2.4.8 Remote Network Monitoring (rmonmib)

NOTE: This charter is a snapshot of the 44th IETF Meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It may now be out-of-date. Last Modified: 06-Jan-99

Chair(s):

Andy Bierman <abierman@cisco.com>

Operations and Management Area Director(s):

Harald Alvestrand <Harald.Alvestrand@maxware.no>
Bert Wijnen <wijnen@vnet.ibm.com>

Operations and Management Area Advisor:

Bert Wijnen <wijnen@vnet.ibm.com>

Technical Advisor(s):

Steven Waldbusser <waldbusser@ins.com>

Mailing Lists:

General Discussion:rmonmib@cisco.com
To Subscribe: rmonmib-request@cisco.com
Archive: ftpeng.cisco.com/ftp/rmonmib/rmonmib

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 working group will consider existing MIB modules that define objects which support similar management, e.g., RFC 1271 and RFC 1513 and efforts in other areas, e.g., the accounting and operational statistics activities. It is possible that this RMON will not be backwards compatible with existing RMON RFCs, but the reasons for any such incompatibility will be well documented.

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:

1) Additional Protocol Identifier macros will be added to the Protocol Identifiers Specification to broaden protocol decode support in RMON-2.

2) Monitoring support will be improved for high-speed interfaces, for which octet and/or packet counters can possibly wrap in less than one hour. Packet capture support for high speed interfaces will also be considered.

3) RMON probe configuration capability, especially for switch-based RMON implementations, will be improved.

4) Configuration and monitoring of full-duplex ethernet interfaces will be considered and/or clarified.

5) Monitoring instrumentation for IEEE 802.1Q VLAN-based network traffic will be considered.

Goals and Milestones:

Done

  

Activation of working group, call for suggested MIB modules.

Done

  

Submit initial Internet-Drafts for Protocol Identifier and High Capacity RMON functionality.

May 97

  

Submit initial draft for configuration extensions and other functionality.

Aug 97

  

Submit Internet drafts to IESG for standards track action.

Internet-Drafts:

Request For Comments:

RFC

Status

Title

 

RFC1757

DS

Remote Network Monitoring Management Information Base

RFC2021

PS

Remote Network Monitoring Management Information Base Version 2 using SMIv2

RFC2074

PS

Remote Network Monitoring MIB Protocol Identifiers

Current Meeting Report

OPS Area
RMONMIB WG Meeting Minutes
44th IETF Minneapolis, MN USA
March 15, 1999
Minutes by Andy Bierman

Review Material

(A) draft-ietf-rmonmib-smon-07.txt
(B) draft-ietf-rmonmib-hcrmon-05.txt
(C) draft-ietf-rmonmib-rmonprot-ref-00.txt
(D) draft-ietf-rmonmib-rmonprot-mac-00.txt

Agenda

1) Status of drafts in progress
2) HC-RMON Publishing Issues
3) RFC 1513 Interoperability Report
4) RFC 1757 Interoperability Report
5) Updated proposal for new WG charter
6) Interface TopN feature proposal
7) Open discussion of the functional requirements for new feature proposals, or any other WG business

Minutes

1) Status of drafts in progress

Several documents have been through a last review cycle. Open issues were discussed, one document at a time.

1.1) SMON MIB

There are no current issues. An IESG Last Call has been completed for the SMON I-D (A).

1.2) RMON Protocol Identifier documents

The RMON Protocol Identifiers document was split into two drafts ((C) and (D)) as a result of the last review cycle. The new drafts have not yet been reviewed, and no reviewer has been assigned. The review process should not have to be repeated since these (new) documents represent a simple restructuring of the original document (RFC 2074).

An issue was raised on the mailing list regarding the 'countsFragments' bit in the protocolDirParameters object. Currently, if an agent is capable of decoding fragments at different protocol layers, this information is not conveyed to the NMS. The WG agreed to update a future version of this document to relax this restriction in section 6.2.6.1.

1.3) HC-RMON MIB

Another review cycle has been completed for the HC-RMON MIB (I-D (B)). There are no open issues regarding the content of the MIB, but an issue was encountered regarding the integration of the new "TopN rate base" enumerations for high-capacity rate base objects.

2) HC-RMON Publishing Issues

The hostTopNControlRateBase object in RFC 1757, and the nlMatrixTopNControlRateBase and alMatrixTopNControlRateBase objects in RFC 2021, need to be re-published with the additional high capacity enumerations, currently defined in the HC-RMON MIB (I-D (B)).

The following summary from Steve Waldbusser's slides highlights the issues and resolutions related to
re-publication of these MIBs.

