ITU - Telecommunication Standardization Sector Temporary Document 86 (Rev.1) (PLEN) STUDY GROUP 4 Geneva, 8 û 19 April 2002 QUESTIONS: 19/4 SOURCE: ITU-T Study Group 4 TITLE: Additional input regarding the use of M.3100 probable causes for the ITU Alarm MIB _____________ COMMUNICATION STATEMENT TO: IETF disman WG APPROVAL: Agreed to at STUDY GROUP 4 MEETING FOR: ACTION DEADLINE: January 1, 2003 CONTACT : Dave Matthews Acting Rapporteur, Question 19/4 Tel : +1 732 420 1613 AT&T Fax: USA Email: dlmatthews@att.com At the ITU-T Study Group 4 meeting in April 2002, we have examined version 6 of the IETF Alarm MIB focusing of course on those aspects related to the ITU-T SG 4 Recommendations and offer the following comments: - We have examined version 6 of the Alarm MIB (draft-ietf-disman-alarm-mib-06) and noted your incorporation of the M.3100 probable causes semantics. We thank you for that action in response to our July 2001 communication statement. - If you recall, in our July 2001 communication statement, we suggested the need for some extensibility mechanism and also we have been made aware that probable cause semantics other than that from the ITU-T are being reviewed, presumably for possible inclusion. We have discussed the possible impact of the latter and have come to the following conclusions: 1) While we value the identical number assignments for the M.3100 probable causes, regardless of the number assignments, we believe the ITU-T semantics are the most important aspect to retain. 2) Though M.3100 is currently using less than 256 probable causes, there is a likelihood that additional values will be needed. (The M.3100 syntax of ASN.1 INTEGER is, of course, able to support larger values.) 3) We have noted in section 5.2 that you have specified an IANAItuProbableCause textual convention apparently dedicated to the ITU-T probable causes and support that separation from any other probable cause asssignments. To ensure that separation, we recommend that the first paragraph of section 5.2 be replaced with the following text: "Values of IANAItuProbableCause can only be given out if they correspond to ITU probable causes semantics present in ITU-T Recommendations and are agreed to by the disman working group." We believe this text reflects the fact that this textual convention is limited to representing the ITU semantics while at the same time identifying the IETF as the owner of the alarm MIB. Other textual conventions would be presumably required to define the semantics and number assignments of other probable causes. 4) To assist the reader of the current specification, we recommend the replacement of the DESCRIPTION text with the following text: " ITU probable cause values for alarms are currently assigned as per M.3100-1995 (1-254), X.733-1992 (256-287), and X.736-1992 (288-303)." 5) We also note that code 158 (reinitialized) is missing. We would be grateful if you would keep us informed of your progress on this topic.