Network Management Operations (nmop)

WG Name Network Management Operations
Acronym nmop
Area Operations and Management Area (ops)
State Active
Charter charter-ietf-nmop-01 Approved
Document dependencies
Additional resources GitHub Repository
Experiments & Hackathons
IAB workshop on the Next Era of Network Management Operations (NEMOPS
OLD NETMO Mailing List Archive
Personnel Chairs Benoît Claise, Mohamed Boucadair
Area Director Mahesh Jethanandani
Secretary Thomas Graf
Delegate Thomas Graf
Mailing list Address nmop@ietf.org
To subscribe https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/nmop
Archive https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/nmop/
Chat Room address https://zulip.ietf.org/#narrow/stream/nmop

Charter for Working Group

The increased drive by operators for integration and deployment of
network management protocols and YANG data models may expose issues and
problems with the individual protocols and models, or with the wider
integration of both the protocols and the models. Some of these problems
may only be witnessed when trying to manage large-scale networks, e.g.,
due to the increased complexity and handling large volumes of data
exported in frequent updates. At the same time, simplifying the network
management and operations, with increased automation, is a high priority
for network operators.

The goals of the Network Management Operations working group are to
solicit input from network operators to identify existing and
anticipated operational issues arising from the near-term deployment of
network management technologies, and to consider potential solutions or
workarounds for those issues. Those operational issues may relate to
deployments of existing network management technologies or the
integration of related technologies for network management and
telemetry.

Solving those operational issues requires discussion, investigation, and
potentially some experiments, which may take some time. However, the
working group will focus on pragmatic items achievable in a short
timeframe over long term architectural visions.

Since the focus is on solving network management problems faced by
operators, discussion and experiments are not solely limited to network
management technologies standardized within the IETF but may cover the
wider network management ecosystem as it relates to the management of
IETF protocols, subject to the following two constraints:

  • The working group may discuss network management protocols and data
    models not standardized within the IETF only when they are being used
    to manage IETF protocols or to compare them to equivalent IETF
    solutions.

  • The working group will not work on specific issues or improvements to
    protocols or data models developed and maintained outside the IETF.
    They must be taken to the appropriate organization for discussion and
    resolution.

The Network Management Operations working group is scoped, in rough
order from highest to lowest priority, to:

  • Present and discuss operational issues faced by the deployment of
    existing network management technologies.

  • Discuss ideas for future short-term experiments (i.e., those focused
    on incremental improvements to network management operations that can
    be achieved in 1-2 years) and report on the progress of the relevant
    experimentation being done in the community.

  • Discuss network operator use cases and requirements for solving
    anticipated problems related to the deployment of network management
    technologies.

  • Standardize YANG data models to solve operational issues identified in
    the scope items above. YANG data models potentially within the scope
    of other WGs will only be progressed here with agreement from the
    relevant ADs.

  • Seek involvement with developers of open-source software to help drive
    adoption of IETF network management standards and to improve protocol
    maturity.

  • Document operational experience and best practice for network
    management and telemetry deployment as BCPs or Informational RFCs.

This working group is not chartered to work on new protocols or protocol
enhancements.

Agenda time at NMOP sessions at IETF meetings should allow for
presentations and discussions of operator issues and experience, and
other work within scope for the working group, but with a default
expectation that priority be given to operator presentations.

The current topics of focus for the working group are:

  • NETCONF/YANG Push integration with Apache Kafka & time series databases

  • Anomaly detection and incident management

  • Issues related to deployment/usage of YANG topology modules (e.g., to
    model a Digital Map)

  • Consider/plan an approach for updating RFC 3535-bis (collecting
    updated operator requirements for IETF network management solutions)

Like many of the “ops” working groups, this working group is expected to
be long-lived, and is expected to remain open whilst there is sufficient
interest and drive from the operators to work on topics within the scope
described above.

Milestones

Date Milestone Associated documents
Dec 2025 Submit NMOP Terminology to the IESG
Dec 2025 Submit Network Anomaly Management to the IESG
Dec 2025 Submit Network Incident Management to the IESG
Sep 2025 Submit Architecture for YANG-Push to Message Broker Integration to the IESG
Jun 2025 Submit "Digital Map: Concept, Requirements, and Use Cases" to the IESG

Done milestones

Date Milestone Associated documents
Done Adopt a document on network anomaly management draft-ietf-nmop-network-anomaly-architecture
Done Adopt a terminology document for anomaly and incident management draft-ietf-nmop-terminology
Done Adopt a document on network incident management draft-ietf-nmop-network-incident-yang
Done Adopt a document describing how to integrate YANG Push with Apache Kafka draft-ietf-nmop-yang-message-broker-integration