RFC 1856 (rfc1856) - Page 2 of 17
The Opstat Client-Server Model for Statistics Retrieval
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 1856 Opstat Client-Server Model October 1995 This document defines a protocol which would allow a client on a remote machine to retrieve data from a central server, which itself retrieves from the common statistics database. The client then presents the data to the user in the form requested (maybe to a X- window, or to paper). The basic model used for the retrieval methods defined in this document is a client-server model. This architecture envisions that each NOC (or NSP) should install a server which provides locally collected information for clients. Using a query language the client should be able to define the network object of interest, the interface, the metrics and the time period to be examined. Using a reliable transport-layer protocol (e.g., TCP), the server will transmit the requested data. Once this data is received by the client it could be processed and presented by a variety of tools including displaying the data in a X window, sending postscript to a printer, or displaying the raw data on the user's terminal. The remainder of this document describes how the client and server interact, describes the protocol used between the client and server, and discusses a variety of other issues surrounding the sharing of data. 2.0 Client-Server Description 2.1 The Client The basic function of the client is to retrieve data from the server. It will accept requests from the user, translate those requests into the common retrieval protocol and transmit them to the server, wait for the server's reply, and send that reply to the user. Note that this document does not define how the data should be presented to the user. There are many methods of doing this including: - use a X based tool that displays graphs (line, histogram, etc.) - generate PostScript output to be sent to a printer - dump the raw data to the user's terminal Future documents based on the Operational Statistics model may define standard graphs and variables to be displayed, but this is work yet to be done (as of this writing). Clark Informational
