Subject: SNMP/MIB v.s. COPS/PIB

From: Yuan Lihua <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2002 20:38:33 +0800

Hi, 

    I am trying to understand the differences between using SNMP/MIB
    for general network management and using COPS/PIB for QoS
    provisioning.  After reading through the RFCs and drafts, I am
    just getting more and more confused.  My question is "Isn't QoS
    provisioning is a case of network management?"  Some Cisco router
    does even have a QoS MIB, so why can't one use SNMP to manage a
    network device and therefore provide admission control?

    Thanks and best regards
    
Lihua

-- 
The man who finds his homeland sweet is still a tender beginner;
he to whom every soil is as his native one is already strong;

but he is perfect to whom the entire world is as a foreign land.

---

From: Juergen Schoenwaelder <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2002 05:29:48 +0200

>>>>> Yuan Lihua writes:

Yuan> I am trying to understand the differences between using SNMP/MIB
Yuan> for general network management and using COPS/PIB for QoS
Yuan> provisioning.  After reading through the RFCs and drafts, I am
Yuan> just getting more and more confused.  My question is "Isn't QoS
Yuan> provisioning is a case of network management?"  Some Cisco
Yuan> router does even have a QoS MIB, so why can't one use SNMP to
Yuan> manage a network device and therefore provide admission control?

There are some issues with SNMP that increase implementation costs,
especially if you do not have smart tools. COPS tries to address some
of them. However, the question whether the COPS proposal and its new
features (compared to SNMP) are sufficient to justify the addition of
a new protocol has been an interesting controversy within the IETF.
And if we listen to network operators that attended the various
meetings during last year where IETF folks wanted to collect
requirements, then we hear that neither SNMP (as is) nor COPS (as is)
satisfies their requirements.

For further reading on the technical differences, see
http://www.ibr.cs.tu-bs.de/~schoenw/papers/policy-tr-00-02.ps.gz

/js

-- 
Juergen Schoenwaelder    <http://www.informatik.uni-osnabrueck.de/schoenw/>