What is SNMP and why do I need it?

An introduction to SNMP

Most networks of any size and age have lots and lots of equipment from many different manufacturers.

If each manufacturer implemented their own management systems, managing the network would quickly become a nightmare. Each manufacturer’s equipment would need its own management system. None of the different manufacturer’s management systems would talk to each other.

All told an expensive, inflexible mess.

To that end the manufacturers agreed to create a single management protocol called Simple Network Management Protocol or SNMP that they could all implement on their devices.

You would then only need a single SNMP based management system to manage your network. The management system would then be able to talk to all of the devices on a network from any compliant manufacturer.

What has SNMP got to do with environment monitoring?

If you wish to create a point tool for your environment monitoring without any integration into your existing network management system then you don’t need to worry about SNMP.

However, if you wish to integrate your environmental monitoring efforts into your existing network management system then SNMP support is essential.

SNMP is a great integration and interoperability protocol.

SNMP enables your environmental monitoring devices to integrate into your existing network management system.

Your network management system can be anything from a Big 4 enterprise solution like HP OpenView or IBM Tivoli, a mid market solution like Ipswitch What’s Up Gold and Solar Winds Orion or open source tools like MRTG and Nagios.

All of the above mentioned tools use SNMP to fetch performance information. The systems then, to various levels of sophistication, log, trend and correlate the information.

Environment monitor alarms

Network management systems typically have highly functional alarm sub-systems. At the very least you should be able to create alarms that respond differently at different times of day.

During the working week when you have IT people on site, you will probably want a different set of actions than at night and weekends.

Many larger data centres have security people on site at all times. When problems crop up out of hours you are likely to wish to inform them of a problem so that they can then take appropriate steps, like ringing the duty IT person for instance. During the day it is unlikely you’d want the security people to be informed. It is more likely that an email or text to your IT staff would be more appropriate.

One of the problems with integrating your environment monitor with a network management system is that you are required to do the integration yourself.

Some network management systems have plug-ins which greatly speed up the process. But where a plug-in is not available, you are likely to require an understanding of SNMP. Most SNMP devices do come with a MIB which does make integration much easier.