



Network Working Group                                          B. Claise
Internet-Draft                                            Everything OPS
Obsoletes: 5706 (if approved)                                  J. Clarke
Updates: 2360 (if approved)                                        Cisco
Intended status: Best Current Practice                         A. Farrel
Expires: 23 August 2026                               Old Dog Consulting
                                                              S. Barguil
                                                                   Nokia
                                                            C. Pignataro
                                                    Blue Fern Consulting
                                                                 R. Chen
                                                                     ZTE
                                                        19 February 2026


      Guidelines for Considering Operations and Management in IETF
                             Specifications
                    draft-ietf-opsawg-rfc5706bis-02

Abstract

   New Protocols and Protocol Extensions are best designed with due
   consideration of the functionality needed to operate and manage them.
   Retrofitting operations and management considerations is suboptimal.
   The purpose of this document is to provide guidance to authors and
   reviewers on what operational and management aspects should be
   addressed when defining New Protocols and Protocol Extensions.

   This document obsoletes RFC 5706, replacing it completely and
   updating it with new operational and management techniques and
   mechanisms.  It also updates RFC 2360 to obsolete mandatory MIB
   creation.  Finally, it introduces a requirement to include an
   "Operational Considerations" section in new RFCs that document a
   technical specification in the IETF Stream, while providing an escape
   clause if no new considerations are identified.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.






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   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on 23 August 2026.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2026 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/
   license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document.
   Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
   and restrictions with respect to this document.  Code Components
   extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as
   described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are
   provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     1.1.  This Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     1.2.  Audience  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   3.  Documentation Requirements for IETF Specifications  . . . . .   8
     3.1.  "Operational Considerations" Section  . . . . . . . . . .   8
     3.2.  "Operational Considerations" Section Boilerplate When No
           New Considerations Exist  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     3.3.  Placement of the "Operational Considerations" Section . .  10
   4.  How Will the New Protocol or Protocol Extension Fit into the
           Current Environment?  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     4.1.  Installation and Initial Setup  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     4.2.  Migration Path  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
     4.3.  Requirements on Other Protocols and Functional
           Components  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
     4.4.  Impact on Network Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
     4.5.  Impact on Security Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
     4.6.  Verifying Correct Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
     4.7.  Message Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   5.  How Will the Protocol Be Managed? . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
     5.1.  Available Management Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
     5.2.  Interoperability  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  19
     5.3.  Management Information  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20
       5.3.1.  Information Model Design  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
       5.3.2.  YANG Data Model Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . .  22



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     5.4.  Fault Management  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  23
       5.4.1.  Liveness Detection and Monitoring . . . . . . . . . .  24
       5.4.2.  Fault Determination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  24
       5.4.3.  Probable Root Cause Analysis  . . . . . . . . . . . .  25
       5.4.4.  Fault Isolation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  25
     5.5.  Configuration Management  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  25
     5.6.  Accounting Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  27
     5.7.  Performance Management  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  28
       5.7.1.  Monitoring the Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  29
       5.7.2.  Monitoring the Device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  30
       5.7.3.  Monitoring the Network  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  30
       5.7.4.  Monitoring the Service  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  30
     5.8.  Security Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  30
   6.  Operational and Management Tooling Considerations . . . . . .  32
     6.1.  AI Tooling Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  34
   7.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  34
   8.  Operational Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  34
   9.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  34
   10. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  35
     10.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  35
     10.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  35
   Appendix A.  Operational Considerations Checklist . . . . . . . .  43
     A.1.  Documentation Requirements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  43
     A.2.  Operational Fit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  43
     A.3.  Management Information  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  44
     A.4.  Fault Management  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  45
     A.5.  Configuration Management  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  45
     A.6.  Performance Management  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  45
     A.7.  Security Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  46
   Appendix B.  Changes Since RFC 5706 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  46
     B.1.  TO DO LIST  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  47
   Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  47
   Contributors  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  48
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  48

1.  Introduction

   Often, when New Protocols or Protocol Extensions are developed, not
   enough consideration is given to how they will be deployed, operated,
   and managed.  Retrofitting operations and management mechanisms is
   often hard and architecturally unpleasant, and certain protocol
   design choices may make deployment, operations, and management
   particularly difficult or insecure.  To ensure deployability, the
   operational environment and manageability must be considered during
   design.






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   This document provides guidelines to help Protocol Designers and
   Working Groups (WGs) consider the operations and management
   functionality for their New Protocol or Protocol Extension at an
   early phase in the design process.

   This document obsoletes [RFC5706] and fully updates its content with
   new operational and management techniques and mechanisms.  It also
   introduces a requirement for an "Operational Considerations" section,
   that covers both operational and management considerations, in new
   RFCs in the IETF Stream.  Additionally, this document updates
   Section 2.14 of RFC 2360 [BCP22] on "Guide for Internet Standards
   Writers" to obsolete references to mandatory MIBs and instead focus
   on documenting holistic manageability and operational considerations
   as described in Section 3.  Further, this document removes outdated
   references and aligns with current practices, protocols, and
   technologies used in operating and managing devices, networks, and
   services.  Refer to Appendix B for more details.

1.1.  This Document

   This document provides a set of guidelines for considering operations
   and management in an IETF technical specification with an eye toward
   being flexible while also striving for interoperability.

   Entirely New Protocols may require significant consideration of
   expected operations and management, while Protocol Extensions to
   existing, widely deployed protocols may have established de facto
   operations and management practices that are already well understood.
   This document does not mandate a comprehensive inventory of all
   operational considerations.  Instead, it guides authors to focus on
   key aspects that are essential for the technology's deployability,
   operation, and maintenance.

   Suitable management approaches may vary for different areas, WGs, and
   protocols in the IETF.  This document does not prescribe a fixed
   solution or format in dealing with operational and management aspects
   of IETF protocols.  However, these aspects should be considered for
   any New Protocol or Protocol Extension.

   A WG may decide that its protocol does not need interoperable
   management or a standardized Data Model, but this should be a
   deliberate and documented decision, not the result of omission.  This
   document provides some guidelines for those considerations.

   This document recognizes a distinction between management and
   operational considerations, although the two are closely related.
   However, for New Protocols or Protocol Extensions only an
   "Operational Considerations" section is required.  This section is



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   intended to address both management and operational aspects.
   Operational considerations pertain to the deployment and functioning
   of protocols within a network, regardless of whether a management
   protocol is in active use.  Management considerations focus on the
   use of management technologies, such as management protocols and the
   design of management Data Models.  Both topics should be described
   within the "Operational Considerations" section.

1.2.  Audience

   The guidelines are intended to be useful to authors writing protocol
   specifications.  They outline what to consider for management and
   deployment, how to document those aspects, and how to present them in
   a consistent format.  This document is intended to offer a flexible
   set of guiding principles applicable to various circumstances.  It
   provides a framework for WGs to ensure that manageability
   considerations are an integral part of the protocol design process,
   and its use should not be misinterpreted as imposing new hurdles on
   work in other areas.

   Protocol Designers should consider which operations and management
   needs are relevant to their protocol, document how those needs could
   be addressed, and suggest (preferably standard) management protocols
   and Data Models that could be used to address those needs.  This is
   similar to a WG that considers which security threats are relevant to
   their protocol, documents (in the required Security Considerations
   section, per Guidelines for Writing RFC Text on Security
   Considerations [BCP72]) how threats should be mitigated, and then
   suggests appropriate standard protocols that could mitigate the
   threats.

   It is not the intention that a protocol specification document should
   be held up waiting for operations and management solutions to be
   developed.  This is particularly the case when a protocol extension
   is proposed, but the base protocol is missing operations or
   management solutions.  However, it is the intent that new documents
   should clearly articulate the operations and management of that new
   work to fill any operations and management gaps.

   A core principle of this document is to encourage early on
   discussions rather than mandating any specific solution.  It does not
   impose a specific management or operational solution, imply that a
   formal Data Model is needed, or imply that using a specific
   management protocol is mandatory.  Specifically, this document does
   not require to develop solutions to accommodate identified
   operational considerations within the document that specifies a New
   Protocol or Protocol Extension itself.




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   If Protocol Designers conclude that the technology can be managed
   solely by using Proprietary Interfaces or that it does not need any
   structured or standardized Data Model, this might be fine, but it is
   a decision that should be explicit in a manageability discussion --
   that this is how the protocol will need to be operated and managed.
   Protocol Designers should avoid deferring manageability to a later
   phase of the development of the specification.

   When a WG considers operation and management functionality for a
   protocol, the document should contain enough information for readers
   to understand how the protocol will be deployed, operated, and
   managed.  The considerations do not need to be comprehensive and
   exhaustive; focus should be on key aspects.  The WG should expect
   that considerations for operations and management may need to be
   updated in the future, after further operational experience has been
   gained.

   The Ops Directorate (OpsDir) can use this document to inform their
   reviews.  A list of guidelines and a checklist of questions to
   consider, which a reviewer can use to evaluate whether the protocol
   and documentation address common operations and management needs, is
   provided in [CHECKLIST].

   This document is also of interest to the broader community, who wants
   to understand, contribute to, and review Internet-Drafts, taking
   operational considerations into account.

2.  Terminology

   This document does not describe interoperability requirements.  As
   such, it does not use the capitalized keywords defined in [BCP14].

   This section defines key terms used throughout the document to ensure
   clarity and consistency.  Some terms are drawn from existing RFCs and
   IETF Internet-Drafts, while others are defined here for the purposes
   of this document.  Where appropriate, references are provided for
   further reading or authoritative definitions.

   *  Cause: See [I-D.ietf-nmop-terminology].

   *  CLI: Command Line Interface.  A human-oriented interface,
      typically a Proprietary Interface, to hardware or software devices
      (e.g., hosts, routers, or operating systems).  The commands, their
      syntax, and the precise semantics of the parameters may vary
      considerably between different vendors, between products from the
      same vendor, and even between different versions or releases of a
      single product.  No attempt at standardizing CLIs has been made by
      the IETF.



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   *  Data Model: A set of mechanisms for representing, organizing,
      storing, and handling data within a particular type of data store
      or repository.  This usually comprises a collection of data
      structures such as lists, tables, relations, etc., a collection of
      operations that can be applied to the structures such as
      retrieval, update, summation, etc., and a collection of integrity
      rules that define the legal states (set of values) or changes of
      state (operations on values).  A Data Model may be derived by
      mapping the contents of an Information Model or may be developed
      ab initio.  Further discussion of Data Models can be found in
      [RFC3444], Section 5.2, and Section 5.3.

