



Network Working Group                                          B. Claise
Internet-Draft                                            Everything OPS
Obsoletes: 5706 (if approved)                                  J. Clarke
Intended status: Best Current Practice                             Cisco
Expires: 17 May 2026                                           A. Farrel
                                                      Old Dog Consulting
                                                              S. Barguil
                                                                   Nokia
                                                            C. Pignataro
                                                    Blue Fern Consulting
                                                                 R. Chen
                                                                     ZTE
                                                        13 November 2025


      Guidelines for Considering Operations and Management in IETF
                             Specifications
                    draft-ietf-opsawg-rfc5706bis-00

Abstract

   New Protocols or 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 or Protocol Extensions.

   This document obsoletes RFC 5706, replacing it completely and
   updating it with new operational and management techniques and
   mechanisms.  It also introduces a requirement to include an
   "Operational Considerations" section in new RFCs in the IETF Stream.

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/.

   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."




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   This Internet-Draft will expire on 17 May 2026.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2025 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  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   3.  Documentation Requirements for IETF Specifications  . . . . .   7
     3.1.  "Operational Considerations" Section  . . . . . . . . . .   8
     3.2.  "Operational Considerations" Section Boilerplate When No
           New Considerations Exist  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     3.3.  Placement of the "Operational Considerations" Section . .   9
   4.  How Will the New Protocol or Protocol Extension Fit into the
           Current Environment?  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     4.1.  Operations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     4.2.  Installation and Initial Setup  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     4.3.  Migration Path  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     4.4.  Requirements on Other Protocols and Functional
           Components  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
     4.5.  Impact on Network Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
     4.6.  Impact on Security Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
     4.7.  Verifying Correct Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
     4.8.  Message Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   5.  How Will the Protocol Be Managed? . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
     5.1.  Available Management Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
     5.2.  Interoperability  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
     5.3.  Management Information  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20
       5.3.1.  Information Model Design  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
       5.3.2.  YANG Data Model Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . .  21
     5.4.  Fault Management  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  23
       5.4.1.  Liveness Detection and Monitoring . . . . . . . . . .  23
       5.4.2.  Fault Determination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  24
       5.4.3.  Probable Root Cause Analysis  . . . . . . . . . . . .  24



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       5.4.4.  Fault Isolation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  24
     5.5.  Configuration Management  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  25
       5.5.1.  Verifying Correct Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . .  27
     5.6.  Accounting Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  27
     5.7.  Performance Management  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  27
       5.7.1.  Monitoring the Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  28
       5.7.2.  Monitoring the Device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  29
       5.7.3.  Monitoring the Network  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  29
       5.7.4.  Monitoring the Service  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  30
     5.8.  Security Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  30
   6.  Operational and Management Tooling Considerations . . . . . .  32
     6.1.  AI Tooling Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  33
   7.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  33
   8.  Operational Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  34
   9.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  34
   10. Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  34
   Appendix A.  Changes Since RFC 5706 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  41
     A.1.  TO DO LIST  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  41
   Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  41
   Contributors  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  42
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  42

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.  To ensure deployability, the operational
   environment and manageability must be considered during design.

   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
   in new RFCs in the IETF Stream.  This document also removes outdated
   references and aligns with current practices, protocols, and
   technologies used in operating and managing devices, networks, and
   services.  See Appendix A for more details.







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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, working
   groups, 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 IETF protocol, given the IETF's role in developing
   technologies, New Protocols, and Protocol Extensions to be deployed
   and operated in the real-world Internet.

   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 makes a distinction between "Operational
   Considerations" and "Management Considerations", although the two are
   closely related.  The operational considerations apply to operating
   protocols within a network, even if there was no management protocol
   actively being used.  The section on manageability is focused on
   management technology, such as how to utilize management protocols
   and how to design management Data Models.

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 working groups 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.




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   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.

   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.  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].  Ultimately, the decision to incorporate
   this document's advice into their work remains with Protocol
   Designers and working groups themselves.

   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.







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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.

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

   *  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.

   *  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.









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   *  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.

      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.

   *  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.

3.  Documentation Requirements for IETF Specifications




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

   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 discussion of
   the management and operations topics raised in this document, and
   when one or more of these topics is not relevant, it would be useful
   to include a simple statement explaining why the topic 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.

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, or to those deploying the protocol, to know the
   rationale regarding the decisions on manageability of the protocol 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.

   In cases where 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
   in 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 such
   sections will find it easily, and this placement could simplify the
   development of tools to detect the presence of such a section.

