Applicability of Standards Track MIBs to Management of World Wide Web Servers
RFC 2039

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Network Working Group                                    C. Kalbfleisch
Request for Comments: 2039                    OnRamp Technologies, Inc.
Category: Informational                                   November 1996

    Applicablity of Standards Track MIBs to Management of World Wide
                              Web Servers

Status of this Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  This memo
   does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of
   this memo is unlimited.

1. Abstract

   This document was produced at the request of the Network Management
   Area Director following the HTTP-MIB BOF at the 35th IETF meeting to
   report on the applicability of the existing standards track MIBs to
   management of WWW servers.

   Requirements for management of a World Wide Web (WWW) server are
   presented.  The applicable existing standards track MIBs are then
   examined.  Finally, an analysis of the additional groups of MIB
   attributes that are needed to meet the requirements is presented.

Table of Contents

  1.     Abstract.................................................1
  2.     Overview.................................................2
  3.     Requirements.............................................3
  3.1    Operational Model Requirements...........................3
  3.1.1. Host specific and Application Monitoring.................3
  3.1.2. Dependencies among applications..........................3
  3.1.3. Error generation and reporting...........................3
  3.1.4. Capacity planning........................................4
  3.1.5. Log Digester.............................................4
  3.2.   Service Model Requirements...............................4
  3.2.1. Retrieval services.......................................4
  3.2.2. Document information store -- managing documents.........4
  3.2.3. Server configuration.....................................4
  3.2.4. Server Control...........................................4
  3.2.5. Quality of Service.......................................4
  4.     Relationship to existing IETF efforts....................5
  4.1.   MIB-II [2]...............................................5
  4.2.   Host Resources MIB [3]...................................5
  4.3.   Network Services Monitoring MIB [4]......................6
  4.4.   Application MIB [5]......................................7

Kalbfleisch                  Informational                      [Page 1]
RFC 2039                     WWW Track MIBs                November 1996

  5.     Summary of Existing Standards Track MIBs.................8
  6.     Definition of additional attributes......................9
  7.     Usage Scenarios.........................................11
  8.     Conclusion..............................................11
  9.     References..............................................13
  10.    Acknowledgments.........................................13
  11.    Further Information.....................................14
  12.    Security Considerations.................................14
  13.    Authors' Address........................................14

2. Overview

   The World Wide Web (WWW) is a network of information, accessible via
   a simple easy to use interface.  The information is often presented
   in HyperText or multi-media.  The information is provided by servers
   which are located all around the world.  The usability of the web
   depends largely on the performance of these servers. WWW servers are
   typically monitored through log files.  This becomes a difficult task
   when a single organization is responsible for a number of servers.
   Since many organizations currently use the Internet Standard SNMP to
   manage their network devices, it is desirable to treat these WWW
   servers as additional devices within this framework. This will allow
   a single Network Management Station (NMS) to automate the management
   of a number of WWW servers as well as the entire enterprise. Defining
   a standard for this purpose allows a single management application to
   manage a number of servers from a variety of vendors.  Additionally,
   a formal definition of what has to be managed and how to manage it
   tends to lead to integrated and improved performance and fault
   management.

   Content providers are interested in the access statistics and
   configuration of their sites. The content provider may be the same or
   a different organization than the one that maintains the server as a
   whole. It may be possible to realize the new paradigm of "Customer
   Network Management" to provide this information to the content
   provider. This means that there exists a distinct organization
   different than the network operations center that is also interested
   in the management information from a device. Customer network
   management is desirable to allow each content provider on a server to
   access information about his own documents independent of the rest.