Services Management Research Group (SMRG)

Charter

The convergence of network and system management into a common “Service Management” framework is critical for the future development of the Internet and intranets. This convergence requires the ability to manage diverse resources, ranging from resource-limited devices (palmtops, set-top boxes, etc.) to large-scale distributed applications, in order to permit management of the services which they collectively provide. The Services Management research group is chartered to investigate new architectures, information models, and supporting protocols to enable this convergence. A specific goal is to encompass consistent management of the increasingly diverse resources, with correspondingly broad ranges of capabilities, that are being connected to the Internet.

Currently Network Management and Systems Management frequently employ different tools and technologies. An influx of large quantities of very diverse devices is expected in the Internet. The shift in capabilities and in the sheer number of entities to be managed may require management paradigms different from existing ones.

The Research Group will investigate frameworks that are able to support a rich variety of resources while also encompassing the existing solutions to make use of the installed base. For instance, a goal would be to be able to manage a PDA, a desktop PC, a firewall router, and an enterprise’s electronic mail service within the same framework and preferably with the same tool(s).

To produce usable results, we ARE going to survey existing work in the network and systems management communities. We will build on existing frameworks, information models, and protocols for systems management and network management, creating a framework for service management. We will examine existing protocols, and, if necessary, identify changes to existing protocols necessary to meet the requirements of services management.

As always, appropriate simplicity is a design goal. While the resultant protocols may differ significantly from the original protocols, our goal is to require minimal (or no) changes to existing elements.

Membership

Membership in this research group is open to anyone who is willing to actively participate and demonstrates an interest and commitment to working with the group on the issues raised in the charter.

The group will report their progress through regular presentations to the IETF community, a publicly accessible Web site, and other means.

RFCs

RFC 3052 Service Management Architectures Issues and Review. M. Eder, S. Nag. January 2001.

RFC 3387 Considerations from the Service Management Research Group (SMRG) on Quality of Service (QoS) in the IP Network. M. Eder, H. Chaskar, S. Nag. September 2002.

Chairs

Sid Nag, thinker at monmouth.com and Michael Eder, Nokia Research, michael.eder at nokia.com

Mailing List

Members only mailing list: irtf-smrg at lists.research.nokia.com

To find out how to subscribe to the interest list: Send a message to irtf-smrg-request at lists.research.nokia.com with only ‘help’ in the subject line.