draft NETCONF BOF minutes

[Andy Bierman <abierman@cisco.com>]

Hi,

Here are the XMLCONF BOF minutes.  There are lots of "he said, she said"
type of notes in there, which I know is not the IETF preferred format
for minutes.  I did this because the most important parts of the
meeting were the discussions, and I didn't want to over-summarize 
comments from people, or mis-represent opinions.  Please speak up
if your comment was not attributed or captured correctly.  I also
want to know if I should remove the comments and just summarize 
them instead.

thanks,
Andy
OPS Area
NETCONF BOF Meeting Minutes
IETF #56
March 17, 2003
Minutes by Glenn Waters and Andy Bierman
Attendance: 259

Chairs
------

Andy Bierman <abierman@cisco.com>
Randy Bush <randy@psg.com>

Review Material
---------------

XMLCONF Configuration Protocol 
<draft-enns-xmlconf-spec-00.txt>

Agenda
------

Agenda bashing : 5 minutes
Opening Remarks : 10 minutes
NETCONF Scope presentation : 15 minutes
NETCONF Scope discussion : 15 minutes 
XMLCONF I-D presentation : 35 minutes 
XMLCONF I-D discussion : 40 minutes 
Next Steps : 30 minutes 

Minutes
-------

Key:
  Q: question
  A: answer
  C: comment

1) Opening Remarks

Randy Bush started the meeting by conducting a quick poll:
  Q: How many people here create tools for network management?
  A: about 60 people

  Q: How many people here manage networks?
  A: about 100 people   

  Q: How many people have read the XMLCONF draft?
  A: about 150 people

2) NETCONF Scope presentation

Andy Bierman presented slides on the focus and scope of the 
proposed WG. The scope is generally a protocol for configuration
management which meets operator requirements as defined in
the IAB NM Workshop on Network Management and other Internet
Drafts.  The scope does not include the selection or definition
of a Data Definition Language or the definition of specific
standard data models.  See the slides for more detail on
this presentation.

3) NETCONF Scope discussion

The presentation was followed by an open microphone Q&A session.

  C: [Fred Baker] security issues not limited to knowing who 
     the peer (IP address) is; need something carried in the XML.

  C: [Elliot Lear] need to address the auditing requirement still.

  C: [Perry Metzger] need to define the threat models, i.e.: what 
     do you want to defend against and what you do not want to defend 
     against.

  Q: [Eric Flieshman] what space is this work trying to fill in; 
     is it replacing the SNMP work

  A: [Randy Bush] not an SNMP replacement - it is augmenting the 
     configuration work

  Q: [Eric Flieshman] SNMP consumes lots of bandwidth; is the goal 
     of this work to save bandwidth

  A: [Randy Bush] no

  Q: [Faye Ly] what kind of notification traffic is part of this work? 
     Is it configuration type of notifications only?

  A: [Randy Bush and Andy Bierman] Not trying to replace SNMP. Focus 
     on things that SNMP is not doing. Also focus on configuring 
     networks not just devices.

  Q: [Faye Ly] how does this deal with a new box on the network?

  A: [Elliot Lear] initial security certificate exchange is outside 
     the scope of the solution

  C: [Andy Bierman] explicit goal is to coexist with console port 
     management

  C: [Weijing Chen] Operators want single interface to do the job 
     (FCAPS)

  C: [Andy Bierman] A device can transport performance information 
     using this protocol.

  C: [Dave Perkins] Notifications: config and notification together - 
     this is good stuff; 

  Q: [Christian Jacquenet] was COPS-PR considered?

  A: [Randy Bush] no - COPS-PR does not use a text encoding

  C: [Faye Ly] need to build in low bandwidth into the protocol 
     design and need to build in robustness to the protocol

  C: [Randy Bush] yes; this is one of the requirements and there 
     are more

  Q: [Johathon Rosenburg] can this handle software upgrades?

  A: [Phil Shafer] nothing prevents this but nothing is defined 
     in the XMLCONF draft

  A: [Andy Bierman] need to consider whether the WG should look 
     at this

4) XMLCONF I-D presentation

Rob Enns gave a presentation on the XMLCONF draft.  Some
details on the operational model and protocol operations
were explained.  Refer to the slides for more details.

5) XMLCONF I-D discussion

The presentation was followed by an open microphone Q&A session.

  C: Authorization model is not defined in the draft

  C: [Andy Bierman] SOAP decision should be looked at.

  Q: Does kill-session work on a locked session?

  A: [Rob Enns] Yes

  Q: [Arand] Are there two levels of error codes?

  A: [Andy Bierman] It not in the current draft, but it needs to be

  C: [Dave Perkins] In addition to the error codes if bad things 
     happen through a "successful" configuration operation then the 
     notifications should tell you about the problems.

  C: [Ben Black] want to store a large number of named configurations

  C: [Andy Bierman] part of the plan is to have that capability

6) Next steps

The meeting concluded with a discussion on the next steps,
such as formation of a WG. The group consensus is that
a working group should be formed to pursue this work.

  Q: [Andy Bierman] do people in the room think the scope is 
     defined correctly?

  A: [Randy Presuhn] need to define access control model; need to 
     think about multi-system commit; naming pieces of configuration 
     needs to be defined

  A: [Ron Bonica] should continue forward with the draft; need work 
     item to define an SMI and a "MIB" or two; need to look at 
     the security aspects

  Q: [Andy Bierman]: should the protocol and data model work be 
     sequenced or done in parallel?

  A: Parallel

  Q: Data model - what interoperability do we have if there is 
     no data model?

  A: [Andy Bierman] Need to do those later. 

  Q: Do we need to consider multi-box transactions? Is this part 
     of the protocol? Some want this other do not believe that 
     this is a goal.

  A: [Eric] wants to template the network configuration; this is 
     similar to "system wide" configuration; give thought to how 
     schemas can be consistent if they are not defined as part 
     of this proposed WG

  C: [Margaret Wasserman] We are trying to define enough to be 
     useful and be an iterative improvement over what we have today

  Q: [Andy Bierman] poll: is there interest in doing this work: 

  A: yes.

     - vast majority supported the work (about 240)
     - About 30 - 40 operators supported the work
     - Nobody objected to the work
     - About 60 - 100 people raised their hands that they would 
       actively participate in the work
     - About 10 operators raised their hands that they would
       actively participate (review documents) in the work.