IPFIX Implementation Guidelines

The IESG has approved the "IPFIX Implementation Guidelines"
specification as an Informational RFC. The IPFIX protocol defines how
IP Flow information can be exported from routers, measurement probes
or other devices. The IPFIX Protocol provides network administrators
with access to IP flow information. The architecture for the export of
measured IP flow information out of an IPFIX exporting process to a
collecting process is defined in the IPFIX Architecture document, per
the requirements defined in RFC 3917. The IPFIX Architecture also
specifies how IPFIX data record and templates are carried via a
congestion-aware transport protocol from IPFIX exporting processes to
IPFIX collecting process. IPFIX has a formal description of IPFIX
information elements, their name, type and additional semantic
information, as specified in the IPFIX Information Model. The
Information Model document contains an XML-based specification of
Template, abstract data types and IPFIX Information Elements, which
may be used to create consistent machine-readable extensions to the
IPFIX information model. This description can be used for automatically
checking syntactic correctness of the specification of IPFIX Information
Elements and for generating code that deals with processing IPFIX
Information Elements. In this document, we provide guidelines for
its implementation. The guidelines are split into five main sets.
These sets address implementation aspects for Template management,
Exporting Process, Collecting Process, transport, and implementation
on middleboxes. Note: The IESG Secretary recently announced the
re-charter of the IETF IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX) Working
Group in the Operations and Management Area. The WG will develop an
XML-based configuration data model that can be used for configuring
IPFIX devices and for storing, modifying and managing IPFIX
configurations parameter sets. This work will be performed in close
collaboration with the IEF NETCONF Working Group.