In a distributed system, where different SNMP agents
are located at different network nodes (IP address),
a proxy agent is required to serve as a single point
of contact to manage the distributed network of SNMP
agents. This enhances effective management in distributed
applications and is defined by the master-subagent architecture,
where the SNMP proxy agent acts as the master agent
and the SNMP agents to be managed must be registered
as sub-agents to it. The SNMP master agent allows to
manage any number of managed objects of the SNMP sub-agents.
Key Features and Benefits
Features
Benefits
Enables management
through distributed application systems
Provides a single gateway to manage multiple SNMP agents
in a network.
Support for
OID-Based Proxy
Used in proxying sub-agents with different management
information
Support for
Context-based Proxy
Used when more than one sub-agent has the same managed
objects of a MIB.
Support for
Instance-based Proxy
Used when same table of a MIB object has different
row implementation in its subagent.
Heartbeat Mechanism
Reports the network management system about the existence
of SNMP agents in the network through alarms by constantly
monitoring them.
Dynamic registration of sub-agents
Registering sub-agents at run-time without interrupting
the processing of master agent.
WebNMS agents can be made as sub-agents to third-party
agents or vice versa
Derives the management information of third-party agents,
OS native agents, etc.
Filtering traps received from sub-agent using Trap
Filtering Table
Restricts certain traps, sent to the manager applications,
based on some conditions.
Manager can also communicate with the sub-agent directly
Provides the flexibility to directly access the sub-agent
or through the master agent.
