Draft minutes of UCP meeting; comments ASAP!
Dan Long <long@nic.near.net> Thu, 16 April 1992 15:05 UTC
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To: ucp@nic.near.net
Subject: Draft minutes of UCP meeting; comments ASAP!
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 92 10:44:08 -0400
From: Dan Long <long@nic.near.net>
Message-ID: <9204161108.aa08916@NRI.Reston.VA.US>
These are due tomorrow (of course) so please email me comments/corrections
ASAP.
Thanks,
Dan
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UCP Meeting - March '92 IETF - San Diego
Dan Long presented a proposed agenda:
Agenda -- User Connectivity Problems Working Group
Tuesday Morning 9:30 - 12:00
Status of UCP efforts; tools; new directions; etc.
Dan Long - BBN - Presentation of Farnet results
Ken Boggs - IBM - Presentation of SNMP-based trouble ticket exchange method
Dan Long - BBN - Presentation of Netwizard/Nearby
Dan Long - BBN - Status of NSC database maintainer/finger access
Thursday Morning 9:00 - 12:00
Available Trouble Ticket Systems and plans for system deployment
Dan Long - BBN - Presentation of NEARnet ticket system
Tom Sandoski - CONCERT - Presentation of public domain ticket system
Additions to the agenda:
Andy Adams - MERIT - Presentation of finger server
Dale Johnson - MERIT
Kaj Tsink - Bellcore- Ideas about user->NOC trouble reporting
Paul Zawada - NCSA - Comparison of Ken Bogg's MIB and proposed exchange
format
============================================================================
Ken Boggs presented his draft idea about using SNMP for interchange of
trouble tickets. His slides:
____________________________________________________________________________
Ken Boggs
. IBM Corp, Software Engineer
. Network Management Workstation Product (NetView/6000)
. My assignment: technical support of vendor applications
. Key application: Trouble Ticket Systems (adjunct to Fault Mgmt)
- Multiple
- Heterogenous
. Need interoperation
- Delegation
- Status
- Update
- Transfer Ownership
[boggs@ralvm12.vnet.ibm.com]
____________________________________________________________________________
Trouble Ticket Representation via SNMP
. Recommended to me by Jeff Case
. Structures data consistent with other related management data
(completes Fault Management)
. Based on Network Management Forum CMIP, Dale Johnson's TT Wishlist,
"guess-by-gosh" requirements
. Initial draft reaction by two trouble ticket vendors:
- Great; will do in Release 2 if agreement with another
vendor
- Don't care right now; will do what need to do to be
competitive
. Desire/Ambition to interchange with mainframe host TT products too
- Data != SNMP
- Transport = SNA or other
. Interoperation Protocol not yet proposed
- "Testing Water"; fill out if supported
____________________________________________________________________________
TT Service Presumptions
. Users
- End guys / Real people (Client)
- Network operators (Client)
- Help Desk people (Client)
. Shared Data Base
- server
- interoperation with:
.. Another TT - Same kind
.. Another TT - Different kind
- "current" history online
. Interoperation (Heterogeneous) Actions
- status
- progressive update
- delegation
- transfer of ownership
____________________________________________________________________________
Object Groups/Info Proposed
. Trouble ticket ID
. User view of problem
. Operator view of problem
. History of actions taken
. Escalation history
. Closure history
____________________________________________________________________________
Inadvertent Issue
. Current definitions are mail only (SMTP & other)
. Proposal is SNMP
- Appropriate?
- Network Traffic & efficiency?
- Additional content to handle delegation & transfer of
ownership
. Both could exist
- Which preferred?
- Advantages of each?
. Additional Definition
- Delegation
- Transfer of Ownership
- Closure (under these conditions)
____________________________________________________________________________
Kinds of Info NOT Expressed
. Strategy of Action Plan
- actions to take; recommended action tree
. In-process notifications
. Rules for escalation
. Analysis of TTs
. Timing/Follow-up rules
. Archives of TTs
In other words: TT exchange format is a subset that is sufficient to allow:
. Delegation
. Ownership movement
. Status to date
____________________________________________________________________________
Proposal for further action on this approach
Today
|
|
Inform and Share
|
|
if appropriate
/ |
/ |
yes no
/ |
/ |
drop, Post to allow review (need help)
terminate |
|
Review by Boston IETF (July) in small WG
|
|
+------------------>if done? (no updates?)
| / |
| / |
| no yes
+----- keep working, publish RFC & enter standards track
reach consensus (Target completion 7/93)
(if possible)
=========================================================================
Comments:
Bellcore has looked at various mechanisms for solving this problem and is
interested in RPC-based mechanisms.
Discussion wandered around between "what problem are we trying to solve?"
and other requirements for TT exchange within the current Internet. Some
notes:
Goals:
. Interoperable data structure
. Ability to search other ticket databases
. Need to cross-reference tickets
. Public status query interface
Problem breakdown:
. What information do we want to exchange? ===> MIB Definition
. How should this information be encoded? ===> ASN.1, ASCII
. How should this encoded info be transported? ===>
SNMP/UDP, SNMP/TCP, EMAIL
Characterization of NSC's:
. SNMP-capable connected NSC
. SNMP-capable disconnected NSC; use Email for transport
. Email-only connected/disconnected NSC
Possible architecture:
. Define "core" service using SNMP/ASN.1 interchange
. Define translators to convert SNMP/ASN.1 TT <-> SMTP/ASCII TT
. Define tools to facilitate manual entry of SMTP/ASCII formats
Next step:
. Paul Zawada (zawada@ncsa.uiuc.edu) and Ken Boggs to get proposed
MIB online and do comparison between it and the current UCP
draft fields.