   *  Fault: See [I-D.ietf-nmop-terminology].

   *  Fault Management: The process of interpreting fault notifications
      and other alerts and alarms, isolating faults, correlating them,
      and deducing underlying Causes.  See Section 5.4 for more
      information.

   *  Information Model: An abstraction and representation of the
      entities in a managed environment, their properties, attributes
      and operations, and the way that they relate to each other.  The
      model is independent of any specific software usage, protocol, or
      platform [RFC3444].  See Sections 5.2 and 5.3.1 for further
      discussion of Information Models.

   *  New Protocol and Protocol Extension: These terms are used in this
      document to identify entirely new protocols, new versions of
      existing protocols, and extensions to protocols.

   *  OAM: Operations, Administration, and Maintenance [RFC6291]
      [I-D.ietf-opsawg-oam-characterization] is the term given to the
      combination of:

      1.  Operation activities that are undertaken to keep the network
          running as intended.  They include monitoring of the network.

      2.  Administration activities that keep track of resources in the
          network and how they are used.  They include the bookkeeping
          necessary to track networking resources.

      3.  Maintenance activities focused on facilitating repairs and
          upgrades.  They also involve corrective and preventive
          measures to make the managed network run more effectively.







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    The broader concept of "operations and management" that is the
    subject of this document encompasses OAM, in addition to other
    management and provisioning tools and concepts. This is
    sometimes known as "OAM and Management" or "O&M" as
    explained in {{RFC6291}}.

   *  Probable Root Cause: See [I-D.ietf-nmop-network-incident-yang]

   *  Problem: See [I-D.ietf-nmop-terminology].

   *  Proprietary Interface: An interface to manage a network element
      that is not standardized.  As such, the user interface, syntax,
      and semantics typically vary significantly between
      implementations.  Examples of proprietary interfaces include
      Command Line Interface (CLI), management web portal and Browser
      User Interface (BUI), Graphical User Interface (GUI), and vendor-
      specific application programming interface (API).

   *  Protocol Designer: An individual, a group of people, or an IETF WG
      involved in the development and specification of New Protocols or
      Protocol Extensions.

   *  Technical Document: This includes any document that describes the
      design, specification, implementation, or deployment of a new
      Protocol or Protocol Extensions.

3.  Documentation Requirements for IETF Specifications

3.1.  "Operational Considerations" Section

   All Internet-Drafts that document a technical specification and are
   advanced for publication as IETF RFCs are required to include an
   "Operational Considerations" section.  Internet-Drafts that do not
   document technical specifications, such as process, policy, or
   administrative Internet-Drafts, are not required to include such a
   section.

   After evaluating the operational (Section 4) and manageability
   (Section 5) aspects of a New Protocol, a Protocol Extension, or an
   architecture, the resulting practices and requirements should be
   documented in an "Operational Considerations" section within the
   specification.  Since protocols are intended for operational
   deployment and management within real networks, it is expected that
   such considerations will be present.







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   It is also recommended that operational and manageability
   considerations be addressed early in the protocol design process.
   Consequently, early revisions of Internet-Drafts are expected to
   include an "Operational Considerations" section.

   An "Operational Considerations" section should include a discussion
   of the management and operations topics raised in this document.
   When one or more of these topics is not relevant, it would be helpful
   to include a brief statement explaining why it is not relevant or
   applicable for the New Protocol or Protocol Extension.  Of course,
   additional relevant operational and manageability topics should be
   included as well.  A concise checklist of key questions is provided
   in Appendix A.

   Data Models (e.g., YANG) and other schema artifacts (JSON schema,
   YAML, CDDL, etc.) may be consumed out of the RFCs that specify them.
   As such, it is recommended that operational aspects for a data model
   (and similar artifacts) are documented as part of the model itself.
   Such considerations should not be duplicated in the narrative part of
   a specification that includes such artifacts.

      Readers may refer to the following non-exhaustive list for
      examples of specifications, covering various areas, with adequate
      documentation of operational considerations, including
      manageability: [I-D.ietf-core-dns-over-coap], [I-D.ietf-suit-mti],
      [RFC9937] [RFC7574], [RFC9877], and [RFC9552].  For example, given
      the various available transport alternatives,
      [I-D.ietf-core-dns-over-coap] discusses co-existence with those
      and clarifies some key deployment aspects such as redirection,
      forwarding loop prevention, and error handling.

3.2.  "Operational Considerations" Section Boilerplate When No New
      Considerations Exist

   After a Protocol Designer has considered the manageability
   requirements of a New Protocol or Protocol Extension, they may
   determine that no management functionality or operational best-
   practice clarifications are needed.  It would be helpful to
   reviewers, those who may update or write extensions to the protocol
   in the future, and those deploying the protocol, to know the
   rationale for the decisions on the protocol's manageability at the
   time of its design.

   If there are no new manageability or deployment considerations, the
   "Operational Considerations" section must contain the following
   simple statement, followed by a brief explanation of why that is the
   case.




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   "There are no new operations or manageability requirements introduced
     by this document.

     Explanation: [brief rationale goes here]"

   The presence of such a section would indicate to the reader that due
   consideration has been given to manageability and operations.

   When the specification is a Protocol Extension, and the base protocol
   already addresses the relevant operational and manageability
   considerations, it is helpful to reference the considerations section
   of the base document.

3.3.  Placement of the "Operational Considerations" Section

   It is recommended that the section be placed immediately before the
   Security Considerations section.  Reviewers interested in this
   section will find it easily, and this placement could simplify the
   development of tools to detect its presence.

4.  How Will the New Protocol or Protocol Extension Fit into the Current
    Environment?

   Designers of a New Protocol or Protocol Extension should carefully
   consider the operational aspects of real-world deployments, which can
   directly impact its success.  Such aspects include interactions with
   existing solutions, upgrade or deployment paths, the ability to debug
   problems, ease of configuration, and a state diagram that operations
   staff can understand.  This exercise need not be reflected directly
   in their document, but could help visualize how to apply the protocol
   in the environments where it will be deployed.  [RFC5218] provides a
   more detailed discussion on what makes for a successful protocol.

      BGP flap damping [RFC2439] is an example.  It was designed to
      block high-frequency route flaps.  Some BGP implementations were
      memory-constrained so often elected not to support this function,
      others found a conflict where path exploration caused false flap
      damping resulting in loss of reachability.  As a result, flap
      damping was often not enabled network-wide, contrary to the
      intentions of the original designers.

4.1.  Installation and Initial Setup

   Anything that can be configured can be misconfigured.  "Architectural
   Principles of the Internet" [RFC1958], Section 3.8, states:






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   |  Avoid options and parameters whenever possible.  Any options and
   |  parameters should be configured or negotiated dynamically rather
   |  than manually.

   The New Protocol or Protocol Extension should be able to operate "out
   of the box".  To simplify configuration, Protocol Designers should
   specify reasonable defaults, including default modes and parameters.
   For example, define default values for modes, timers, default state
   of logical control variables, default transports, and so on.

   Protocol Designers should explain the background of the chosen
   default values and provide the rationale.  In many cases, as
   technology changes, the documented values might make less and less
   sense.  It is helpful to understand whether defaults are based on
   best current practice and are expected to change as technologies
   advance, or whether they have a more universal value that should not
   be changed lightly.  For example, the default interface speed might
   change over time as network speeds increase, and cryptographic
   algorithms might be expected to change over time as older algorithms
   are "broken".

   Default values should generally favor the conservative side over the
   "optimizing performance" side (e.g., the initial Round-Trip Time
   (RTT) and Round-Trip Time Variance (RTTVAR) values of a TCP
   connection [RFC6298]).

   For parameters that can vary (e.g., speed-dependent), instead of
   using a constant, set the default value as a function of the variable
   to reduce the risk of problems caused by technology advancement.

      For example, where protocols involve cryptographic keys, Protocol
      Designers should consider not only key generation and validation
      mechanisms but also the format in which private keys are stored,
      transmitted, and restored.  Designers should specify any expected
      consistency checks (e.g., recomputing an expanded key from the
      seed) that help verify correctness and integrity.  Additionally,
      guidance should be given on data retention, restoration limits,
      and cryptographic module interoperability when importing/exporting
      private key material.  Refer to
      [I-D.ietf-lamps-dilithium-certificates] for an example of how such
      considerations are incorporated.










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4.2.  Migration Path

   If the New Protocol or Protocol Extension is a new version of an
   existing one, or if it is replacing another technology, the Protocol
   Designer should consider how deployments should transition to the New
   Protocol or Protocol Extension.  This should include coexistence with
   previously deployed protocols and/or previous versions of the same
   protocol, management of incompatibilities between versions,
   translation between versions, and consideration of potential side
   effects.  A key question is: Are older protocols or versions
   disabled, or do they coexist with the New Protocol or Protocol
   Extension in the network?

   Many protocols benefit from being incrementally deployable --
   operators may deploy aspects of a protocol before deploying it fully.
   In those cases, the operational considerations should also specify
   whether the New Protocol or Protocol Extension requires any changes
   to the existing infrastructure, particularly the network.  If so, the
   protocol specification should describe the nature of those changes,
   where they are required, and how they can be introduced in a manner
   that facilitates deployment.

   Incentivizing good security operation practices when migrating to the
   New Protocol or Protocol Extension should be encouraged.  For
   example, patching is fundamental for security operations and can be
   incentivized if Protocol Designers consider supporting cheap and fast
   connection hand-offs and reconnections.

   When Protocol Designers are considering how deployments should
   transition to the New Protocol or Protocol Extension, impacts to
   current techniques employed by operators should be documented and
   mitigations included, where possible, so that consistent security
   operations and management can be achieved.  Refer to [RFC8170] for a
   detailed discussion on transition versus coexistence.

4.3.  Requirements on Other Protocols and Functional Components

   Protocol Designers should consider the requirements that the New
   Protocol might put on other protocols and functional components and
   should also document the requirements from other protocols and
   functional components that have been considered in designing the New
   Protocol.









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   These considerations should generally remain illustrative to avoid
   creating restrictions or dependencies, or potentially impacting the
   behavior of existing protocols, or restricting the extensibility of
   other protocols, or assuming other protocols will not be extended in
   certain ways.  If restrictions or dependencies exist, they should be
   stated.

