Introduction

Simple Network Management Protocol and Remote Monitoring

Each GbE Interconnect Switch can be configured and monitored remotely from a Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)/Remote Monitoring (RMON)-based network management station. The GbE Interconnect Switch supports industry-standard SNMP Management Information Bases (MIBs), proprietary Compaq Switch MIBs, and RMON groups 1 (Statistics), 2 (History), 3 (Alarm), and 9 (Event) for fault detection, configuration, and monitoring of switch functionality.

To secure the management interface, the switch administrator can configure community strings with various levels of access. Access can be restricted to a limited number of management stations by configuring a list of IP addresses of those stations that can access the GbE Interconnect Switch. Refer to Appendix E for more information.

Port Mirroring

The GbE Interconnect Switch allows you to mirror a port to another port for network monitoring and troubleshooting purposes. This technology offers a way for network packet analyzers to view the traffic moving through the GbE Interconnect Switches by providing a copy of the traffic that is currently being passed through any other port. The packets are normally sent to a network packet analyzer or other monitoring device attached to the mirror port.

Trunking

The GbE Interconnect Switch port trunking feature allows several ports to be grouped together and act as a single logical link called a trunk. This feature provides a bandwidth that is a multiple of the bandwidth of a single link. It also improves reliability since a configurable way of load balancing is automatically applied to the ports in the trunked group. A link failure within the group causes the network traffic to be directed to the remaining links in the group.

Trivial File Transfer Protocol Support

Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) support allows the GbE Interconnect Switch firmware to be upgraded by downloading a new firmware file from a TFTP server to the GbE Interconnect Switch. A configuration file can also be loaded into a GbE Interconnect Switch from a TFTP server, configuration settings can be saved to the TFTP server, and a history log can be uploaded from the switch to the TFTP server.

Storage and Forward Switching Scheme

The ProLiant BL p-Class GbE Interconnect Switch provides a storage and forward switching scheme that allows each packet to be buffered (stored) before it is forwarded to its destination. While this method creates latency, it improves reliability in a heavily used interconnect switch. Packets that cannot be forwarded are saved immediately, rather than dropped, so that packets behind them are less likely to be dropped in periods of heavy usage.

Compaq ProLiant BL p-Class GbE Interconnect Switch User Guide

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