Chapter 13 System Configuration

An agent is a management software module that resides in a managed switch (your Ethernet switch). An agent translates the local management information from the managed switch into a form compatible with SNMP. The manager is the console through which network administrators perform network management functions. It executes applications that control and monitor managed devices.

The managed devices contain object variables/managed objects that define each piece of information to be collected about a switch. Examples of variables include such as number of packets received, node port status etc. A Management Information Base (MIB) is a collection of managed objects. SNMP allows a manager and agents to communicate for the purpose of accessing these objects.

SNMP itself is a simple request/response protocol based on the manager/agent model. The manager issues a request and the agent returns responses using the following protocol operations:

Table 55 SNMP Commands

COMMAND

DESCRIPTION

Get

Allows the manager to retrieve an object variable from the agent.

 

 

GetNext

Allows the manager to retrieve the next object variable from a table or list within an

 

agent. In SNMP, when a manager wants to retrieve all elements of a table from an

 

agent, it initiates a Get operation, followed by a series of GetNext operations.

 

 

Set

Allows the manager to set values for object variables within an agent.

 

 

Trap

Used by the agent to inform the manager of some events.

 

 

See the switch User’s Guide for a list of supported traps.

13.2.1 Configuring SNMP

To open display the SNMP Config screen, right-click on a switch in the Device List Panel, and click Configuration > System Configuration > SNMP Conf..

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