Re: FW: [802.1] MSTP MIB - mstpMapTable

[Keith McCloghrie <kzm@cisco.com>]

> > This issue popped-up on the IEEE 802.1 WG list, around a OCTET STRING
> > object that would exceed 500 octets, and the authors decided to break it
> > into 'smaller pieces'. 
> 
> Splitting the value into several pieces has the advantage to make you
> compliant with any SNMP engine on the world but introduces not only
> costs for application reassembly but also opens a can of worms wrt.
> atomicity of operations. In fact, atomicity and the implications of a
> lack of atomicity if you have to split a single logical operation
> (which might in the general case include multiple related objects
> anyway) into a sequence of operations is what makes a management
> application writer go crazy and turn away from SNMP as soon as he/she
> can.

Juergen,
 
What you say is true for atomic data, but in this particular case, the
data is an array of 4096 separate pieces of information.  In other
words, this is not a case of "splitting the value into smaller pieces",
but rather it's a case of combining many values into a small number
of medium-sized aggegates instead of into a single large aggregate.

Keith.