Understanding SNMP Services

SNMP is based on a manager/agent architecture. The architecture of network management with SNMP includes the following elements:

Figure 51
Network Management Architecture


Network Management Station

The network management station is a workstation with one or more network management applications installed, to graphically show information about managed devices.

NMS features:


Managed Devices

A managed device is any device that has SNMP installed on it. A managed device could be a host, router, bridge, hub, etc. NMS can monitor and communicate with managed devices.

The information between the NMS and the managed device is transferred through two types of agents: subagent and master agent.


Subagent

The subagent gathers information about the managed device and passes the information to the master agent.


Master Agent

The master agent exchanges information between the various subagents and the NMS. The master agent runs on the same host machine as the subagents with which it communicates.


Management Information Base

SNMP exchanges network information in the form of protocol data units (PDUs). PDUs contain information about variables stored on the managed device. These variables are known as managed objects and have values and titles that are reported to the NMS. All managed objects are defined in the Management Information Base (MIB). MIB is a virtual database with a tree-like hierarchy.


SNMP Network Management Protocol

The basic functions of SNMP are listed in the following table.

Function Description

Get

Used by the manager to request information from an agent.

Get Next

Used by the manager to obtain information from an array or a table.

Get Response

Used by the queried agent to satisfy a request made by the manager.

Set

Used by the manager to modify the value of the variable which resides on the agent's MIB.

Trap

Used by the agent to notify the manager that a certain event has occurred.

For more information about SNMP, refer to the following Web sites: