SNMP Provider

In this section:

SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) is a standard Internet protocol to monitor attached devices for conditions or situations that warrant attention. Within a managed network, iWay Service Manager (iSM) is treated as a device to be monitored.

Under SNMP, the two key components are a manager that aggregates, evaluates, and displays information from agents, which represent the managed devices. Typically an iSM user will already have a manager installed for network control. The manager is an external, non-iWay component to which iSM reports. Managers range from simple freeware versions that are downloadable from the web to sophisticated management systems from major vendors.

SNMP exposes management data from the agent in the form of described variables on the managed systems devices. These variables can then be queried (and sometimes set) by the manager.

The SNMP standard does not define which information (variables) a managed device should offer. SNMP uses an extensible design, where the available information is defined by management information bases (MIBs). MIBs describe the structure of the management data of a device subsystem.

When exposing information using SNMP, iSM assumes the role of a managed device. The SNMP provider acts as the SNMP agent. A provided MIB details the information that iSM exposes, including:

You may have a requirement to monitor iSM along with Java and operating system values. The Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and most operating systems offer MIBs that can also be loaded into your manager. You can then combine these to provide a more complete report of server activity and resource use.

The SNMP remote function calls (RFCs) describe three protocol standards, which are known as V1, V2c, and V3. Managers can choose to implement one or more of these standards. The iSM SNMP provider supports all three standards.

The SNMP facilities are automatically installed during the iSM installation. The MIBs for iSM are located in the following directory:

<iwayhome>/etc/mibs

The MIBs are copied to the manager software (and usually compiled) as required by that software. The MIBS for Java and the operating system, can be found according to their own software installation. For example, the Java MIB provides access to Java execution information such as threads, memory use, and semaphores (monitors).
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Configuring the SNMP Provider

The iSM SNMP agent is exposed as a provider. There can be one or more providers defined in a configuration, although more than one is only required if there are independent managers controlling different aspects of the server.

To complete the configuration, you will need to know the configuration of the manager. For example, the manager will be configured to interact with the agent on a specific port (usually 161). If you have multiple configurations on the same installation host, you will need to separate these by having different addresses. For performance reasons, iSM uses separate providers on each configuration rather than having a single provider poll other configurations.

You will also be requested to specify which protocol(s) are used by your manager. Select the set that is supported by the manager.

The provider can accept simultaneous requests from multiple managers, and some managers are capable of sending multiple requests to their agents in parallel. If this is the case, you can specify the number of expected parallel requests by setting the number of execution threads.
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Procedure: How to Configuring the SNMP Provider

To configure the SNMP provider:

  1. In the left console pane of the Server menu, select SNMP Provider.

    The SNMP Provider pane opens.

  2. Click New in the Defined SNMP Providers section.

    The SNMP Provider Definition pane opens.

  3. Provide the appropriate values for your SNMP provider parameters as listed and defined in the following table.

    Parameter

    Description

    Name *

    Enter the name of the SNMP provider to add.

    Description

    Enter a brief description of the of the SNMP provider.

    Active

    If set to false, the SNMP agent will not be started during iSM server startup or restart.

    UDP Port

    The UDP port where the SNMP agent is listening for SNMP requests. Usually 161. It is acceptable to listen to UDP and TCP together in the same agent.

    UDP Local Bind Address

    The local UDP bind address for multi-homed hosts. This parameter value is usually left blank.

    TCP Port

    The TCP port where the SNMP agent is listening for SNMP requests. Usually 161. It is acceptable to listen to UDP and TCP together in the same agent.

    TCP Local Bind Address

    The local TCP bind address for multi-homed hosts. This parameter value is usually left blank.

    SNMPv1 Message Processing

    Select true to support the SNMPv1 message processing model.

    SNMPv2c Message Processing

    Select true to support the SNMPv2c message processing model.

    SNMPv3 Message Processing

    Select true to support the SNMPv3 message processing model.

    Multithreading

    The number of SNMP requests that can be processed in parallel.

  4. Click Add when you are finished.

    You are returned to the main SNMP Provider pane and the new SNMP provider that was defined is added to the list.

  5. To define multiple SNMP providers, repeat this procedure.
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