HP 3000 Manuals

COMMUNICATOR 3000 MPE MPE/iX RELEASE 4.0

Introducing Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) 

by Gary Marcos 
Information Networks Division 

SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol), a de facto standard for
managing TCP/IP networks, is now available and supported on MPE/iX
systems.  With the expansion of networking, especially local area
networks, solutions are needed today to improve both the availability and
manageability of the network.  As part of an overall network management
solution, the HP SNMP/XL product allows the HP 3000 Series 900 to
actively participate in the management of the network in which it
resides.  An HP 3000 with HP`SNMP/XL installed is capable of reporting
fault, performance, and configuration information to one or more network
management stations.

HP SNMP/XL provides agent services in a TCP/IP network for both LANs and
WANs.  Agents cooperate with managers to provide complete network
management solutions.  Agents are the software components that reside on
the client systems and provide management functionality for that system.
They work in conjunction with the server system, often called the Network
Management Station (NMS), to report networking statistics and to respond
to commands from the NMS. By providing an SNMP agent, the HP`3000 Series
900 system is capable of participating in an overall network management
solution with HP OpenView products, such as the HP OpenView Network Node
Manager.  Additionally, the HP 3000 with HP SNMP/XL installed will
cooperate with other vendors' network management solutions that are based
on SNMP. The following illustrates one example of HP SNMP/XL integrated
in a multivendor network.


            

The SNMP agent provides a protocol for management of the Internet
protocols, such as TCP, IP, ICMP, and UDP. The management information
base (MIB) defines the set of Internet protocols to be managed by SNMP.
Managing a protocol provides the ability to gather relevant statistics
and tabular data, as well as to generate and receive asynchronous
notification of events in the form of traps.

The SNMP agent responds to commands from the Network Management Station
to get or set information as defined in the MIB. SNMP/XL is MIB I
conformant as outlined in RFC 1156, and MIB II compliant as outlined in
RFC 1213.  In addition to responding to requests for information from a
network manager, the SNMP agent automatically sends traps when
interesting conditions occur on the agent system.  This capability
provides information to the network manager more quickly than it may be
available through the regular cycle of polling agents individually.  The
SNMP agent is also capable of supporting multiple managers by sending an
alarm to more than one NMS.

Additionally, the SNMP agent implements security with a type of password
(called the community name) that prevents unauthorized network managers
from accessing agent information.  To provide improved management
functionality, several extensions are defined that are consistent with
industry standard RFC 1065.  Extensions allow vendor-specific information
to be included in the MIB. These extensions provide:  extra link level
information, the sending of traps to multiple managers, and CPU and disk
utilization information.

Several services are offered through the SNMP user interface.  At the
command interpreter (CI) level, commands can be issued to collect
information from other SNMP-based agents, as well as to cause traps to
occur (resulting in an alarm being sent to the NMS). Additionally, there
are a number of commands that support version control, help, tracing, and
changes to the SNMP configuration file.

HP SNMP/XL is bundled with the ThinLAN 3000/XL Link, the DTC X.25 XL
Network Link, and the NS Point-to-Point Network Link (HP 3000/XL)
products.  SNMP/XL is started automatically at system startup and
requires no configuration.  To maximize the usefulness of SNMP, the
product provides a mechanism of configuring several important parameters
such as system contact, system location, and the IP destination addresses
of the NMSs that are configured to receive traps.  SNMP consumes no
system CPU resources unless it is carrying out an SNMP CI command, or
until it is invoked by a request from an NMS or an asynchronous event
being generated by the agent.

HP SNMP/XL is a link enhancement that has the potential to significantly
improve the manageability of your TCP/IP network.  Working in conjunction
with an NMS, it reports important networking statistics as well as
significant events to the NMS. Working with other SNMP agents in the
network that reside on bridges, routers, gateways, and systems, the
network administrator can gather a complete picture of network
performance and availability from the NMS. Manageability of the network
is then improved through greater insight and control of the important
characteristics of that network.

MPE/iX Communicators