1. SNMP Usage Recommendations
SIA Working Group Presentation
January 2015
SIA SNMP Working Group 2015
Information. Insight. Influence.

2. SNMP Preferred Features
Accurate device identification
Support enough MIB objects to manage the device in question
MIB publically distributed
MIB “compilable” with standard tools
Secure access (TLS please?)
User configurable fields for site specific data
Information. Insight. Influence.

3. Preferred SNMP - Details
Relevant MIB object groups
From RFC 1213: System, Interfaces, Address Translation, IP, ICMP, TCP, UDP, EGP, Transmission, SNMP
Multicast (RFC 5132)
PoE (example: CISCO-POE-PD-MIB-V1SMI [2])
At least read access, preferably secure read/write
Information. Insight. Influence.

4. Recommended SNMP Use: Protocol
TLS over TCP would be ideal as it provides secure NPE support
SNMPv3 (with usernames) should be used as it provides security
SNMPv2c (i.e. best available unencrypted UDP SNMP) should be widely deployed and stable (see for example Cisco switches)
SNMP supports the network and some additional functional details. It’s not an application framework repurposed to examine the transport over which the application traffic travels.
Information. Insight. Influence.

5. Recommended SNMP Use: MIB Objects
Relevant pre-existing MIB object groups
From RFC 1213: System, Interfaces, Address Translation, IP, ICMP, TCP, UDP, EGP, Transmission, SNMP
Multicast (RFC 5132)
PoE (example: CISCO-POE-PD-MIB-V1SMI [2])
Information. Insight. Influence.

6. Recommended SNMP Use: View/Manage
Minimum is read-only access sufficient to troubleshoot network issues
Ideal is read/write under secure conditions
Management is about managing the network-attachment state of the device, not application management
Vendor-specific device management is fully facilitated, provides for vendor value-add through technology diversity using interoperable protocols.
Information. Insight. Influence.

7. Recommended SNMP Use: MIB Content
Actually use system group and other features to identify device, location, software version, etc.
Support network management specifically to include statistics on network traffic
Securely writeable values to manage the device
Securely controllable remote restart
Facilitate vendor facility for firmware upgrade
Facilitate vendor device health check
Information. Insight. Influence.

8. OID Background Info
Object Identifiers (OID’s) have been around for decades. It’s an international thing.
There’s an arc, starts with one number. It’s defined in CCITT/ITU X.208
Organizations have carved up the number space, together. IETF manages a “private enterprise number- PEN” space e.g. IDmachines is and SIA is
OID’s are used for many labelling purposes including certificates, SNMP, and other things.
A conversation about the design of the OID’s and what SIA hopes to accomplish with them is a short term goal
Information. Insight. Influence.

9. SIA OID Architecture SIA – PEN from IETF SIA.1 – Experimental Use
SIA.2 – Working Group Use
SIA.2.1 SNMP WG
SIA.2.2 ICAM WG
SIA.3 PE+NPE Identity Objects
SIA.4 SNMP NPE Objects
Information. Insight. Influence.

10. SIA OID Examples SIA.1.2.1 – experimental device type for WG work
SIA – NFI label for SIA test certs for FICAM interop work
SIA – hypothetical OID for a camera in the devices group within the SIA SNMP MIB.
Information. Insight. Influence.