Improve your network using SNMP Monitoring
Sep8Written by:
September 8, 2009 8:25 PM 
You can really improve your network management by implementing SNMP monitoring on your devices.
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is used in network management systems to monitor network-attached devices for conditions that warrant administrative attention. SNMP is a component of the Internet Protocol Suite as defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It consists of a set of standards for network management, including an application layer protocol, a database schema, and a set of data objects.[1]
SNMP exposes management data in the form of variables on the managed systems, which describe the system configuration. These variables can then be queried (and sometimes set) by managing applications.
I use various SNMP monitoring tools daily. The primary SNMP tool I use is integrated into our Titanium support tools software, which is available to anyone who wishes to sign up for our Titanium Support services program.
I also use a tool from Mikrotik, called TheDude. TheDude is a network monitoring utility, that will build a network map, monitor IP traffic, outages on devices, temperatures, and much more. Best of all TheDude is a free utlity that you can integrate into your existing network design.
I do recommend running TheDude on a dedicated PC. By combining our Ti support services, and a live monitoring utility such as TheDude, you can easily be ahead of the problems on your network, and repair them before they become a real issue in most cases.
Copyright ©2009 John Shoff