2.3.12 Remote Network Monitoring (rmonmib)

NOTE: This charter is a snapshot of the 48th IETF Meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It may now be out-of-date. Last Modified: 17-Jul-00

Chair(s):

Andy Bierman <abierman@cisco.com>

Operations and Management Area Director(s):

Randy Bush <randy@psg.com>
Bert Wijnen <bwijnen@lucent.com>

Operations and Management Area Advisor:

Bert Wijnen <bwijnen@lucent.com>

Technical Advisor(s):

Steven Waldbusser <waldbusser@ins.com>

Mailing Lists:

General Discussion:rmonmib@ietf.org
To Subscribe: http://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/rmonmib
Archive: www.ietf.org/mail-archive/working-groups/rmonmib/current/maillist.htm

Description of Working Group:

The RMON MIB Working Group is chartered to define a set of managed objects for remote monitoring of networks. These objects will be the minimum necessary to provide the ability to monitor multiple network layers of traffic in remote networks; providing fault, configuration, and performance management, and will be consistent with the SNMP framework and existing SNMP standards.

The following list of features for this RMON has been previously discussed in relation to existing RMON functionality and is included to focus these RMON activities. It is recognized that other issues may be considered and that certain of the following issues may not be part of the final specification(s):

1) Application Performance Measurement Monitoring support for the measurement and characterization of network application protocols, striving to measure an application user's experience as closely as possible. The RMON-2 MIB (RFC 2021) contains a protocol directory that will be used to identify applications for monitoring purposes.

While it is important to measure the performance of computing and network resources, these measurements don't give an insight to the actual service delivered to end-users. This end-user experience is best measured by the response-time and availability of application transactions because users interact directly with applications. This working group will create extensions to the RMON-2 MIB that will allow Application Performance Measurements to be retrieved with SNMP, no matter which technology is used to perform the measurements.

The goal of the working group is to provide a common framework and set of MIB objects, within the current RMON framework, for the identification and characterization of application responsiveness and availability, and the reporting of test results produced by such mechanisms. Common metrics and derived metrics will be characterized and reported in a manner consistent with the IP Performance Metrics Framework (RFC 2330).

It is an explicit non-goal of the working group to select one or more mechanisms as the preferred or standard RMON application performance measurement mechanism. However, it is possible that one or more standard mechanisms will be developed in the future, after significant implementation experience has been gained by the working group.

2) Differentiated Services Statistics Collection Monitoring support for Differentiated Services (DS) statistics collection, for the purpose of DS codepoint usage analysis and possibly other statistics related to DS deployment and performance tuning.

3) Interface TopN Reporting It is often too slow or difficult to determine the busiest ports in devices such as high port-density switches, using existing RMON mechanisms. New monitoring support is needed for quickly determining the most congested (highest utilized) physical ports and links in an RMON-capable device with multiple interfaces.

4) TR-RMON MIB Advancement The Token Ring RMON MIB (RFC 1513) is ready for standards track advancement. An interoperability and deployment survey has already been completed, but the MIB must be updated in SMIv2 format before it can be advanced on the standards track.

Goals and Milestones:

Jan 00

  

Activation of working group, call for suggested MIB modules.

Feb 00

  

Reach agreement on the functional scope of the charter, and finalize the document deliverables.

Mar 00

  

Submit initial Internet-Draft for Differentiated Services Monitoring

Mar 00

  

Submit initial Internet-Draft for Interface TopN Reporting

Mar 00

  

Submit initial Internet-Draft for TR-RMON MIB in SMIv2 Format

Apr 00

  

Submit initial Internet-Draft for Application Performance Metrics

Jul 00

  

Begin Working Group Last Call for TR-RMON MIB in SMIv2 Format

Aug 00

  

Begin Working Group Last Call for Differentiated Services Monitoring

Aug 00

  

Begin Working Group Last Call for Interface TopN Reporting

Aug 00

  

Submit Final Draft of TR-RMON MIB in SMIv2 Format

Sep 00

  

Begin Working Group Last Call for Application Performance Metrics

Sep 00

  

Submit Final Draft of Differentiated Services Monitoring to IESG for standards track action

