Introduction

Simple Network Management Protocol and Remote Monitoring

Each switch module can be configured and monitored remotely from a Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)/Remote Monitoring (RMON) based Network Management Station. The switch modules support industry-standard SNMP Management Information Bases (MIBs), HP Switch MIBs, and RMON groups 1 (statistics), 2 (History), 3 (Alarm), and 9 (Event) for fault detection, configuration, and monitoring of switch functionality. In addition, the interconnect switch supports various environmental traps such as temperature and fan failure traps.

To secure the management interface, the switch administrator can configure community strings with two 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 interconnect switch. Refer to Appendix E for more information.

Port Mirroring

The interconnect switch allows the user 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 switch modules 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.

Port Trunking and Load Balancing

The 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 a single link’s bandwidth. It also improves reliability since a configurable type 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

The Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) service feature allows the interconnect switch firmware to be upgraded by downloading a new firmware file from a TFTP server to the switch modules. A configuration file can also be loaded into a switch module from a TFTP server, configuration settings can be saved to the TFTP server, and a history log can be uploaded from the switch module to the TFTP server.

Store and Forward Switching Scheme

The interconnect switch provides a store 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, and packets behind it are less likely to be dropped in periods of heavy usage.

HP ProLiant BL e-Class C-GbE Interconnect Switch User Guide

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