SNMP is actually among the most common supervision protocols and this is for good reason. However what are other useful protocol alternatives, and exactly why opt for SNMP? Are there any cases where some other protocols really should be applied or even are being currently used? These are typically but important questions that many persons are asking every so often. Because of this I'm going to make an effort to help answer all of them at this point, based on my very own 19 years experience in Element, Network and Service Management. Note that this article ought to be used simply as food for thought when researching today's protocol possible choices, which are SNMP, CLI, Netconf and also Netflow/IPFIX.
IETF created SNMP in the 1980s and so it became a very popular network management protocol. Through the early 21st century it has become very clear the fact that despite that was originally intended, SNMP was not utilized for setting up network devices, on the contrary it appeared to be largely being utilized for the purpose of network monitoring, i.e. Fault and Performance Management.
During two thousand and two, the Internet Architecture Board and key individuals in IETF's network management team started discussions with service providers to review the specific situation. The output of this particular gathering was the realization that operators have been primarily utilizing proprietary Command Line Interfaces (CLI) to setup network nodes. This possessed a variety of characteristics that service providers preferred, including the fact that it was actually text-based, unlike SNMP. In addition, a lot of equipment vendors didn't provide the capability to totally configure their devices by using SNMP.
Simply as operators mostly liked to create scripts to help configure their particular network nodes, they realized that CLI was short on various ways. They were also surprised by the unknown dynamics in the result. The content and format of output was vulnerable to changes in ways unforeseen. At the same time, Juniper Networks came up with an XML-like management technique. This technique has been sent to the IETF and later given to a wider circle. Collectively, these incidents led IETF towards introduction of NetConf protocol which is anticipated to be much better in-line considering the demands of network operators and devices manufacturers.
On the IP network front, we had CISCO that before long seen that a more lightweight protocol was basically needed to be better suited for Performance Management. As a result, CISCO created Netflow that has turned into a standard today (named IPfix) that was selected by so many Manufacturers.
IETF created SNMP in the 1980s and so it became a very popular network management protocol. Through the early 21st century it has become very clear the fact that despite that was originally intended, SNMP was not utilized for setting up network devices, on the contrary it appeared to be largely being utilized for the purpose of network monitoring, i.e. Fault and Performance Management.
During two thousand and two, the Internet Architecture Board and key individuals in IETF's network management team started discussions with service providers to review the specific situation. The output of this particular gathering was the realization that operators have been primarily utilizing proprietary Command Line Interfaces (CLI) to setup network nodes. This possessed a variety of characteristics that service providers preferred, including the fact that it was actually text-based, unlike SNMP. In addition, a lot of equipment vendors didn't provide the capability to totally configure their devices by using SNMP.
Simply as operators mostly liked to create scripts to help configure their particular network nodes, they realized that CLI was short on various ways. They were also surprised by the unknown dynamics in the result. The content and format of output was vulnerable to changes in ways unforeseen. At the same time, Juniper Networks came up with an XML-like management technique. This technique has been sent to the IETF and later given to a wider circle. Collectively, these incidents led IETF towards introduction of NetConf protocol which is anticipated to be much better in-line considering the demands of network operators and devices manufacturers.
On the IP network front, we had CISCO that before long seen that a more lightweight protocol was basically needed to be better suited for Performance Management. As a result, CISCO created Netflow that has turned into a standard today (named IPfix) that was selected by so many Manufacturers.
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So, if you are interested to read some more, please check the following interesting posts: A History of SNMP and comparison with other protocols and What is the TMN Network Management model
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