[Nmc-wg] Netconf in pS

[Roman Lapacz]

Jason Zurawski wrote:
> Hi Roman;
>
> Thanks for providing this, pretty neat.  Also for reference the NETCONF
> RFC is here:
>
> http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4741
>
>> I'm sending you some info about the investigation work (by Arne
>> Oslebo) on Netconf in pS which is being done in Geant3. After a while
>> I will add a detailed description from one of project documents but
>> it's still under review process so it must wait a bit.
>>
>> http://software.uninett.no/stager/wiki/netconf
>
> An obvious issue that the author has pointed out to not use NM-WG/NMC-WG
> is the lack of documentation both at a protocol and service level, which
> is a failing for the pS consortium in general.  Hopefully this will be
> rectified soon through this group.
>
> To comment on the subject matter itself, I am having a hard time
> justifying in my mind why trying to use a protocol designed for a
> similar (but not identical) task is a good idea.  In NETCONF's own 
> words it:
>
>> provides mechanisms to install, manipulate, and delete the
>> configuration of network devices
>
> This touches a gray area in perfSONAR that has been the topic of DICE 
> meetings in the past, namely managing the service configuration vs the 
> measurement configuration. I think there may be a place in perfSONAR 
> for this protocol, but I don't believe that exchanging/storing the 
> actual data with the NETCONF primitives makes sense.

Data exchange was my concern as well but I was told that NETCONF deals 
with it without problems . Soon I will have more information and give 
you an access to the demo.

Roman

>
> I will end by noting a reply that Martin has been known to give in the 
> past: "its all just XML!".  Maybe we can see a demonstration at the 
> next developers meeting to see how valuable this could be.
>
> Thanks;
>
> -jason