- Protocols such as SNMP, along with ping and traceroute, provide detailed monitoring and management of network systems.
- SNMP’s effectiveness comes from its three main components: Network Manager, Device Agent and MIB.
- SNMP provides depth, while Ping and Traceroute offer immediate network connectivity and path analysis.
It’s really important to have good network monitoring protocols in place to keep your network infrastructure in good shape and working well. These standardised rules and systems let administrators keep an eye on network performance and deal with any issues quickly. Protocols like Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), along with utilities such as Ping and Traceroute, are great for collecting data and communicating between network devices and monitoring platforms.
SNMP is a really reliable network monitoring protocol that lots of people use because it’s really good at managing network components. This protocol has three main parts: the Network Manager, Device Agent, and Management Information Base (MIB), which all help to gather and analyse network data.
What is a network monitoring protocol?
Network monitoring protocols are standardised sets of rules that dictate how data is collected and communicated between network devices and monitoring tools. These protocols enable administrators to keep an eye on network performance and identify potential problems before they escalate into serious issues.
Network monitoring systems
Today’s most common network monitoring methods use data-generating devices and data-collection systems. You don’t need to install the agent software on each piece of network equipment because it’s already installed on the devices before they leave the factory. The best network tools for monitoring are: SNMP, Ping and Traceroute. These three systems are not as detailed. Ping and Traceroute are command line utilities with options. SNMP is a complete network monitoring system.
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)
SNMP is is a widely used protocol for managing and monitoring network devices on IP networks. It enables network administrators to manage network performance, find and resolve network problems, and plan for network growth. Every switch and router you buy has some element of the SNMP system already installed. Some manufacturers prefer to ship their equipment with SNMP disabled, so you may need to access each device’s management system to get the software working. The SNMP system consists of three elements: Network Manager; Device Agent and Management Information Base (MIB)
Management Information Base: The Management Information Base (MIB) is a tree structure that uses inheritance to be concise. A code representing a state refers to different elements of the device depending on its position. The MIB can be stored in a file.
Network messages use the MIB coding format, but any computer can intercept them. The reporting format is opaque. The code tree’s meaning is available, but decoding it takes hours. Free MIB interpreters are available. If you don’t want to install network management software, an interpreter is the minimum tool to make sense of SNMP messages from routers and switches.
Device Agent: The SNMP agent is the software that runs on your network devices. It monitors the status of its devices and compiles its copy of the MIB accordingly. When the agent receives a request for information, it responds with an up-to-date copy of this MIB. When an alert condition occurs, the agent sends a “trap” message without waiting for a data request. If SNMP is enabled on your network devices, the Agent will already be sending traps even if you haven’t set up a collector to listen for them.
SNMP Network Manager: You need a Network Manager to set up a new network. You need this software to monitor your network. The Network Manager sends out requests and waits for responses. The Network Manager also listens for traps and interprets them as alerts. The Network Manager gathers the responses from the device agents into one place. The network administrator decides how long MIB data should be stored. This MIB information shows changes in network traffic over time. You can see throughput levels for different hours of the day. The Network Manager also alerts you to faults, allowing you to take corrective action.
Also read: DHCP vs. static IP: Which method rules your network?
Also read: Static IP addresses: The pillars of stable digital connectivity
Ping
Ping is a command line utility for any operating system on a network. It checks the time and packet loss on connections to a destination. It is used a lot and can be changed in many ways. Many network monitoring tools use this tool, and you can also get a GUI version. A ping sweep is a batch ping of a list of IP addresses. This tests which addresses are in use, which is necessary if you use DHCP.
Traceroute
Traceroute is similar to Ping and is also useful. Like Ping, it was originally for Unix but is now available everywhere. Traceroute uses the same information procedures as Ping to test connections. Traceroute shows the steps a connection takes to reach a destination address.
Traceroute can’t tell you what happened on a previous connection. It can only show if there are still problems reaching a destination. This isn’t an issue on a local network. On the Internet, paths change, so you can’t be sure you’ll take the same path to a destination over several connections.
