[ih] inter-network communication history

[Dave Crocker]

On 11/7/2019 3:33 PM, Jack Haverty via Internet-history wrote:
> SNMP was instantiated as a first step toward a comprehensive NMP
> (Network Management Protocol).   As I recall, NMP was more of a concept
> than a protocol.  It was an umbrella covering a lot of pieces.

That doesn't match my memory at all.  There were all sorts of fantasies 
being spun around these efforts, so perhaps that was part of the mix, 
but it had nothing to do with the actual work, as I remember it.

SNMP was the result of a few pragmatic operational people creating a 
really simple protocol, with some of the usual IETF pixy dust tossed 
onto it, except for the political s--t storm it got stuck in with CMIP.

The CMIP people were very well organized and very political, but had 
produce a very complicated spec and had trouble making it pratical.

Craig's worthy HEMS proposal was in this mix, of course, but didn't have 
the track record or political support to overcome the... politics.

It was amusing to those of us at Wollongong, at the time, that I had a 
senior person in multiple, critical positions for both SNMP and CMIP (-> 
CMOT) included the just-lost Keith McGlogrie.

The (unfortunate) effect of the politics, besides quite a bit of delay, 
was forcing SNMP to use data cast in ASN.1 -- in the hope there would at 
least be that level of interoperability with CMIP/CMOT -- but thereby 
substantially increasing the complexity of using SNMP.

d/
-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net