Updated on Friday 11 February 2010

I am often asked, “What Internet-Drafts on network and services management are IETF working groups developing?”.  The following provides a brief outline of and links to the current works-in-progress.

Note that Internet-Drafts are works-in-progress and expire when a subsequent revision is available, or six months after initial publication, whichever occurs first.

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


Within the Security Area:

  • Integrated Security Model for SNMP Working Group (isms)
    *The ISMS working group is now concluded*
    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 RFCs include:

    • Using Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting Services to Dynamically Provision View-Based Access Control Model User-to-Group Mappings
      RFC6065 – December 2010

    • Transport Layer Security (TLS) Transport Model for the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)
      RFC5953 – August 2010

    • Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS) Usage for Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) Transport Models
      RFC5608 – August 2009

    • Secure Shell Transport Model for the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)
      RFC5592 – June 2009

    • Transport Subsystem for the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP
      RFC5591 – June 2009

    • Transport Subsystem for the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)
      RFC5590 – June 2009


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:

    • Partial Lock Remote Procedure Call (RPC) for NETCONF
      RFC5717 – December 2009

    • NETCONF over Transport Layer Security (TLS)
      RFC5539 – May 2009

    • Experience of Implementing NETCONF over SOAP
      RFC5381 – October 2008

    • NETCONF Event Notifications
      RFC5277 – July 2008

    • Using the NETCONF Protocol over the Blocks Extensible Exchange Protocol (BEEP)
      RFC4744 – December 2006

    • Using NETCONF over the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)
      RFC4743 – December 2006

    • Using the NETCONF Configuration Protocol over Secure Shell (SSH)
      RFC4742 – December 2006

    • NETCONF Configuration Protocol
      RFC4741 – December 2006

  • 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:

    • Current RFCs include:

    • Guidelines for Authors and Reviewers of YANG Data Model Documents
      RFC6087 – January 2011

    • Common YANG Data Types
      RFC6021 – October 2010

    • YANG – A data modeling language for NETCONF
      RFC6020 – October 2010

  • 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:

    • Expressing SNMP SMI Datatypes in XML Schema Definition Language
      RFC5935 – October 2010

    • Mapping Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) Notifications to SYSLOG Messages
      RFC5675 – October 2009

    • Alarms in Syslog
      RFC5674 – October 2009

    • Guidelines for Considering Operations and Management of New Protocols and Protocol Extensions
      RFC5706 – November 2009

    • Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) Traffic Measurements and Trace Exchange Formats
      RFC5345 – October 2008

    • Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) Context EngineID Discovery
      RFC5343 – September 2008 (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 idea.