What are managed devices?

Managed devices are pieces of hardware, such as hubs and routers, that support software management agents. Agents monitor and report the status of the devices, on which they run, to a monitoring device such as a server. Not all networking devices support management, it is an extra expense. Network management has become increasingly important. As an infrastructures ages and users place increasingly high demands on its capabilities, network managers need a good overview of how the network is responding. Hubs and routers are ideal places to gather information as all traffic must pass through both devices.

The success of TCP/IP has meant that the simple network management protocol (SNMP), and the SNMP2 derivative, have become the standard protocols for gathering network data. Centralised management systems, running on servers, can gather information from managed devices and store it in a database known as a management information base. The database can be easily interrogated to provide statistics on the performance of the network.

Original SMNP agents had to be polled for information, leading to increased traffic simply to obtain traffic flow information. They were unable to automatically communicate with management systems, therefore conditions of concern were not reported as they arose. SMNP2 was developed to allow management of devices across networks that did not run TCP/IP, automatically report alarms and provide security for its transmissions.

SNMP2 supports Novell's IPX/SPX and Macintosh's AppleTalk protocols and offers management system authentification, encryption of management information and the ability to allow more than one agent per device. Due to the more secure nature of SNMP2, devices can be monitored and configured remotely. Unfortunately, standardisation organisations have been unable to agree on much of what SNMP2 offers, so it has never fully been implemented.
 

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