Re: text format of configurations

[Jon Saperia <saperia@jdscons.com>]

>     > re: 03 & 04. strong echo of Adi's statement. if the vendor only supplied
>     > compiled configurations, they should be required to decompile when speaking
>     > the 'Infrastructure Management Protocol'
> 
> I think is is one area where operators and vendors may run into a
> sticking-point...  Jon and I talked about it at some length.  It's _really
> important_ to operators that we have a uniform configuration syntax
> between devices, so that we don't have to train technicians on several
> different kinds of syntax.

Bill, I think we agreed on the following points (or at least did not
strongly disagree): 

         1. A common syntax as you put it for a configuration is a good
         thing.

         2. If we look to our MIB develoment experience vendors resist
         this activity for sometimes good reasons. More often they
         believe (I think wrongly) it is in their best interest to
         under-specify standards - one of the reasons MIB documents are
         frequently incomplete and that we have all the 'good stuff' in
         private vendor MIB Modules. I believe the same fate would fall
         on any effort including the syntax. That does not mean we
         should not try.

I think the points on which we disagree are:

         1. The exclusivity of the CLI in the configuration area. 

         2. The requirement for an ASCII based transmission approach is
         another. For the CLI this is a non-issue. For other approaches
         it is an important issue.

The main issue is: are there other interface types that are optimized for
machine to machine and application development beyond the CLI. I think
there are - one reason if for connecting the configuration to usage
based on the configuration for billing and other purposes. This is a
relative non-issue for core machines and matters more at the edge. So
another dimension of our problem is what are the characteristics of the
devices we are writing requirements for. Are all devices the same? 

/jon



> 
> This obviously benefits competitive vendors, and is a potential problem
> for incumbent vendors, if the incumbent vendors aren't competitive.  If
> the syntax for a new device is the same as that which our techs are used
> to, we can deploy it without the cost of retraining, which means we're
> more likely to buy it.
> 
>                                 -Bill
> 
> 
> 
> 

Thanks,
/jon
--

Jon Saperia		     saperia@jdscons.com
			     Phone: 617-744-1079
			     Fax:   617-249-0874
			     http://www.jdscons.com/