Subject: A couple of comments about the Network Configuration BOF

From: "JACQUENET Christian FTLD/IAP" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 17:11:44 +0100

Dear all,

Having read the motivation for the above-mentioned BOF
(http://www.ietf.org/ietf/03mar/netconf.txt), as well as its agenda, I must
admit I'm quite surprised that only the XMLCONF draft is quoted as a "useful
starting point", since most (if not all) the requirements mentioned in the
introducing text are addressed by the COPS-PR protocol, which has been
standardized as RFC 3084.

Furthermore, there are several initiatives, both chartered and individual,
such as (to name a few):
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-diffserv-pib-09.txt
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-ipsp-ipsecpib-07.txt
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-li-rap-mplspib-00.txt
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-boucadair-ipte-acct-pib-01.txt
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-yacine-ppvpn-2547bis-pib-02.txt
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-jacquenet-ip-te-pib-02.txt
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-jacquenet-ip-te-cops-04.txt
...which clearly show an interest (from both vendors and operators) for the
use of the COPS-PR protocol in the Internet community.

You might also consider some arguments that have been exchanged on the rap
mailing list some time ago, including
http://ops.ietf.org/lists/rap/rap.2002/msg00138.html, for the support of a
PIB standardization effort together with the use of the COPS-PR protocol.

Also, it might be worth not forgetting RFC 3139, possibly including
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-jacquenet-tunman-reqts-02.txt as
additional "starting points".

Don't get me wrong: I'm definitely supporting this BOF initiative (and the
freedom of choice in general), since it's been quite a long tradition in the
IETF standardization process to let the community choose amongst several
options for performing specific actions, such as intra-domain routing with
protocols like RIP, OSPF and IS-IS, dyanmic address allocation schemes, with
protocols like DHCP, IPCP, RADIUS-inferred IPCP, various encapsulation
schemes including IP-in-IP and GRE, etc.

I just want to point out the fact that this BOF may have possibly increased
its chances of success by welcoming other pointers than the XMLCONF draft,
as well as other presentations.

Comments welcome.

Cheers,

Christian.

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