Informational IETF Standards

Informational RFCs are not official IETF standard track documents. RFC 2026 defines the details. An informational RFC specification is published for the general information of the Internet community and does not represent an Internet community consensus or recommendation. The informational designation is intended to provide for the timely publication of a very broad range of responsible informational documents from many sources, subject only to editorial considerations and to verification that there has been adequate coordination with the standards process.

Because informational RFCs are valuable sources of information, the following sections describe RFCs 2924 and 2975.

IETF RFC 2924, Accounting Attributes and Record Formats

This informational RFC summarizes relevant documents related to accounting from both the IETF and ITU-T. A very basic architecture model is introduced that consists of a service consumer accessing a service element. The service element collects accounting records and sends usage events to an accounting server. The following protocols are examined in terms of providing accounting attributes:

• RADIUS

• Diameter

• ROAMOPS (The Accounting Data Interchange Format [ADIF])

• RTFM (traffic flow measurement)

• ISDN

• AToM MIB

• QoS: RSVP and DiffServ

• ITU-T Q.825: Call Detail Recording

• Telecommunications and Internet Protocol Harmonization Over Networks (TIPHON): ETSI TS 101 321

This RFC can be used in a cookbook approach: After selecting your protocol and technology of choice, check for the provided accounting details. Note that RFC 2924 is an informational standard defining the terminology rather than a protocol that can be implemented. Therefore, it is a good starting point for an introduction to accounting.

IETF RFC 2975, Introduction to Accounting Management

This informational RFC provides an overview of accounting and billing terms and concepts and develops a more advanced architecture than RFC 2924 does. A protocol section discusses the use of UDP and TCP as a transport protocol and proposes SCTP as an alternative. The pros and cons of different data collection approaches (such as polling and event-driven models) are addressed, followed by an analysis of various accounting protocols:

• RADIUS

• TACACS+

• SNMP

• FTP

• HTTP

This document can be used as an extended introduction to accounting because it addresses all accounting areas, such as collection methods at the device level, considerations of exporting and storing data records, and a review of accounting protocols.