GE DS-82 - Manual (Page 48)

Chapter 4: Web-Based Management
44 GE-DS-82 and 82-PoE Ethernet Managed Switch User Manual
An SNMP-managed network consists of four key components: Network management
stations (NMSs), SNMP agents, Management information base (MIB) and Network-
management protocol:
• Network management stations (NMSs): Sometimes called consoles, these
devices execute management applications that monitor and control network
elements. Physically, NMSs are usually engineering workstation-caliber computers
with fast CPUs, megapixel color displays, substantial memory, and abundant disk
space. At least one NMS must be present in each managed environment.
• Agents: Agents are software modules that reside in network elements. They
collect and store management information such as the number of error packets
received by a network element.
• Management information base (MIB): A MIB is a collection of managed objects
residing in a virtual information store. Collections of related managed objects are
defined in specific MIB modules.
• Network-management protocol: A management protocol is used to convey
management information between agents and NMSs. SNMP is the Internet
community's de facto standard management protocol.
SNMP Overview
SNMP itself is a simple request/response protocol. NMSs can send multiple requests
without receiving a response.
• Get - Allows the NMS to retrieve an object instance from the agent.
• Set - Allows the NMS to set values for object instances within an agent.
• Trap - Used by the agent to asynchronously inform the NMS of some event. The
SNMPv2 trap message is designed to replace the SNMPv1 trap message.
SNMP Community
An SNMP community is the group that devices and management stations running
SNMP belong to. It helps define where information is sent. The community name is
used to identify the group. A SNMP device or agent may belong to more than one
SNMP community. It will not respond to requests from management stations that do
not belong to one of its communities. SNMP default communities are:
• Write = private
• Read = public
System Options
Use this page to define management stations. You can also define a name, location,
and contact person for the Managed Switch.