Dept.

of EEE CS65-Computer Netowrk

What is Network Management?

Network
Collection of computers, printers, routers, switches, and
other devices that are able to communicate with each
other over some transmission medium.
Management
Management involves the planning, organizing,
monitoring, accounting, and controlling of activities and
resources.

33 34

A typical network: 100’s or 1000’s of complex interacting Basic tasks that falls under this category are :
hardware and software components.
It is not surprising that things occasionally go wrong. Keeping track of device setting and how they are function
We need to be able to monitor a network, and exert Dealing with problems and emergencies in the network
control over it to keep it in line with expectations. How smoothly is the network running?
"Network management includes the deployment, Can it handle the workload it currently has?
integration and coordination of the hardware,
software, and human elements to monitor, test,
poll, configure, analyze, evaluate, and control the
network and element resources to meet the real-
time, operational, performance, and Quality of
Service requirements at a reasonable cost."

35 36

S.Muralidharan 1
Dept. of EEE CS65-Computer Netowrk

Management interface must be

Build history Standardized
Baseline
Trend analysis Extendible
Capacity planning
Procurement Portable
Topology design
The management mechanism must be
Inexpensive
Implemented as software only
•Define thresholds
•Monitor exceptions
•Notify
•Correlate Installation and configuration
•Isolate problems Address management
Adds, moves, changes
•Troubleshoot
Security
•Bypass/resolve
Accounting/billing
•Validate and report
Assets/inventory
User management
Data management

37 38

Functional areas of Network

management..
Network Management may be…
Configuration Management - inventory, configuration, Management interface must be
provisioning
Standardized
Fault Management - reactive and proactive network
Extendible
fault management
Portable
Performance Management - # of packets dropped,
timeouts, collisions, CRC errors The management mechanism must be
Security Management - SNMP doesn’t provide much Inexpensive
here Implemented as software only
Accounting Management - cost management and When faults occur, it is critical to quickly:
chargeback assessment
Determine exactly where the fault is
Asset Management - statistics of equipment, facility, and
administration personnel Isolate the rest of the network from the failure so that
Planning Management - analysis of trends to help it can continue to function without interference
justify a network upgrade or bandwidth increase Reconfigure or modify the network to minimize the
effect of removing the failed component(s)
Repair or replace the failed components to restore the
39 network to its initial state 40

S.Muralidharan 2
Dept. of EEE CS65-Computer Netowrk

Network Management System

Architecture
No single system will solve all your
problems or meet all your requirements
Any Network Management package can
only complement effective and efficient
operational procedures
Need to identify what is important to you
and your organisation

41 42

Components of the NMS

All nodes run the Network Management Entity
(NME) software
Network control host or manager runs the
Network Management Application (NMA)
Other nodes are considered agents
Network Management Entity
Collection of software contained in each network node,
devoted to the network management task
Performs the following tasks:
Collect statistics on communications and network-
related activities.
Store statistics locally
Respond to commands from the network control
center
Send messages to Network Control Center when local
conditions undergo a significant change

43 44

S.Muralidharan 3
Dept. of EEE CS65-Computer Netowrk

Simple Network Management

Protocol
Network Management Applications SNMP is a framework that provides facilities for
All provide a unifying framework for network management managing and monitoring network resources on
and control, and with optional add ons the Internet.
There are three fundamentally different types of network
management software: Two major versions SNMPv1, SNMPv2
Device management software • SNMPv1 is the recommended standard
System management software • SNMPv2 has become split into:
Application management software – SNMPv2u - SNMPv2 with user-based security
– SNMPv2* - SNMPv2 with user-based security and additional
features
– SNMPv2c - SNMPv2 without security
• All versions are still used today
• Many SNMP agents and managers support all three
versions of the protocol.
45 46

Evolution of Network Management Components of SNMP:

RFC 2222
SNMPv3
SNMP
and
RFC 1098 SNMPv2
RFCs
SNMP RMON2
2271-2275
RMON

SGMP RFCs
RFCs 2021,2074 SNMP agents
1271—1757
and 1513 is software that runs on a piece of network equipment (host,
router, printer, or others) and that maintains information about
1987 1989 1994 1997 1998 its configuration and current state in a database

SNMP managers
is an application program that contacts an SNMP agent to
47 query or modify the database at the agent. 48

S.Muralidharan 4
Dept. of EEE CS65-Computer Netowrk

Interactions in SNMP….

49 50

Management Information Bases (MIBs)

A map of the hierarchical order of all managed objects and how
they are accessed

SNMP protocol itself

An SNMP protocol is the application layer protocol used by
SNMP agents and managers to send and receive data.

