Telecommunications Protocols, Second Edition
The Big Picture of Telecommunications Networking - Today and Tomorrow
TABLE OF CONTENTS Telecommunications Protocols, Second Edition
Section 4.7: Network Management
Section 4.7: Network Management
The most important part of any large network is the network management tool used to monitor and evaluate the performance of the network and all of its nodes. There are many ways of accomplishing this, anything from placing devices at every node which report back to a central location to protocols which are capable of providing information about various nodes autonomously.
In TCP/IP networks, there are a couple of different such protocols which report to network management clients about the status of the various nodes within the network, the links attaching to those nodes, and the performance of each of the nodes. The next section discusses the most popular of those network management protocols to clarify the role of network management and provide some insight into the possibilities of such protocols.
Section 4.7.1: Simple Network Management Protocol
SNMP was developed by the IAB for use on the Internet. Prior to SNMP, vendors were implementing proprietary solutions, which were not capable of interconnecting to other vendors' equipment. Special training was required to teach users how to use the devices which interact with the protocol since they were not standardized.
The IAB solution provides a standard protocol which can be used on any platform. Vendors have already implemented SNMP support in their products, which resolves the issues of interoperability. Modems, routers, gateways, and host computers from different vendors can all share network management data by using SNMP.
SNMP uses simple code, allowing it to be incorporated into devices...
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