 
> Once the IETF began to accept that having only one data 
> modeling language (the SMI) might not be adequate, the IETF 
> struggled with the question of "how do we deal with multiple 
> modeling languages?", and we started to pay attention to the 
> distinction between data model and information model. RFC3444 
> was published as output of the NMRG to help clarify the distinction.
> 
> http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-okita-ops-vnetmodel-01.txt is 
> similar to the information model that is implicit in the 
> ENTITY-MIB data model design. 
> 
> I would not like to see anybody make the mistake of thinking 
> that this Informational document represents IETF consensus on 
> an information model for managing virtual networks. This 
> document needs to be very clear that the IETF already has 
> consensus on an (implicit) information model for managing 
> physical entities, logicial entities, and the mappings between them. 

I share your concerns, but this document is right now no more than an
individual submission I-D. Bringing it to the attention of the community
is fine, OPSAWG may be the right forum. Only further discussions can
enlighten whether it will be submitted as WG item, or other form of
document requesting IETF consensus. 

> 
> I think defining an information model for the management of 
> virtual networks is very important work, and I think this 
> document really misses an opportunity to help **standardize** 
> how virtual network management systems present information to 
> NMS clients. This document would be terrific if it extracted 
> and documented the information model implicit in the existing 
> IETF standard ENTITY-MIB, and went on to discuss whether the 
> existing information model does or does not meet the needs of 
> real-world implementations/deployments. 
> 
> If the existing implicit information model does meet 
> real-world needs, then I think such a document might become a 
> BCP or an Informational guideline for managing virtual 
> networks. If the existing implicit information does not meet 
> real-world needs, then the document could be a justification 
> for an IETF standards track information model that meets 
> needs better than the current implicit information model.
> 
> Unfortunately, the current document does not even mention 
> that there is an information model implicit in the ENTITY-MIB 
> standard, which makes me question whether this document 
> should be published as an RFC without a clear statement that 
> it ignores, and may be in conflict with, existing IETF standards.

If this document went through the IETF stream it would be the IETF
consensus process that would point to such a problem. If it went through
the independent RFC Editor stream the IESG would be the one pointing to
such conflicts with an appropriate note. 

> to take a 
> > presentation about the update of our network virtulization model.
> >

---

From: "David Harrington" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:56:09 -0400

Hi, 

> document requesting IETF consensus. 

Which raises another concern.

When I saw the email from Hideki, I thought to myself "what, yet
another presentation on this work?"
Hopefully, the presentation will answer these questions: is this
document going to be proposed as an OPSAWG wg item? How is this work
relevant to the IETF standards-development function?
If it is NOT going to be proposed as a WG item, why is the
presentation relevant to this WG?
If it is NOT going to be proposed as an IETF document, why is the
presentation relevant to the IETF?
Maybe this presentation should be targeted at the NMRG.
Maybe this presentation should be targeted at a research conference
rather than the IETF Standards Development Organization.

I normally would not consider such a presentation to be a concern. It
is useful to understand other people's thinking on what needs to be
operated and managed, especially if it concerns what existing
standards are not addressing adequately. For example, Juergen S did a
presentation on emerging requirements for low-power applications, and
Juergen Q did a presentation on power management. I found them useful
presentations that were definitely relevant to (potential) IETF work. 

But I think this is about six IETFs in a row where we have been
treated to presentations from Hideki about his project. I want to
understand Hideki's intentions relative to the IETF and OPSAWG. Is the
presentation (and paper) actually relevant to work being done in the
IETF? Is he proposing that this work be IETF work? 

The paper's lack of discussion of relevant IETF work (e.g., the
ENTITY-MIB) makes me question why the IETF should be repeatedly
scheduling Hideki's presentations. 

The IETF mailing list is deep in discussions about whether we really
must have Friday sessions, and whether we are effectively using the
time in the sessions that are scheduled. 

What exactly does this presentation/paper have to do with the WG?
What exactly does this presentation/paper have to do with the IETF? 
What exactly does this presentation/paper have to do with
standardizing Internet technologies?

dbh

---

From: "Juergen Quittek" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:36:27 +0100

I also had a look at the draft and I think that the basic idea
of mapping virtual to real resources is very good.

Can't we easily align the draft with the ENTITY MIB data model?

I could imagine a MIB module based on the ENTITY MIB that realizes
the information model for virtual entities in SMI.

    Juergen

---

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:41:17 +0900

David, Dan, Juergen,

Thank you so much for your reviews and comments.

First, please let me summarize David's concerns.
Please tell me if I have any misunderstanding.

  1. The proposed model seems similar to the information model 
     implicitly defined in the existing ENTITY-MIB.
  2. The draft does not mention the relationship between the proposed 
     model and the ENTITY-MIB.
  3. The draft lacks the concrete definition how the NMS presents
     the virtual network information to NMS clients. 

For the first concern, I examined the ENTITY-MIB since I have not 
considered it. I checked RFC 4133 and implementation by a router.

Then, I found that our model have a similarity with the ENTITY-MIB. 
Both of following objects describe the structure of a physical entity.
  - entPhysicalTable and entPhysicalContainsTable in the ENTITY-MIB
  - PhysicalNode, PhysicalNodeGroup, and PhysicalInterface in our model.

However, IMO, the model of the ENTITY-MIB is insufficient to 
manage virtual networks in data centers from following reasons.
  a. ENTITY-MIB does not have connection objects for describing the 
     connections between physical nodes.
  b. ENTITY-MIB does not have connection objects for describing the 
     connections between virtual nodes, for example, the connection 
     between a virtual switch and virtual machines on a physical server.
  c. ENTITY-MIB does not have virtual-virtual relationship objects for 
     describing the structure of a virtual entity.
Therefore, I'd like to propose our model as an solution and opsawg's
new work.

For the second concern, I'd like to add a "relationship to the 
ENTITY-MIB" section that describes above distinction to our draft.

For the third concern, I can add a section about a MIB module or 
an XML schema to our draft to describe the concrete datamodel. 

Best regards,

Hideki Okita

---

From: "Juergen Quittek" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:15:46 +0100

Dear Hideki,

Please see comments inline.

>      connections between physical nodes.

Yes, that is not the purpose of the ENTITY MIB.
However, topology detection of an IP network is a very common task
of network management systems and well supported by other MIB modules.
I don't think we need new managed objects for this purpose.

>      between a virtual switch and virtual machines on a physical server.

This may not be necessary, depending on how you build your information
model.  What I think is really missing is a mapping of virtual entities
to physical entities. The virtual entities need relations to their
virtual interfaces and virtual interfaces need to be mapped to real
interfaces.
 
>      describing the structure of a virtual entity.

Yes, but again, there may be sufficient other means than the ENTITY MIB
to provide this information.

> ENTITY-MIB" section that describes above distinction to our draft.

This is probably the best way to achieve your objectives.
As said before, I would consider the most important step to find
a good way of mapping virtual entities to real entities.

Best regards,

    Juergen

---

From: "Randy Presuhn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:33:58 -0700

Hi -

> From: "Juergen Quittek" <[email-masked]>
> To: <[email-masked]>; "David Harrington" <[email-masked]>; "Dan Romascanu" <[email-masked]>
> Cc: <[email-masked]>
> Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 10:15 AM
...

The entity MIB does a good job at representing containment / component-of
relationships.  Representing "virtual" thingies is a reasonable "extension" (if
it even requires an extension).  But where this proposal leads is to a complementary
capability for representing connectivity relationships existing between those entities.

Randy