51 52

S.Muralidharan 5
Dept. of EEE CS65-Computer Netowrk

MIBS
Managed Objects
A MIB specifies the managed objects
MIB is a text file that describes managed objects using the
syntax of ASN.1 (Abstract Syntax Notation 1)
ASN.1 is a formal language for describing data and its
properties
In Linux, MIB files are in the directory /usr/share/snmp/mibs
Multiple MIB files
MIB-II (defined in RFC 1213) defines the managed objects
of TCP/IP networks
Each managed object is assigned an object identifier (OID)
The OID is specified in a MIB file.
An OID can be represented as a sequence of integers
separated by decimal points or by a text string:
Example:
1.3.6.1.2.1.4.6.
iso.org.dod.internet.mgmt.mib-2.ip.ipForwDatagrams

When an SNMP manager requests an object, it sends

the OID to the SNMP agent.

53 54

Organization of Managed Objects SNMP Protocol

Managed objects are SNMP manager and an SNMP agent communicate using
organized in a tree-like the SNMP protocol
hierarchy and the OIDs
reflect the structure of the Generally: Manager sends queries and agent responds
hierarchy.
Exception: Traps are initiated by agent.
Each OID represents a node
in the tree.
The OID 1.3.6.1.2.1 ge t-re q u e s t
(iso.org.dod.internet.mgmt.mib- g e t-re s p o n s e P o rt 1 6 1

2) is at the top of the S N M P m an a g e r

hierarchy for all managed ge t-n e x t-re q u es t
SNM P agent
objects of the MIB-II. g e t-re s p on s e P o rt 1 6 1

Manufacturers of networking
equipment can add product s e t-re qu e s t
specific objects to the g e t-re s p o n s e P o rt 1 6 1

hierarchy
P o rt 1 6 2 tra p

55 56

S.Muralidharan 6
Dept. of EEE CS65-Computer Netowrk

SUMMARY ….

Get-request. is typically used by the network- Message type Function

management system to retrieve one or more values GetRequest
from an agent. GetNextRequest
Mgr-to-agent: “get me data”
Get-next-request. is used by the network- (instance, next in list, block of data)
management system to retrieve the next value in a
table or a list within an agent . SetRequest Mgr-to-agent: set MIB value
Set-request. is used by the network-management
system to set the values within a device. Agent-to-mgr: value, response
Response to Request
Get-response. informs the management station
about the results of a GetRequest or SetRequest by
returning an error indication and a list of variable/value Trap Agent-to-mgr: inform manager
bindings. of exceptional event
Trap. An SNMP trap is a notification sent by an SNMP
agent to an SNMP manager, which is triggered by certain
events at the agent.

57 58

TRAPS
Traps are unrequested event reports that are sent to a
management system by an SNMP agent process
managing Traps are triggered by an event
entity When a trappable event occurs, a trap message is
generated by the agent and is sent to a trap destination
request (a specific, configured network address)
response Many events can be configured to signal a trap, like a
network cable fault, failing NIC or Hard Drive, a
agent data
“General Protection Fault”, or a power supply failure
Traps can also be throttled -- You can limit the number
Managed device of traps sent per second from the agent
request/response mode

59 60

S.Muralidharan 7
Dept. of EEE CS65-Computer Netowrk

TRAPS …contd
Traps have a priority associated with them -- Critical,
Major, Minor, Warning, Marginal, Informational, Normal,
Unknown
managing
Traps are received by a management application.
entity
Management applications can handle the trap in a few
ways:
Poll the agent that sent the trap for more trap msg
information about the event, and the status of the
rest of the machine.
Log the reception of the trap. agent data
Completely ignore the trap.
Managed device

trap mode
61 62

NODES SNMP Versions

Items in an SNMP Network are called nodes.
Three versions are in use today:
There are different types of nodes. SNMPv1 (1990)
• Managed Nodes SNMPv2c (1996)
Typically runs an agent process that services requests
from a Management node.
SNMPv3 (2002)
SNMPv3 started from SNMPv1 (and not SNMPv2c)
• Management Nodes
Typically a workstation running some network
All versions are still used today
management & monitoring software Many SNMP agents and managers support all three
Nodes can be both managed nodes and a management versions of the protocol.
node at the same time
• Nodes that are not manageable by SNMP
A node may not support SNMP, but may be manageable
by SNMP through a proxy agent running on another
machine
63 64

S.Muralidharan 8
Dept. of EEE CS65-Computer Netowrk

Each SNMP message has the format:

Version Number Community Names
Community Name - kind of a password
One or more SNMP PDUs - assuming trivial Community names are used to define where an SNMP
authentication message is intended for.

They mirror the same concept as a Windows NT or

Unix domain.

Set up your agents to belong to certain communities.

Set up your management applications to monitor and
receive traps from certain community names.

65 66

Network management software (Source: HP

OpenView))
OpenView

67

S.Muralidharan 9