craig@NNSC.NSF.NET.UUCP (06/24/87)
I'm starting to get a bunch of messages from my last posting, so
let me try to explain the network management situation briefly.
Since late last year there has been an ongoing effort to develop
network management protocols that could work across all the new
IP boxes which are appearing on the Internet. The gist of the idea
is that if you are a network manager, and need to change a routing
entry in all the hosts and routers on your network, it should be
possible to do this with one program that works consistently across
all machines. You should not have to know who made the machine, and
how their proprietary network management system (if any) works.
Most of the work is being done under the auspices of the Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF). There is also a very active mailing list
(gwmon-request@sh.cs.net). Finally, there are currently quarterly meetings
open to all interested parties (the next one is in D.C. at the end of July).
This effort is not concerned with questions like address assignment
or name space management, although I believe there is work going on in
both these areas.
Craig