Q-Logic MKII-BASE16 user manual Node Agents, Task Description, Management Information Bases MIBs

	Managing the Switch Using SNMP
	symbols to alert the administrator to problems.
Statistics Displays	Agents provide statistics about the overall
	behavior of network components and the station
	manager displays the information in either
	numeric or graphical formats.
The Node Agents

The Switch has a built-in SNMP-compliant node agent. A management or node agent is a specific software component that resides on a network node (such as switches, routers, and servers). The agent collects information about that particular node and/or its environment although the agent does not have the intelligence to use the information. When a network node contains an agent, it is referred to as a managed node. If the node is SNMP-compliant or SNMP-manageable, that means the resident agent supports the SNMP protocol for information exchange.

When the agent communicates with the network management station, the following main tasks are performed over this link:

Task	Description
Information Provision	The node agent provides information about the
	network nodes to the management station.
MIB Entry Editing	When requested by the network management station, the
	node agent updates, adds, or removes entries (such as
	routing table entries) in the database maintained by the
	agent.
Error Reporting	The node agent reports problems to the management
	station and/or responds to the station’s status queries.

The Management Information Bases (MIBs)

A MIB is a database, maintained by a node agent, that contains configuration and statistical data about nodes on a network as well as information pertaining to the performance of the node and its connections to different network nodes. The network manager queries the MIB through either the agent or proxy agent software and can specify changes to the configuration. A MIB describes the objects (or entries) included in the database. Each object has four properties that define what each object looks like. MIB object properties include:

Property	Description
Name	This property defines the name of the particular object. For example,
	sysUpTime. It is simply a label.
Syntax	This property specifies the data type such as integer, octet string,

3-50Switch Management	GigWorks MkII-16 Switch Model MKII-BASE16
	59003-01 Rev. A	Installer's/User's Manual