Subject: Re: [netmod] opstate-reqs #4 (was #6: clarify impact of synchronous vs asynchronous)

From: Kent Watsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2015 17:39:36 +0000

Robert writes:

      intended configuration - this data represents the configuration
      state that the network operator intends the system to be in, and that
      has been accepted by the system as valid configuration.  This data is
      colloquially referred to as the 'configuration' of the system.

     applied configuration - this data represents the configuration
      state that the network element is actually in, i.e., the
      configuration state which is currently being being used by system
      components (e.g., control plane daemons, operating system
      kernels, line cards).

      So, is this text above acceptable, or does it need to be refined?

[hat on]

The discussion on these terms should happen on the opstate-reqs #4 thread.  Renaming subject line to reflect that.

[hat off]

Jonathan Hansford made a suggestion to somehow clarify that the intended and applied configurations were limited to YANG-defined configuration data.  Maybe we could do this to both terms:

- this data represents the configuration...
+ YANG-defined data representing the configuration...

Also, Juergen wrote:

...we probably need to add text below the definition
of the term 'applied configuration' that acknowledges that this is
grey area and the definition of applied configuration is fuzzy here by
design.

So, perhaps something like this?

The system's ability to report applied configuration accurately may be
limited in some cases, such as when the the configuration goes through
an intermediate layer without an ability to inspect the lower layer.

Kent