gamby@MDC.COM ("Randall Gamby") (09/21/89)
>Dan, > How does your response relate to the traffic I sent? I just >sent some traffic commenting on whether the DoD is requiring CMOT and >SNMP in future TCP/IP implemenations delivered to the government. > >Robert Snyder Disclaimer -- nobody claims dis, but me Hi everybody, I just got back from NIST and answered the above for Robert (I normally receive DDN messages and hadn't quite mastered the art of general mailings). He at least felt that my answer might clear up some questions so I'm putting my life on the line and sending it out. I apologize up front for the length of this message but I wanted to make sure the direct sections were made avail- able and not my own personal subjective point of view. Certain editorials have been added to clarify status. I have in my possession the following document from the Defense Communications Agency: "The Department of Defense Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) Implementation Strategy" Dated: May 1988 (An updated one is supposed to be in work) Sponsor: DCA/DCEC (Code R130) Interoperability and Standards Derey Engineering Building 1860 Wiehle Ave. Reston, VA 22090 On Network Mangement it says: "Quote" 2.4.6 Network Management OSI Network Mangement is in the early stages of development and completely conformant stable products are not expected until well into 1991. The network mangement standard still has significant issues to be resolved before the specific management services and protocols can be completely defined. There are three interim network management efforts expected to be available before OSI Network Management products: o Manufacturing Automation Protocol (MAP) interim management standard (General Motors Manufacturing Automation Protocol, 1987) o Simple Network Mangement Protocol (SNMP) for the DoD in the near-term (IDEA011)(Case, 1988) o Common Management Information System/Common Management Information Protocol (CMIS/CMIP) for the DoD in the mid to long-term (IDEA012)(Ben-Artiz, 1988); (IDEA013)(LeBarre, 1988). The Internet Design, Engineering, and Analysis Notes (IDEA) documents (note 1: IDEAs are IETF working documents circulated for comment. Because IDEA documents carry no official status and are subject to change, they should NOT be refer- enced as standards) are in the draft stage of development and have not yet been adopted by the DoD, however, the Internet Activities Board (IAB) has recommended that the Internet community adopt and adapt --> SNMP <-- for use as the basis of common network management in the short term, and that a network management system based on the ISO CMIS/CMIP be developed, deployed and tested for the longer term. (Cerf, 1988) All of these, as well as other existing protocols, are being considered by the NIST(NBS) Network Management SIG (Personal Note: the SIG is part of the Implementors Workshop that creates North American Implementors Agreements that are talked about later and are the base documents for such specs. as GOSIP, MAP/TOP, COS, etc.) which is working on the creation of a recommendation for an OSI network management standard. It is the goal of this group to develop an initial set of network management Implementors Agree- ments (IA) by December 1988. (Personal note: At last check these were in final rev. and ready for vote.) Products based on these IAs can be expected approx- imately one year after IA acceptance. Although any of the above interim prot- ocols can be implemented now, there is no guarantee that any of them would conform to the IAs when they are eventually issued. Therefore, until the IAs are available, network management will probably be handled, as it generally is today, with proprietary protocols or other non-open system techniques. Hopefully so much for network management, but some will argue that CMOT is based on CMIS/CMIP with a TCP/IP transport. The DoD document also addresses the question of OSI upper layer applications on DoD transports. I quote another section (Sorry for the length but I want to make sure everyone has the full and direct responses!): 3.1.1 DoD/OSI Protocol Profiles The protocol profile specified in GOSIP is a "pure" OSI stack; that is, it is a set of protocols drawn entirely from OSI standards for each protocol layer. The current operational DoD protocol profile is also a pure stack. DoD has tasked DCA to provide support for interoperability between these two pure stack profiles only. Profile implementations have been built with a mixture of DoD and OSI pro- files at each layer. These are sometimes referred to as "mixed protocol stack" or "mixed protocol profile" implementations. Such implementations take advant- age of the similarities between the services provided by some OSI protocols and those offered by analogous protocols in the DoD architecture. The two main possibilites for mixed protocol profiles are DoD applications over OSI lower layers and OSI applications and upper layers over DoD lower layers. (Personal note: this is CMOT or, as I saw in another inquire, X.400 on TCP/IP.) A mixed- protocol approach, using the second possibility, may have the advantage of providing a seemingly quick migration to the use of OSI application services in the current DoD internetworking environment. However, it has the disadvantage of increased complexity of interoperation and increased costs. Each additional protocol profile in the transition process requires methods for it to interoperate with every other protocol profile. The introduction of one addition protocol stack would require the development of two additional interoperation procedures-one between the DoD stack and the mixed stack, and one between the OSI stack and the mixed stack. With only two different protocol stacks (the current DoD and the targeted OSI), only one interoperation procedure needs to be provided. Additionally, provision and support of a mixed stack environment requires considerable development effort, and vendor focus is on the provision of pure stack protocol products. -->Therefore, to minimize complexity and to realize the economic benefit of vendor supplied and supported products, only "pure" OSI protocol profiles are considered in the DoD's implementation strategy.<-- Mixed stack implementations may be used only as interim transitional mechanisms to facilitate a system's migration to a pure OSI profile. So I won't say whether to use CMOT or SNMP but if I were spec'ing out a DoD system, I think I personally would stay with a pure DoD SNMP or use a CMIP on OSI transport if it's an OSI product. I know this was long but I've got twice as much mail on the subject than what's here. Thanks for the listen and I hope this was worth the effort to put a little light on the subject. Randall Gamby McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Co., St. Louis (314)895-5296