CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_

Reported by Henry Clark/BBN Planet

Minutes of the Operational Statistics Working Group (OPSTAT)


Agenda

   o Introduction
   o 1404 Update
   o Client-Server Draft
   o SNMP User's Guide
   o Fractals:  Traffic and Simulation


1404 Update

The 1404 draft is currently out as an Internet-Draft.  One final change
will be made to the BNF to slightly change the Label section to make it
visually the same as other sections by rearranging its fields.  The last
section (which briefly considers variables in other MIBs) will also
refer to the Accounting Meter MIB. The new version, along with some
assorted editing corrections, will be resubmitted as an Internet-Draft
and should be submitted for approval as an Informational RFC by the next
IETF.


Client-Server Draft

The client-server draft has incorporated all the changes submitted on
the mailing list (essentially changes to make the text clearer).  Two
changes were discussed and consensus was reached on incorporating them
at the meeting:


   o To change the LOGIN command to provide for stronger authentication
     with a challenge-authentication response, which might look like:

          >LOGIN "henryc" "skey"
          <CHAL "73 lo39087"
          >AUTH "COW DOG BARK CAT BULL DAY"
          <OK


   o Change the messages returned by the server from the ERROR/OK to
     more like the numbers returned by SMTP and FTP, as in:

          101 Login OK


Henry Clark will update the Internet-Draft and resubmit it.


SNMP User's Guide

Work is proceeding at a disappointingly slow pace.  This document will
contain general recommendations and experiences about how SNMP and the
specific MIB variables can be used to manage a network.  Some work is
starting within the Network Management Area, which was described by Bill
Norton, to add a document with every MIB describing the use of each
variable and algorithms for using the variables to manage a network.
Our document would not be a standards track document, unlike the SNMP
MIB documents.  Frederick Serr will forward some text to the list which
might be the start of such a document, and the chairs will compile the
document (along with text contributed by working group members) into the
final form.


Fractals:  Traffic and Simulation

Nevil Brownlee discussed traffic studies that had been done at his site
and the statistical analysis of said traffic.  They discovered that the
traffic had a self-similar nature; that is, the graphs looked the same
irrespective of the period of measurement.  This means that you will see
traffic peaks of any chosen value, if you only wait long enough.

Studies were also made of the variance of the data when aggregated in
groups of m measurements; it was observed that the traffic had variance
decaying slower than 1/m.

Simulations were performed utilizing distributions with finite mean and
infinite variance, such as Student t2, which seemed to produce plots
similar to the observed plots.  More work needs to be done to determine
the characteristics of the traffic in more detail, and further
presentations will be made as appropriate.