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I'm glad to see a semi-consensus forming which seems to say 1. It would be good to address some of the scars remaining with the printer MIB as we define a new protocol, data format etc. 2. External service agent is a viable (and very important) target but not the only target (internal is a valid topic) 3. We should force ourselves to take a client view this time around... whereas Printer MIB development was MOSTLY or completely a device centric view As far as the tail waging the dog... I agree with Ira... we're not going to have much (any) influence in that direction. But I also agree with Bob Taylor that we could harm our effort if we insist on alignment with some external emerging management standard. Basically I think our xx years of experience with the Printer MIB have proven there has not been much of a connection between the dog and tail. I think the alignment should be driven, again, from a client perspective as appropriate. In otherwords... let's not just try and find a dog to stick our tail on... but, as we evaluate the solution space, data model, semantics and protocols in terms of client requirements... if the same big dog is always in the picture... that would be a good signal to align. ---------------------------------------------- Harry Lewis IBM Printing Systems ---------------------------------------------- <table width=100%> <tr valign=top> <td> <td>"McDonald, Ira" <imcdonald@sharplabs.com> 02/27/2003 08:18 AM <td>                To:        "'TAYLOR,BOB (HP-Vancouver,ex1)'" <bobt@hp.com>, Harry Lewis/Boulder/IBM@IBMUS, "Wagner,William" <WWagner@NetSilicon.com>         cc:        "'Wbmm (E-mail)" <wbmm@pwg.org>         Subject:        RE: WBMM> RE: Scope and Starting Point</table> <tt>Hi, I agree with all of Bob Taylor's and Harry Lewis's comments below, except for Bob's comment at (2).  I think it's wildly unlikely that this tail (the printer industry) is going to wag that dog (the systems management industry). I especially like Bob's observation that the "external service agent" model should NOT be the only design center for WBMM. Please note that the assumption that SNMP is only "internal" is far out-of-date.  SNMPv3 with strong security has been used by service providers for several years now to manage routers in their clients' enterprise networks.  Now that SNMPv3 is full Internet Standard and SNMPv1 has been dropped from the Internet 'standards track' (it's status Historic), there will be an increasing number of peripheral devices (like printers) that follow the lead of the infrastructure devices (because of pressure from customers), I suspect. Cheers, - Ira McDonald  High North Inc -----Original Message----- From: TAYLOR,BOB (HP-Vancouver,ex1) [mailto:bobt@hp.com] Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2003 7:39 PM To: 'Harry Lewis'; Wagner,William Cc: 'Wbmm (E-mail) Subject: RE: WBMM> RE: Scope and Starting Point 1.a: I don't think we have alignment yet on whether this is for "external" agents only, or for internal & external.  IMHO, if we're going to the trouble to define a new protocol/model for "external" that is going to eventually cover most of what we use SNMP for internally, I want to be able to use it internally as well.  We want to be able to leverage, scale & distribute tools for management - forcing a completely different protocol when you cross the firewall makes this really difficult. 1.b: I agree with Harry's comments. 2: We should at the least be aware of these efforts - and where possible leverage off of them.  I wouldn't, though, delay our progress to align with them - and in fact if we make good progress, we may want to push some of our ideas into these forums. 3: I think we need to talk about the kinds of clients that we expect to use this.  While some may be "browsers", I certainly expect this protocol to be used by dedicated management tools (e.g., WebJetAdmin, etc.) and by automated systems.  If it's just external "browsers" talking across firewalls, I'm not sure we need to define any "protocol" at all - in effect, your "protocol" is just HTML/Javascript, and an application inside the firewall is serving up web content over an HTTPS: connection.  It's only when you're doing more "programmatic" tools that you really need a robust protocol - and though these tools may be accessed through a browser (e.g., something running on an app server), the protocols used in these cases may not be very browser like - though they may use HTTPS, etc. to get through firewalls. I'll be sending a separate message with an explanation of how I'm thinking about the problem - as I write this up, I may find more issues and will bring them up then. thanks, bt --------------------------------------------------- Bob Taylor                                       Senior Architect                           IPG Strategic Technology Development Hewlett-Packard Co.       mailto:robertt@vcd.hp.com                       phone: 360.212.2625/T212.2625                   fax: 208.730-5111                 ---------------------------------------------------   -----Original Message----- From: Harry Lewis [mailto:harryl@us.ibm.com] Sent: Saturday, February 22, 2003 9:57 PM To: Wagner,William Cc: 'Wbmm (E-mail) Subject: RE: WBMM> RE: Scope and Starting Point 1.a. - I agree... but I have a feeling I'm reading more into ("etc.") than you may. You've listed usage, alerts, diagnostics, configuration, downloading resources, downloading executables (presumably diagnostic or interrogative in nature) and upgrading (remotely)... there seems to be very little remaining that is done via SNMP today... so why not include "the rest" ... like taking the device off-line, reading or writing the OpPanel, ... "ETC...".? 