SNMP is actually among the most common supervision protocols and this is for good reason. However what are other useful protocol alternatives, and exactly why opt for SNMP? Are there any cases where some other protocols really should be applied or even are being currently used? These are typically but important questions that many persons are asking every so often. Because of this I'm going to make an effort to help answer all of them at this point, based on my very own 19 years experience in Element, Network and Service Management. Note that this article ought to be used simply as food for thought when researching today's protocol possible choices, which are SNMP, CLI, Netconf and also Netflow/IPFIX.
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) released the SNMP protocol around the 1980s and it was quickly identified as a good network management protocol. From the beginning of the 21st century it became visible the fact despite that was originally designed, SNMP was not used to set up network equipment, but rather had been principally used for the purpose of network monitoring, i.e. Fault and Performance Management.
During two thousand and two, the Internet Architecture Board and key individuals in IETF's network management team started discussions with service providers to review the specific situation. The output of this particular gathering was the realization that operators have been primarily utilizing proprietary Command Line Interfaces (CLI) to setup network nodes. This possessed a variety of characteristics that service providers preferred, including the fact that it was actually text-based, unlike SNMP. In addition, a lot of equipment vendors didn't provide the capability to totally configure their devices by using SNMP.
Since operators generally liked to compose scripts to support set up their particular equipment, they did consider the CLI missing in various ways. Particularly disturbing was the unforeseen character of the result. The info and layout of output seemed to be susceptible to alteration in unpredictable ways. Simultaneously, Juniper Networks ended up employing an XML-based network management methodology. This has been taken to the IETF and distributed to the broader community. Together, both of these happenings led IETF in to the development of NetConf protocol which is certainly likely to be much better aligned with the requirements of network operators and devices suppliers.
On the IP network front, we had CISCO that before long seen that a more lightweight protocol was basically needed to be better suited for Performance Management. As a result, CISCO created Netflow that has turned into a standard today (named IPfix) that was selected by so many Manufacturers.
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) released the SNMP protocol around the 1980s and it was quickly identified as a good network management protocol. From the beginning of the 21st century it became visible the fact despite that was originally designed, SNMP was not used to set up network equipment, but rather had been principally used for the purpose of network monitoring, i.e. Fault and Performance Management.
During two thousand and two, the Internet Architecture Board and key individuals in IETF's network management team started discussions with service providers to review the specific situation. The output of this particular gathering was the realization that operators have been primarily utilizing proprietary Command Line Interfaces (CLI) to setup network nodes. This possessed a variety of characteristics that service providers preferred, including the fact that it was actually text-based, unlike SNMP. In addition, a lot of equipment vendors didn't provide the capability to totally configure their devices by using SNMP.
Since operators generally liked to compose scripts to support set up their particular equipment, they did consider the CLI missing in various ways. Particularly disturbing was the unforeseen character of the result. The info and layout of output seemed to be susceptible to alteration in unpredictable ways. Simultaneously, Juniper Networks ended up employing an XML-based network management methodology. This has been taken to the IETF and distributed to the broader community. Together, both of these happenings led IETF in to the development of NetConf protocol which is certainly likely to be much better aligned with the requirements of network operators and devices suppliers.
On the IP network front, we had CISCO that before long seen that a more lightweight protocol was basically needed to be better suited for Performance Management. As a result, CISCO created Netflow that has turned into a standard today (named IPfix) that was selected by so many Manufacturers.
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