RE: Additional FC MIBs proposed

[Roger Cummings <roger.cummings@veritas.com>]

Keith,

Thanks for the response. I'm afraid you picked a bad time to try and access
the T11 web site, as we were engaged yesterday in moving it to a new server.
However things are now up again, and the following URL should get you to the
document:

http://www.t11.org/t11/docreg.nsf/ulfile/02-134

Again, from my point of view its David & Elizabeth's call as to whether they
want to take this on or not, but if they decide not to do so we will
certainly try and get one or more projects approved in T11.5. I'm of the
firm opinion that it is much better to do this type of work in an open
public forum than in a closed industry group or in the confines of a single
company.

Regards,





Roger
-----Original Message-----
From: Keith McCloghrie [mailto:kzm@cisco.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2003 10:11 PM
To: Roger Cummings
Cc: kzm@cisco.com; Black_David@emc.com; ips@ece.cmu.edu;
pat_thaler@agilent.com; sgai@cisco.com; cds@andiamo.com
Subject: Re: Additional FC MIBs proposed


Hi Roger,

Thanks for correcting the errors in my message.  I'm glad that the
Letter Ballot comment was effective.  I tried to check the status
before sending my message but was unable to access the PDF file at:

  ftp://ftp.t11.org/t11/member/fc/fa/02-134v4.pdf 

and that's why I worded my message with caveats like "the last time I
looked", and "T11 seem to have", etc.

I was especially pleased to read your last sentence (about not repeating
past mistakes).

Thanks,
Keith.
 
