Network Working Group Y. Teramoto Internet-Draft Kyoto University Intended status: Informational R. Atarashi Expires: August 22, 2013 IIJ Research Laboratory Y. Atarashi Alaxala Networks Corp. Y. Okabe Kyoto University Feb 18, 2013 Experience of Designing Network Management System draft-teramoto-experience-network-management-00 Abstract This document describes our experiences from designing and implementing a large-scale local area network management system using mainly NETCONF. We designed the data models for device configurations and implemented NETCONF client to centrally control multiple devices of various vendors. The document provides insight on strong and weak points of current NETCONF approach. The document also makes some recommendations about NETCONF and future network management protocols. Status of this Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." This Internet-Draft will expire on August 22, 2013. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2013 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Teramoto, et al. Expires August 22, 2013 [Page 1] Internet-Draft Experience of Designing NMS Feb 2013 Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License. Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2. Implementing NETCONF Client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.1. Transport protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.2. Exchanging hello message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.3. lock and commit mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3. Designing Data Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3.1. YANG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3.2. RPC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4. conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 7. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Teramoto, et al. Expires August 22, 2013 [Page 2] Internet-Draft Experience of Designing NMS Feb 2013 1. Introduction This document discuss our experiences from designing and implementing a large-scale local area network management system. In this document, the large-scale local area network is supposed to be composed by multiple network intelligent network devices of several vendors. We mainly used NETCONF[RFC6020][RFC6241][RFC6242] to get and edit configurations of network devices. NETCONF, however, is a developing protocol on model layer, therefore there are several data model designs by vendors. We designed the unified data models for device configurations to manage multiple devices of various vendors. Furthermore we implemented NETCONF client to control multiple devices asynchronously. This document evaluates the NETCONF protocol design and makes some recommendations about NETCONF and future network management protocols to support large-scale network management. 2. Implementing NETCONF Client 2.1. Transport protocol * The tune of transport layer is often required on large scale systems * NETCONF requires SSH implementation; however this protocol makes it difficult to create high-performance implementation 2.2. Exchanging hello message * NETCONF does not define procedure to invoke errors on hello message exchange. * The error handling is different between vendors. * NETCONF should support hello fail message. 2.3. lock and commit mechanism Lock mechanism of NETCONF is useful on control multiple devices safely. Teramoto, et al. Expires August 22, 2013 [Page 3] Internet-Draft Experience of Designing NMS Feb 2013 3. Designing Data Models 3.1. YANG The approach of YANG is to express various configuration format; however it makes the issue of complexity of data model schema. 3.2. RPC Some bad patterns in XML schema. 4. conclusion 5. Security Considerations 6. IANA Considerations 7. Normative References [RFC6020] Bjorklund, M., "YANG - A Data Modeling Language for the Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF)", RFC 6020, October 2010. [RFC6241] Enns, R., Bjorklund, M., Schoenwaelder, J., and A. Bierman, "Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF)", RFC 6241, June 2011. [RFC6242] Wasserman, M., "Using the NETCONF Protocol over Secure Shell (SSH)", RFC 6242, June 2011. Authors' Addresses Yasuhiro Teramoto Graduate School of Informatics Kyoto University Yoshida-Hommachi Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501 Japan Phone: +81-75-753-7417 Fax: +81-75-753-7440 Email: teramoto@net.ist.i.kyoto-u.ac.jp Teramoto, et al. Expires August 22, 2013 [Page 4] Internet-Draft Experience of Designing NMS Feb 2013 Ray S. Atarashi IIJ Research Laboratory Jinbocho Mitsui Bldg., 1-105 Kanda Jinbo-cho Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101-0051 Japan Phone: +81-3-5205-6464 Fax: +81-3-5205-6466 Email: ray@iijlab.net Yoshifumi Atarashi Alaxala Networks Corp. Shin-Kawasaki Mitsui Bldg. 890 Saiwai-ku Kashimada Kawasaki, Kanagawa 212-0058 Japan Phone: +81-44-549-1735 Fax: +81-44-549-1272 Email: atarashi@alaxala.net Yasuo Okabe Academic Center for Computing and Media Studies Kyoto-University Yoshida-Hommachi Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501 Japan Phone: +81-44-549-1735 Fax: +81-44-549-1272 Email: okabe@i.kyoto-u.ac.jp Teramoto, et al. Expires August 22, 2013 [Page 5]