Updated on Tuesday 10 March 2009

The Simple Network Management Protocol version 3 (SNMPv3) is the Internet-Standard Management Framework. The current specifications for SNMPv3 as published in December of 2002 by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) are freely available as IETF Standard 62, a set of eight RFCs (3411-3418).

I am often asked what IETF working groups have work-in-progress on improving upon the current SNMPv3 standard. The following provides a brief outline of and links to the current work-in-progress.

Within the Security Area:

  • Integrated Security Model for SNMP Working Group (isms)The goal of the ISMS working group is developing a new security model for SNMP that integrates with widely deployed user and key management systems, as a supplement to the USM security model.Current Internet-Drafts include:

Within the Operations and Management Area:

  • Network Configuration Working Group (netconf)The NETCONF Working Group is chartered to produce a protocol suitable for network configuration. The NETCONF protocol is using XML for data encoding purposes, because XML is a widely deployed standard which is supported by a large number of applications.Current Internet-Drafts include:

    Current RFCs include:

    • Experience of Implementing NETCONF over SOAP
      RFC5381 - October 2008, Informational
    • NETCONF Event Notifications
      RFC5277 - July 2008, Proposed Standard
    • Using the NETCONF Protocol over the Blocks Extensible Exchange Protocol (BEEP)
      RFC4744 - December 2006, Proposed Standard
    • Using NETCONF over the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)
      RFC4743 - December 2006, Proposed Standard
    • Using the NETCONF Configuration Protocol over Secure Shell (SSH)
      RFC4742 - December 2006, Proposed Standard
    • NETCONF Configuration Protocol
      RFC4741 - December 2006, Proposed Standard
  • NETCONF Data Modeling Language Working Group (netmod)The NETMOD Working Group will define a “human-friendly” modeling language defining the semantics of operational data, configuration data, notifications, and operations.Current Internet-Drafts include:
  • Operations and Management Area Working Group (opsawg)The Operations and Management Area receives occasional proposals for the development and publication of RFCs dealing with operational and management topics that are not in scope of an existing working group and do not justify the formation of a new working group.Current Internet-Drafts include:

    Current RFCs include:

    • Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) Traffic Measurements and Trace Exchange Formats
      RFC5345 - October 2008, Informational
    • Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) Context EngineID Discovery
      RFC5343 - September 2008, Proposed Standard (Updates RFC3411 )

Individual Submissions:

Management Information Base (MIB) modules are designed within the applicable protocol working group and is the topic of another article.

I am happy to discuss the usefulness and applicability of the above works-in-progress to your project. Just contact me with your project parameters and ideas.