Subject: Re: PMP> Re: Long-standing HR MIB recommendations from Printer MIB

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1999 08:32:50 -0700

Thanks to Ron, Jay and Bill for your responses to the issue. First, let me
clarify, for Jay, that the new hrPrinterDetectedErrorState bits DID make
it into the updated HR MIB which is going for the final holy blessing. The
"paragraph" in question, which Jeff Rackowitz so kindly pointed out,
related to new hrDevice and hrPrinter states that we determined would make
the MIB more useful (as I recall) following the StarDust bakeoff (anyone
recall how many candles should be on the cake for THAT anniversary?!). The
key recommendation was to add STANDBY to the list of possible hrDevice
states because, if you look at our mocked up decoder table, standby is
less than distinguished, currently, yet we call it out as an "interesting"
state.

I may tend to want to flog myself for allowing the HR MIB to reach this
point without having "pushed" this issue, but then I'm tempered by my
recollection of the way we "tip-toed" around the whole issue ('we're
trying to progress here... so we can't afford to make very many changes...
it might rock the boat). Never mind the boat had it's bow stuck in the
side of Antarctica.

So, I agree with Jay regarding the "hrBits"... and I'm glad they made it
in (although they still have this redundant right hand column that
associated each bit with either Warning or Down hrDevice status which I
initially proposed but followed up with the request to just ELIMINATE any
implied mandatory relationship (this way, if we DID add hrDevice =
Standby, hrBits and Standby would be allowed.

Bill expresses the sentiment that a change at this point may not receive
much response anyway. To the extent that I believe the new
hrPrinterDetectedErrorState bits are more useful additions than hrDevice =
Standby, I tend to agree.

Ron points out that we may be able to "patch" the situation in the Printer
MIB and I'm willing to consider this.

If you look at it galactically, adding an enum to the HR MIB should be
like swatting a fly... but it does seem to feel more like trying to land
on Pluto.

Thanks, again, for all your support.

Harry Lewis
IBM Printing Systems

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From: Ron Bergman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1999 08:21:31 -0800

Harry,

One point of clarification, the latest HR MIB draft...

    http://search.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ops-hostmib-01.txt

...has removed the association with hrDeviceStatus.  So the only issue of
contention is the new enum for hrDeviceStatus (standby) and two new
enums for hrPrinterStatus (offline and notApplicable).

I totally agree that adding these enums should not be a major change.
However, Steve Waldbusser did not agree and stated that these new
enums would cause a major reset of the HR MIB.  We should accept
Steve's position and, if we all agree that these enums are essential to
include, work on adding them without changing the HR MIB.

    Ron Bergman
    Hitachi Koki Imaging Solutions