WG ACTION: Physical Topology MIB (ptopomib)

[Cynthia Clark <[e-mail]>]

A new working group has been formed in the Network Management Area
of the IETF. For additional information, contact the Area Directors or 
the WG Chair.

Physical Topology MIB (ptopomib)
--------------------------------
  
 Chair(s):
     Ken Jones <[e-mail]>
 
 Network Management Area Director(s): 
     Deirdre Kostick  <[e-mail]>
 
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Description of Working Group:
 
Document Editor: Gilbert Ho ([e-mail])


The goals of this working group are:

   o to agree on and document the common framework/model for
     discussing physical topology
   o to standardize a set of managed objects that provide physical
     topology information
   o to document media specific mechanisms to communicate topology
     information.

The managed objects should provide sufficient information to allow a
management workstation to navigate across a set of agents in order to
learn the topology of arbitrarily large networks, and these objects
should be as independent as possible from the specific underlying
networking media which comprise the network. These objects will be the
minimum necessary to provide the ability to support the physical
topology discovery, and will be consistent with the SNMP framework and
existing SNMP standards.
 
In defining these objects, it is anticipated that the working group
will leverage existing work for representing port-based information,
such as in the Repeater MIB (RFC 1516 or later) and may also leverage
work in the entity MIB for describing logical and physical
relationships.
 
The working group will define the general requirements for topology
mechanisms in order to support the proposed MIB.  It will also identify
existing topology mechanisms for common LAN media types and may propose
new topology mechanisms for LAN media types where required.  It is a
goal of the common topology MIB to allow the use of either standard or
proprietary topology mechanisms within the underlying media.
 
At this time, it is not a goal of the working group to support the
collection or representation of logical topology information, such as
VLAN configuration or subnet structure.  It is anticipated that this
could be an area for future work items, so some consideration will be
given to extensibility of the models and to the MIB.  However, this
consideration must not be allowed to impede progress on the primary
focus of physical connectivity.
 
 Goals and Milestones: 
 
   Oct 96       Working Group formation approved by IESG Solicit input 
                (proprietary MIBs, model)                                      

   Nov 96       Post Internet-Draft for topology model                         

   Nov 96       Hold Interim meeting in San Jose                               

   Nov 96       Post Internet-Draft for topology MIB                           

   Dec 96       Working Group meeting at IETF-San Jose to review the initial 
                IDs                                                          

   Feb 97       Post revised Internet-Draft(s)                                 

   Mar 97       Review Internet-Draft(s) at IETF meeting                       

   Jun 97       Submit final version of Internet-Draft(s) to IESG for 
                consideration as a Proposed Standard