54 CHAPTER 7: STATUS MONITORING AND STATISTICS
the same network as the Switch and can m anage the Switch by in-band
or out-of-band connections.
The RMON Groups The IETF define groups of Ethernet RMON statistics. This section describes
the two groups supported by the Switch 420 0 Series, and details how
you can use them.
Alarms
The Alarms group provides a mechanism for setting thresholds and
sampling intervals to generate events on any RMO N variable.
Alarms are used to inform you of network performance problems and
they can trigger automated responses through the Events group.
Events
The Events group provides you with the ability to create entries in an
event log and send SNMP traps to the management workstation. Events
are the action that can result from an RMON alarm. In addition to the
standard five traps required by SNMP (link up, link down, warm start, cold
start, and authentication failure), RMON adds two m ore: rising threshold
and falling threshold.
Effective use of the Events group saves you time; ra ther than having to
watch real-time graphs for important occurrences, y ou can depend on
the Event group for notification. Through the SNMP traps, events can
trigger other actions, therefore providing a way to automaticall y respond
to certain occurrences.
Benefits of RMON Using the RMON features of your Switch has three main advantages:
■It improves your efficiency
Using RMON allows you to remain at one workstation and collect
information from widely dispersed LAN segments or V LANs. This
means that the time taken to reach a problem site, set up equipment,
and begin collecting information is largely eliminated.
■It allows you to manage your network in a more proactive
manner
If configured correctly, RMON can deliver information before problems
occur. This means that you can take action before they affect users. In