Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!hao!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!gateway.mitre.ORG!gross
From: gross@gateway.mitre.ORG (Phill Gross)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: re: Network Management
Message-ID: <8711252309.AA05871@gateway.mitre.org>
Date: Wed, 25-Nov-87 18:09:37 EST
Article-I.D.: gateway.8711252309.AA05871
Posted: Wed Nov 25 18:09:37 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 29-Nov-87 14:46:32 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 32


> I don't understand why it is useful to have something which is sort
> of vaguely like what we think CMIP is going to look like when it is
> done.  Either you are compatible with an ISO standard or you're not.
> Being sort of close doesn't seem to buy all that much.  

Ross,

I have been informed in private that these days it is a wise
business decision to at least give the appearance of conforming to
OSI standards.  Utilizing TCP and IP is fine because it is already
here, but for something that needs to implemented from scratch, I've 
been told that many vendors feel contrained to an OSI solution.

The argument about avoiding development costs by not implementing 
twice may not be as important as soothing nervous customers about 
multi-vendor OSI interoperability.  If vendors were only concerned 
with not implementing twice, they might have taken a harder look at 
the Simple Gateway Monitoring Protocol (SGMP) effort.  

SGMP is yet a third network management consortium effort that started about 
the same time as (and has drawn from) HEMS and Netman.  At the Boulder IETF 
meeting, a very impressive real-time demo was given of a PC based SGMP 
package (with whizbang color graphics) monitoring a real state-wide 
regional network.  My understanding is that C source code is available 
for tested, interoperable implementations under BSD Unix, MS-DOS and two 
other platforms.  SGMP has been documented in a recent RFC and I think 
there are plans for it be discussed at the upcoming Interoperability 
conference.  For vendors whose goal is to minimize development costs,
perhaps SGMP deserves a closer look.

Phill Gross