Re: 64 bit counters in MPLS MIBs

[Juergen Schoenwaelder <schoenw@ibr.cs.tu-bs.de>]

>>>>> Harrington, David writes:

David> The business reality is that many SNMP consumers continue to
David> utilize tools that only support SNMPv1. In those cases, they
David> cannot retrieve the counters if they are defined only as
David> Counter64s. They can retrieve HC counters.

I understood the message differently. I think I heard that their MPLS
instrumentation uses 32 bit counters (or something else less than 64
bit) and that turning these values into 64 bit counters in the agent
may be expensive. Perhaps we need to figure out first what really the
problem is.

David> The SMI has features designed for this purpose. The IETF/IESG
David> could require that HC counters in a standards-track mib module
David> be given a status of deprecated (preferably with a reason given
David> in the mib module for that status), and the compliance
David> statement for the mib module could have the Counter64s in the
David> basic compliance statement and the HCs in a separate compliance
David> statement (or optional group).

Traditionally, the HC counters are the 64 Bit counters and not the 32
bit counters. So perhaps the solution is to generally use 64 Bit
counters where 32 Bit counters do not fit the roll-over requirements
and to provide additional LC counters (low capacity) with a status of
deprecated for boxes that are unable to provide 64 bit counters. This
is inline with your suggestion to plan for the future rather than the
past, which I like.

/js

-- 
Juergen Schoenwaelder    <http://www.informatik.uni-osnabrueck.de/schoenw/>