      For example, the design of the Resource ReSerVation Protocol
      (RSVP) [RFC2205] required each router to look at the RSVP PATH
      message and, if the router understood RSVP, add its own address to
      the message to enable automatic tunneling through non-RSVP
      routers.  But in reality, routers cannot look at an otherwise
      normal IP packet and potentially take it off the fast path!  The
      initial designers overlooked that a new "deep packet inspection"
      requirement was being put on the functional components of a
      router.  The "router alert" option ([RFC2113], [RFC2711]) was
      finally developed to solve this problem, for RSVP and other
      protocols that require the router to take some packets off the
      fast-forwarding path.  Yet, Router Alert has its own problems in
      impacting router performance and security.  Refer to [RFC9805] for
      deprecation of the IPv6 Router Alert Option for New Protocols and
      Section 4.8 of RFC 7126 [BCP186] for threats and advice related to
      IPv4 Router Alert.

4.4.  Impact on Network Operation

   The introduction of a New Protocol or Protocol Extension may have an
   impact on the operation of existing networks.  As discussed in
   Section 2.1 of [RFC6709] major extensions may have characteristics
   leading to a risk of operational problems.  Protocol Designers should
   outline such operational impacts (which may be positive), including
   scaling benefits or concerns, and interactions with other protocols.
   Protocol Designers should describe the scenarios in which the New
   Protocol or its extensions are expected to be applicable or
   beneficial.  This includes any relevant deployment environments,
   network topologies, usage constraints such as limited domains
   [RFC8799], or use cases that justify or constrain adoption.  For
   example, a New Protocol or Protocol Extension that doubles the number
   of active, reachable addresses in a network might have implications
   for the scalability of interior gateway protocols, and such impacts
   should be evaluated accordingly.  Per Section 2.15 of RFC 2360
   [BCP22], New Protocol or Protocol Extension specifications should
   establish the limitations on the scale of use and limits on the
   resources used.

   If the protocol specification requires changes to end hosts, it
   should also indicate whether safeguards exist to protect networks
   from potential overload.  Moreover, Per Section 2.16 of RFC 2360



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   [BCP22], New Protocol or Protocol Extension specifications should
   address any possible destabilizing events, and means by which the
   protocol resists or recovers from them.  For instance, a congestion
   control algorithm must comply with [BCP133] to prevent congestion
   collapse and ensure network stability.

   A protocol could send active monitoring packets on the wire.  Without
   careful consideration, active monitoring might achieve high accuracy
   at the cost of generating an excessive number of monitoring packets.

   Protocol Designers should consider the potential impact on the
   behavior of other protocols in the network and on the traffic levels
   and traffic patterns that might change, including specific types of
   traffic, such as multicast.  Also, consider the need to install new
   components that are added to the network as a result of changes in
   the configuration, such as servers performing auto-configuration
   operations.

   Protocol Designers should consider also the impact on infrastructure
   applications like DNS [RFC1034], the registries, or the size of
   routing tables.

      For example, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) [RFC5321]
      servers use a reverse DNS lookup to filter out incoming connection
      requests: when Berkeley installed a new spam filter, their mail
      server stopped functioning because of overload of the DNS cache
      resolver.

   The impact of New Protocols or Protocol Extensions, and the results
   of new OAM tools developed for them, must be considered with respect
   to traffic delivery performance and ongoing manageability.  For
   example, it must be noted whether the New Protocol, Protocol
   Extension, or OAM tools cause increased delay or jitter in real-time
   traffic applications, or increased response time in client-server
   applications.  Further, if the additional traffic caused by OAM tools
   and data collection could result in the management plane becoming
   overwhelmed, then this must be called out, and suitable mechanisms to
   rate limit the OAM traffic must be considered.  Potential options
   include: document the limitations, propose solution track(s), include
   an optional rate limiting feature in the specifications, or impose a
   rate limiting feature in the specifications.

      Consider three examples: (1) In Bidirectional Forwarding Detection
      for MPLS [RFC5884] it is possible to configure very rapid BFD
      transmissions (of the order of 3ms) on a very large number of
      parallel Label Switched Paths (LSPs) with the result that the
      management systems and end nodes may become overwhelmed -- this
      can be protected by applying limits to the number of LSPs that may



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      be tested at once. (2) Notifications or logs from systems (through
      YANG or other means) should be rate-limited so that they do not
      flood the receiving management station. (3) The application of
      sophisticated encryption or filtering rules needs to be considered
      in the light of the additional processing they may impose on the
      hardware forwarding path for traffic.

   New metrics may be required to assess traffic performance.  Protocol
   Designers may refer to [RFC6390] for guidelines for considering new
   performance metrics.

   It is important to minimize the impact caused by configuration
   changes.  Given configuration A and configuration B, it should be
   possible to generate the operations necessary to get from A to B with
   minimal state changes and effects on network and systems.

4.5.  Impact on Security Operations

   Security Operations (SecOps) is a collaborative approach that
   combines security and operational teams to improve the ability of
   operators to protect and manage the network effectively and
   efficiently [SECOPS].  Security operators detect malicious activity
   and respond to threats and are a crucial part of defending against
   attacks alongside the management and operation of the network.

   Protocol Designers should consider the impacts of a New Protocol or
   Protocol Extension on Security Operations in networks that the
   protocol will be deployed in.

   Security operators extensively rely upon Indicators of Compromise
   (IoCs) [RFC9424].  The deployment of a New Protocol or Protocol
   Extension may change the type, locations, or availability of IoCs.
   Protocol Designers should outline such changes to ensure operators
   can manage and defend their network consistently.  Consider the
   operators' requirement for digital forensics from the network or
   endpoints with critical information found in logs.  Logging events
   schema and guidance for operators should be considered when designing
   a New Protocol or Protocol Extension to ensure operators have the
   information they need.  [I-D.ietf-quic-qlog-main-schema] is an
   example of extensible structured logging.











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   Tooling required by security operators should be documented in the
   design and deployment of a New Protocol or Protocol Extension.
   Operators may require new tooling or methods for managing network
   traffic in response to protocol changes to ensure consistent
   availability and performance of networks.  Similarly, updating and
   augmenting existing forensic tools such as protocol dissectors is
   expected when a New Protocol is deployed, but having to completely
   rebuild such tooling would greatly reduce the effectiveness of
   security operators, so protocol extensibility should be considered.

4.6.  Verifying Correct Operation

   An important function that should be provided is guidance on how to
   verify the correct operation of a protocol.  A Protocol Designer may
   suggest testing techniques for qualifying and quantifying the impact
   of the protocol on the network before it is partially or fully
   deployed, as well as testing techniques for identifying the effects
   that the protocol might have on the network after being deployed.

   Protocol Designers should consider techniques for testing the effect
   the protocol has had on the infrastructure by sending data through it
   and observing its behavior (a.k.a., active monitoring).  Protocol
   Designers should consider how the correct end-to-end operation of the
   New Protocol or Protocol Extension can be tested actively and
   passively, and how the correct data or forwarding plane function of
   each involved element can be verified to be working correctly with
   the New Protocol or Protocol Extension.  Which metrics are of
   interest?

   Protocol Designers should consider how to test the correct end-to-end
   operation of the service or network, how to verify correct protocol
   behavior, and whether such verification is achieved by testing the
   service function and/or the forwarding function of each network
   element.  This may be accomplished through the collection of status
   and statistical information gathered from devices.

   Having simple protocol status and health indicators on involved
   devices is a recommended means to check correct operation.

4.7.  Message Formats

   Where protocol specifications result in messages (such as errors or
   warnings) being carried as text strings or output for consumption by
   human operators, consideration should be given to making it possible
   for implementations to be configured so that the messages can be
   viewed in the local language.  In such cases, it may be helpful to
   transmit a specific message code (i.e., a number) along with the
   default English language message, so that implementations may easily



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   map the code to a local text string.

   Further discussion of Internationalization issues may be found in
   [BCP166].

5.  How Will the Protocol Be Managed?

   The considerations of manageability should start from identifying the
   entities to be managed, as well as how the managed protocol is
   supposed to be installed, configured, and monitored.

   Considerations for management should describe what aspects of the
   system require management and the management functions that need to
   be supported.  This includes identifying any assumptions or
   constraints relevant to management interactions, such as the types of
   interfaces or protocols required.  These considerations should avoid
   dependence on a specific management deployment model and should
   remain applicable regardless of where management systems are located
   or how they are accessed.

   The management model should take into account factors such as:

   *  What type of management entities will be involved (agents, network
      management systems)?

   *  What is the possible architecture (client-server, manager-agent,
      poll-driven or event-driven, auto-configuration, two levels or
      hierarchical)?

   *  What are the management operations (initial configuration, dynamic
      configuration, alarm and exception reporting, logging, performance
      monitoring, performance reporting, debugging)?

   *  How are these operations performed (locally, remotely, atomic
      operation, scripts)?  Are they performed immediately or are they
      time scheduled, or event triggered?

   Protocol Designers should consider how the New Protocol or Protocol
   Extension will be managed in different deployment scales.  It might
   be sensible to use a local management interface to manage the New
   Protocol or Protocol Extension on a single device, but in a large
   network, remote management using a centralized server and/or using
   distributed management functionality might make more sense.  Auto-
   configuration and default parameters might be possible for some New
   Protocols or Protocol Extensions.






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   Management needs to be considered not only from the perspective of a
   device, but also from the perspective of network and service
   management.  A service might be network and operational functionality
   derived from the implementation and deployment of a New Protocol or
   Protocol Extension.  Often, an individual network element is unaware
   of the service being delivered.

   WGs should consider how to configure multiple related/co-operating
   devices and how to back off if one of those configurations fails or
   causes trouble.  NETCONF addresses this in a generic manner by
   allowing an operator to lock the configuration on multiple devices,
   perform the configuration settings/changes, check that they are OK
   (undo if not), and then unlock the devices.

   Techniques for debugging protocol interactions in a network must be
   part of the network management discussion.  Implementation source
   code should be debugged before ever being added to a network, so
   asserts and memory dumps do not normally belong in management data
   models.  However, debugging on-the-wire interactions is a protocol
   issue: while the messages can be seen by sniffing, it is enormously
   helpful if a protocol specification supports features that make
   debugging of network interactions and behaviors easier.  There could
   be alerts issued when messages are received or when there are state
   transitions in the protocol state machine.  However, the state
   machine is often not part of the on-the-wire protocol; the state
   machine explains how the protocol works so that an implementer can
   decide, in an implementation-specific manner, how to react to a
   received event.

   In a client/server protocol, it may be more important to instrument
   the server end of a protocol than the client end, since the
   performance of the server might impact more nodes than the
   performance of a specific client.

