2.4.17 H. Multimedia MIBs (hmibs) bof

Current Meeting Report

H.Multimedia MIB BOF - reported by George Kajos and Mark Baugher

The H.Multimedia MIB BOF was held Tuesday 8/25/1998. The purpose of the BOF
was to ascertain whether there was enough support and participation to request the Area
Directors to form a working group to develop an Internet Standard for H.Series device
management using SNMP. The proposed charter is to standardize MIBs through the
IETF for the following:

1) H.320 Terminals and MCUs
2) H.323 Terminals, MCUs and Gateways
3) H.323/H.320 and H.320/PSTN Gateways

Roughly 60 people attended the session.

George Kajos of VideoServer presented an overview of the work in ietf-draft-kajos-
hmultimediamib-kajos-00.txt. This draft is a strawman proposal designed to capture the
scope and protocol-related objects of H.Multimedia management. The document is
organized into the following hierarchy.

H.320: definitions for Terminal and Multipoint Control Units

H.245 definitions for Call Control of H.323 and H.324 sessions.

Although the derivation of the managed objects in the draft was relatively straightforward,
a MIB hierarchy is needed since a "flat" document for the entire effort is impractical for
devices that implement only a small subset of the MIB. Breaking MIBs out into individual
draft documents will reduce dependencies and allow for faster standardization.

Mark Baugher of Intel presented status for the RTP MIB activities within the Audio-Video
Transport Working Group as described in draft-ietf-avt-rtp-mib-02.txt. This is the third
draft document of the RTP MIB and the new charter for the IETF WG sets as a goal that
the RTP MIB will be "finished" in 1998. Thus, the RTP MIB should go to Last Call for
Proposed Standard in 1998 or early 1999. The current version eliminates separation of
tables for hosts and intermediate RTP systems thereby reducing the number of tables from
five to three. These changes were made based on comments from independent reviewers
of the RTP MIB. Mark proposed that the RTP MIB should be a mandatory part of the H.
323 Terminal, MCU and Gateway devices. Intel has implemented an SNMP RTP Monitor
that is publicly available at ftp://download.intel.com/ial/mib.

A poll of BOF participants showed that there was a consensus to standardize H.Multimedia
MIBs in the IETF. The Area Director, Bert Wijnen emphasized that the work would be
done solely under the auspices of the IETF as is the case with any working group (WG).
ITU SG16 agreement to this process is an issue that must be resolved at the start of the WG.

The duration of the WG will be about one year, possibly ending in the summer of 1999.
The milestone of the next WG meeting will be to achieve consensus on the strucuture of
H.Multimedia MIB modules and the drafts to be produced by the working group. The
structure of the H.Multimedia MIBs and the organization of IETF draft documents that
are the output of the WG are issues that must be resolved as the first order of business of
the WG. Detailed discussion occurred to develop milestones, schedule the work and
solicit for volunteers to write the Internet Draft documents and chair the working group.
A tentative milestone/schedule proposal follows:

1. Working Group Charter - September 17, 1998
2. Restructure of Internet-Drafts derived from ietf-draft-hmultimediaMIB-kajos-00.txt -
November 98
3. 43rd IETF Meeting in Orlando - December 98
4. Revision 00 of the Internet Drafts - February 1999
5. 44th IETF Meeting - April 1999
6. Final revision of the drafts - June 1999
7. Working Group Last Call - July 1999
8. Draft Proposal submitted to IESG for approval

The understanding is that multiple independent implementations will begin as the drafts stabilize.

Nicole Gallant of Nortel and George Kajos of VideoServer volunteered to be considered as
chairpersons for the working group and eight other participants, listed below, volunteered to
work on the Internet drafts:

1. Irina Suconick, VideoServer
2. Joon Maeng, VTEL
3. Zvi Mizrahy, IBM
4. Michael Thatcher, Cisco
5. Bill Strahm, Intel
6. Sylvain Garneau, Nortel
7. Jackson Wynn, White Pine
8. Pratima Shah, AG Communications

One major issue discussed was the structure and number of Internet-Drafts. Four possibilities
were proposed for the various MIBs and an architecture specification. The first was to make
all MIBs separate. The second was to have MIBs grouped into three categories; H.323,
H.320, and H.245. The third proposal was to follow the second proposal, but separate out
the H.245 proposal, and the fourth proposal would group H.245 with the H.323 protocols.
The third proposal had the greatest support. If followed, five Internet Drafts would be prepared:

1) an overall architecture,
2) the H.323 group,
3) the H.320 group,
4) H.245, and
5) the H.323 to H.320 and PSTN gateway.
The BOF concluded with a long discussion on how to incorporate gateways to PSTN
terminals into the work. One view presented is connections to H.320 terminals and PSTN
terminals (telephone) could be abstracted into common elements. Another, which follows
some of the existing work, is that a PSTN entity could be described by the characteristics
of a PSTN connection knowno the gateway. Most people seemed to disagree with the idea
of a PSTN terminal MIB.

A summary of the relationship with the ITU-T Study Group 16 Working Party 2 was
presented and the case was made that H.Multimedia MIBs should be standardized through
the IETF. Among the reasons are SNMP is an IETF protocol and the IETF has experts in
SMI and SNMP who will participate in and review the products of the WG. The precedent
of ITU referencing standards from the IETF is well established with TCP/IP and RTP.
Mark Baugher identified the H.Multimedia MIB mailing list - HMIBS. To subscribe to
HMIBs send a note to listserv@mailbag.intel.com with "subscribe hmibs" in the body of
the note. The list will continue to be used to discuss issues related to H.Multimedia MIB
definition and standardization. If a WG is established, the WG chairs will use the list for
notifying people of that fact (in addition to ietf-announce and other established mechanisms
within the IETF).

The next step for this working group is to finalize a charter and an agreed upon milestone
and schedule proposal to the Operations and Maintenance Area Directors for a formal
request for an IETF working group. George will bring reaffirm the desire for IETF
standardization at the September ITU_T Study Group 16 Working Party 2, Question 14
Rapporteur's meeting on September 17th in Geneva.

Slides

HMIBS Agenda and Charter

Attendees List

None received