Hi,
Bert has said that indictaing agreement is a good thing, so ...
comments inline.
dbh
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Durham, David [mailto:david.durham@intel.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 04, 2002 1:25 PM
> To: 'sming@ops.ietf.org'
> Cc: Durham, David
> Subject: SMIng consensus issues restated, call for consensus ends
> Septembe r 18, 2002
>
>
> I have prepared this message to the mailing list to initiate
> a last call on
> the wg consensus for items raised during the IETF and interim
> meetings. This
> last call is also for the edification of those on the list
> who have not
> read/commented on the meeting minutes.
>
> There are several items that achieved clear consensus in the
> wg meetings.
> This mail is to confirm that the mailing list is not of a
> different opinion.
>
> There is consensus that it is a requirement:
>
> 1. That the sming supports N-levels of nesting. This includes
> the nesting of
> complex data structures, unions, and multidimensional
> constructs such as
> arrays. [See the 53rd IETF SMIng meeting minutes for more details]
agreed.
>
> 2. That the sming take advantage of the hierarchical oid namespace to
> achieve consensus item number 1. That is, the naming scheme should map
> directly to the n-levels of nesting as is in Andy Bierman's
> smi-ds proposal.
> [See the 53rd IETF SMIng meeting minutes for more details]
I think it is a useful constraint to keep us focused on resolving fairly-well-understood problems using a language that is fairly-well-understood within the SNMP community. It was my understanding that the decision to continue using OIDs was agreed to for these reasons, but that if we found the problems could not be solved easily using the OID hierarchy, that we might consider alternative languages such as XML.
Since we had the discussion in DC, however, I get the impression that some people are trying to "tighten up" that consensus to make *only* OID solutions acceptable.
From the minutes of that DC meeting: "* Continue using SMI syntax as much as possible: Yes (for the time being)"
Let me be very clear about my intentions raising this point. I believe XML is being oversold, although it has potential. By constraining ourselves to the OID solution for discussing the nature of the problems, we can focus on solving the problems, not on religious debate.
Andy's proposal looks very good, and we should try to make it work, but we shouldn't be constrained from exploring other avenues in the future if we find that it gets "too" complex (where "too" is subject to future debate).
>
> 3. The smiv2 definitions be convertible to sming (meaning
> that sming is
> backwards compatible with smiv2). It is not a requirement
> that new sming
> definitions map back to the smiv2. [See the June 2002 SMIng
> Interim meeting
> minutes for more details]
>
Just to tighten up this language a bit. I believe meeting consensus was that complete v2-to-v3 conversion is a goal, not a requirement (a SHOULD not a MUST).
> 4. The existing smi look-and-feel will be preserved where
> possible. There
> are exceptions for new constructs in the sming language.
> Also, where the
> existing smi syntax is broken it should be fixed. [See the
> 53rd IETF SMIng
> meeting minutes and June Interim meeting minutes for more details]
As discussed under #2, I think it is importnat to mention the parenthetical clause: "* Continue using SMI syntax as much as possible: Yes (for the time being)"
>
> 5. Backward compatibility of the new sming with the SPPI is not a
> requirement. [See the 54th IETF SMIng meeting minutes for
> more details]
>
Agreed.
6. SMIv3 will be the output of this working group.
Agreed.
> Note that the last call period for these items ends in two weeks, on
> September 18th.
>
> Cheers,
> -Dave
>