5.1.  Available Management Technologies

   The IETF provides several standardized management protocols suitable
   for various operational purposes, for example as outlined in
   [RFC6632].  Note that SNMP is no longer recommended for configuration
   (read-write) operations.  Better programmatic alternatives are
   discussed further in Section 5.2.  This document formally deprecates
   the following recommendation from [BCP22]:

   |  a MIB must be defined within the standard or in a companion
   |  document.

   Readers seeking more in-depth definitions or explanations should
   consult the referenced materials.



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5.2.  Interoperability

   Management interoperability is critical for enabling information
   exchange and operations across diverse network devices and management
   applications, regardless of vendor, model, or software release.  It
   facilitates the use of third-party applications and outsourced
   management services.

   While individual device management via Proprietary Interfaces may
   suffice for small deployments, large-scale networks comprising
   equipment from multiple vendors necessitate consistent, automated
   management.  Relying on vendor- and model-specific interfaces for
   extensive deployments, such as hundreds of branch offices, severely
   impedes scalability and automation of operational processes.  The
   primary goal of management interoperability is to enable the scalable
   deployment and lifecycle management of new network functions and
   services, while ensuring a clear understanding of their operational
   impact and total cost of ownership.

   Achieving universal agreement on a single management syntax and
   protocol is challenging.  However, the IETF has significantly evolved
   its approach to network management, moving beyond SMIv2 and SNMP.
   Modern IETF management solutions primarily leverage YANG [RFC7950]
   for Data Modeling and NETCONF [RFC6241] or RESTCONF [RFC8040] for
   protocol interactions.  This shift, as further elaborated in
   [RFC6632], emphasizes structured Data Models and programmatic
   interfaces to enhance automation and interoperability.  Other
   protocols, such as IPFIX [RFC7011] for flow accounting and syslog
   [RFC5424] for logging, continue to play specific roles in
   comprehensive network management.

   Interoperability must address both syntactic and semantic aspects.
   While syntactic variations across implementations can often be
   handled through adaptive processing, semantic differences pose a
   greater challenge, as the meaning of data is intrinsically tied to
   the managed entity.

   Information Models (IMs) enable and provide the foundation for
   semantic interoperability.  An IM defines the conceptual
   understanding of managed information, independent of specific
   protocols or vendor implementations.  This allows for consistent
   interpretation and correlation of data across different data models
   (and hence management protocols), such as a YANG Data Model and IPFIX
   Information Elements concerning the same event.  For instance, an IM
   can standardize how error conditions are counted, ensuring that a
   counter has the same meaning whether collected via NETCONF or
   exported via IPFIX.




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   Protocol Designers should consider developing an IM, when multiple
   Data Model (DM) representations (e.g., YANG and/or IPFIX) are
   required, to ensure lossless semantic mapping.  IMs are also
   beneficial for complex or numerous DMs.  As illustrated in Figure 1,
   an IM serves as a conceptual blueprint for designers and operators,
   from which concrete DMs are derived for implementers.  [RFC3444]
   provides further guidance on distinguishing IMs from DMs.

                    IM               --> conceptual/abstract model
                    |                    for designers & operators
         +----------+---------+
         |          |         |
         DM         DM        DM     --> concrete/detailed model
                                            for implementers

          Figure 1: Information Models (IMs) and Data Models (DMs)

   Protocol Designers must identify the essential operational,
   configuration, state, and statistical information required for
   effective monitoring, control, and troubleshooting of New Protocols
   or Protocol Extensions.  This includes defining relevant parameters,
   performance metrics, error indicators, and contextual data crucial
   for diagnostics and lifecycle management.

   To ensure interoperability, management protocol and Data Model
   standards should incorporate clear compliance clauses, specifying the
   expected level of support.

5.3.  Management Information

   Languages used to describe an Information Model can influence the
   nature of the model.  Using a particular data modeling language, such
   as YANG, influences the model to use certain types of structures, for
   example, hierarchical trees, groupings, and reusable types.  YANG, as
   described in [RFC6020] and [RFC7950], provides advantages for
   expressing network information, including clear separation of
   configuration data and operational state, support for constraints and
   dependencies, and extensibility for evolving requirements.  Its
   ability to represent relationships and dependencies in a structured
   and modular way makes it an effective choice for defining management
   information models.

   While an Information Model is typically described in English text (or
   sometimes UML) to define the conceptual management requirements,
   providing a formal Data Model (such as a YANG module) ensures these
   concepts are precisely mapped to a concrete implementation.  This
   dual approach helps maintain consistency between high-level design
   and practical deployment.



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   A management Information Model should include a discussion of what is
   manageable, which aspects of the protocol need to be configured, what
   types of operations are allowed, what protocol-specific events might
   occur, which events can be counted, and for which events an operator
   should be notified.

   When defining management information, it is important to categorize
   data into configuration, operational state, and statistics.
   Conflating these distinct types into a single element makes it
   difficult for operators to distinguish between administratively set
   values and the dynamic state of the protocol.  The model should be
   structured to allow these categories to be handled independently.

   What is typically difficult to work through are relationships between
   abstract objects.  Ideally, an Information Model would describe the
   relationships between the objects and concepts in the information
   model.

   Is there always just one instance of this object or can there be
   multiple instances?  Does this object relate to exactly one other
   object, or may it relate to multiple?  When is it possible to change
   a relationship?

   Do objects (such as instances in lists) share fate?  For example, if
   an instance in list A must exist before a related instance in list B
   can be created, what happens to the instance in list B if the related
   instance in list A is deleted?  Does the existence of relationships
   between objects have an impact on fate sharing?  YANG's relationships
   and constraints can help express and enforce these relationships.

5.3.1.  Information Model Design

   This document recommends keeping the Information Model as simple as
   possible by applying the following criteria:

   1.  Start with a small set of essential objects and make additions
       only as further objects are needed with the objective of keeping
       the absolute number of objects as small as possible while still
       delivering the required function such that there is no
       duplication between objects and where one piece of information
       can be derived from the other pieces of information, it is not
       itself represented as an object.

   2.  Require that all objects be essential for management.

   3.  Consider evidence of current use of the managed protocol, and the
       perceived utility of objects added to the Information Model.




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   4.  Exclude objects that can be derived from others in this or other
       information models.

   5.  Avoid causing critical sections to be heavily instrumented.  A
       guideline is one counter per critical section per layer.

   6.  When defining an Information Model using YANG Data Structure
       Extensions [RFC8791] (thereby keeping it abstract and
       implementation-agnostic per [RFC3444]) ensure that the
       Information Model remains simple, modular, and clear by following
       the authoring guidelines in [I-D.ietf-netmod-rfc8407bis].

   7.  When illustrating the abstract Information Model, use YANG Tree
       Diagrams [RFC8340] to provide a simple, standardized, and
       implementation-neutral model structure.

5.3.2.  YANG Data Model Considerations

   When considering YANG Data Models for a new specification, there are
   multiple types of Data Models that may be applicable.  The hierarchy
   and relationship between these types is described in Section 3.5.1 of
   [I-D.ietf-netmod-rfc8407bis].  A new specification may require or
   benefit from one or more of these YANG Data Model types.

   *  Device Models - Also called Network Element Models, represent the
      configuration, operational state, and notifications of individual
      devices.  These models are designed to distinguish between these
      types of data and support querying and updating device-specific
      parameters.  Consideration should be given to how device-level
      models might fit with broader network and service Data Models.

   *  Network Models - Also called Network Service Models, define
      abstractions for managing the behavior and relationships of
      multiple devices and device subsystems within a network.  As
      described in [RFC8199], these models are used to manage network-
      wide.  These abstractions are useful to network operators and
      applications that interface with network controllers.  Examples of
      network models include the L3VPN Network Model (L3NM) [RFC9182]
      and the L2VPN Network Model (L2VPN) [RFC9291].












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   *  Service Models - Also called Customer Service Models, defined in
      [RFC8309], are designed to abstract the customer interface into a
      service.  They consider customer-centric parameters such as
      Service Level Agreement (SLA) and high-level policy (e.g., network
      intent).  Given that different operators and different customers
      may have widely-varying business processes, these models should
      focus on common aspects of a service with strong multi-party
      consensus.  Examples of service models include the L3VPN Service
      Model (L3SM) [RFC8299] and the L2VPN Service Model (L2SM)
      [RFC8466].

   A common challenge in YANG Data Model development lies in defining
   the relationships between abstract service or network constructs and
   the underlying device models.  Therefore, when designing YANG
   modules, it is important to go beyond simply modeling configuration
   and operational data (i.e., leaf nodes), and also consider how the
   status and relationships of abstract or distributed constructs can be
   reflected based on parameters available in the network.

   For example, the status of a service may depend on the operational
   state of multiple network elements to which the service is attached.
   In such cases, the YANG Data Model (and its accompanying
   documentation) should clearly describe how service-level status is
   derived from underlying device-level information.  Similarly, it is
   beneficial to define events (and relevant triggered notifications)
   that indicate changes in an underlying state, enabling reliable
   detection and correlation of service-affecting conditions.  Including
   such mechanisms improves the robustness of integrations and helps
   ensure consistent behavior across implementations.

   Specific guidelines to consider when authoring any type of YANG
   modules are described in [I-D.ietf-netmod-rfc8407bis].

5.4.  Fault Management

   Protocol Designers should identify and document essential Faults,
   health indicators, alarms, and events that must be propagated to
   management applications or exposed through a Data Model.  It is also
   recommended to describe how the Protocol Extension will affect the
   existing alarms and notification structure of the base Protocol, and
   to outline the potential impact of misconfigurations of the Protocol
   Extensions.

   Protocol Designers should consider how fault information will be
   propagated.  Will it be done using asynchronous notifications or
   polling of health indicators?





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   If notifications are used to alert operators to certain conditions,
   then Protocol Designers should discuss mechanisms to throttle
   notifications to prevent congestion and duplications of event
   notifications.  Will there be a hierarchy of Faults, and will the
   Fault reporting be done by each Fault in the hierarchy, or will only
   the lowest Fault be reported and the higher levels be suppressed?
   Should there be aggregated status indicators based on concatenation
   of propagated Faults from a given domain or device?

   Notifications (e.g., SNMP traps and informs, syslog, or protocol-
   specific mechanisms) can alert an operator when an aspect of the New
   Protocol or Protocol Extension fails or encounters an error or
   failure condition.  Should the event reporting provide guaranteed
   accurate delivery of the event information within a given (high)
   margin of confidence?  Can we poll the latest events in the box?

5.4.1.  Liveness Detection and Monitoring

   Protocol Designers should always build in basic testing features
   (e.g., ICMP echo, UDP/TCP echo service, NULL RPCs (remote procedure
   calls)) that can be used to test for liveness, with an option to
   enable and disable them.

