Subject: ARC + COND

From: Randy Presuhn <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 09:01:33 -0800 (PST)

Hi -

In the meetings of the Editors & contributors, as well as the
official disman WG sessions in Minneapolis, we converged on a
high-level model for how the *apparent* conflicts and overlaps
between the various documents related to the alarming problem
might be resolved.  The heart of this proposed resolution
is the recognition that the capabilities provided in the ARC
and Condition MIB proposals logically reside in the managed
resource (or local resource manager), rather than being things
that would be implemented in the master agent if one were to
use an Agentx-like model.

Functionally, the condition MIB holds information regarding
all the conditions that the resource / local resource manager
knows about.  In contrast, the Alarm MIB is more focused on
the subset of these that is "interesting" to the administrators,
and does not require intimate knowledge of how the managed
objects were implemented.

So, the proposal, which found general support here in Minneapolis,
is to add one document to our set of working group documents
on alarming.  This document would loosely based on the ARC and
COND MIB proposals, with care taken in the document structure / 
conformance requirements to permit implementations to support
either or both of these MIBs, in accordance with a system's needs.
Both this document and the "active alarm" document would contain
text making it clear what their respective roles are in the
"big picture" of alarm management.

If there are objections to this proposal, please voice them now.

Anni Huynh and Kam Lam have volunteered to edit this proposed
document; we're looking for additional volunteers.

 -------------------------------------------------------
 Randy Presuhn           [email-masked]
 Voice: +1 408 546-1006  BMC Software, Inc.  1-3141
 Fax:   +1 408 965-0359  2141 North First Street
 http://www.bmc.com/     San José, California 95131  USA
 -------------------------------------------------------
 My opinions and BMC's are independent variables.
 -------------------------------------------------------

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From: Lauren Heintz <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 09:28:28 -0800

Hi,

Not sure this qualifies as an objection....

I believe that the cond and alarm MIBs
together represent a degree of complexity
that may serve to diminish the perceived
value of the alarm effort in many people's
eyes.  Much in the same way that the notify
filter mechanism are "optional" (ducking for cover),
they lend to an impression of greater complexity
to the entire set of SNMPv3 MIBs.  The amount of time
it took the respective MIB designers to reach
the "Eureka -- they serve different needs!" state
indicates this is a concern for future users of these
tables who may not come to that same understanding,
slowly or not.

I also believe that typical implementations
will choose to implement conditions and alarms
that are a one-to-one mapping with each other,
thereby making the need for both MIBs questionable.

I would suggest prying out the unique aspects
of the COND MIB and either a) add that to the alarm
MIB if it needs to be, b) eliminate it as a need, c)
consider for later adoption (and making sure the alarm
work does not design it out in the short term).

Regarding the capability for temporarily disabling
alarm notifications (perhaps during periods of installation
and/or fault correction), I think typical users will want to
at least have a VERY SIMPLE way of turning off alarms (i.e.
a single TruthValue) that MUST be in the alarm MIB if
they opt not to support the ARC and COND MIBs.  Furthermore,
I haven't thought this one through -- nor the preceding
comments :-) -- but I'm concerned with the idea that whether
that TruthValue happens at the alarm MIB input or output
may be important to consider.  Wasn't clear to me whether
alarm notifiction disabling also meant the alarm tables
would be empty as a result.  I'm wondering if disabling
alarm notifications should NOT also clear the tables (perhaps
the technician wants to walk the tables to see if the alarm
she has tried to correct has been successfully cleared).

Thanks,
Lauren