============================================================================
Other topics:
NSC PhoneBook Update
. New entries inserted from NNSC Internet Resource Guide
. Reminder system in place and triggered
. Finger query tool in place:
finger nsc-KEYWORD-PASSWORD@nic.near.net
. PASSWORD is minor attempt at limiting spread of sensitive data
MERIT Finger Server
. Andy Adams @ MERIT (ala@merit.edu)
. Finger server queries database of contact information for
AS's, Regionals, etc.
. Man page distributed
. Support for network info will be added
RIPE WHOIS Server
. Daniel Karrenberg (karrenberg@ripe.net)
. whois -h whois.ripe.net '-a KEY'
. Supports expanded info about European domains/nets and provides
access to MERIT and DDN NIC databases
. Working on coordination with MERIT and GSI
NEARnet Netwizard/Nearby
. Prototype systems to facilitate problem diagnosis on the Internet
. finger netwizard-{NETNUMBER,IPADDRESS}@nic.near.net
. finger netwizard-asNNN[-t{1,3}]@nic.near.net
. finger netwizard-nssNNN@nic.near.net
. Netwizard reports on stored info:
contact info, traceroute, sample host address, SOA, etc.
. finger nearby-{NET,HOST,IPADDR}@nic.near.net
. plan to add history of NSR-type outage messages soon
============================================================================
Dale Johnson & Kaj Tesink:
Scheme for allowing users to report problems to an NSC
Want comments and expect to generate ID after July IETF
6 funtions: Report trouble
Notification of trouble
Notification of status change (to reporting user)
User requests ticket status
Append to tickets (staple comment on)
Cancel Ticket (user says "never mind")
Want to implement by September.
============================================================================
Dan Long: NEARnet Trouble ticket system released in
nic.near.net: pub/nearnet-ticket-system-v1.2.tar
Tom Sandoski: New version of ticket system soon
Recommend getting shellforms and postgres installed in advance
============================================================================
Paul Zawada: Cross-referenced Ken's MIB with our previous plan
Anon FTP nic.ncsa.uiuc.edu : ucp/tt-orig.mib
ucp/tt-handoff.mib
Discussion of complexity of handoff MIB; what is lowest common
denominator?
Consensus that we should define a handoff dataset (MIB is a
loaded term). This can be sent with email or SNMP or pigeon.
Need to start with the set defined in Santa Fe to get started.
Then iterate on improvements to that. Concern that this will
lead to incompatabilities but we need to get this off the
ground.
Paul will write up asn.1 description of Sante Fe fields.
============================================================================
Current and possible UCP directions:
. Original Mathis draft explores inter-NOC TT system design
. NSC Phonebook allow NOCs to find each other
. MIB-like exchange format defined
. Email and SNMP exchange mechanisms being discussed
. Desirable local TT system features identified
. Standardized Network Status Report format proposed
. User->NOC interaction being examined
. MIB for SNMP-based ticket queries, exchange, and handoff
============================================================================
UCP Meeting summary:
- Ken Boggs from IBM presented an ASN.1 reprentation for trouble
tickets. Group agreed that this specification is a superset
of the information needed to effect trouble ticket handoff.
- Group discussed implications of using SNMP as delivery mechanism
for trouble ticket handoffs and concluded that at least email-based
interfaces are still necessary to allow all NOC's to participate.
- Network Service Center (NSC) Phonebook has been expanded to include
more NOCs. Finger access is now provided for network operators to
search NSC Phonebook. Contact Dan Long for more info.
- Andy Adams from MERIT presented information about MERIT's WHOIS
Server which allows searches on MERIT's configuration database.
This service resides on twain.merit.edu.
- Daniel Kerrenberg from RIPE presented information about RIPE's
WHOIS server. This service resides on whois.ripe.net.
- Dan Long presented a new tool called "netwizard" which helps
operators diagnose connectivity problems. Finger
"netwizard-help@nic.near.net" for more information.
- Dale Johnson of MERIT is working with Kaj Tesink of Bellcore to
define an automatic mechanism for end-users to interact with NOCs.
- Dan Long announced the availability of the NEARnet Trouble Ticket
system, FTP-able from nic.near.net:/src/tickets.tar.
- Tom Sandoski of CONCERTnet gave an update on the trouble ticket
system he has developed that does not depend on a commercial
database package. This system will be made publicly-available soon.
- Ahead:
Write a MIB-like specification for Trouble Ticket exchanges.
Enhance NEARnet, CONCERTnet, & MERIT systems to support handoffs.
Publish long-standing draft as informational RFC.
Announce NSC Phonebook to wider audience.
Improve NSR format, create a new NSR list to distribute
machine-parsable NSR messages, and get all NOCs to
send detailed messages to this new list.
Enhance tools like "netwizard" to search new NSR messages.