> Keith,
> 
> T11 has certainly traditionally not had a great amount of MIB expertise,
> although with the formation of T11.5 containing some organizations with
> expertise in this area, and the participation of some of us in efforts
like
> the SCSI MIB along with some notable experts that's changing, albeit
slowly.
> :-)) However that is OK because T11 has also never generated a MIB for
Fibre
> Channel, as far as I'm aware. The draft-ietf-ipfc-fcmgmt-int-mib was
neither
> submitted to the IETF by T11 (it was created in an independent industry
> group called the Fibre Alliance), nor was it developed in T11.
> 
> I'm frankly not sure what your reference to "publishing
> draft-ietf-ips-fcmgmt-mib
> as if it were the definitive standard for a Fibre Channel MIB" relates to.
> If this relates to the MIB-FA Technical Report that was recently published
> as INCITS TR-33:2003 then:
> 
> a) This is a Technical Report, NOT a standard, definitive or otherwise.
> 
> b) The TR contains three different revisions of the MIB, because all three
> are used and different.
> 
> c) The Scope section of this document states:
> 
> The MIBs specified in this technical report are widely implemented even
> though they do not meet IETF requirements. To address this issue a revised
> Fibre Channel Management MIB has been developed in the IETF. For new
> implementations, vendors should implement the revised IETF Fibre Channel
> Management MIB.
> 
> This wording was introduced in response to a comment submitted against the
> T11 Letter Ballot by Cisco. I'm both the T11.5 Chair and the T11
webmaster,
> and I'm certainly not aware of any  requests for wording in relation to
this
> subject that weren't honored.
> 
> The T11 web site does not list any reference to draft-ietf-ips-fcmgmt-mib
as
> a published standard. Quite to the contrary, the front page for Task Group
> T11.5 (http://www.t11.org/t11/stat.nsf/tg5) links to a page containing
SNMP
> information on which the only MIBs referenced are the IETF Entity MIB, and
> the FC Management MIB I-D via the link on the IETF IP Storage WG page.
> 
> Keith, I completely agree that the current situation regarding the FA MIB
is
> NOT good, and I'd like to see the new MIB adopted with all possible speed.
> Part of the reason that I agreed to come back into T11 and get involved in
> T11.5 was a realization that the many of the FC companies had not been
> closely integrated enough with the development of management interfaces
and
> information definitions. That having been said, I'm under pressure from
some
> quarters to focus T11.5's attention on newer and supposedly "more
> extensible" management schemes. I think that would be narrow-minded in the
> extreme, but discussions like this aren't exactly helping my cause!
> 
> I've already indicated to the IPS WG Co-Chairs that I'm neutral as to
where
> further MIB work for FC gets done, and I'll personally participate
wherever
> this happens. If the decision is that there is insufficient support in the
> IETF I'll solicit support for one or more new projects getting created in
> T11.5 to do this work, and I'll issue a call for people with expertise to
> participate as always. I still have the slides from your "Tips on MIB
> design" presentation that you gave to the IP Working Group on August 27,
> 2001 and I'd certainly solicit your making the same type of presentation
in
> T11.5 and your active participation in the work there if at all possible.
> Regardless of where the work gets done, I think you'll find a number of
> people with very firm desires NOT to repeat what happened with the earlier
> Fibre Channel MIBs.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> 
> Roger Cummings
> 
> roger.cummings@veritas.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Keith McCloghrie [mailto:kzm@cisco.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2003 1:15 PM
> To: pat_thaler@agilent.com
> Cc: Black_David@emc.com; ips@ece.cmu.edu
> Subject: Re: Additional FC MIBs proposed
> 
> 
> The issue with doing the MIBs in T11 is that T11 has, in the past, not
> had the appropriate amount of MIB expertise.  My understanding is that
> T11 themselves acknowledged this by the submission of the "Fibre
> Alliance MIB" as draft-ietf-ipfc-fcmgmt-int-mib.  However, as and when
> the IPFC WG had completed all other items in its charter, it had been
> unable to reach consensus on that MIB.  So, to allow the IPFC WG to
> conclude, the unfinished work item was moved to the IP Storage WG.
> After abortive attempts to get changes in draft-ietf-ipfc-fcmgmt-int-mib,
> I created draft-ietf-ips-fcmgmt-mib as a MIB which: a) meets IETF's
> standards, b) replaces both draft-ietf-ips-fcmgmt-mib and the overlapping
> RFC 2837, and c) details the problems with those previous MIBs.
> 
> Meanwhile, T11 has published on its website a copy of one version (I'm
> not sure if it's the latest version) of draft-ietf-ips-fcmgmt-mib.
> Since that MIB is widely implemented in the industry, I agreed that
> such publication would be appropriate *if* T11's publication indicated
> that the MIB is already being deprecated by the IETF's definition of
> draft-ietf-ips-fcmgmt-mib.  The last time I looked, T11 had failed to
> do that; rather, T11 seem to have published draft-ietf-ips-fcmgmt-mib
> as if it were the definitive standard for a Fibre Channel MIB.
> (However, the MIB was still in its Internet-Draft format, and perhaps
> T11 intended that as an indication that the MIB was just a draft, as
> ephemeral as all Internet-Drafts are, by definition).  These recent
> actions of T11 suggest to me that they still do not have the
> appropriate amount of MIB expertise.
> 
> The bottom line is that a bad MIB was widely implemented in the industry,
> and I believe that network management of Fibre Channel devices suffered
> because of that.  A better MIB for Fibre Channel has been defined in the
> IP Storage WG, who have already discussed the definition of further FC
MIBs
> (see http://www.pdl.cmu.edu/mailinglists/ips/mail/msg09473.html), but
> deferred them as future work.
> 
> Keith.
> 
> 
> > It doesn't appear that any of these MIBs are in scope for us. They
> > don't deal with IP storage. They are all very specific to Fibre Channel
> > and deal mostly with fabric issues. T11 would be more appropriate.
> > 
> > Pat
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Black_David@emc.com [mailto:Black_David@emc.com]
> > Sent: Monday, June 23, 2003 6:55 AM
> > To: ips@ece.cmu.edu
> > Subject: Additional FC MIBs proposed
> > 
> > 
> > Everyone,
> > 
> > This Internet-Draft describes a number of MIBs that the authors
> > would like the IPS WG to take up.  The WG chairs are seeking
> > input on the level interest in standardization and use of these
> > MIBs, the appropriateness of working on them here (vs. T11) and
> > prioritization (which ones to take up first, as all 9 in parallel
> > is not likely).
> > 
> > Send comments/opinions/etc. to the list or directly to Elizabeth
> > (ElizabethRodriguez@ieee.org) and myself (black_david@emc.com).
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > --David
> > ----------------------------------------------------
> > David L. Black, Senior Technologist
> > EMC Corporation, 176 South St., Hopkinton, MA  01748
> > +1 (508) 293-7953             FAX: +1 (508) 293-7786
> > black_david@emc.com        Mobile: +1 (978) 394-7754
> > ----------------------------------------------------
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Internet-Drafts@ietf.org [mailto:Internet-Drafts@ietf.org] 
> > Sent: Friday, June 20, 2003 2:28 PM
> > Subject: I-D ACTION:draft-gai-fc-mibs-00.txt
> > 
> > 
> > A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts
> > directories.
> > 
> > 
> > 	Title		: MIBs Standardization for Fibre Channel
> > 	Author(s)	: S. Gai et al.
> > 	Filename	: draft-gai-fc-mibs-00.txt
> > 	Pages		: 9
> > 	Date		: 2003-6-20
> > 	
> > Fibre Channel (FC) is a high speed serial interface technology that   
> > supports several Upper Layer Protocols including Small Computer 
> > System Interface (SCSI) and IP. Fibre Channel is standardized by the 
> > INCITS T11 Technical Committee. Fibre Channel Standards include 
> > Framing and Signaling protocols [FC-FS], Generic Services protocols 
> > [FC-GS-3], Switch Fabric protocols [FC-SW-2], etc.
> > The management of a Fibre Channel network requires to monitor and set 
> > many parameters related to these protocols and this may be 
> > accomplished defining a proper set of MIBs.
> > 
> > A URL for this Internet-Draft is:
> > http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-gai-fc-mibs-00.txt
> > 
> > To remove yourself from the IETF Announcement list, send a message to 
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> > 
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> > "anonymous" and a password of your e-mail address. After logging in,
type
> > "cd internet-drafts" and then
> > 	"get draft-gai-fc-mibs-00.txt".
> > 
> > A list of Internet-Drafts directories can be found in
> > http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html 
> > or ftp://ftp.ietf.org/ietf/1shadow-sites.txt
> > 
> > 
> > Internet-Drafts can also be obtained by e-mail.
> > 
> > Send a message to:
> > 	mailserv@ietf.org.
> > In the body type:
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