   Mechanisms for monitoring the liveness of the protocol and for
   detecting Faults in protocol connectivity are usually built into
   protocols.  In some cases, mechanisms already exist within other
   protocols responsible for maintaining lower-layer connectivity (e.g.,
   ICMP echo), but often new procedures are required to detect failures
   and to report rapidly, allowing remedial action to be taken.

   These liveness monitoring mechanisms do not typically require
   additional management capabilities.  However, when a system detects a
   Fault, there is often a requirement to coordinate recovery action
   through management applications or at least to record the fact in an
   event log.

5.4.2.  Fault Determination

   It can be helpful to describe how Faults can be pinpointed using
   management information.  For example, counters might record instances
   of error conditions.  Some Faults might be able to be pinpointed by
   comparing the outputs of one device and the inputs of another device,
   looking for anomalies.  Protocol Designers should consider what
   counters should count.  If a single counter provided by vendor A
   counts three types of error conditions, while the corresponding
   counter provided by vendor B counts seven types of error conditions,
   these counters cannot be compared effectively -- they are not
   interoperable counters.



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   How do you distinguish between faulty messages and good messages?

   Would some threshold-based mechanisms be usable to help determine
   error conditions?  Are notifications for all events needed, or are
   there some "standard" notifications that could be used?  Or can
   relevant counters be polled as needed?

      Remote Monitoring (RMON) events/alarms is an example of threshold-
      based mechanism.

5.4.3.  Probable Root Cause Analysis

   Probable Root Cause analysis is about working out where the
   foundational Fault or Problem might be.  Since one Fault may give
   rise to another Fault or Problem, a probable root cause is commonly
   meant to describe the original, source event or combination of
   circumstances that is the foundation of all related Faults.

      For example, if end-to-end data delivery is failing (e.g.,
      reported by a notification), Probable Root Cause analysis can help
      find the failed link or node, or mis-configuration, within the
      end-to-end path.

5.4.4.  Fault Isolation

   It might be useful to isolate or quarantine Faults, such as isolating
   a device that emits malformed messages that are necessary to
   coordinate connections properly.  This might be able to be done by
   configuring next-hop devices to drop the faulty messages to prevent
   them from entering the rest of the network.

5.5.  Configuration Management

   A Protocol Designer should document the basic configuration
   parameters that need to be instrumented for a New Protocol or
   Protocol Extensions, as well as default values and modes of
   operation.

   What information should be maintained across reboots of the device,
   or restarts of the management system?

   "Requirements for Configuration Management of IP-based Networks"
   [RFC3139] discusses requirements for configuration management,
   including discussion of different levels of management, high-level
   policies, network-wide configuration data, and device-local
   configuration.  Network configuration extends beyond simple multi-
   device push or pull operations.  It also involves ensuring that the
   configurations being pushed are semantically compatible across



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   devices and that the resulting behavior of all involved devices
   corresponds to the intended behavior.  Is the attachment between them
   configured compatibly on both ends?  Is the IS-IS metric the same?
   Answering those questions for a 1,000 devices network is not that
   easy.

   Several efforts have existed in the IETF to develop policy-based
   configuration management.  "Terminology for Policy-Based Management"
   [RFC3198] was written to standardize the terminology across these
   efforts.

   Implementations should not arbitrarily modify configuration data.  In
   some cases (such as Access Control Lists (ACLs)), the order of data
   items is significant and comprises part of the configured data.  If a
   Protocol Designer defines mechanisms for configuration, it would be
   preferable to standardize the order of elements for consistency of
   configuration and of reporting across vendors and across releases
   from vendors.

   There are two parts to this:

   1.  A Network Management System (NMS) could optimize ACLs for
       performance reasons.

   2.  Unless the device or NMS is configured with adequate rules and
       guided by administrators with extensive experience, reordering
       ACLs can introduce significant security risks.

   Network-wide configurations may be stored in central databases and
   transformed into readable formats that can be pushed to devices,
   either by generating sequences of CLI commands or complete textual
   configuration files that are pushed to devices.  There is no common
   database schema for network configuration, although the models used
   by various operators are probably very similar.  It is operationally
   beneficial to extract, document, and standardize the common parts of
   these network-wide configuration database schemas.  A Protocol
   Designer should consider how to standardize the common parts of
   configuring the New Protocol, while recognizing that vendors may also
   have proprietary aspects of their configurations.












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   It is important to enable operators to concentrate on the
   configuration of the network or service as a whole, rather than
   individual devices.  Support for configuration transactions across
   several devices could significantly simplify network configuration
   management.  The ability to distribute configurations to multiple
   devices, or to modify candidate configurations on multiple devices,
   and then activate them in a near-simultaneous manner might help.
   Protocol Designers can consider how it would make sense for their
   protocol to be configured across multiple devices.  Configuration
   templates might also be helpful.

   Consensus of the 2002 IAB Workshop [RFC3535] was that textual
   configuration files should be able to contain international
   characters.  Human-readable strings should utilize UTF-8, and
   protocol elements should be in case-insensitive ASCII.

   A mechanism to dump-and-restore configurations is a primitive
   operation needed by operators.  Standards for pulling and pushing
   configurations from/to devices are highly beneficial.

   Given configuration A and configuration B, it should be possible to
   generate the operations necessary to get from A to B with minimal
   state changes and effects on network and systems.  It is important to
   minimize the impact caused by configuration changes.

   A Protocol Designer should consider the configurable items that exist
   for the control of function via the protocol elements described in
   the protocol specification.  For example, sometimes the protocol
   requires that timers can be configured by the operator to ensure
   specific policy-based behavior by the implementation.  These timers
   should have default values suggested in the protocol specification
   and may not need to be otherwise configurable.

5.6.  Accounting Management

   A Protocol Designer should consider whether it would be appropriate
   to collect usage information related to this protocol and, if so,
   what usage information would be appropriate to collect.

   "Introduction to Accounting Management" [RFC2975] discusses a number
   of factors relevant to monitoring usage of protocols for purposes of
   capacity and trend analysis, cost allocation, auditing, and billing.
   The document also discusses how some existing protocols can be used
   for these purposes.  These factors should be considered when
   designing a protocol whose usage might need to be monitored or when
   recommending a protocol to do usage accounting.





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5.7.  Performance Management

   From a manageability point of view, it is important to determine how
   well a network deploying the protocol or technology defined in the
   document is doing.  In order to do this, the network operators need
   to consider information that would be useful to determine the
   performance characteristics of a deployed system using the target
   protocol.

   The IETF, via the Benchmarking Methodology WG (BMWG), has defined
   recommendations for the measurement of the performance
   characteristics of various internetworking technologies in a
   laboratory environment, including the systems or services that are
   built from these technologies.  Each benchmarking recommendation
   describes the class of equipment, system, or service being addressed;
   discusses the performance characteristics that are pertinent to that
   class; clearly identifies a set of metrics that aid in the
   description of those characteristics; specifies the methodologies
   required to collect said metrics; and lastly, presents the
   requirements for the common, unambiguous reporting of benchmarking
   results.  Search for "benchmark" in the RFC search tool.

   Performance metrics may be useful in multiple environments and for
   different protocols.  The IETF, via the IP Performance Measurement
   (IPPM) WG, has developed a set of standard metrics that can be
   applied to the quality, performance, and reliability of Internet data
   delivery services.  These metrics are designed such that they can be
   performed by network operators, end users, or independent testing
   groups.  The existing metrics might be applicable to the new
   protocol.  Search for "metric" in the RFC search tool.  In some
   cases, new metrics need to be defined.  It would be useful if the
   protocol documentation identified the need for such new metrics.  For
   performance management, it is often more important to report the time
   spent in a state rather than just the current state.  Snapshots alone
   are typically of less value.

   There are several parts of performance management to consider:
   protocol monitoring, device monitoring (the impact of new
   functionality/service activation on the device), network monitoring,
   and service monitoring (the impact of service activation on the
   network).  Hence, if the implementation of the New Protocol or
   Protocol Extension has any hardware/software performance implications
   (e.g., increased CPU utilization, memory consumption, or forwarding
   performance degradation), the Protocol Designers should clearly
   describe these impacts in the specification, along with any
   conditions under which they may occur and possible mitigation
   strategies.




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5.7.1.  Monitoring the Protocol

   Certain properties of protocols are useful to monitor.  The number of
   protocol packets received, the number of packets sent, and the number
   of packets dropped are usually very helpful to operators.

   Packet drops should be reflected in counter variable(s) somewhere
   that can be inspected -- both from the security point of view and
   from the troubleshooting point of view.

   Counter definitions should be unambiguous about what is included in
   the count and what is not included in the count.

   Consider the expected behaviors for counters -- what is a reasonable
   maximum value for expected usage?  Should they stop counting at the
   maximum value and retain it, or should they rollover?  Guidance
   should explain how rollovers are detected, including multiple
   occurrences.

   Consider whether multiple management applications will share a
   counter; if so, then no one management application should be allowed
   to reset the value to zero since this will impact other applications.

   Could events, such as hot-swapping a blade in a chassis, cause
   discontinuities in counter?  Does this make any difference in
   evaluating the performance of a protocol?

   The protocol specification should clearly define any inherent
   limitations and describe expected behavior when those limits are
   exceeded.  These considerations should be made independently of any
   specific management protocol or data modeling language.  In other
   words, focus on what makes sense for the protocol being managed, not
   the protocol used for management.  If a constraint is not specific to
   a management protocol, then it should be left to Data Model designers
   of that protocol to determine how to handle it.

      For example, VLAN identifiers are defined by standard to range
      from 1 to 4094.  Therefore, a YANG "vlan-id" definition
      representing the 12-bit VLAN ID used in the VLAN Tag header uses a
      range of "1..4094".











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5.7.2.  Monitoring the Device

   Consider whether device performance will be affected by the number of
   protocol entities being instantiated on the device.  Designers of an
   Information Model should include information, accessible at runtime,
   about the maximum number of instances an implementation can support,
   the current number of instances, and the expected behavior when the
   current instances exceed the capacity of the implementation or the
   capacity of the device.

   Designers of an Information Model should provide runtime information
   about the maximum supported instances, the current number of
   instances, and expected behavior when capacity is exceeded.

5.7.3.  Monitoring the Network

   Consider whether network performance will be affected by the number
   of protocol entities being deployed.

