3Com 3C990B-TX-M, 3C990BSVR Remote System Alerts, Remote Control, Keep-Alive

The 3Com DMI Agent allows any DMI management application to access information

such as:

■NIC driver location, version, and size

■Packets-sent statistics

■Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) receive errors

A network administrator can then use this type of information to remotely conﬁgure and

manage a client or server computer.

The 3Com DMI Agent consists of a DMI browser with the following components:

■DMI service layer

■DMI agent

■GUI installer

■NDIS drivers

For detailed information about the 3Com DMI Agent, refer to the 3Com DMI Agent User

Guide included with the DMI software on the EtherCD. For information about installing

the 3Com DMI Agent and downloading the 3Com DMI Agent User Guide, see

Appendix B, "Installing the 3Com DMI Agent."

Remote System Alerts

You can conﬁgure the 3C990B NIC to transmit a number of different packet alerts to the

management server to notify the network administrator that there is a system issue that

requires attention. These alerts support the Alert Standard Forum (ASF) speciﬁcation and

provide system monitoring in the OS-absent environment. The alerting capability is

present whether the system is powered off, booting up, in sleep mode, or the OS has

hung. There are many different alert types, including those that relate to:

■Physical security — chassis intrusion, heartbeat, loss of connection

■Environmental conditions — fan speed, temperature, voltage deviations

■BIOS issues — ROM initialization, system memory

Remote Control

The 3C990B NIC can also receive commands via Remote Control and Management Protocol

(RMCP). This feature is also speciﬁed in the ASF speciﬁcation and lets network administrators

troubleshoot and resolve system issues across the network. Commands include:

■Power on

■Power off

■Reboot

■Reboot from an alternative device (for example: MBA, CD-ROM, and so forth)

Both monitoring alerts and sending commands are available in the system console

through the 3Com Remote System Alert Manager. This management plug-in is available

for HP OpenView Network Node Manager, Microsoft Systems Management Server, and

Intel LANDesk Client Manager.

Keep-Alive

The 3C990B NIC can also transmit a workgroup keep-alive packet periodically while the

computer is in a sleep state. This packet prevents the computer workstation address from

being aged-out of switch router tables.