RE: Transactions and operations

["Allen, Keith" <kallen@tri.sbc.com>]

Juergen,

I'm always for getting more out of our network equipment as well.  Since
these XML technologies are still pretty new to me, I am trying to tread
carefully in asking for too much.  If Larry, though, has been able to
implement X-Path, or some part of X-Path, on a SOHO gateway, that to me
indicates that it wouldn't be too much to expect larger network elements to
implement it as well.

We shouldn't dumb down the protocol so it can work on a toaster, but if
somebody brings us a COTS toaster with a nifty network management
capability, I think that's a green light for expecting other devices to
support it as well.


Keith Allen
SBC Technology Resources
9505 Arboretum Blvd.
Austin, TX 78759
(512) 372-5741
kallen@tri.sbc.com
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Juergen Schoenwaelder [mailto:schoenw@ibr.cs.tu-bs.de] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2003 11:47 AM
To: Allen, Keith
Cc: lmenten@lucent.com; netconf@ops.ietf.org
Subject: Re: Transactions and operations


>>>>> Allen, Keith writes:

Larry> Your use of X-Path is intriguing.  I think the conventional
Larry> wisdom has been that X-Path would be too complicated to
Larry> implement on an embedded system.

I like to challenge this conventional wisdom. Or to say it
differently: I do not need netconf to manage my low cost personal
integrated access point or my personal low cost five port 10/100 Mbit
Ethernet switch. I need netconf for the more critical network
infrastructure where I am actually willing to pay for getting the
ingredients such as proper cross device transaction support which
netconf promises to deliver.

In other words, I think that we need to be careful with just accepting
arguments like "this is too much to expect from a low cost device".
Perhaps the device is designed for a market where the features
hopefully provided by netconf at least initially do not play a big
role and so be it. Once netconf is successful to run backbone boxes
more reliable and at lower costs, I am sure we will see that the costs
for netconf will easily be justified on little devices.

<soap>
Several years ago, people could not imagine to have TCP in low end
devices. And still some years ago, people did not expect to have
full blown HTTP servers in embedded devices. And in the management
world, people could not imagine that requiring management agents to be
more than dumb peek 'n poke interfaces will ever work. Does this WG
plan to follow this tradition?
</soap>

/js

-- 
Juergen Schoenwaelder		International University Bremen
Phone: +49 421 200 3587		P.O. Box 750 561, 28725 Bremen, Germany
Fax:   +49 421 200 3103		<http://www.iu-bremen.de/>

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