Re: [OPSAWG] Basic ietf process question ...

["Randy Presuhn" <[e-mail]>]

Hi -

> From: "Andy Bierman" <[e-mail]>
> To: "Romascanu, Dan (Dan)" <[e-mail]>
> Cc: <[e-mail]>; <[e-mail]>
> Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2012 10:13 AM
> Subject: Re: [OPSAWG] Basic ietf process question ...
...
> NMS developers need to spend too many resources on translating
> naming and other data-modeling specific details so they can be
> usable within the application.  So if 1 data modeling language
> is not used, then deterministic, loss-less, round-trip translation
> between data modeling languages is needed.  Multiple
> protocols are not the problem -- incompatible data from multiple
> protocols is the problem.
...

Picking a single language or set of round-trip translatable languages
also isn't enough.  Its a fact of life that vendors will produce
models and implementations that are slightly, or even radically different.
The differences aren't necessarily even intentional, but nonetheless
introduce the need to talk about "similar" models and "operationally
equivalent" configurations, where the transformations needed to go
from what will do the job on one piece of equipment to what will
work on another may be substantial.  (From an implementation perspective
it might be better to think in terms of transformations necessary to go
from a common model of desired operational characteristics to the
dial tweaks and button pokes necessary to get a device to do the right
thing.)  Since great minds often think alike, even in the absence
of standards, there is not necessarily a formal "derived from" or
"subclass" or "common aspect" relationship between the definitions.
This may be an obvious use case for XSLT, but as far as I know nothing
has been done about *standardizing* such usage, other than discussions at the
IAB workshop oh-so-many years ago, and some ISO/ITU discussions in
the 1990s about eventual applications of the General Relationship
Model and the management domain/policy stuff in GDMO land.

Randy