Re: Counting Send DE Frames for Frame Relay MIB

[Fred Baker <[e-mail]>]

At 6:01 PM 8/21/95, Caralyn Brown wrote:
>As for the following suggestion, how would a network manager make use of this?
>Personally, I would like not to add this, but if there is good reason to add
>it and others like it, what the heck.


My personal opinion (which James has heard before at some length):

This is a DTE MIB.

If the switch is correctly implemented, when the DTE sets DE, the switch is
very likely to simply discard the traffic, due to the way excess burst is
usually configured. Therefore, setting DE is, in most cases, asking the
switch to discard the traffic.

Therefore, I can think of very few good reasons for the DTE to ever set DE.
I can think of (have heard) a few that sound good until you think through
the traffic timing, but none that (a) actually prioritize traffic and (b)
do not cause it to be lost in the network.

Therefore, I don't see the point of counting such errors, either.

>>     frCircuitSentDEs OBJECT-TYPE
>>         SYNTAX   Counter32
>>         MAX-ACCESS   read-only
>>         STATUS   current
>>         DESCRIPTION
>>            "Number of frames sent to the network in-
>>            dicating  that  they  were eligible for discard
>>            since the virtual circuit  was  created.   This
>>            occurs when the local DTE sets the DE flag,
>>            indicating that during Network congestion situations
>>            those frames should be discarded in
>>            preference of other frames sent without the
>>            DE bit set."
>>        REFERENCE
>>           "Draft American National  Standard  T1.618-1991,
>>           Section 3.3.4"
>>       ::= { frCircuitEntry xx }


having said which, if the world at large absolutely must have this object,
go 4 it. And I want $1 for every router sold that, six months after
installation, is actually configured to set DE.

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