Subject: Re: [OPS-AREA] IEEE/IETF relationship on Ethernet-specific MIB Modules (was DISCUSS on draft-ietf-adslmib-gbond-eth-mib-07.txt)

From: "Howard Frazier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2012 22:31:10 +0000

I will try to answer David's questions, and I appreciate him
taking the time to voice them.

>Is there a ***technical*** reason that forces a reassignment of OIDs per
>SMIv2 rules, and obsolescence of the IETF MIB modules?

In the course of writing IEEE Std 802.3.1, new objects were added
to some of the MIB modules, obsolete and deprecated objects were
removed from some of the MIB modules, and virtually every object
was updated with the latest cross references to the managed object
definitions in IEEE Std 802.3. In the current revision project on
IEEE Std 802.3.1, many new objects have been added as the result of
the many amendments that have been made to IEEE Std 802.3 over the
last 4 years.

Basically, the Ethernet MIB modules were 4 years out of date when
we started this project, and if we hadn't taken on the work, they
would be 8 years out of date today, unable to manage 10GBASE-T,
Backplane Ethernet, 10GEPON, PoE+, Ethernet extensions to LLDP, 
40G/100G, Energy Efficient Ethernet, Frame format extensions, 
and other new developments.

For all of these reasons, we felt that it was best to move the 
modules under an IEEE 802.3 root OID, which is:

org ieee(111) standards-association-numbers-series-standards(2) 
lan-man-stds(802) ieee802dot3(3) ieee802dot3dot1mibs(1)

>Have all the original authors been contacted and have they (and their
>companies) agreed to grant IEEE these rights?

All of the authors listed at the top of the RFCs have been contacted and
agreed to grant the IEEE these rights. The IETF Trust has also granted
the IEEE these rights with respect to their "boiler plate" material
in the RFCs, although we didn't copy any of it to my knowledge.

> Will IEEE make subsequent 802.3 MIB documents freely available in text
> formats?

Absolutely! Now and forever. This is part of the formal project authorization
process for this work, and we will continue to publish ASCII text machine 
readable versions of the MIB modules and make them freely available at all times.
I use Framemaker as the source for both the .PDF and ASCII .txt versions of
the MIB modules, so there should be a perfect 1:1 correspondence between
the modules published in .PDF and .txt.

>If the IEEE will extend the existing MIB modules, within the 1.3.6.1
>branch, I believe they will need to have the new OIDs assigned by IANA.

See above. I believe that IEEE 802.3 can act as the registration authority
for the new branch and leaf assignments below our OID, as I believe is
intended. We do go to IANA for maintenance of the IANA-MAU-MIB, which we
import into the IEEE8023-MAU-MIB.

I hope that this information is helpful. Please let me know if I have
goofed somewhere, or if you have additional concerns.

Howard Frazier
Chair, IEEE 802.3 Ethernet MIB modules Task Force

-----Original Message-----
From: David Harrington [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Friday, July 27, 2012 9:55 PM
To: Benoit Claise; adslmib mailing list; [email-masked]
Cc: Howard Frazier; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [OPS-AREA] IEEE/IETF relationship on Ethernet-specific MIB Modules (was DISCUSS on draft-ietf-adslmib-gbond-eth-mib-07.txt)

Hi,

I think there are many implementations of these mib modules.
Applications know where to find these data objects by the existing OIDs.

In the Bridge MIB case, the IETF standards remained standards, so existing
implementations were still compliant to the IETF standard.
The IETF Bridge mib modules were widely deployed and used in Enterprise
bridging.
The structure of the IEEE Bridge modules were modified for technical
reasons - the indexing needed to be changed to accommodate per-provider
bridging.
So the IEEE developed a mib module that used the new indexing, which was a
superset of the old IETF MIB design.
This change required reassignment of OIDs, per SMIv2 rules. This is
described in RFC4663 section 3.2.
So the IETF Bridge MIB(s) and IEEE Bridge MIB(s) are actually different
MIB modules, both are existing valid standards, and they can coexist.

You don't discuss the justifications for changing the names and OID
assignments for existing objects.
Expecting all devices and NMS applications to do a forklift upgrade just
to declare these objects to be in the IEEE tree would make little sense.
Many legacy device implementations will never be upgraded, so NMS
applications will need to continue to support the IETF MIB  modules.
Obsoleting these existing standards should have a strong justification.
Is there a ***technical*** reason that forces a reassignment of OIDs per
SMIv2 rules, and obsolescence of the IETF MIB modules?

RFC4663 does not actually transfer the Bridge MIBs to IEEE; it merely
describes the process that was followed to transfer the Bridge MIBs to
IEEE.
Copyright for existing MIB module documents are held by the original
authors (not by the IETF).
The authors typically have granted the IETF the right to publish, copy,
translate, etc. for IETF standardization purposes.
The exact rights depend on the state of the IPR policy at time of document
publication.
The IETF does not have the authority to transfer these rights to the IEEE.
As described in RFC4663 3.1, the authors must agree to allow the IEEE to
copy and make derivative works from the original documents.
If the authors have assigned all intellectual property to their employers,
then the companies must agree.
Have all the original authors been contacted and have they (and their
companies) agreed to grant IEEE these rights?

Many NMS tools import text versions of MIB documents; they typically
cannot extract and import MIB modules from PDFs.
Will IEEE make subsequent 802.3 MIB documents freely available in text
formats?
This was done for the 802.1 MIB modules.

