how to handle mergers (extreme bought foundry / brocade)

inphobia commented 3 years ago

Expected Behavior

it seems extreme networks has bought foundry & brocade. at least the ethernet part.

since i got this snmprec privately i can only show certain parts:

Current Behavior

vendor should be "extreme networks", or based on version of operating system
os should be named "ExtremeNetwork OS" (preferably lowercase :) ) according to https://documentation.extremenetworks.com/networkos/HW/vdx6740-installguide.pdf
the "version" number has a trailing dot, this should be removed imo.

Possible Solution

not sure, either just change everything to extreme networks parlé or use the os version to determine os/vendor name.

(side note, extreme also bought aerohive, so same issues might apply there)

according to wikipedia extreme actually owns all of the following: "Therefore, through a series of historical and contemporary merger and acquisition activity, Extreme Network claims an industry lineage that includes, at a minimum, the networking-focused elements of the following companies: Digital, Chantry, Siemens, Cabletron, Enterasys, AirDefense, Symbol, Motorola, Zebra, Wellfleet, SynOptics, Bay Networks, Nortel Networks, Avaya, Vistapointe, StackStorm, Foundry Networks, and Brocade." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_Networks

Context

since this is common practice perhaps some guidelines on how to cope with snmp::info modules & mergers could be of help?

Your Environment

SNMP::Info version used: 3.70

inphobia commented 3 years ago

perhaps remotely related: https://github.com/netdisco/snmp-info/issues/399 https://github.com/netdisco/snmp-info/issues/356 https://github.com/netdisco/netdisco-mibs/issues/118

JeroenvIS commented 3 years ago

In general: when it comes to device brand, model names and name of the OS, I prefer to be conservative with changes. Either use what the device reports itself (possibly in conjunction with translation through MIBs), or stick with the commonly known / original values.

Specific example: Layer3::H3C does its best to honour the brand and OS that the device reports. This class supports both H3C branded switches and HP branded switches that run Comware, ie that come from the H3C acquisition.

ollyg commented 3 years ago

I do agree with @JeroenvIS, for what it's worth. People have kit in their data centres which says "Brocade" on the front and expect these tools to reflect that, mostly.

Yes there will come a point perhaps when the badge on the front of the device changes but the Enterprise ID given by SNMP does not. I don't think we can do much about that, and perhaps the onus is on the vendor to release software updates which report a new Enterprise ID, and on users to install those updates?

netdisco / snmp-info