1. b. - Yes, I've expressed several times that I believe we should address the semantics for device management - just as we've recently done for job submission and  management and we should specifically try to clean up some of the toxic waste we spilled in the status area during the early MIB days ("magic decoder ring", "agent orange" ). 2. I think we should make ourselves aware of existing or emerging standards in the area. I don't think we should force alignment or compliance unless we can clearly articulate the benefit and honestly feel there is a very good chance that alignment will result in adoption. While the Printer MIB is probably one of the most useful standards ever in terms of heterogeneous printer management, most of the pretzel twists we encountered to align with a larger cause never really achieved the hoped for result (my opinion). I feel we should leverage our own positive model and experience with the semantic model. No one questions whether SM is the right thing to do. The SM springboards from our most recent job protocol... IPP into the web environment and does facilitate firewall scenarios I view WBMM as doing the same thing... springboard off Printer, Finisher MIBs onto web protocols via a common (device) semantic model. 3. We need to nail this firewall discussion early. I do agree that we want to facilitate solutions that can cross the firewall... similar to the way we've done PSI. I hear others reacting to this requirement as if it is an inappropriate goal. This will drag on and haunt us later if not put to rest. ---------------------------------------------- Harry Lewis IBM Printing Systems ---------------------------------------------- "Wagner,William" <WWagner@NetSilicon.com> Sent by: owner-wbmm@pwg.org 02/20/2003 03:03 PM                To:        "'Wbmm (E-mail)" <wbmm@pwg.org>        cc:                Subject:        RE: WBMM> RE: Scope and Starting Point Bob Tailor had a very good suggestion.  "..try to identify the issues before [the conference call] so you might ask that everyone post them to WBMM before the meeting. For "simple" issues, we may be able to knock them off in email, saving our phone time for the more significant/contentious issues." I had intended that sort of thing in asking for comments on the write-up (or any other comments that were felt to be germane). But an explicit request may be more fruitful. Please forward your issues to the list! Lets start with a few that I see. 1. Basic purpose: I have defined it as access by an external agent to imaging devices on an enterprise network, for the purpose of monitoring usage and alerts, perhaps for doing maintenance tests and general configuration, and perhaps for downloading files including executables, fonts, upgrades, etc.                a. Do we have agreement on this?                b. Is there a strong feeing that the scope must be expanded, and if so, how? 2. Consideration of the approaches in the documents referenced by Ira, Lee and Don (thank you all). Should we embrace, ignore, or possibly extract some aspects from which ones? My contention is:                a. as overall approaches, all seem to lack the concept of finessing firewalls                b. approaches intended for managing/configuring networks miss the problems of an external agent trying to manage devices on the network. The MIS people want some inherent restrictions on what the external site can do, and in many cases, want to be able to monitor messages being sent out to make sure that there is nothing untoward.                c. we may however, want to consider some other aspects of the other approaches. Perhaps the coding or the notion of XML coded RPCs. 3. Is there general agreement on the use of HTTP clients operating in a Browser-like mode as the mechanism to finesse firewall? Please feel free to add issues! Many thanks, Bill Wagner/NetSilicon -----Original Message----- From: TAYLOR,BOB (HP-Vancouver,ex1) [mailto:bobt@hp.com] Sent: Thursday, February 20, 2003 3:49 PM To: Wagner,William Subject: FW: WBMM> RE: Scope and Starting Point 3/4 4-5 EST works for me.  One suggestion: Given that you only are allocating one hour, it might be good to try to identify the issues before then, so you might ask that everyone post them to WBMM before the meeting. For "simple" issues, we may be able to knock them off in email, saving our phone time for the more significant/contentious issues. bt -----Original Message----- From: Wagner,William [mailto:WWagner@NetSilicon.com] Sent: Wednesday, February 19, 2003 6:11 PM To: wbmm@pwg.org Subject: WBMM> RE: Scope and Starting Point Greetings: I have attached some thoughts on the use cases the WBMM should be addressing, and taken a cut at defining a starting point.  The document is posted to: ftp://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/wbmm/white/wbmm_Scope&Start.pdf I would appreciate some feedback with the objective of finding common ground within the working group. Would a conference  call on 4 March, 4-5 PM EST be agreeable? Bill Wagner </tt>