Networking / Beginners

Policy Information Base

The policy information that is exchanged between the PDP server and PEP and stored in policy databases needs some structure and format. Initial policy uses were specified using text (see RFC 2749 that describes the use of COPS in support of RSVP), but this is neither sufficiently precise to be safe, nor easily extensible as more client types are produced. In particular, there may be common concepts such as interfaces that are shared between policy data for different clients- it would be helpful if this information could be configured and managed coherently.

The IETF recognized that the information to be managed was not dissimilar to that for device configuration and management.

The PIB is in many ways very similar to the MIB. It has tables and rows to contain the information about instances of specific devices and managed entities. These may range from the capabilities and restrictions of devices and interfaces, through the resources and bandwidth, to the specific data flows and policy request. PIBs are specified using the ASN.1 BER just as MIBs are and they use the same basic data types defined in the Structure of Management Information (SMIv2 in RFC 2578). RFC 3318 defines a framework PIB in the context of policy decision points and defines some basic textual conventions for use by other PIB modules.

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In this tutorial:

  1. IP Network Management
  2. Choosing to Manage your Network
  3. Choosing a Configuration Method
  4. Command Line Interfaces
  5. Graphical User Interfaces
  6. Standardized Data Representations and Access
  7. Making the Choice
  8. Management Information Base
  9. Representing Managed Objects
  10. Simple Network Management Protocol
  11. Requests, Responses, and Notifications
  12. SNMP Versions and Security
  13. Choosing an SNMP Version
  14. Extensible Markup Language
  15. Extensibility and Domains of Applicability
  16. XML Remote Procedure Calls
  17. Simple Object Access Protocol
  18. XML Applicability to Network Management
  19. Common Object Request Broker Architecture
  20. Interface Definition Language
  21. The Architecture
  22. CORBA Communications
  23. Choosing a Configuration Protocol
  24. Choosing to Collect Statistics
  25. Policy Control
  26. Choosing to Apply Policy
  27. Policy Information Base