The MPLS WG Archive

[Vijay Gill <vijay@umbc.edu>]

On Fri, 18 Aug 2000, Cheenu Srinivasan wrote:

> Kireeti's MIB doesn't address numerous issues that would be necessary
> in a standard TE MIB. It supports a very limited model of TE using
> MPLS (specific to Juniper's switches). And, to put it bluntly, its
> quite badly designed stylistically as well. Its not a good idea to
> forget to "keep things as simple as possible but no simpler" or we
> would end up with

Perhaps we are forgetting what problem we are trying to solve here? It
supports a very limited and yet very operationally focused model. By a
very strange coincidence it is what the operators seem to be asking for.
Let us not forget that in the end, the worlds most intricate model of a
MIB that is all things to all people, is not useful if it cannot be used
to solve existing problems now, as opposed to what vendors _think_ will be
existing problems a year from now.

As for the badly designed style, I cannot even begin to comment on
that.  Perhaps a look at the CLNS vs IP design philosophy might be worth a
revisit. 

> There already exists, and has existed for quite a while, a TE MIB in the
> mplswg. This MIB is generic and has evolved to incorporate the comments of
> the mplswg. Also, it has been deployed in several switches. And, there are
> very good operational and implementation reasons

Yet strangely enough, for almost all purposes which I would need to run a
network, the simple and spare kireeti MIB suffices. Just because I can
solve some obscure corner case using the generic MIB does not mean I want
to build a large annoying backend to support solving that corner case.  
Operational reality is that 90% of most MIBS are never used and I do not
want to hold up my network waiting till all parties are happy with a
solution.

/vijay