•Agents maintain vital information about their respective devices and
networks. This information is stored in a MIB.
•The SNMP manager polls each agent for MIB information and stores and
displays this information at the SNMP manager station. In this manner, the
system administrator can manage the entire network from one management
station.
•Agents also have the ability to send unsolicited data to the SNMP manager.
This is called a trap.
1.9.3 NetFinity
IBM NetFinity is a family of distributed applications designed to enhance the
system monitoring and management capabilities of a network. NetFinity has a
flexible, modular design that allows for a variety of system-specific
configurations. NetFinity is able to manage IBM and non-IBM desktops and
servers and supports most client operating systems. It has management
capabilities on Windows and OS/2. It is designed to work with the existing
protocols on the network and includes support for NetBIOS, IPX, TCP/IP, and
even ASYNC/Serial modem LAN protocols.
NetFinity is delivered as two components:
•NetFinity Services
•NetFinity Manager

1.9.3.1 NetFinity Services

NetFinity Services is the client portion of the system. This is a foundation that
provides the underlying services for several levels of administration, including
remote system and user management facilities. Figure 20 shows the main
folder which opens for the NetFinity Services.
Figure 20. NetFinity Services Folder
NetFinity Services provides the following functions:
•System Information
Provides details regarding specific hardware and software configurations and
user/application settings
Chapter 1. IBM PC Server Technologies 41