Sep 00

  

Submit Final Draft of Interface TopN Reporting to IESG for standards track action

Nov 00

  

Submit Final Draft of Application Performance Metrics to IESG for standards track action

Internet-Drafts:

Request For Comments:

RFC

Status

Title

 

RFC2021

PS

Remote Network Monitoring Management Information Base Version 2 using SMIv2

RFC2074

PS

Remote Network Monitoring MIB Protocol Identifiers

RFC2613

PS

Remote Network Monitoring MIB Extensions for Switch Networks Version 1.0

RFC2819

S

Remote Network Monitoring Management Information Base

Current Meeting Report

OPS Area RMONMIB WG Meeting Minutes
48th IETF August 2 and 3, 2000
Minutes by Andy Bierman

Review Material
---------------

(A) draft-ietf-rmonmib-hcrmon-06.txt
(B) draft-ietf-rmonmib-rmon2hc-00.txt
(C) draft-ietf-rmonmib-rmonhc-00.txt
(D) draft-ietf-rmonmib-rmonprot-ref-01.txt
(E) draft-ietf-rmonmib-rmonprot-mac-02.txt
(F) draft-ietf-rmonmib-iftopn-mib-02.txt
(G) draft-ietf-rmonmib-dsmon-mib-02.txt
(H) draft-ietf-rmonmib-tpm-mib-01.txt
(I) draft-ietf-rmonmib-apm-mib-01.txt
(J) draft-ietf-rmonmib-pmcaps-01.txt
(K) draft-ietf-rmonmib-appverbs-00.txt
(L) draft-cole-sspm-00.txt
(M) draft-bierman-rmonmib-vds-mib-00.txt

Agenda
------

1) Status of Internet Drafts under IESG review (A - E)
2) HC TopN Rate Base documentation issue (A - C)
3) Discussion of the IF-TOPN MIB (F)
4) Discussion of the DSMON MIB (G)
5) Discussion of the Virtual Data Source MIB proposal (M)
6) Discussion of the Application Protocol Verbs draft (K)
7) Discussion of Requirements for Synthetic Sources of Performance Measurement (L)
8) Discussion of the Performance Measurement drafts (H - J)

Minutes
-------

1) Status of Internet Drafts under IESG review

The WG Chair presented a status summary of the I-Ds before the WG. All HC-RMON issues have now been resolved, and those drafts (A - C) will soon be completed. The RMON Protocol Identifier documents (D - E) are completed and will soon be published as RFCs. Refer to the 'RMONMIB WG Status' slides for more details on the status of current drafts.

2) HC TopN Rate Base documentation issue

The WG discussed the issues related to the manner in which the updated 'TopN rate base' MIB objects should be republished. The WG decided to terminate the RMON-1 HC MIB (C) and the RMON2-HC MIB (B). The normative text in those documents (i.e., the new HC topNRateBase objects) will be moved to MIB modules within the HC-RMON MIB. In addition, the complete, 'HC TopN' versions of the RMON-1 and RMON-2 MIBs will be included as non-normative appendices in the HC-RMON MIB. Refer to the 'RMONMIB WG Status' slides for more details on this issue.

3) Discussion of the IF-TOPN MIB

The Interface TopN MIB (F) was presented and then discussed. There was agreement that the issues raised at the last Interim meeting have been addressed. The author will finalize the rate normalization mechanism details, and add some examples related to this feature. A WG Last Call will be started for this MIB as soon as the next version is published.

4) Discussion of the DSMON MIB

The DSMON MIB (G) was presented and then discussed. There were no major issues raised, and there was agreement to start WG Last Call on this document. Such a notice will be posted to the WG mailing list soon. Refer to the 'DSMON MIB' slides for more details on the changes to this MIB.

5) Discussion of the Virtual Data Source MIB proposal

There was an overview presentation of the Virtual Data Source MIB (M). A virtual data source is a conceptual data source, representing a 'selected' subset of the network traffic present on a physical data source, based on some combination of packet selection classification mechanisms. Refer to the 'Virtual Data Source MIB' slides for more details on this MIB.

