SNMP, I don't use but should I?

[chazzy2501]

I've know of it for years but didn't feel I needed it. of course now that a drive on my SAN failed and the email alert failed I wished I'd spent the time setting one up. I assume I need some software (suggestions please) I'll need to set the devices (san, printers, switches) to use the server as the trap? Do I need something called MIB modules in order to use SNMP?

 

Ideally I'd like the server software to email me on all warning and critical events...

[SovietRussia]

We use SNMP for monitoring of Print Levels, Bandwidth to switches etc

 

MIB is like the backbone that has data, you need a MIB Browser to view the data on the device. All MIB has unique codes, then in application's you insert these OID codes which then poll the information.

 

But for instance, to get specific data from a HP Switch, you need the HP MIB as it may contain more fields that just a standard MIB.

[SYNACK]

There is network monitoring software like nagios and cati that can help you out with this, these are open source so the usual disclaimer about wandering through a desert of ascii is implied. There are others floating around too, there are a few suggestions floating around here on the forum for network monitoring.

[SYNACK]

Wait, here we go, there is a whole article from here on it EduGeek.net - An EduGeek Roundup of Free Network Monitoring Tools

[Domino]

Of course a lot of products have their own alerting built in that doesn't require an SNMP infrastructure - I would have thought most SANs could generate email alerts themselves given a mail host and address to send to.

 

Not saying you shouldn't investigate a more robust monitoring solution, just that there's likely a stop-gap option too