ISPPlanet • Budget Network Management System Series - Wrap-Up

SNMP Browse and Query
SNMP managers provide the ability to query device parameters and counters, represented as objects in a management information base (MIB). Except for ipMonitor—which is really a status monitor, not a manager—every product in this series supports ad hoc and repeated real-time SNMPv1 GET and GET-NEXT queries. NetPlus AutoManage can use GET-BULK with SNMPv2 agents for more efficient queries. The MG-SOFT MIB Browser we tested can even use SNMPv3.

Vendor	ACE*COMM	MediaHouse	SNMP ToolChest Company	MG-SOFT	Ipswitch	Castle Rock Computing
Product	NetPlus AutoManage	ipMonitor	SNMP ToolChest	MIB Browser NetInspector LITE	WhatsUp Gold	SNMPc
SNMP Versions	v1, v2	v1	v1	v1, v2, v3	v1	v1
MIB Compiler	Yes	No (Supply OIDs)	No (Extend Tcl)	Yes	Basic Extractor	Yes
MIB Walk/Browse	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ad Hoc Query	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Real-Time Query*	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Expressions	Utilization	N/A	SmartBrowser	No	Plot computed values	Hub & BitView Custom Tables
Text/Table Output	Yes	N/A	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Graphed Output	Yes	N/A	No	No	Yes	Yes
Save Results	Yes	N/A	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Print Results	Yes	N/A	No	Yes	Yes	No
Comments	ODBC for recording	SNMP QA provides only status monitoring	Packaged expressions for on-the-fly analysis	MIB Builder Load MIB Modules	To graph tables, use indexed objects	Custom expressions for 40 devices

* Repeated SNMP queries with real-time result display (status monitoring and trend reporting are discussed elsewhere)

Because every network is different, most administrators need the ability to add device-specific MIBs. At a rudimentary level, this is possible with every product we tested—even ipMonitor can handle enterprise objects because it deals only with object identifiers (OIDs). But the more a manager knows about each MIB, the better it can crunch and display results. MG-SOFT, ACE*COMM, and CastleRock supply true MIB compilers, listed in order of "strictness" encountered when adding five Cisco and Squid MIBs. Catching MIB errors at compile time is ideal. The others can handle new MIBs, but are unlikely to notice source errors until a problem crops up at runtime.

Several products support pre-packaged or administrator-defined expressions that compute more useful results from raw values. For example, the number of bytes received by an interface since last reboot is rarely helpful. What you need is interface utilization—bits per second or percentage of link capacity. Several products support expressions; SNMP ToolChest and CastleRock even provide pre-packaged expressions for managing Cisco devices.

After results have been gathered, what do you do with them? We found significant diversity in presentation methods, result storage, and even the ability to print without resorting to screen snapshot. Each product has its own merits, but we found CastleRock our favorite for quick, visual SNMP queries.

Pt. 1: Introduction / What We Tested	> Pt. 5: Device Control
Pt. 2: Installation & Setup	Pt. 6: Network Montoring & Alerts
Pt. 3: Network Discovery <	Pt. 7: Reporting
Pt. 4: SNMP Browse and Query	Pt. 8: Product Support / Overall Evaluation