Editing XML Management Protocol (section)

== '''Management Information''' ==

The third component of any management framework is the definition of management information.  For XMP, we again borrowed heavily from the Internet Management Framework.

We eliminated the use of numeric object identifiers (e.g. 1.3.6.1.4.1) and have flattened out the global management object naming tree.  Management objects are denoted using the tuple MIB-name, object-name, instance-name -- an object name is thus denoted as the concatenation of each element in the tuple separated by a period '.'  For example, the ''MIB-2'' object ''ifInOctets''  for interface ''eth1'' would be denoted as ''mib2.ifInOctets.eth1''.  When referencing scalar MIB objects, one can drop the instance name thus the ''MIB-2'' object ''sysDescr'' becomes simply ''mib2.sysDescr''.

Within the global management information naming tree, MIB names must be unique.  Within a single MIB, MIB object names must be unique.  Beyond that, there are no other restrictions.

=== Re-use of Existing MIBs ===

We re-use many Internet MIBs including standard MIBs (e.g. [http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1213.txt MIB-2] and [http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2863.txt Interfaces Group MIB]) and the private-enterprise MIB construct (e.g. Krupczak.org is assigned [http://www.iana.org/assignments/enterprise-numbers enterprise ID] 16050).  We utilize the Internet Management Framework's enterprise-ID naming schema merely to preserve co-existence and the ability to implement a MIB in both the SNMP and XMP frameworks.  In XMP, however, private-enterprise MIBs are not referenced via their enterprise-OID but rather their MIB name.  For example, MIB objects in the Krupczak.org private-enterprise MIB are not referenced via an OID but by the MIB name ''cartographer'' concatenated with the object-name and optional instance name (e.g. ''cartographer.pluginVersion'')

=== XMP-specific MIBs ===

There are no real XMP-specific MIBs per se.  There is, however, a base ''core'' MIB for XMP protocol engines which defines MIB objects specific to the XMP protocol.  However, there is nothing about these MIB objects that is incompatible with SNMP.    For example, the ''core'' MIB defines a series of protocol counters much like the ''SNMP'' group does in ''MIB-2''.