[j-nsp] NETCONF vs SNMP for monitoring

[Tyler Christiansen]

I consider wait time to be part of resources (and thus
resource-intensive).  Especially if queries on your NMS start to build up
because you're waiting on responses.

I haven't read that paper thoroughly, but it looks like it's specifically
comparing SNMP and NETCONF for the purpose of configuration management--not
monitoring.  For configuration management, NETCONF wins hands down.

If you're looking strictly for Juniper, there are a number of NETCONF
libraries that will give you easy access to the RPCs.

https://github.com/juniper?query=netconf

As far as which RPCs you can make, if there's something specific you want,
just log into the Juniper device and type the command, then:

| display xml rpc

If you need to know how to parse it, then leave off `rpc`.

For other vendors, someone else will have to pipe in as I haven't worked
with other vendors.  Hypothetically, you should be able to use the same
RPCs and parsing for any vendor.  In practice, though, this isn't the case
(just look at NETCONF on IOS for a perfect example).

--tc


On Sat, Aug 30, 2014 at 9:45 AM, Morgan McLean <wrx230 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yea multithreading would be the way to go, it's not very intensive, just
> sits hanging out waiting for its response. I was reading a paper somebody
> wrote on performance for SNMP vs NETCONF, which is here:
> http://morse.colorado.edu/~tlen5710/11s/11NETCONFvsSNMP.pdf . Seems to
> suggest as workload increases, netconf becomes more favorable. I haven't
> tested it in depth; in fact I'm having trouble finding documentation on the
> different calls I can make.
>
> Thanks,
> Morgan
>
>
> On Sat, Aug 30, 2014 at 11:30 AM, Tyler Christiansen <tyler at adap.tv>
> wrote:
>
>> SNMP is less resource-intensive and faster than NETCONF.  I would use
>> SNMP for the things you can and NETCONF for the things you can't.  If you
>> consider NETCONF, it would probably be best to do so in a threaded,
>> asynchronous, or multi-process fashion.  I've seen a few SNMP pollers that
>> don't use threads or multiple processes or callbacks, and they can get away
>> with it.  I don't think NETCONF can.
>>
>> --tc
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Aug 30, 2014 at 9:01 AM, Morgan McLean <wrx230 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> Just curious if anybody opts to use netconf instead of snmp for
>>> monitoring
>>> purposes? Any known downsides?
>>>
>>> SNMP seems to never really be up to date with everything that you might
>>> want to have a peek at.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Morgan
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> juniper-nsp mailing list juniper-nsp at puck.nether.net
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>>>
>>
>>
>