[e2e] MIB variables vs. ?

[John Day]

At 15:11 -0400 2006/08/07, David P. Reed wrote:
>The standard flexible and elegant alternative to complex data 
>structures (such as MIBs) is a "message-based protocol" that talks 
>to objects that can be migrated across the network by copying the 
>object (code & data together) or accessed across the network by 
>moving the message to the data.
>
>One can model such a thing after the core Smalltalk VM, or the Self 
>VM, for example.   Unlike data structures, objects are inherently 
>abstraction-building tools.
>
>Of course you could just put the data structures into ASCII rather 
>than ASN.1, and then have the worst of all worlds by using XML to 
>represent your MIB equivalent.

And XML in ASCII have been suggested (groan).  Actually, if SNMP were 
using PER instead of BER it would be much faster, less code and less 
bits.

But the real problem is lack of consistency and commonality across 
MIBs.  This is major stumbling block to network management.  Until we 
have that, there will not be much improvement. But as we know, that 
will be fought tooth and nail.  That is why the whole SNMP security 
issue was such a red-herring.

Take care,
John