SNMP-Based Server Management

The main advantage of the Management Agent for NetWare and Management Agent for Windows is that they support the industry standard Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). SNMP is the protocol governing network management and the monitoring of network devices and their functions.

The Novell ZENworks Server Management SNMP agents support UDP/IP, IPX^TM, and NCP^TM implementations for accepting and sending packets (datagrams). This standard mechanism allows any SNMP console or manager to request information from the Novell ZENworks Server Management SNMP agents. An SNMP console can be any console that supports SNMP; the Novell ZENworks Server Management Novell ConsoleOne fully supports SNMP v.1 communication.

SNMP Agents

The Novell ZENworks Server Management SNMP agents run on NetWare and Windows servers in your network. The agents monitor servers, collecting historical data and dynamic data in response to requests from Novell ConsoleOne. An administrator at the Novell ZENworks Server Management Novell ConsoleOne can request data simply by clicking a representative icon for any device, operating system, or service discovered on a server.

The following figure illustrates an internetwork using the Management Agent for NetWare and Management Agent for Windows and the Novell ZENworks Server Management Novell ConsoleOne.

SNMP Agent Functions

The functionality of the Management Agent for NetWare and Management Agent for Windows (the Novell SNMP-based agents for NetWare and Windows servers) can be divided into the following areas:

• Collecting Statistics
  • Monitoring: Server monitoring provides instant information about various monitored elements of the server, such as CPU utilization, memory size, cache buffers, connected users, volumes, disks, disk space usage per user, network adapters, print queues, print jobs, and loaded NetWare Loadable Module^TM (NLM^TM) files on NetWare or Windows servers.
  • Trending: Trends provide historical data about various server objects and can be displayed in a diagram on the SNMP console. Trends are stored at the server side, which eliminates the need for continuous polling from an SNMP manager, and this data can be accessed via SNMP by any Novell ZENworks Server Management Novell ConsoleOne or other SNMP-based console.
• Alarm Notification: More than 580 different types of alarms or events (SNMP traps) can be sent from any NetWare server to the Novell ZENworks Server Management system or to any other SNMP-based console.

  Any Windows system, security, or application event is converted to an SNMP trap and sent to the Novell ZENworks Server Management system or to any other SNMP-based console.

  The alarms inform the administrator about events that have occurred or thresholds which have been crossed.

• Configuration Management: The Management Agent for NetWare enables network administrators to remotely configure NetWare servers. There are 187 SET parameters on the NetWare server that can be used to tune the server's performance. Administrators can view settings and change all parameters from any Novell ZENworks Server Management Novell ConsoleOne.

The SNMP agents must be installed on any server that you want to manage. For information on installing the SNMP agents, or if you have already installed the agent software to servers that you want to manage, see "Management and Monitoring Services Installation" in the Novell ZENworks 6.5 Server Management Installation Guide.