   Consider the capability of determining the operational activity, such
   as the number of messages in and the messages out, the number of
   received messages rejected due to format Problems, and the expected
   behaviors when a malformed message is received.

   What are the principal performance factors that need to be considered
   when measuring the operational performance of a network built using
   the protocol?  Is it important to measure setup times, end-to-end
   connectivity, hop-by-hop connectivity, or network throughput?

5.7.4.  Monitoring the Service

   What are the principal performance factors that need to be considered
   when measuring the performance of a service using the protocol?  Is
   it important to measure application-specific throughput, client-
   server associations, end-to-end application quality, service
   interruptions, or user experience (UX)?

5.8.  Security Management

   Protocol Designers should consider how to monitor and manage security
   aspects and vulnerabilities of the New Protocol or Protocol
   Extension.

   Should a system automatically notify operators of every event
   occurrence, or should an operator-defined threshold control when a
   notification is sent to an operator?





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   Should certain statistics be collected about the operation of the New
   Protocol that might be useful for detecting attacks, such as the
   receipt of malformed messages, messages out of order, or messages
   with invalid timestamps?  If such statistics are collected, is it
   important to count them separately for each sender to help identify
   the source of attacks?

   Security-oriented manageability topics may include risks of
   insufficient monitoring, regulatory issues with missing audit trails,
   log capacity limits, and security exposures in recommended management
   mechanisms.

   Consider security threats that may be introduced by management
   operations.

      For example, Control and Provisioning of Wireless Access Points
      (CAPWAP) [RFC5415] breaks the structure of monolithic Access
      Points (APs) into Access Controllers and Wireless Termination
      Points (WTPs).  By using a control protocol or management
      protocol, internal information that was previously not accessible
      is now exposed over the network and to management applications and
      may become a source of potential security threats.

   The granularity of access control needed on management interfaces
   needs to match operational needs.  Typical requirements are a role-
   based access control model and the principle of least privilege,
   where a user can be given only the minimum access necessary to
   perform a required task.

   Some operators wish to do consistency checks of ACLs across devices.
   Protocol Designers should consider Information Models to promote
   comparisons across devices and across vendors to permit checking the
   consistency of security configurations.

   Protocol Designers should consider how to provide a secure transport,
   authentication, identity, and access control that integrates well
   with existing key and credential management infrastructure.  It is a
   good idea to start with defining the threat model for the protocol,
   and from that deducing what is required.

   Protocol Designers should consider how ACLs are maintained and
   updated.

   Notifications (e.g., syslog messages) might already exist, or can be
   defined, to alert operators to the conditions identified in the
   Security Considerations for the New Protocol or Protocol Extension.
   The syslog should also record events, such as failed logins, but it
   must be secured.



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      For example, you can log all the commands entered by the operator
      using syslog (giving you some degree of audit trail), or you can
      see who has logged on/off using the Secure Shell (SSH) Protocol
      [RFC4251] and from where; failed SSH logins can be logged using
      syslog, etc.

   An analysis of existing counters might help operators recognize the
   conditions identified in the Security Considerations for the new
   protocol before they can impact the network.

   Different management protocols use different assumptions about
   message security and data-access controls.  A Protocol Designer that
   recommends using different protocols should consider how security
   will be applied in a balanced manner across multiple management
   interfaces.  SNMP authority levels and policy are data-oriented,
   while CLI authority levels and policy are usually command-oriented
   (i.e., task-oriented).  Depending on the management function,
   sometimes data-oriented or task-oriented approaches make more sense.
   Protocol Designers should consider both data-oriented and task-
   oriented authority levels and policy.  Refer also to [RFC8341] for
   more details on access control types and rules.

6.  Operational and Management Tooling Considerations

   The operational community's ability to effectively adopt and use new
   specifications is significantly influenced by the availability and
   adaptability of appropriate tooling.  In this context, "tools" refers
   to software systems or utilities used by network operators to deploy,
   configure, monitor, troubleshoot, and manage networks or network
   protocols in real-world operational environments.  While the
   introduction of a new specification does not automatically mandate
   the development of entirely new tools, careful consideration must be
   given to how existing tools can be leveraged or extended to support
   the management and operation of these new specifications.

   The [NEMOPS] workshop highlighted a consistent theme applicable
   beyond network management protocols: the "ease of use" and
   adaptability of existing tools are critical factors for successful
   adoption.  Therefore, a new specification should provide examples
   using existing, common tooling, or running code that demonstrate how
   to perform key operational tasks.

   Specifically, the following tooling-related aspects should be
   considered, prioritizing the adaptation of existing tools:

   *  Leveraging Existing Tooling: Before considering new tools, assess
      whether existing tooling, such as monitoring systems, logging
      platforms, configuration management systems, and/or orchestration



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      frameworks, can be adapted to support the new specification.  This
      may involve developing plugins, modules, or drivers that enable
      these tools to interact with the new specification.

   *  Extending Existing Tools: Identify areas where existing tools can
      be extended to provide the necessary visibility and control over
      the new specification.  For example, if a new transport protocol
      is introduced, consider whether existing network monitoring tools
      can be extended to track its performance metrics or whether
      existing security tools can be adapted to analyze its traffic
      patterns.

   *  New Tools: Only when existing tools are demonstrably inadequate
      for managing and operating the elements of the new specification
      should the development of new tools be considered.  In such cases,
      carefully define the specific requirements for these new tools,
      focusing on the functionalities that cannot be achieved through
      adaptation or extension of existing solutions.

   *  IETF Hackathons for Manageability Testing: IETF Hackathons
      [IETF-HACKATHONS] provide an opportunity to test the
      functionality, interoperability, and manageability of New
      Protocols or Protocol Extensions.  These events can be
      specifically leveraged to assess the operational (including
      manageability) implications of a New Protocol or Protocol
      Extension by focusing tasks on:

      -  Adapting existing tools to interact with the new specification.

      -  Developing example management scripts or modules for existing
         management platforms.

      -  Testing the specification's behavior under various operational
         conditions.

      -  Identifying potential tooling gaps and areas for improvement.

      -  Creating example flows and use cases for manageability.

   *  Open-Source for Tooling: If new tools are deemed necessary, or if
      significant adaptations to existing tools are required, prioritize
      open-source development with community involvement.  Open-source
      tools lower the barrier to entry, encourage collaboration, and
      provide operators with the flexibility to customize and extend the
      tools to meet their specific needs.






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6.1.  AI Tooling Considerations

   With the increasing adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in
   network operations, Protocol Designers must consider the implication
   such functions may have on New Protocols and Protocol Extensions.  AI
   models often require extensive and granular data for training and
   inference, requiring efficient, scalable, and secure mechanisms for
   telemetry, logging, and state information collection.  Protocol
   Designers should anticipate that AI-powered management tools may
   generate frequent and potentially aggressive querying patterns on
   network devices and controllers.  Therefore, protocols should be
   designed with Data Models and mechanisms intended to prevent overload
   from automated interactions, while also accounting for AI-specific
   security considerations such as data integrity and protection against
   adversarial attacks on management interfaces.  These considerations
   are also relevant to Performance Management (Section 5.7) and
   Security Management (Section 5.8).

7.  IANA Considerations

   This document does not have any IANA actions required.

8.  Operational Considerations

   Although this document focuses on operations and manageability
   guidance, it does not define a New Protocol, a Protocol Extension, or
   an architecture.  As such, there are no new operations or
   manageability requirements introduced by this document.

9.  Security Considerations

   This document provides guidelines for considering manageability and
   operations.  It introduces no new security concerns.

   The provision of a management portal to a network device provides a
   doorway through which an attack on the device may be launched.
   Making the protocol under development be manageable through a
   management protocol creates a vulnerability to a new source of
   attacks.  Only management protocols with adequate security
   mechanisms, such as state-of-the-art encryption, mutual
   authentication, message-integrity protection, and authorization,
   should be used.

   The security implications of password-based authentication should be
   taken into account when designing a New Protocol or Protocol
   Extension.





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   While a standard description of a protocol's manageable parameters
   facilitates legitimate operation, it may also inadvertently simplify
   an attacker's efforts to understand and manipulate the protocol.

   A well-designed protocol is usually more stable and secure.  A
   protocol that can be managed and inspected offers the operator a
   better chance of spotting and quarantining any attacks.  Conversely,
   making a protocol easy to inspect is a risk if the wrong person
   inspects it.

   If security events cause logs and/or notifications/alerts, a
   concerted attack might be able to be mounted by causing an excess of
   these events.  In other words, the security-management mechanisms
   could constitute a security vulnerability.  The management of
   security aspects is important (Section 5.8).

10.  References

10.1.  Normative References

   [BCP22]    Best Current Practice 22,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp22>.
              At the time of writing, this BCP comprises the following:

              Scott, G., "Guide for Internet Standards Writers", BCP 22,
              RFC 2360, DOI 10.17487/RFC2360, June 1998,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2360>.

10.2.  Informative References

   [BCP133]   Best Current Practice 133,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp133>.
              At the time of writing, this BCP comprises the following:

              Duke, M., Ed. and G. Fairhurst, Ed., "Specifying New
              Congestion Control Algorithms", BCP 133, RFC 9743,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9743, March 2025,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9743>.

   [BCP14]    Best Current Practice 14,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp14>.
              At the time of writing, this BCP comprises the following:

              Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.




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              Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.

   [BCP166]   Best Current Practice 166,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp166>.
              At the time of writing, this BCP comprises the following:

              Hoffman, P. and J. Klensin, "Terminology Used in
              Internationalization in the IETF", BCP 166, RFC 6365,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6365, September 2011,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6365>.

   [BCP186]   Best Current Practice 186,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp186>.
              At the time of writing, this BCP comprises the following:

              Gont, F., Atkinson, R., and C. Pignataro, "Recommendations
              on Filtering of IPv4 Packets Containing IPv4 Options",
              BCP 186, RFC 7126, DOI 10.17487/RFC7126, February 2014,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7126>.

   [BCP72]    Best Current Practice 72,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp72>.
              At the time of writing, this BCP comprises the following:

              Rescorla, E. and B. Korver, "Guidelines for Writing RFC
              Text on Security Considerations", BCP 72, RFC 3552,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC3552, July 2003,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3552>.

              Gont, F. and I. Arce, "Security Considerations for
              Transient Numeric Identifiers Employed in Network
              Protocols", BCP 72, RFC 9416, DOI 10.17487/RFC9416, July
              2023, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9416>.

   [CHECKLIST]
              "Operations and Management Review Checklist", 2025,
              <https://github.com/IETF-OPS-DIR/Review-Template/tree/
              main>.

