Hi, I might be completely wrong but from a brief overview of the Topology API Use Cases my guess would be.
The topology data model will be an undirected graph with nodes, edges with certain properties representing part of the network topology and the device centric model will be something hierarchical with a root object the network device its interfaces, their IPs, the protocols working on them and the neighbor devices learned dynamically by those protocols. Most likely the network-centric topology models coming from each of the devices will have to be merged by the network topology manager in order the rest of the applications to be able to benefit from a complete model of the entire network topology. In my opinion either of the models will be extremely useful for all kinds of OSS applications related to network service provisioning and fulfillment. Currently is quite difficult to build any of them by means such as CLI parsing and SNMP. Netconf is not bad but still an API will be much better :) BR, Nikolay Milovanov Network Engineer [email protected] On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 8:16 AM, Russ White <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Are there really differences of opinion about what the difference is > between > > a network model and a device model? A network is a plurality of devices, > > and a network model is something which deals with a system resulting from > > the use of more than one device. (ok, yes, a network of one node is a > corner > > case blah blah handwave...). I don't see how there could be any real > debate > > around this, but if there is I'm quite interested in what it might be. > > Agreed--both seem necessary, but different beasts (see the discussion on > sdnrg right now --same problem, different names). > > > It feels like the real question is whether i2rs should have network > models > in > > scope. > > Right... > > I think network models at this point in the game might be useful to make > certain we are getting all the information we need from the models at the > protocol and device levels... In other words, there are things the network > model cares about that a device model isn't going to care about. In other > words, if we only look at protocol level use cases, we might miss some > pieces of information we'll eventually need for building network > topologies, > or that sort of thing. > > > If Yes: ok, cool. But between link properties (that is, at least some > kind of > > topology view), counter dumps, debugs, routing, MPLS, and LAG member > > rebalancing, show me what's *not* in scope. > > This is the problem on the other end, however... It's better, IMHO, to > start > with a single small set of problems and solve them in a way that > specifically allows extensions to solve other problems. If we try to model > every possible problem, to make certain we have accounted for every > possible > situation, well, we'll never actually do anything but describe problems. > I'm > pretty familiar with the "describing problems all the time" process, as I > have kids... :-) (Oh, I'm glad they don't read this list, because they'd > really be mad at me about now!). > > So I think it's valuable to describe these network models, and think about > them. OTOH, I'm really concerned we're going to get bogged down in them, > and > take up a lot of time reading and accounting for them, which could well > divert us (even more!) from picking a small set of well-defined problems > and > solving them in an extensible way. I think that's the point Joel was trying > to make at the mic today, btw... > > :-) > > Russ > > > > _______________________________________________ > i2rs mailing list > [email protected] > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/i2rs > -- BR, Nikolay Milovanov Network Engineer Email: [email protected]
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