SNMP, the Simple Network Management Protocol, became the instant darling of fault-seeking IP network managers when it was first standardized about 15 years ago, but it wasn’t without its own faults. One shortcoming was that it didn’t do much for configuration management. Since then, network managers always have made do in that regard. But if solutions now emerging based on the soon-to-be standard known as NETCONF catch on, managers may not have to make do anymore.
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) formed a working group to produce a protocol suitable for network configuration. The result was NETCONF. This protocol, according to the group’s charter, is dedicated to providing a common mechanism for accessing network elements, transferring configuration data to and from a device, and examining device state information that may impact the configuration.
Several network equipment manufacturers, including Cisco Systems Inc., Juniper Networks Inc. and Nortel Networks Ltd., have incorporated NETCONF in their routing, switching and other network gear. Others have begun to incorporate the technology in anticipation of its being ratified as a standard.
Hector Trevino, technical lead for Cisco’s NMTG group and member of the NETCONF working group within the IETF, said the differences in current configuration mechanisms across network vendors’ devices drive up expenses and lower the efficiency of network operators. “Having a common protocol for the delivery and retrieval of configuration information provides the first building block towards solving this problem for network operators,” he said.
He added that NETCONF has the potential of overcoming some of the limitations of existing management protocols because it specifically was designed for configuration management. As good as it is, Trevino said the jury is still out on the protocol. “NETCONF is not necessarily the best answer, but it is available and provides the needed operations for delivering configuration data and inspecting it.”
Some vendors are beginning to take advantage of that availability. Recently, Tail-f Systems, a three-year-old startup based in Stockholm, Sweden, launched what it claims is the first commercially available configuration management solution based on NETCONF.
The company’s Java-based ConfM software engine leverages NETCONF’s transaction management function to automate network configuration. The software is sold as an OEM product to equipment makers, which embed it into their network elements to provide, at last and ultimately, a common mechanism for what has been a disparate and manual process for managing network configurations.
“One of the nagging problems NETCONF solves is the need for a common application interface] at the mediation layer so you don’t have to have a million logins for a system,” said Hakan Millroth, CEO of Tail-f Systems.
Tail-f’s intent is to put more intelligence into the network elements using NETCONF. Its software provides a real configuration data store on each box. “People in operations are reluctant to upgrade the software on their equipment because it risks breaking a lot of the command line interface (CLI) scripts they use at the network management layer,” Millroth said.
NETCONF and other emerging protocols such as MTOSI, which works more on element management issues, will help solve that issue, he said.
Nakina Systems is another vendor focused on element management. Its reason for being is to enable multivendor network management, including configuration management. It has not yet jumped on the NETCONF bandwagon, although the company has been in discussions with Tail-f and Juniper Networks, which is a user of its network operating system solution. The company feels NETCONF is highly complementary to its NOS because it allows a direct mapping between the CLI and remote management API and because it allows the device itself to define a schema that enables a software vendor to write a common API that ignores the difference between various vendors’ equipment.
“NETCONF allows much greater flexibility and thereby reduces the complexity of managing devices remotely,” said Shawn McCormick, vice president of product development at Nakina. He added that while Nakina has not implemented NETCONF on its NOS, it has plans for implementation aligning with the expected maturation of NETCONF standards.
Rajesh Talpade, chief scientist for Telcordia Technologies Inc.’s advanced technology group, said that standards like NETCONF still are making their way through the standards bodies and most vendors, even if they support the current version, still are offering their proprietary solutions.
“That’s why we build our software to understand whatever protocol a hardware vendor chooses to support,” Talpade said.
In addition to Tail-f, other companies are moving ahead with NETCONF. Wipro Ltd. said it is the first to offer a fully functional, vendor-neutral NETCONF agent development framework based on IETF NETCONF protocol Version 3. A company called embeddedMIND has an agent called MINDAgent NETCONF that fully implements the approved IETF standards and actively is tracking the draft standards as they progress.
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