RFC

The network management datastore architecture (NMDA) has been published about a year ago and this work has now been completed with the publication of the NMDA extensions for the NETCONF protocol and the NMDA extensions for the RESTCONF protocol. The work on the protocol extensions also required an update of the YANG Library. The definition of a common model describing how configuration data is conceptually processed to finally determine the behaviour of devices took a bit longer than expected but it feels good to have this piece of work finished (and we will soon forget about some of the roadblocks we had to deal with).

The definition of a network management datastore architecture (NMDA) has been published [RFC 8342]. We believe this is one of the more important RFCs we have worked on since it tells us how to think about configurations and their relationship to operational state. A few more RFCs will appear during the coming weeks providing the technology extensions that allow us to use the new framework in practice. Work on this document started with a trip to Stockholm in May 2016 but the discussions have a much longer history. We have run repeatedly into problems because the values of configuration objects may mean different things at different processing stages and we hope that the new network management datastore architecture allows us to be much clearer about the semantics of configuration objects in the future.

The EU funded LEONE project (2012-2015) contributed to the development of standards for large-scale measurements of Intern et performance, produced by the LMAP working group of the IETF. The key specifications, the LMAP information model [RFC8193] and the LMAP YANG data model [RFC8194], have been published as RFCs just a few days ago. It took roughly five years from the start of the formation of the working group until the publication of the core specifications. The first version of the information model was posted roughly 2.5 years before publication of the final document. This example shows that initiating and completing standardization work within the lifetime of EU projects is just not realistic.