Simple Network Management Protocol Agent Research Articles

On Performance and Scalability of Cost-Effective SNMP Managers for Large-Scale Polling

As networks grow larger in size and complexity, their monitoring is becoming an increasing challenge because of the required polling performance and also due to heterogeneity of devices. As it turns out, SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) is by far the most popular monitoring protocol. However, due to the increase in the number of network devices, it becomes necessary to employ multiple SNMP managers, which is not cost-effective due to the hardware requirements. Additionally, the different proprietary SNMP implementations require custom configuration very often, as new devices are being incorporated into the network. Therefore, current SNMP managers not only require capabilities for large-scale monitoring but also a high degree of flexibility and programmability. In response, we propose an SNMP manager architecture with a flexible multi-threaded architecture, which effectively reduces the hardware resources necessary to poll the increasing number of SNMP agents. In addition, it features a scripting component to deal with the different data representations caused by proprietary implementations. Our experience has shown that SNMP agents can have high variability in their response times. Actually, our findings show a strong correlation between high response times and CPU load. As a solution, we propose and analyze novel adaptive polling algorithms that decrease the load on agents' CPUs while keeping the desired polling rate for fast agents. Finally, we present several real-world use cases where we show the benefits of the polling algorithms and the scripting component, by means of extensive measurement campaigns.

Performance Evaluation of SNMPv1/2c/3 using Different Security Models on Raspberry Pi

The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is one of the dominant protocols for network monitoring and configuration. The first two versions of SNMP (v1 and v2c) use the Community-based Security Model (CSM), where the community is transferred in clear text, resulting in a low level of security. With the release of SNMPv3, the User-based Security Model (USM) and Transport Security Model (TSM) were proposed, with strong authentication and privacy at different levels. The Raspberry Pi family of Single-Board Computers (SBCs) is widely used for many applications. To help their integration into network management systems, it is essential to study the impact of the different versions and security models of SNMP on these SBCs. In this work, we carried out a performance analysis of SNMP agents running in three different Raspberry Pis (Pi Zero W, Pi 3 Model B, and Pi 3 Model B+). Our comparisons are based on the response time, defined as the time required to complete a request/response exchange between a manager and an agent. Since we did not find an adequate tool for our assessments, we developed our own benchmarking tool. We did numerous experiments, varying different parameters such as the type of requests, the number of objects involved per request, the security levels of SNMPv3/USM, the authentication and privacy protocols of SNMPv3/USM, the transport protocols, and the versions and security models of SNMP. Our experiments were executed with Net-SNMP, an open-source and comprehensive distribution of SNMP. Our tests indicate that SNMPv1 and SNMPv2c have similar performance. SNMPv3 has a longer response time, due to the overhead caused by the security services (authentication and privacy). The Pi 3 Model B and Pi 3 Model B+ have comparable performance, and significantly outperform the Pi Zero W.

The Research and Implementation of Safety Isolation System SNMP Agent

In order to monitor and control the security isolation system remotely, this paper analyzes the implementation technology of simple network management protocol (SNMP) and secure file transfer protocol (SFTP), aiming at the problem that SNMP can not send a large amount of data, proposes an approach that extends the Manager/Agent model of SNMP, with customing flag OID variables and manager configure the file transfer-realated OID variables adaptively in the MIB of SNMP agent, call the SFTP client embedded SNMP agent to upload and download the configurati on file from specifies designated SFTP server, and parse the configuration file in order to update security isolation system rule base or the virus database version. After Networking Test, The approach can be simple and efficient implementation of the safety isolation system for remote monitoring.

Network Anomaly Detection using PSO-ANN

In this work, the continue from the last research work done [20], thus it is proposed a data mining based anomaly detection system, aiming to detect volume anomalies, using Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) monitoring. The method is novel in terms of combining the use of Digital Signature of Network Segment (DSNS) with the evolutionary technique called Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO)[5] and neural network training, applied in a real data set. PSO is a high efficient heuristic technique with low computational complexity, developed in 1995 by Kennedy and Eberhart [1] inspired by social behavior of bird flocking. The DSNS is a baseline that consists of different normal behavior profiles to a specific network device or segment, generated by the GBA tool (Automatic Backbone Management), using data collected from SNMP objects. The proposed anomaly detection system uses the SVM in order to clusterize the traffic collected by SNMP agents and its respective DSNS. The PSO is combined with the SVM in order to improve performance and quality of the solution in the clusterization and calculation of clusters centroids. Tests were carried out using a real network environment in the Techno India University, Kolkata. Numerical results have been shown that the obtained detection and false alarm rates are promising. It is also implemented the deterministic method proposed in order to detect anomalies on the same dataset, so that both methods could be compared.

Wireless Sensor Network Management Based on SNMP Protocol

This paper proposes a network management scheme of WSN. With embedded technology and SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) agent technology, an embedded SNMP agent is designed. The agent abstracts a WSN device to a virtual device as a SNMP management node. The main advantage is that the agent supports SNMP to manage the network, and diverse embedded devices can be managed identically with the conventional Internet network management. Therefore, the scheme can reduce the cost of network management and simplify the operation. Finally, by experiments, the scheme is proved to be feasible.

