The implementation and comparison analysis of subtree filtering and Xpath capability in NETCONF

NETCONF is a new network management protocol, based on the XML encoding method, which was proposed by IETF in 2006. It aims to overcome the shortcomings of SNMP predominantly used for configuration tasks at present. In the NETCONF protocol, subtree filtering mechanism and XPath capability is defined, both used to allow a client to select particular XML subtrees of the data model of the server. In this paper, we describe how we implement the two mechanisms and evaluate them from two aspects of functionality and performance. We find that the subtree filtering is not as flexible as XPath capability, but has better performance.