Technical Summary:
This document defines a portion of the Management Information Base (a
MIB) including a set of objects used to manage Session Initiation
Protocol (SIP) entities, including SIP User Agents, Proxies, Redirect (aka
Location) Servers, and Registrars. Note that this MIB is restricted to
management and monitoring activities. Following extended discussion, the
working group chose not to pursuedevice configuration using the SIP MIB,
and will rely instead on the SIP Configuration Framework being developed
in the SIPPING working group.
Working Group Summary:
The SIP Working Group developed this document over a greater than
six-year period, with the first draft appearing in March of 2000. One of
the key decisions in its development was the choice to exclude device
configuration functions from the MIB. This decision was reached after the
SIP community decided to pursue a SIP-specific configuration model as
outlined in "A Framework for Session Initiation Protocol User Agent
Profile Delivery", draft-ietf-sipping-config-framework-08.txt. This
decision significantly reduced the scope and complexity of the SIP MIB.
While not all participants in the working group are convinced of the need
for a SIP MIB, there seems to be a very strong consensus on the technical
detail of the draft and a general agreement onits applicability.
Document Quality:
The document shepherd is aware of at least one pre-specification
implementation of the SIP MIB developed by a major equipment provider. The
SIPIT interoperability events have not included SIP MIB testing in their
events. However, the industry is beginning to see requirements for SIP MIB
compliance appear in large-scale Requests For Information and Requests For
Proposal. The document has also received considerable attention from
related standards development organizations, including PacketCable.
Development of this specification was assisted greatly by the support of
Dan Romascanu acting as the designated "MIB Doctor", with additional
commentary received from David Harrington. The document's "Contributors"
section also cites review by Tom Taylor, Kavitha Patchayappan, Dan
Romascanu, Cullen Jennings, Orit Levin, AC Mahendran, Mary Barnes, Rohan
Mahy, Bob Penfield, Charles Eckel and Dean Willis.
Both Allison Mankin and Cullen Jennings oversaw the development as Area
Directors. Dean Willis served as the WG Chair Shepherd. Dan Romascanu was
the MIB doctor and Steven Bellovin did a security review.