Re: Additional FC MIBs proposed

[Keith McCloghrie <[e-mail]>]

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: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]]
> Sent: Monday, June 23, 2003 6:55 AM
> To: [e-mail]
> 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
> ([e-mail]) and myself ([e-mail]).
> 
> Thanks,
> --David
> ----------------------------------------------------
> David L. Black, Senior Technologist
> EMC Corporation, 176 South St., Hopkinton, MA  01748
> [phone]             FAX: [phone]
> [e-mail]        Mobile: [phone]
> ----------------------------------------------------
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] 
> 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
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