Low-Cost, Low-Power, High-Capacity 3R OEO-Type Reach Extender for a Long-Reach TDMA-PON

This paper proposes a low-cost, low-power, and high-capacity optical-electrical-optical-type reach extender that can provide 3R frame regeneration and remote management to increase the reach and split ratio with no change to a legacy time division multiple access passive optical network. To provide remote management, the extender gathers information regarding optical transceivers and link status per port and then transmits to a service provider using a simple network management protocol agent. The extender can also apply to an Ethernet passive optical network (E-PON) or a gigabit-capable PON (G-PON) by remote control. In a G-PON, in particular, it can provide burst mode signal retiming and burst-to-continuous mode conversion at the upstream path through a G-PON transmission convergence frame adaptor. Our proposed reach extender is based on the quad-port architecture for cost-effective design and can accommodate both the physical reach of 60 km and the 512 split ratios in a G-PON and the physical reach of 80 km and the 256 split ratios in an E-PON.

Secure Network Management Within an Open-Source Mobile Agent Framework

Mobile agents (MAs) have been proposed for decentralized network management. This paper explains how Aglets, a Java open-source MA framework, not a proprietary system, can be used for security-enhanced network management, complementing the security of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) version 3. The solution prototyped is a hybrid environment where network management applications use MAs that interact locally with SNMP agents via the SNMP protocol. The implemented class libraries extend the security infrastructure of Aglets, by incorporating cryptographic functions through the Java Cryptography Extension. The extension enables data fields to be encrypted, while code is to be digitally signed. Legacy SNMPv1 and v2 enabled devices, with elementary security, can also be upgraded through this approach, which can effectively avoid a range of attacks. Consideration has been given to auxiliary functionality such as responding to SNMP traps, key distribution, logging, and secure clock synchronization.

Design and Implementation of the SNMP Agents for Remote Monitoring and Control via UML and Petri Nets

For large-scale and long-distance distributed systems, this paper proposes a systematical multiparadigm approach to develop the simple network management protocol (SNMP) agents for remote monitoring and control. The standard unified modeling language (UML) is adopted for modeling the system, and then the Petri-net model is applied to achieve both qualitative and quantitative analyses for the system's dynamic behavior. In real applications, the present design can be further implemented with Java and ladder diagrams on programmable logic controllers (PLC). The developed system has been used successfully in a mobile switching center (MSC) of Taiwan Cellular Corporation for the remote monitoring and control, through the Internet, of its environmental conditions, including the temperature, humidity, power, and security, with a total of 316 sensors and 140 actuators.

XML-Based Network Management for IP Networks

XML-based network management, which applies XML technologies to network management, has been proposed as an alternative to existing network management. The use of XML in network management offers many advantages. However, most existing network devices are already embedded with simple network management protocol (SNMP) agents and managed by SNMP managers. For integrated network management, we present the architectures of an XML-based manager, an XML-based agent, and an XML/SNMP gateway for legacy SNMP agents. We describe our experience of developing an XML-based network management system (XNMS), XML-based agent, and an XML/SNMP gateway. We also verify the effectiveness of our XML-based agent and XML/SNMP gateway through performance tests. Our experience with developing XNMS and XML-based agents can be used as a guideline for development of XML-based management systems that fully take advantage of the strengths of XML technologies.

Java for On-line Distributed Monitoring of Heterogeneous Systems and Services

The control and management of Web-based service quality require the extension of the Internet infrastructure with monitoring functions to ascertain dynamically the state of networked resources. We describe the design and implementation of the Monitoring Application Programming Interface (MAPI), a Java-based tool for the on-line monitoring of Internet heterogeneous resources, which provides monitoring indicators at different levels of abstraction. At the application level, it instruments the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) to notify several different types of events triggered during the execution of Java applications, e.g. object allocation and method calls. At the kernel level, MAPI inspects system-specific information generally hidden by the JVM, e.g. CPU usage and incoming network packets, by integrating with Simple Network Management Protocol agents and platform-dependent monitoring modules. MAPI is the core part of a portable tool for distributed monitoring, control and management in the Internet environment. The tool is implemented in terms of mobile agents that move close to the monitored resources to enforce distributed management policies autonomously, with a significant reduction in both reaction time and traffic overhead.

Using RMON Matrix Group Extensions to AnalyzeInternetworking Problems

The Remote network-MONitoring (RMON) standard is a valuable addition to the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), providing network managers with important global network information. Unlike SNMP agents, RMON agents operate in promiscuous mode and process all packets traversing the local net. The RMON management information base (MIB) supplements the SNMP MIB-II standard MIB. We present common network problems that cannot be solved using existing MIB-II or RMON objects. To solve these problems, we develop extensions to the RMON matrix group to gather network layer statistics that result in a view of packet traffic beyond the local network. Our extensions increase the ability to analyze and solve network configuration problems and perform troubleshooting. We demonstrate our results by implementing and analyzing two “live” internetworking problems. Data collected from these experiments showed that network traffic patterns can be isolated by individual subnets, thus more easily identifying sources of congestion.