Subject: [Netconf] Comments on draft-mm-netconf-time-capability-00

From: Joe Marcus Clarke <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 02 Aug 2013 22:04:40 -0400

After the WG session, I spoke with Tal to get some clarity on the
intended use case of this draft.  After speaking with him, I support the
capability and I do see a need for it.

One of the concerns that was raised during the WG session was
deterministic application of config.  For example, many vendors' devices
prioritize tasks like routing more highly than management, so if I say
that a config should be applied at time T, it may not get applied until
time T+10 because of other tasks happening on the device.

I think the draft tries to address this fact in Section 3.2.  Even so, I
feel there is an important use case here.  If I have a number of devices
that need a specific config applied and need to stay relatively in sync
to avoid disconnect (say I'm changing a management IP), I may want a
time-based deployment.  While they may not all apply EXACTLY at the same
time, they will receive the instruction and deploy within a reasonable
time of each other thus maintaining connectivity.

In terms of things that need to be done to the draft, I think it needs a
section on error-handling specifically around what happens if the clock
on the device is insane or if a time is specified in the past.  I think
there needs to be some direction about how far in the future one can set
the timer or how many pending operations can be outstanding.  This is
not a solution for scheduled deployment where an NMS could be the one
doing the scheduling.

One nit, I think Section 4.2 Dependencies should mention a dependency on
a time synchronization protocol.  It's called out elsewhere in the
draft, and perhaps this is the right place to formally set that out as a
dependency before time-parameters will be accepted.

Joe

-- 
Joe Marcus Clarke, CCIE #5384,         |          |
SCJP, SCSA, SCNA, SCSECA, VCP        |||||      |||||
Distinguished Services Engineer ..:|||||||||::|||||||||:..
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Email: [email-masked]

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