If the IEEE will extend the existing MIB modules, within the 1.3.6.1
branch, I believe they will need to have the new OIDs assigned by IANA.

There are quite a few issues with doing this type of transfer, and I
recommend documenting the process and the constraints on future
development, so future contributors understand the issues and how to deal
with them.

--
David Harrington
[email-masked]
+1-603-828-1401

On 7/27/12 7:13 PM, "Benoit Claise" <[email-masked]> wrote:

>
>  
>
>    
>  
>  
>    Dear all,
>    
>    While DISCUSSing draft-ietf-adslmib-gbond-eth-mib-06.txt with the
>    IESG, an issue was brought up. Let me explain.
>    
>    The IETF is no longer developing any Ethernet-related MIB modules
>    and has transferred the responsibility of these development of MIB
>    modules for Ethernet to the IEEE 802.3 WG. This process has already
>    started a few years ago, when the HUBMIB WG was shut down. This
>    process also covers the last RFC produced by the HUBMIG WG, RFC
>      5066 - Ethernet in the First Mile Copper (EFMCu) Interfaces MIB
><http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5066>.
>    
>    
>    This RFC5066 contains two MIB modules
>    1. the EFM-CU-MIB MIB module (Ethernet to the First Mile Copper),
>    clearly Ethernet-specific
>    2. the IF-CAP-STACK MIB module is not Ethernet-specific, but generic
>        For example, draft-ietf-adslmib-gbond-eth-mib-07.txt refers to
>    this MIB module.
>    
>    However, according to the agreement, it is within the IEEE
>    competence to develop the IEEE8023-IF-CAP-STACK-MIB in 802.3.1
>    rather than refer RFC 5066.
>    The issue was raised that it didn't make sense to refer to the
>    IEEE8023-IF-CAP-STACK-MIB when this cross-connect functionality is
>    not used for Ethernet, and that the reference RFC5056 was actually
>    preferred.
>    
>    This week, we had an IEEE/IESG meeting where this issue was
>    discussed between Dan Romascanu (as the IEEE liaison), Howard
>    Frazier (802.3.1) and myself.
>    The following has been agreed upon: the EFM-CU-MIB MIB module should
>    be maintained by IEEE, while the IF-CAP-STACK-MIB should be
>    maintained by the IETF.
>    Practically, it means:
>    1. Obsoleting RFC 5066
>    2. Creating RFC 5066bis. Extracting IF-CAP-STACK-MIB from RFC5056,
>    with some wording emphasizing the generic nature of this module, and
>    clearly mentioning that the IEEE 802.3.1 is responsible for
>    EFM-CU-MIB.
>        Ed Beili agreed to take the lead on this document.
>    3. The next version of draft-ietf-adslmib-gbond-eth-mib will contain
>    the following text
>    
>      4.4 Relationship with the IEEE 802.3 MIB modules
>
>The IEEE 802.3 working group chartered a task force [IEEE802.3.1] which
>continues the development of standard MIB modules based on the initial
>work done in the IETF.  Future projects resulting from the work of this
>Task Force may include and possibly extend the work done in the IETF,
>such as [RFC5066].
>
>-------------
>
>To Informative References add:
>
>[IEEE802.3.1] IEEE P802.3.1 Revision to IEEE Std 802.3.1-2011 (IEEE
>802.3.1a) Ethernet MIBs Task Force,
>http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/3/1/index.html
>    
>
>    
>    Thanks to Howard Frazier. Edward Beili, Menachem Dodge, Dan
>    Romascanu, and Moti Morgenstern for helping with this issue. This
>    shows an inter-SDO success story IMHO.
>    
>    
>    A second document has also been discussed.
>    It would be a good idea to have an informational RFC, similar to RFC
>      4663 - Transferring MIB Work from IETF Bridge MIB WG to IEEE ...
><http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4663>,
>    with the following content.
>    1. Listing of all the RFCs obsoleted by the IEEE 802.3.1-2011
>    
>      RFC 2108  Ethernet Repeater Devices
>        RFC 3621 - Power Ethernet MIB
>        RFC 3635 - Ethernet-like Interface Types
>        RFC 3637 - Ethernet WAN Interface Sublayer
>        RFC 4836 - Ethernet Medium Attachment Units (MAUs)
>        RFC 4837 - Ethernet Passive Optical Networks (EPON)
>        RFC 4878 - Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (OAM)
>        Functions on Ethernet-Like Interfaces
>        RFC 5066 - Ethernet in the First Mile Copper (EFMCu) Interfaces
>        MIB
>    
>
>    2. A table mapping the old IETF MIB names with the corresponding new
>    IEEE ones
>    3. Clarifications/rules on the IETF-IEEE interactions, mailing
>    lists, reviews
>    4. Clarifications on the intellectual property considerations
>    
>    Next to Dan and Ed, Howard agrees to co-author this document. And
>    that sends a strong positive signal.
>    
>    There is one open issue though with this second document: should we
>    send to historic all the MIB modules mentioned above? What would be
>    the impact for the equipment vendors and NMS applications?
>    Dan Romascanu will present this issue at the OPS-AREA meeting.
>    
>    Finally, regarding the future cooperation between the IEEE and IETF
>    regarding the development of the 802.3.1-2011, Howard Frazier
>    mentioned that any feedback could be sent directly to him, and that
>    he would insert it into the ballot.
>    
>    
>    Regards, Benoit (OPS A.D.)
>    
>    
>    
>    
>  
>
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