   [I-D.ietf-core-dns-over-coap]
              Lenders, M. S., Amsüss, C., Gündoğan, C., Schmidt, T. C.,
              and M. Wählisch, "DNS over CoAP (DoC)", Work in Progress,
              Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-core-dns-over-coap-20, 16
              September 2025, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/
              draft-ietf-core-dns-over-coap-20>.




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   [I-D.ietf-lamps-dilithium-certificates]
              Massimo, J., Kampanakis, P., Turner, S., and B.
              Westerbaan, "Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure -
              Algorithm Identifiers for the Module-Lattice-Based Digital
              Signature Algorithm (ML-DSA)", Work in Progress, Internet-
              Draft, draft-ietf-lamps-dilithium-certificates-13, 30
              September 2025, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/
              draft-ietf-lamps-dilithium-certificates-13>.

   [I-D.ietf-netmod-rfc8407bis]
              Bierman, A., Boucadair, M., and Q. Wu, "Guidelines for
              Authors and Reviewers of Documents Containing YANG Data
              Models", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-
              netmod-rfc8407bis-28, 5 June 2025,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-netmod-
              rfc8407bis-28>.

   [I-D.ietf-nmop-network-incident-yang]
              Hu, T., Contreras, L. M., Wu, Q., Davis, N., and C. Feng,
              "A YANG Data Model for Network Incident Management", Work
              in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-nmop-network-
              incident-yang-08, 13 February 2026,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-nmop-
              network-incident-yang-08>.

   [I-D.ietf-nmop-terminology]
              Davis, N., Farrel, A., Graf, T., Wu, Q., and C. Yu, "Some
              Key Terms for Network Fault and Problem Management", Work
              in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-nmop-terminology-
              23, 18 August 2025,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-nmop-
              terminology-23>.

   [I-D.ietf-opsawg-oam-characterization]
              Pignataro, C., Farrel, A., and T. Mizrahi, "Guidelines for
              Characterizing the Term "OAM"", Work in Progress,
              Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-opsawg-oam-characterization-17,
              28 January 2026, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/
              draft-ietf-opsawg-oam-characterization-17>.

   [I-D.ietf-quic-qlog-main-schema]
              Marx, R., Niccolini, L., Seemann, M., and L. Pardue,
              "qlog: Structured Logging for Network Protocols", Work in
              Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-quic-qlog-main-
              schema-13, 20 October 2025,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-quic-
              qlog-main-schema-13>.




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   [I-D.ietf-suit-mti]
              Moran, B., Rønningstad, O., and A. Tsukamoto,
              "Cryptographic Algorithms for Internet of Things (IoT)
              Devices", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-
              suit-mti-23, 22 July 2025,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-suit-
              mti-23>.

   [IETF-HACKATHONS]
              IETF, "IETF Hackathons", 1 May 2025,
              <https://www.ietf.org/meeting/hackathons/>.

   [IETF-OPS-Dir]
              "Ops Directorate (opsdir)", 2025,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/group/opsdir/about/>.

   [NEMOPS]   Hardaker, W. and D. Dhody, "Report from the IAB Workshop
              on the Next Era of Network Management Operations
              (NEMOPS)", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-iab-
              nemops-workshop-report-04, 29 August 2025,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-iab-nemops-
              workshop-report-04>.

   [RFC1034]  Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - concepts and facilities",
              STD 13, RFC 1034, DOI 10.17487/RFC1034, November 1987,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1034>.

   [RFC1958]  Carpenter, B., Ed., "Architectural Principles of the
              Internet", RFC 1958, DOI 10.17487/RFC1958, June 1996,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1958>.

   [RFC2113]  Katz, D., "IP Router Alert Option", RFC 2113,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2113, February 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2113>.

   [RFC2205]  Braden, R., Ed., Zhang, L., Berson, S., Herzog, S., and S.
              Jamin, "Resource ReSerVation Protocol (RSVP) -- Version 1
              Functional Specification", RFC 2205, DOI 10.17487/RFC2205,
              September 1997, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2205>.

   [RFC2439]  Villamizar, C., Chandra, R., and R. Govindan, "BGP Route
              Flap Damping", RFC 2439, DOI 10.17487/RFC2439, November
              1998, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2439>.

   [RFC2711]  Partridge, C. and A. Jackson, "IPv6 Router Alert Option",
              RFC 2711, DOI 10.17487/RFC2711, October 1999,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2711>.




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   [RFC2975]  Aboba, B., Arkko, J., and D. Harrington, "Introduction to
              Accounting Management", RFC 2975, DOI 10.17487/RFC2975,
              October 2000, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2975>.

   [RFC3139]  Sanchez, L., McCloghrie, K., and J. Saperia, "Requirements
              for Configuration Management of IP-based Networks",
              RFC 3139, DOI 10.17487/RFC3139, June 2001,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3139>.

   [RFC3198]  Westerinen, A., Schnizlein, J., Strassner, J., Scherling,
              M., Quinn, B., Herzog, S., Huynh, A., Carlson, M., Perry,
              J., and S. Waldbusser, "Terminology for Policy-Based
              Management", RFC 3198, DOI 10.17487/RFC3198, November
              2001, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3198>.

   [RFC3444]  Pras, A. and J. Schoenwaelder, "On the Difference between
              Information Models and Data Models", RFC 3444,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC3444, January 2003,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3444>.

   [RFC3535]  Schoenwaelder, J., "Overview of the 2002 IAB Network
              Management Workshop", RFC 3535, DOI 10.17487/RFC3535, May
              2003, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3535>.

   [RFC4251]  Ylonen, T. and C. Lonvick, Ed., "The Secure Shell (SSH)
              Protocol Architecture", RFC 4251, DOI 10.17487/RFC4251,
              January 2006, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4251>.

   [RFC5218]  Thaler, D. and B. Aboba, "What Makes for a Successful
              Protocol?", RFC 5218, DOI 10.17487/RFC5218, July 2008,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5218>.

   [RFC5321]  Klensin, J., "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", RFC 5321,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5321, October 2008,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5321>.

   [RFC5415]  Calhoun, P., Ed., Montemurro, M., Ed., and D. Stanley,
              Ed., "Control And Provisioning of Wireless Access Points
              (CAPWAP) Protocol Specification", RFC 5415,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5415, March 2009,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5415>.

   [RFC5424]  Gerhards, R., "The Syslog Protocol", RFC 5424,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5424, March 2009,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5424>.






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   [RFC5706]  Harrington, D., "Guidelines for Considering Operations and
              Management of New Protocols and Protocol Extensions",
              RFC 5706, DOI 10.17487/RFC5706, November 2009,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5706>.

   [RFC5884]  Aggarwal, R., Kompella, K., Nadeau, T., and G. Swallow,
              "Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) for MPLS Label
              Switched Paths (LSPs)", RFC 5884, DOI 10.17487/RFC5884,
              June 2010, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5884>.

   [RFC6020]  Bjorklund, M., Ed., "YANG - A Data Modeling Language for
              the Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF)", RFC 6020,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6020, October 2010,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6020>.

   [RFC6241]  Enns, R., Ed., Bjorklund, M., Ed., Schoenwaelder, J., Ed.,
              and A. Bierman, Ed., "Network Configuration Protocol
              (NETCONF)", RFC 6241, DOI 10.17487/RFC6241, June 2011,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6241>.

   [RFC6291]  Andersson, L., van Helvoort, H., Bonica, R., Romascanu,
              D., and S. Mansfield, "Guidelines for the Use of the "OAM"
              Acronym in the IETF", BCP 161, RFC 6291,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6291, June 2011,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6291>.

   [RFC6298]  Paxson, V., Allman, M., Chu, J., and M. Sargent,
              "Computing TCP's Retransmission Timer", RFC 6298,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6298, June 2011,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6298>.

   [RFC6390]  Clark, A. and B. Claise, "Guidelines for Considering New
              Performance Metric Development", BCP 170, RFC 6390,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6390, October 2011,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6390>.

   [RFC6632]  Ersue, M., Ed. and B. Claise, "An Overview of the IETF
              Network Management Standards", RFC 6632,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6632, June 2012,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6632>.

   [RFC6709]  Carpenter, B., Aboba, B., Ed., and S. Cheshire, "Design
              Considerations for Protocol Extensions", RFC 6709,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6709, September 2012,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6709>.






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   [RFC7011]  Claise, B., Ed., Trammell, B., Ed., and P. Aitken,
              "Specification of the IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX)
              Protocol for the Exchange of Flow Information", STD 77,
              RFC 7011, DOI 10.17487/RFC7011, September 2013,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7011>.

   [RFC7574]  Bakker, A., Petrocco, R., and V. Grishchenko, "Peer-to-
              Peer Streaming Peer Protocol (PPSPP)", RFC 7574,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7574, July 2015,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7574>.

   [RFC7950]  Bjorklund, M., Ed., "The YANG 1.1 Data Modeling Language",
              RFC 7950, DOI 10.17487/RFC7950, August 2016,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7950>.

   [RFC8040]  Bierman, A., Bjorklund, M., and K. Watsen, "RESTCONF
              Protocol", RFC 8040, DOI 10.17487/RFC8040, January 2017,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8040>.

   [RFC8170]  Thaler, D., Ed., "Planning for Protocol Adoption and
              Subsequent Transitions", RFC 8170, DOI 10.17487/RFC8170,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8170>.

   [RFC8199]  Bogdanovic, D., Claise, B., and C. Moberg, "YANG Module
              Classification", RFC 8199, DOI 10.17487/RFC8199, July
              2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8199>.

   [RFC8299]  Wu, Q., Ed., Litkowski, S., Tomotaki, L., and K. Ogaki,
              "YANG Data Model for L3VPN Service Delivery", RFC 8299,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8299, January 2018,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8299>.

   [RFC8309]  Wu, Q., Liu, W., and A. Farrel, "Service Models
              Explained", RFC 8309, DOI 10.17487/RFC8309, January 2018,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8309>.

   [RFC8340]  Bjorklund, M. and L. Berger, Ed., "YANG Tree Diagrams",
              BCP 215, RFC 8340, DOI 10.17487/RFC8340, March 2018,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8340>.

   [RFC8341]  Bierman, A. and M. Bjorklund, "Network Configuration
              Access Control Model", STD 91, RFC 8341,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8341, March 2018,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8341>.







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   [RFC8466]  Wen, B., Fioccola, G., Ed., Xie, C., and L. Jalil, "A YANG
              Data Model for Layer 2 Virtual Private Network (L2VPN)
              Service Delivery", RFC 8466, DOI 10.17487/RFC8466, October
              2018, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8466>.