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.  To ensure that a protocol will be
   practical to deploy in the real world, it is not enough to merely
   define it very precisely in a well-written document.  Operational
   aspects will have a serious impact on the actual success of a
   protocol.  Such aspects include bad interactions with existing
   solutions, a difficult upgrade path, difficulty of debugging
   problems, difficulty configuring from a central database, or a
   complicated state diagram that operations staff will find difficult
   to understand.  [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; however, the design did not consider the
   existence of BGP path exploration / slow convergence.  In real
   operations, path exploration caused false flap damping, resulting in
   loss of reachability.  As a result, many networks turned flap damping
   off.










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4.1.  Operations

   Protocol Designers can analyze the operational environment and mode
   of work in which the New Protocol and Protocol Extension will work.
   Such an exercise need not be reflected directly by text in their
   document but could help in visualizing how to apply the protocol in
   the Internet environments where it will be deployed.

   A key question is how the protocol can operate "out of the box".  If
   implementers are free to select their own defaults, the protocol
   needs to operate well with any choice of values.  If there are
   sensible defaults, these need to be stated.

   There may be a need to support both a human interface (e.g., for
   troubleshooting) and a programmatic interface (e.g., for automated
   monitoring and Cause analysis).  The application programming
   interfaces (APIs) and the human interfaces might benefit from being
   similar to ensure that the information exposed by both is consistent
   when presented to an operator.  It is also relevant to identify
   consistent methods for determining information, such as what is
   counted in specific counters.

   Protocol Designers should consider what management operations are
   expected to be performed as a result of the deployment of the
   protocol -- for example whether write operations are permitted on
   routers and on hosts, or whether notifications for alarms or other
   events will be expected.

4.2.  Installation and Initial Setup

   Anything that can be configured can be misconfigured.  "Architectural
   Principles of the Internet" [RFC1958], Section 3.8, states: "Avoid
   options and parameters whenever possible.  Any options and parameters
   should be configured or negotiated dynamically rather than manually".

   To simplify configuration, Protocol Designers should consider
   specifying reasonable defaults, including default modes and
   parameters.  For example, it could be helpful or necessary to specify
   default values for modes, timers, default state of logical control
   variables, default transports, and so on.  Even if default values are
   used, it must be possible to retrieve all the actual values or at
   least an indication that known default values are being used.

   Protocol Designers should consider how to enable operators to
   concentrate on the configuration of the network or service
   infrastructure as a whole rather than on individual devices.  Of
   course, how one accomplishes this is the hard part.




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   Protocol Designers should explain the background of chosen default
   values and provide the rationale, especially when those choices may
   affect operations.  In many cases, as technology changes, the values
   in an RFC might make less and less sense.  It is very useful 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 be expected to change over
   time due to increased speeds in the network, and cryptographic
   algorithms might be expected to change over time as older algorithms
   are "broken".

   It is extremely important to set a sensible default value for all
   parameters.

   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 those parameters that are speed-dependent, instead of using a
   constant, try to set the default value as a function of the link
   speed or some other relevant factors.  This would help reduce the
   chance 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.  See [I-D.ietf-lamps-dilithium-certificates]
   for an example of how such considerations are incorporated.

4.3.  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 Extensions.  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 becomes: Are older protocols or versions
   disabled, or do they coexist in the network with the New Protocol or
   Protocol Extension?



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   Many protocols benefit from being incrementally deployable --
   operators may deploy aspects of a protocol before deploying the
   protocol fully.  In those cases, the design 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 discussed on transition versus coexistence.

4.4.  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.

   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.















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   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.

4.5.  Impact on Network Operation

   The introduction of a New Protocol or Protocol Extensions 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.

   If the protocol specification requires changes to end hosts, it
   should also indicate whether safeguards exist to protect networks
   from potential overload.  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.



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   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 the New Protocols or Protocol
   Extensions, must be considered with respect to the performance of
   traffic delivery and the availability of ongoing manageability.  For
   example, it must be noted if the New Protocols or Protocol Extensions
   or the 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 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: 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 be tested at once; notifications or logs from
   systems (through YANG or other means) should be rate-limited so that
   they do not flood the receiving management station; the application
   of sophisticated encryption or filtering rules need 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.









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4.6.  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 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 that operators have
   the information they need.  [I-D.ietf-quic-qlog-main-schema] is an
   example of extensible structured logging.

   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.

4.7.  Verifying Correct Operation

   Protocol Designers should consider techniques for testing the effect
   that the protocol has had on the network by sending data through the
   network 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 in the network
   can be tested actively and passively, and how the correct data or
   forwarding plane function of each network element can be verified to
   be working properly with the New Protocol or Protocol Extension.
   Which metrics are of interest?





