RE: Scope of NIM

["Andrea Westerinen" <andreaw@cisco.com>]

I am alittle confused by this line of reasoning, and think that both sides
are right.  Here is my take:

1.  I agree that SMI/SPPI/SMIng are all ways to represent data.
2.  Two issues are the capabilities and expressiveness of these
representations.
	IMHO, we need to be careful to create clear semantics. For example, imagine
	a "relationship with data".  It is a very good thing for your info
	model to be clear about this semantic to avoid confusion.
3.  The models currently worked in SMI/SPPI are indeed protocol-specific
	and fall under the "data model" definition.

Andrea

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-nim@ops.ietf.org [mailto:owner-nim@ops.ietf.org]On Behalf Of
Avri Doria
Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2000 6:43 AM
To: nim@ops.ietf.org
Subject: Re: Scope of NIM




"Weiss, Walter" wrote:
>
> > > > Therefore, I suggest that in the aftermath of the NIM
> > BOF, the topic
> > > > which this mailing-list has to consider is what to do about an
> > > > Information Model.
> > >
> > > If the objective is to create an information model based on
> > the superset of
> > > SMI (SPPI) or SMIng, I would agree with you.
> >
> > Your "if statement" makes no sense to me, since the oft-repeated
> > definition of "information model" says that it is independent of the
>
> > data models like SMI/SPPI/SMIng.
> >
> SMI/SPPI/SMIng is not a data model or an information model. It is a
> language for specifying structures. To the extent that it supports
> multiple distinct protocols, it is also an information modeling
> language.


I am glad you brought this up.

I have for a while been confused about the arguments that the
SMI/SPPI/SMIng constituted a data model.  While it is true that
these can be used to derive a data model, I too believe that they
express the structure of the information model and do not determine
the data model in the same way that a LDAP expression would.  Both
in agents and in management systems I have worked on, I have never
had the structure of the MIB or PIB determine the way in which the
data was handled internally.

a.