   [RFC8791]  Bierman, A., Björklund, M., and K. Watsen, "YANG Data
              Structure Extensions", RFC 8791, DOI 10.17487/RFC8791,
              June 2020, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8791>.

   [RFC8799]  Carpenter, B. and B. Liu, "Limited Domains and Internet
              Protocols", RFC 8799, DOI 10.17487/RFC8799, July 2020,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8799>.

   [RFC9182]  Barguil, S., Gonzalez de Dios, O., Ed., Boucadair, M.,
              Ed., Munoz, L., and A. Aguado, "A YANG Network Data Model
              for Layer 3 VPNs", RFC 9182, DOI 10.17487/RFC9182,
              February 2022, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9182>.

   [RFC9291]  Boucadair, M., Ed., Gonzalez de Dios, O., Ed., Barguil,
              S., and L. Munoz, "A YANG Network Data Model for Layer 2
              VPNs", RFC 9291, DOI 10.17487/RFC9291, September 2022,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9291>.

   [RFC9424]  Paine, K., Whitehouse, O., Sellwood, J., and A. Shaw,
              "Indicators of Compromise (IoCs) and Their Role in Attack
              Defence", RFC 9424, DOI 10.17487/RFC9424, August 2023,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9424>.

   [RFC9552]  Talaulikar, K., Ed., "Distribution of Link-State and
              Traffic Engineering Information Using BGP", RFC 9552,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9552, December 2023,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9552>.

   [RFC9805]  Bonica, R., "Deprecation of the IPv6 Router Alert Option
              for New Protocols", RFC 9805, DOI 10.17487/RFC9805, June
              2025, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9805>.

   [RFC9877]  Singh, J. and T. Harrison, "Registration Data Access
              Protocol (RDAP) Extension for Geofeed Data", RFC 9877,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9877, October 2025,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9877>.

   [RFC9937]  Mathis, M., Cardwell, N., Cheng, Y., and N. Dukkipati,
              "Proportional Rate Reduction (PRR)", RFC 9937,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9937, December 2025,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9937>.





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   [SECOPS]   "NICCS Glossary", August 2025,
              <https://niccs.cisa.gov/resources/glossary>.

Appendix A.  Operational Considerations Checklist

   This appendix provides a concise checklist of key questions that
   Protocol Designers should address in the "Operational Considerations"
   section of their specifications.  Each item references the relevant
   section of this document for detailed guidance.

   The decision to incorporate all or part of these items into their
   work remains with Protocol Designers and WGs themselves.

A.1.  Documentation Requirements

   *  Does the specification include an "Operational Considerations"
      section?  (Section 3.1)

   *  Is this section placed immediately before the Security
      Considerations section?  (Section 3.3)

   *  If there are no new considerations, does the section include the
      appropriate boilerplate with explanation?  (Section 3.2)

A.2.  Operational Fit

   *  How does this protocol operate "out of the box"?  (Section 4.1)

      -  What are the default values, modes, timers, and states?
         (Section 4.1)

      -  What is the rationale for chosen default values, especially if
         they affect operations or are expected to change over time?
         (Section 4.1)

   *  What is the migration path for existing deployments?
      (Section 4.2)

      -  How will deployments transition from older versions or
         technologies?  (Section 4.2)

      -  Does the protocol require infrastructure changes, and how can
         these be introduced?  (Section 4.2)

   *  What are the requirements or dependencies on other protocols and
      functional components?  (Section 4.3)

   *  What is the impact on network operation?  (Section 4.4)



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      -  What are the scaling implications and interactions with other
         protocols?  (Section 4.4)

      -  What are the impacts on traffic patterns or performance (e.g.,
         delay, jitter)?  (Section 4.4)

   *  What is the impact on Security Operations?  (Section 4.5)

      -  How does deployment affect Indicators of Compromise or their
         availability?  (Section 4.5)

      -  What logging is needed for digital forensics?  (Section 4.5)

   *  How can correct operation be verified?  (Section 4.6)

      -  What status and health indicators does the protocol provide?
         (Section 4.6)

   *  How are human-readable messages handled?  (Section 4.7)

      -  Do messages support internationalization with message codes for
         local language mapping?  (Section 4.7)

A.3.  Management Information

   *  What needs to be managed?  (Section 5)

      -  What are the manageable entities (e.g., protocol endpoints,
         network elements, services)?  (Section 5)

   *  Which standardized management technologies are applicable?
      (Section 5.1)

   *  What essential information is required?  (Section 5.2,
      Section 5.3)

      -  What operational, configuration, state, and statistical
         information is needed?  (Section 5.2)

      -  Is an Information Model needed, especially if multiple Data
         Model representations are required?  (Section 5.2)

      -  What is manageable, what needs configuration, and what
         protocol-specific events might occur?  (Section 5.3)

      -  How are configuration data, operational state, and statistics
         distinguished?  (Section 5.3)




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   *  If YANG Data Models are defined, what type is appropriate?
      (Section 5.3.2)

      -  Should Device Models, Network Models, or Service Models be
         specified?  (Section 5.3.2)

A.4.  Fault Management

   *  What faults and events should be reported?  (Section 5.4)

      -  What essential faults, health indicators, alarms, and events
         should be exposed?  (Section 5.4)

      -  How will fault information be propagated?  (Section 5.4)

   *  How is liveness monitored?  (Section 5.4.1)

      -  What testing and liveness detection features are built into the
         protocol?  (Section 5.4.1)

   *  How are faults determined?  (Section 5.4.2)

      -  What error counters or diagnostics help pinpoint faults?
         (Section 5.4.2)

      -  What distinguishes faulty from correct messages?
         (Section 5.4.2)

A.5.  Configuration Management

   *  What configuration parameters are defined?  (Section 5.5)

      -  What parameters need to be configurable, including their
         defaults and valid ranges?  (Section 5.5)

      -  What information persists across reboots?  (Section 5.5)

A.6.  Performance Management

   *  What are the performance implications?  (Section 5.7)

      -  What are the hardware/software performance impacts (e.g., CPU,
         memory, forwarding)?  (Section 5.7)

   *  What performance information should be available?  (Section 5.7.1)

      -  What protocol counters are defined (e.g., packets received,
         sent, dropped)?  (Section 5.7.1)



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      -  What is the counter behavior at maximum values?
         (Section 5.7.1)

      -  What are the protocol limitations and behavior when limits are
         exceeded?  (Section 5.7.1)

A.7.  Security Management

   *  What security-related monitoring is needed?  (Section 5.8)

      -  What security events should be logged?  (Section 5.8)

      -  What statistics help detect attacks?  (Section 5.8)

      -  What security threats do management operations introduce?
         (Section 5.8)

Appendix B.  Changes Since RFC 5706

   The following changes have been made to the guidelines published in
   [RFC5706]:

   *  Change intended status from Informational to Best Current Practice

   *  Move the "Operational Considerations" Appendix A to a Checklist
      [CHECKLIST] maintained in GitHub

   *  Add a concise "Operational Considerations Checklist" appendix
      (Appendix A) with key questions that should be addressed in
      protocol specifications

   *  Add a requirement for an "Operational Considerations" section in
      all new RFCs that document a technical specification in the IETF
      Stream, along with specific guidance on its content.

   *  Update the operational and manageability-related technologies to
      reflect over 15 years of advancements

      -  Provide focus and details on YANG-based standards,
         deprioritizing MIB Modules.

      -  Add a "YANG Data Model Considerations" section

      -  Update the "Available Management Technologies" landscape

   *  Add an "Operational and Management Tooling Considerations" section





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B.1.  TO DO LIST

   See the list of open issues at https://github.com/IETF-OPSAWG-WG/
   draft-opsarea-rfc5706bis/issues

Acknowledgements

   The authors thank the following individuals and groups, whose efforts
   have helped to improve this document:

   The IETF Ops Directorate (OpsDir):  The IETF OpsDir [IETF-OPS-Dir]
      reviewer team, which has been providing document reviews for more
      than a decade, and its Chairs past and present: Gunter Van de
      Velde, Carlos Pignataro, Bo Wu, and Daniele Ceccarelli.

   The AD championing the update:  Med Boucadair, who initiated and
      championed the effort to refresh RFC 5706, 15 years after its
      publication, building on an idea originally suggested by Carlos
      Pignataro.

   Reviewers of this document, in roughly chronological order:  Mahesh J
      ethanandani, Chongfeng Xie, Alvaro Retana, Michael P., Scott
      Hollenbeck, Ron Bonica, Italo Busi, Brian Trammel, Aijun Wang,
      Richard Shockey, Tina Tsou, Lars Eggert, Joel Halpern, Johan
      Stenstam, Dave Thaler, Harald Alvestrand, and Greg Mirsky.

   The document shepherd who has gone beyond normal shepherding
   duties to improve this document:  Alvaro Retana

   The author of RFC 5706:  David Harrington

   Acknowledgments from RFC 5706:  This document started from an earlier
      document edited by Adrian Farrel, which itself was based on work
      exploring the need for Manageability Considerations sections in
      all Internet-Drafts produced within the Routing Area of the IETF.
      That earlier work was produced by Avri Doria, Loa Andersson, and
      Adrian Farrel, with valuable feedback provided by Pekka Savola and
      Bert Wijnen.

      Some of the discussion about designing for manageability came from
      private discussions between Dan Romascanu, Bert Wijnen, Jürgen
      Schönwälder, Andy Bierman, and David Harrington.

      Thanks to reviewers who helped fashion this document, including
      Harald Alvestrand, Ron Bonica, Brian Carpenter, Benoît Claise,
      Adrian Farrel, David Kessens, Dan Romascanu, Pekka Savola, Jürgen
      Schönwälder, Bert Wijnen, Ralf Wolter, and Lixia Zhang.




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Contributors

   Thomas Graf
   Swisscom
   Email: thomas.graf@swisscom.com


Authors' Addresses

   Benoit Claise
   Everything OPS
   Email: benoit@everything-ops.net


   Joe Clarke
   Cisco
   Email: jclarke@cisco.com


   Adrian Farrel
   Old Dog Consulting
   Email: adrian@olddog.co.uk


   Samier Barguil
   Nokia
   Email: samier.barguil_giraldo@nokia.com


   Carlos Pignataro
   Blue Fern Consulting
   Email: carlos@bluefern.consulting, cpignata@gmail.com
   URI:   https://bluefern.consulting


   Ran Chen
   ZTE
   Email: chen.ran@zte.com.cn













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