A straw poll was conducted regarding interest in working on this MIB at some (TBD) point in the future. There were at least 7 people in favor, and about 4 people interested in actively participating as co-authors. There were no objections to this work being done, and several people did not express an opinion.

It was decided that the WG should focus on the drafts already in progress at this time, and not start this work right away. The issue will be raised again later, and based on the progress of the current drafts, may be started within the next 6 months.

6) Discussion of the Application Protocol Verbs draft

The 'Protocol Directory Extensions for Application Verbs' (K) draft was presented and then discussed. This is the first version of this document, and there are not many verb examples included. The WG must first agree on the higher level concepts, such as terminology, protocolDirTable integration, PI Verb macro format, and what applications to document.

There was some discussion of the term 'verb' as the appropriate word to represent distinct transaction types within a specific application protocol. There was eventually agreement that this term is the most widely used, and has been used for many years, so the term 'Application Verb' will be kept.

The document will be discussed on the WG mailing list and updated before the next IETF. Refer to the 'Protocol Directory Extensions for Application Verbs' slides for more details on this document.

7) Discussion of Requirements for Synthetic Sources of Performance Measurement

The SSPM Framework draft (L) was presented and then discussed. There is a lot of interest in the WG in pursuing this work as soon as possible. This might be as soon as the current 'PM' drafts are stable.

There is some impact on the PMCAPS MIB related to SSPM requirements. This MIB will be updated (after an offline meeting with the SSPM authors) to better reflect the terminology and requirements of synthetic PM mechanisms. Refer to the 'SSPM Generated Requirements' slides for more details on SSPM.

8) Discussion of the Performance Measurement drafts

8.1) PM-CAPS MIB

The Performance Measurement Capabilities MIB (J) was discussed in some detail. The MIB will soon be updated with some clarifications, and that version should be ready for WG Last Call. Refer to the 'PM Capabilities MIB' slides for more details on the changes since the previous draft.

8.2) APM MIB

The Application Performance Monitoring MIB (I) was presented, and then discussed for some time. The new apmHttpFilterTable generated the most discussion, because of the manner in which it extended the RMON-2 protocolDirTable. There was agreement that this feature is useful and should be pursued. The author was directed to pursue a different design for this table, which did not utilize a protocolDirLocalIndex without a corresponding protocolDirEntry.

Refer to the 'APM MIB' slides for more details on the recent changes to the APM MIB. A new version of this MIB will be submitted before the next IETF, and the current draft will be discussed on the WG mailing list.

8.3) TPM MIB

The latest Transport Performance Measurement MIB (H) was not discussed due to lack of time. This document will be updated soon, and any new issues with the current version will be discussed on the WG mailing list.

9) Administrivia

The WG discussed 3 administrative topics during the meeting,

9.1) Interim meeting

There is interest (among a core group of attendees) in another interim meeting, perhaps co-located in the same city as the SNMPCONF Interim, like the previous interim meeting in San Francisco. The locale will be Knoxville, TN. The 2 day RMON meeting will be held in early or mid October, on a Monday and Tuesday, with the SNMPCONF interim meeting scheduled to start on Wednesday of that week. Further announcements will be sent to the WG mailing list as details are finalized.

9.2) SMON MIB Advancement

The WG will start the required tasks needed to advance the SMON MIB (RFC 2613) from Proposed to Draft Standard. Commercial implementations are already available, and this MIB is eligible for advancement.

There does not seem to be consensus to hold an Interoperability Test Event dedicated to SMON conformance. This is not required for standards advancement at this stage, but it is very useful. There was agreement that this MIB should be tested along with the new work (e.g., DSMON, IFTOPN, *PM) at a test event arranged by InterWorking Labs some time in the future.

9.3) Mailing list reminder

Issues related to the RMONMIB WG should now be sent to the new mailing list at 'rmonmib@ietf.org'.

Subscription administration is done via the WEB form at:
http://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/rmonmib

Slides

Application Performance Measurement MIB
Protocol Directory Extensions for Application Verbs
DSMON MIB
PM Capabilities MIB
SSPM Generated Requirements
RMONMIB WG Status
Transport Performance Metric MIB
Virtual Data Source MIB