10GBASE-CX4 and MAU-MIB

Hub MIB colleagues,

According to information on the IEEE 802.3 web site, the work of the
IEEE P802.3ak 10GBASE-CX4 Task Force was completed with the approval
on 9th February 2004 of IEEE Std 802.3ak-2004 by the IEEE Standards
Board.  It would therefore beehove us to add support for 10GBASE-CX4
to the MAU-MIB when it is next opened up for revisions.  As
discussed recently, this will be happening "soon" anyway in order to
add the MAU types required for the EFM work.

At the present time IEEE Std. 802.3ak-2004 is available from the
IEEE only by purchase, not via the getIEEE program, and I have not
actually gotten a copy of the published standard.  But my
understanding from early drafts is that the changes to the MAU-MIB
required to support 10GBASE-CX4 will be quite small.  I've attached
below an e-mail I sent out in early 2003 detailing what appeared to
be necessary at that time.

We also need to be aware that 10GBASE-T and 10GBASE-LRM are on the
horizon.  That certainly bolsters the case for moving the MAU type
list into an IANA-maintained MIB module.

Regards,

Mike Heard

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 12:03:41 -0800 (PST)
From: C. M. Heard <[email protected]>
To: Hub MIB <[email protected]>
Subject: [Hubmib] 10GBASE-CX4 and 10GBASE-T

Hub MIB folks,

For those who aren't already aware, I'd like to bring your
attention to the fact that there are two IEEE study groups
at work on new PMDs for 10 Gb/s Ethernet.  The 10GBASE-CX4
group is working on a 15 m shielded copper solution that
will use the same PCS as does 10GBASE-LX4.  The 10GBASE-T
group is working on a 100 m UTP solution.  Those who are
interested can find more information on the 802.3 web site
http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/3/

The 10GBASE-CX4 effort has, I believe, the much shorter
timeline, and it appears that the impact on our documents
will be minimal.  In fact as far as I can tell, the only
document that will be affected is the MAU-MIB document,
and the changes to it will be confined to the following
additions:

       [ ... ]

       dot3MauType10GigBaseCX4 OBJECT-IDENTITY
           STATUS      current
           DESCRIPTION "X fiber over copper (per 802.3 section
                       54)"
           ::= { dot3MauType XX } -- NOTE: next unassigned value is 41

       [ ... ]

       ifMauTypeListBits OBJECT-TYPE
           SYNTAX      BITS {
               [ ... ]
               b10GbaseCX4(XX),   -- 10GBASE-CX4  (see NOTE above)
               [ ... ]
           }
       [ ... ]

These would mirror the proposed changes to Clause 30, which you can
find here:

http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/3/10GBCX4/public/jan03/WP2p0_cls30_annex30B.pdf

While it is probably not be appropriate to include this stuff in the
next MAU-MIB draft that includes the 802.3ae stuff, the changes are
small enough that they should be able to go into a maintenance update
without affecting time-in-grade, or else when then the document
advances Draft Standard.

The impact of 10GBASE-T is harder to gauge.

Mike Heard