Chapter 4: Web-Based Management

An SNMP-managed network consists of four key components: Network management stations (NMSs), SNMP agents, Management information base (MIB) and Network- management protocol:

Network management stations (NMSs): Sometimes called consoles, these devices execute management applications that monitor and control network elements. Physically, NMSs are usually engineering workstation-caliber computers with fast CPUs, megapixel color displays, substantial memory, and abundant disk space. At least one NMS must be present in each managed environment.

Agents: Agents are software modules that reside in network elements. They collect and store management information such as the number of error packets received by a network element.

Management information base (MIB): A MIB is a collection of managed objects residing in a virtual information store. Collections of related managed objects are defined in specific MIB modules.

Network-management protocol: A management protocol is used to convey management information between agents and NMSs. SNMP is the Internet community's de facto standard management protocol.

SNMP Overview

SNMP itself is a simple request/response protocol. NMSs can send multiple requests without receiving a response.

Get - Allows the NMS to retrieve an object instance from the agent.

Set - Allows the NMS to set values for object instances within an agent.

Trap - Used by the agent to asynchronously inform the NMS of some event. The SNMPv2 trap message is designed to replace the SNMPv1 trap message.

SNMP Community

An SNMP community is the group that devices and management stations running SNMP belong to. It helps define where information is sent. The community name is used to identify the group. A SNMP device or agent may belong to more than one SNMP community. It will not respond to requests from management stations that do not belong to one of its communities. SNMP default communities are:

Write = private

Read = public

System Options

Use this page to define management stations. You can also define a name, location, and contact person for the Managed Switch.

44

GE-DS-82 and 82-PoE Ethernet Managed Switch User Manual

Page 48
Image 48
GE GE-DS-82, 82-POE user manual Snmp Community, System Options