RE: WSDL

[Margaret Wasserman <mrw@windriver.com>]

Hi John,

At 04:57 PM 4/16/2003 -0600, John Strassner wrote:
> If WSDL existed, then it would abstract the CLI, so that heterogeneous 
> boxes having different CLIs could actually interoperate. And yes, it 
> actually is being used in practice, and not just in ecommerce.
I'm not really sure that it is possible to abstract the CLI to the point
where you hide differences between boxes without eliminating the reasons
why CLI is used in the first place.

When we talked to operators about why they use CLI (despite the fact that
they _hate_ screen scraping, etc.), they consistently said that they need
a single mechanism that provides access to all of the configuration
information on a device.  Today, CLI is the only mechanism that meets
that need.

When you try to abstract a network device (i.e. to a generic "router"),
you inevitably abstract away some of the pieces that are specific to that
device and/or vendor-proprietary.  Unfortunately, those device-specific
and vendor-proprietary pieces do need to be configured.

Margaret





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