From brusil@snad.ncsl.nist.gov Thu Oct 20 16:05:57 1994 Return-Path: Date: Thu, 20 Oct 94 16:04:12 EDT Message-Id: <9410202004.AA29098@snad.ncsl.nist.gov> To: nmsig@nemo.ncsl.nist.gov, snmsigl@nemo.ncsl.nist.gov Subject: NMSIG-94/350R3 SYSTEMS and NETWORK MANAGEMENT SIG (SNMSIG) CHARTER Status: RO NMSIG-94/350R3 16 Sept 1994 SYSTEMS and NETWORK MANAGEMENT SIG (SNMSIG) CHARTER (DRAFT 4; Approved by OIW Sept'94 Plenary) 1.0 SCOPE: The work of the SNMSIG (formerly, the Network Management SIG, NMSIG) is oriented toward the full-life-cycle, remote, and optionally secure, management of distributed, interconnected information technology (IT) resources, entities, and services within and/or associated with the Open Systems Environment (OSE) within enterprises. The scope of applicable IT technologies to be managed includes: - wire-based, wireless and virtual network technology, - computing and computing-support technology interconnected by network technology, - applications, software and data hosted on such computing technology, - user interfaces, and - services provided by such above technologies. The scope of management technologies to be addressed by the SNMSIG is as identified in the following section. 2.0 OBJECTIVES: Acting as the continuation and expansion of the former OIW NMSIG, the Systems and Network Management SIG (SNMSIG) is chartered to conduct activities in the following areas: management requirements and taxonomy, management modeling, management profiling, supporting subjects. 2.1 Requirements and Taxonomy The SNMSIG may develop and/or contribute to the development of: - taxonomies of management requirement areas, and - detailed management requirements, applicable across several user communities, for specific, management requirements, taxonomy categories. 2.2 Management Modeling The SNMSIG may develop, or, contribute to the development of, or adopt from the outputs of international standards bodies and open industry fora, a multi-technology reference model for categorizing the components of distributed systems management that incorporates multiple, coexistent management technologies and multiple supporting communication and software technologies for managing the distributed, interconnected information technology (IT) within enterprises. 2.3 Profiling As supported by its constituency, as guided by requirements from its constituency or from other industry and user surveys, and in cooperation with the other regional workshops and/or other open industry groups, the SNMSIG may use formal standards (such as those from ISO, ITU, IETF, IEEE) and/or Publicly Available Specifications (from organizations such X/Open, Performance Management Working Group, Open Software Foundation, Object Management Group, Network Management Forum and others), to develop, or to promote/support the development of: - additional, requirements-based implementation agreements, and/or - industry-specific profiles, and/or - regional profiles, and/or - international standard profiles. These agreements and/or profiles will provide product-level, procurement-appropriate specifications for implementations of the following scope of management technologies: - management communication services/protocols for exchanging management information and management oriented commands: - within and among interconnected OSE IT entities, and - among management applications, - system management functions and capabilities applicable to the entire life cycle of managed OSE IT resources, - management information that characterizes the monitorable and controllable aspects of: - managed OSE IT resources, and - widely-fielded, managed legacy IT resources, - management application programming interfaces at the interfaces between, or to, specific management technologies, - management gateways (a.k.a. proxies, mediation devies, and/or adapter objects) for translating/mapping among heterogeneous, but functionally similar, management technologies (e.g., SNMP and CMIP), - management translation algorithms for mapping among heterogeneous management information models and management information definitions, - management ensembles/profiles that: - enumerate specific, well-described enterprise/system management requirements, and - identify the OSE management and IT technologies needed to fulfill the stipulated management requirements, and - enterprise management platforms that: - provide environments of aggregates of management technologies, and - host management applications that support management ensembles. 2.4 Supporting Activities and Technologies As supported by its constituency and as guided by requirements from its constituency or from other industry and user surveys, the SNMSIG may: - maintain existing (as of Sept 1994), and complete current ongoing work pertinent to, network management: - OIW implementation agreements, - International Standard Profiles, - related specifications, - profiles, - guidelines, - ensembles, - coexistence specifications, and - management information libraries and catalogs pertaining to ISO/OSI systems management standards, - contribute to the development of formal standards and/or PASs for additional management and management- related technology within its agreed reference model, such as management information definitions, - support the taxonomy characterization of and the development of, and advocate for the procurement of, systems management applications that support management ensembles/profiles developed by the OIW and/or other recognized industry groups, - support the development and harmonization of management testing methodologies, test suites, and testing specifications, - promote the testing, demonstration and commercialization of interoperable and/or portable, independently-manufactured products adhering to the SNMSIG's and former NMSIG's agreements, profiles, specifications and ensembles, - coordinate, as necessary, with all relevant industry, regional workshop and standards groups. 3.0 HIGH PRIORITY WORK ITEMS - complete the harmonization of lower layer ensembles and managed object profiles, - complete the development of OIW ensembles in a variety of areas including: - LAN Status monitoring, - Electronic Mail management, - complete the development and harmonization of security management profiles, - complete the development of agreements on GULS-based security confidentiality transformation/service and management use thereof, - complete the development of management requiremnts, management taxonomies, and managed objects that support Distributed/Enterprise Management, 4.0 EMERGING AND LOW PRIORITY WORK ITEMS - initiate the development of profiles for UNIX system performance management, - complete the harmonization of CMIP Profile Test Suites, - support the development of harmonized concepts for managed object conformance testing, - complete the harmonization of performance management ISPs, - complete the harmonization of management guidelines for ensembles, managed object profiling, management taxonomy and managed object harmonization, - examine the benefit of developing formal testing methodologies for Internet management technologies, and - identify and, as appropriate, initiate work items pertinent to the coexistence of heterogeneous management technologies, e.g., - translation of Internet MIBs into equivalent OSI management information, - development of coexistence profiles, - support the development of translation methods among Internet, OSI and CORBA management technologies.