[ih] GOSIP & compliance

[Jack Haverty]

SNMP et al are mechanisms for data collection, i.e., retrieving all 
sorts of metrics about how things out in the network are behaving. But 
has there been much thought and effort about how to *use* all that data 
to operate, troubleshoot, plan or otherwise manage all the technology 
involved in whatever the users are doing?

When I was at Oracle in the early 90s, I was immersed in a sea of people 
who knew a lot about how data was analyzed and used in all sorts of 
business processes.  So one day, one of the data-guys and I sat down in 
our Network Operations Center (more like a closet...) and cobbled 
together some shell scripts that used SNMP to collect whatever we could 
get, stuff it all into a database, and then use the well-worn standard 
database tools to analyze, aggregate, compare, predict, and visualize 
how our network applications were behaving.  It was literally a day's 
work, exploiting the synergy between SNMP data collection and database 
tools.   At that point, all that data from SNMP became actually useful 
for us in operating our own IT infrastructure.

We also discovered quite a few bugs in various SNMP implementations, 
where the data being provided were actually quite obviously incorrect.   
I wondered at the time whether anyone else had ever tried to actually 
use the SNMP data, more than just writing it into a log file.

I suspect that a "lack of accomplishment" in the SNMP/CMOT/etc 
activities might have been influenced by a lack of attention to how all 
that operations data might actually be used by IT operators and end 
users.   Curious too how such data is actually used by today's 
Operators.   Is it?

Jack Haverty


On 3/26/22 08:59, Dave Crocker via Internet-history wrote:
> On 3/26/2022 8:51 AM, Bob Purvy via Internet-history wrote:
>> We spent a lot of time debating CMOT
>> vs. SNMP.
>>
>> I don't recall that anything much was accomplished.
>
> A fair assessment of the topic, more widely.
> d/
>