Understanding the network.pdf - Back to Home

• Request ID—This field is used by the management station for matching send
requests with received requests. It is not used by the agent. However, the
agent needs to include the Request ID in its response to the management
station.
• Non-repeaters—This field indicates how many data variables should be
retrieved in the request.
• Max-repeaters—This field indicates how many variables beyond the specified
amount should be retrieved.
The Non-repeaters and Max-repeaters fields are used for shaping the scope of the
bulk message request. This is needed since the request is blind and specifies no set
data size limitation.
SNMP Agents and Management Tools
A variety of SNMP-based network management tools are in the marketplace today.
The major players in this market are the following:
• Hewlett-Packard's OpenView—What began as an SNMP management tool
has grown into a network management environment. OpenView provides
SNMP monitoring, software distribution, asset tracking, and remote system
administration. As the oldest of the distributed network management
systems, it is also the most flexible and broadly supported. OpenView will
operate with all the major relational database products (Oracle, Informix,
and Sybase) and the Remedy helpdesk and trouble ticketing system.
OpenView comes in various forms ranging from enterprise total
management systems to a Windows-based workgroup management console.
Information on OpenView is available at http://www.openview.hp.com.
• Tivoli Systems—This package provides enterprise and midsize (1,000 nodes
or fewer) management solutions. Tivoli was acquired by IBM, who then
handed them its NetView/AIX management solution. Tivoli's enterprise
management solution is modular, providing different modules for asset
management, help desk, change, remote administration, directory and
accounting services, and security management. Tivoli uses both SNMP and
proprietary device agents. Its midsized product, IT Director, provides
software distribution, network monitoring, and remote administration.
Tivoli's enterprise solution, like OpenView's, utilizes an external RDBMS for
data collection and analysis. Information on Tivoli is available at
http://www.tivoli.com.
• Cabletron's Spectrum—Where Tivoli and OpenView provide management
services for just about everything, Spectrum's focus is primarily to perform
enterprise network monitoring. Its strength is fast performance utilizing
SNMP standard technologies. It uses its own proprietary database, a
centralized management server, and remote management display consoles.