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- This is only a rough draft - Megan 04/20/92
-
- CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_
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- Reported by David Perkins/SynOptics Communications
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-
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- SNMP Agent Description BOF Minutes
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-
- A Birds of a Feather was held on Tuesday to present the
- contents of the recently published RFC1303 and to
- gather feedback from the attendees. Leading the
- presentation was David Perkins from SynOptics with
- assistance from Marshall Rose from Dover Beach Consulting,
- one of the joint authors of the RFC.
-
- RFC 1303, an informational document, proposes a method
- to describe the MIB objects implemented by an SNMP
- agent using an ASN.1 macro. This concise and precise
- technique provides a crisp communication between agent
- implementors and users of an agent.
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-
- The set of overheads that were presented are included
- in the proceedings. The overheads included a description
- of the proposal, uses of the proposal, problems with
- the proposal, and suggested changes.
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- There were close to 80 people in attendance with a good
- mix of agent technology vendors, managed device vendors
- (i.e., those who ship devices with agents), network
- management system vendors, and users of network management
- systems.
-
-
- The feedback to the presentation was generally that the
- proposal in RFC1303 was timely and pretty much on the
- mark. However, most people found the proposal to have
- the problems as presented in the BOF. The problems ranked
- in order of importance were: 1) missing support for traps;
- 2) problems in applying to SMUX type agents; 2) incomplete
- definition of syntax refinements; 3) document problems
- with row creation and deletion; 4) fuzzy definition of
- MIB groups; and 5) potential for a large number of
- macro instances.
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- The attendees were urged to use the macro defined by the
- proposal to describe some agents to determine if there was
- a good fit and report the results back to the authors.
- There was some interest in forming a working group and
- taking the proposal on the standards track. This action
- was not the intent of the BOF. Further consultation with
- the authors, the network management director, and interested
- parties was needed to determine a course of action.
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-