2.1) Problems

- HC-RMON MIB is a new MIB MODULE
- RateBase objects are in RMON1 and RMON2 modules
- Current draft includes updated definitions (with the extended enumerations) of RMON1 and RMON2 RateBase objects in the HC-RMON MIB Module
- Full Standard version of the SMI recommends against updating existing MIB objects in new MIB modules.

2.2) Path Forward

- Finish work on SMIv2 version of RMON-1
- Create an RMON-1 High Capacity MIB
- RMON-1 in SMIv2 with updated hostTopNControlRateBase
- Publish as Proposed Standard RFC
- Create an RMON-2 High Capacity MIB
- RMON-2 with updated nl,alMatrixTopNControlRateBase objects
- Publish as Proposed Standard RFC
- Publish the HC-RMON Draft
- Minus the 3 rateBase objects
- Publish as Proposed Standard RFC
- Create the RMON-1 Full Standard MIB
- RMON1 in SMIv2 format (w/o the updated hostTopNControlRateBase)
- Publish as Full Standard RFC
- Create the RMON-2 Draft Standard MIB
- RMON-2 without updated nl,alMatrixTopNControlRateBase objects
- Publish as Draft Standard RFC

The WG agreed to this solution proposal.

3) RFC 1513 Implementation Experience

The Token Ring RMON MIB implementation report has been completed, and a final version will be forwarded to the Area Directors. The WG agreed that all objects in RFC 1513 have at least two independent interoperable implementations, and the MIB should be advanced to the status of Draft Standard.

RFC 1513 will be re-published in SMIv2 format. No other changes will be made, with the exception
of any minor clarifications of known problems.

4) RFC 1757 Implementation Experience

The RMON MIB implementation report has been completed, and a final version will be forwarded to the Area Directors. The WG agreed that all objects in RFC 1757 have at least two independent interoperable implementations, and the MIB should be advanced to the status of Full Standard. There is sufficient evidence to indicate RMON-1 has been widely deployed and proven to be a useful standard.

RFC 1757 will be re-published in SMIv2 format. See section 2.2.2 for details on the the re-publication
of RMON-1.

5) Updated proposal for new WG charter

An updated version of a new RMONMIB charter proposal was presented and discussed. The highlights of the new charter features are outlined below:

Network Service Level Monitoring
- The WG still disagrees on the name and scope of this feature. The names 'Protocol Performance Metrics' and 'Application Performance Metrics' were discussed, along with the implications of each name. The WG will attempt to reach consensus on the mailing list regarding the name and scope of this feature proposal.

Persistent Label to Address Mapping
- No discussion or changes made.

Differentiated Services Statistics Collection
- No discussion or changes made.

Protocol Directory Optimizations and Application Wildcarding
- No discussion or changes made.

Per Interface TopN Reporting
- The WG discussed the differenced between a generic TopN service, ala the usrHistoryTable, vs. a simple but specialized TopN mechanism for high density switches,
- The WG agreed both features are useful, but only the switch-specific TopN table would be developed by the RMONMIB WG. Some proposed MIB objects for this feature were presented, and discussion of this MIB is expected to continue on the mailing list.

Frame Relay DataSource Issues
- There is sufficient interest in the WG to pursue some standardization of RMON for Frame Relay interfaces. It is hoped only minor and specific issues need to be addressed, such as the mapping of DLCIs to RMON DataSources, and encapsulation representation in the RMON Protocol Directory.

The proposed charter would take a year to complete and assumes work can begin in April 1999.

The WG charter text will be updated to include separate milestones for each of the anticipated deliverables, and the (final) version will be forwarded to the WG mailing list and the Area Directors for comment. It is expected that all work items will be completed in a timely manner or dropped along the way.

6) Interface TopN feature proposal

A MIB outline proposal was presented by Dan Romascanu, who will author the TopN Interface MIB extensions. The WG agreed that Dan should publish an I-D for this feature, which is expected to be adopted as the baseline text for the RMON Interface TopN feature. However, the new WG charter must be approved before the RMONMIB WG can officially adopt any new work items.

7) Open discussion of the functional requirements for new feature proposals, or any other WG business

The WG discussed some of the proposed work items for the new charter. The WG agreed that such 'advanced metrics' were discussed during the formation and design of the RMON-2 MIB. At that time, the only agreed upon statistics (that could be collected for all protocols) were packet and octet counters. The WG now feels that more complex statistics collection (e.g. application response time) should now be added to the RMON standards.

Slides

InterfaceTopN MIB