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

4.8.  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
   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 include a discussion of what
   needs to be managed, and how to achieve various management tasks.
   Where are the managers and what type of interfaces and protocols will
   they need?  The "write a MIB module" approach to considering
   management often focuses on monitoring a protocol endpoint on a
   single device.  A MIB module document typically only considers
   monitoring properties observable at one end, while the document does
   not really cover managing the *protocol* (the coordination of
   multiple ends) and does not even come near managing the *service*
   (which includes a lot of stuff that is very far away from the box).
   This scenario reflects a common operational concern: the inability to
   manage both ends of a connection effectively.  As noted in [RFC3535],
   "MIB modules can often be characterized as a list of ingredients
   without a recipe".

   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)?





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   *  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.

   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 Exension.  Often an individual network element is not aware
   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.






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   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].

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

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.







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   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.

   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 and their 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.







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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.

   Although this document recommends using English text (the official
   language for IETF specifications) to describe an Information Model,
   including a complementary YANG module helps translate abstract
   concepts into implementation-specific Data Models.  This ensures
   consistency between the high-level design and practical deployment.

   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.

   Operators find it important to be able to make a clear distinction
   between configuration data, operational state, and statistics.  They
   need to determine which parameters were administratively configured
   and which parameters have changed since configuration as the result
   of mechanisms such as routing protocols or network management
   protocols.  It is important to be able to separately fetch current
   configuration information, initial configuration information,
   operational state information, and statistics from devices; to be
   able to compare current state to initial state; and to compare
   information between devices.  So, when deciding what information
   should exist, do not conflate multiple information elements into a
   single element.

   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?



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   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.

   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.



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   *  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].

   *  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].



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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?

   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?

   SNMP notifications and syslog messages can alert an operator when an
   aspect of the New Protocol or Protocol Extension fails or encounters
   an error or failure condition, and SNMP is frequently used as a
   heartbeat monitor.  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.








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   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.

   How do you distinguish between faulty messages and good messages?

   Would some threshold-based mechanisms, such as Remote Monitoring
   (RMON) events/alarms or the EVENT-MIB, be usable to help determine
   error conditions?  Are SNMP notifications for all events needed, or
   are there some "standard" notifications that could be used?  Or can
   relevant counters be polled as needed?

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.




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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
   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?
   ... Now answer those questions for 1,000 devices.

   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 master 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



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   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.

   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.











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5.5.1.  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
   could suggest techniques for testing the impact of the protocol on
   the network before it is deployed as well as techniques for testing
   the effect that the protocol has had on the network after being
   deployed.

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

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.

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



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   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 Monitoring
   (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 monitoring, 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 to performance management to be considered:
   protocol monitoring, device monitoring (the impact of the new
   protocol / service activation on the device), network monitoring, and
   service monitoring (the impact of service activation on the network).
   Hence, it is recommended that, 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.

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.



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   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".

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?



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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.

   There will be security considerations related to the New Protocol or
   Protocol Extension.  To make it possible for operators to be aware of
   security-related events, it is recommended that system logs should
   record events, such as failed logins, but the logs must be secured.

   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?

   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) 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.








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   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 access control lists
   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 access control lists are
   maintained and updated.

   Standard SNMP notifications or syslog messages might already exist,
   or can be defined, to alert operators to the conditions identified in
   the security considerations for the New Protocol.  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.









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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
      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



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      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.

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.






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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 apparatus,
   such as authentication, message integrity checking, and
   authorization, should be used.

   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 (see Section 5.8).

10.  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>.





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   [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>.

              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>.

   [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>.











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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-06, 12 October 2025,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-nmop-
              network-incident-yang-06>.

   [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 "OAM"", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft,
              draft-ietf-opsawg-oam-characterization-13, 20 October
              2025, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-
              opsawg-oam-characterization-13>.

   [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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   [IESG-STATEMENT]
              IESG, "Writable MIB Module IESG Statement", 2 March 2014,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/statement-iesg-writable-
              mib-module-iesg-statement-20140302/>.

   [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>.

   [NEMOPS-WORKSHOP]
              IAB, "IAB workshop on the Next Era of Network Management
              Operations", December 2024,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/group/nemopsws/about/>.

   [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>.






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   [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>.

   [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>.

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

   [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>.



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   [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>.

   [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>.





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   [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>.

   [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>.





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   [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>.

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

Appendix A.  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 requirement for an "Operational Considerations" section in
      all new Standard Track RFCs, 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

A.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:



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   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 chronological order:  Mahesh
      Jethanandani, Chongfeng Xie, Alvaro Retana, Michael P., Scott
      Hollenbeck, Ron Bonica, Italo Busi, Brian Trammel, Aijun Wang, and
      Richard Shockey for their review, comments, and contributions.

   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.

Contributors

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


Authors' Addresses

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





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   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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