Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
1999-04-26
2001-12-18
Shah, Sanjiv (Department: 2172)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
C707S793000, C707S793000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06332142
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a computer language for monitoring and controlling devices of a computer network, in particular to a device description file and a separate management application.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Network management applications are used to configure and monitor voice and data networking hardware. Typically, a network management station (NMS) communicates with an entity in the device referred to as an agent to obtain and configure various parameters. This agent is comprised of software that is running on an embedded device microprocessor (internal to the networking hardware). The NMS typically communicates with the agent using a transport mechanism such as the simple network management protocol (SNMP) to monitor and configure the attributes of the device.
The parameters that an agent can control are described in a management information base (MIB). Each entry in the MIB describes some attribute the agent can control, what the limitations there are for an attribute and how that attribute can be manipulated and accessed. As more functionality is added to the device over time, more support features are added to the agent and subsequently each of these attributes are typically added to the MIB.
As new functionality is added to the agent and the device, the functionality of the NMS must also be extended to include these new features. Typically, the developers of the NMS hardcode the parameters supported by a device. As more features and parameters are added to a device, the agent is extended and so to is the NMS software. A significant problem arises when an NMS must be developed to support all revisions of agent software for several customers. To support such a large contrast of devices and agent software revisions, the NMS must determine the agent type and software version and based upon that knowledge, the NMS typically uses complex hard coded logic to assess the application of various parameters. This creates a complex application that is difficult to debug, costly to maintain and not simply extended to support new devices or new features.
SUMMARY AND OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the invention to avoid the problems with network systems wherein (management information base) MIB attributes are hard coded in the source code and the logic to handle the various agents and software revisions are very difficult to maintain.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a mechanism or system for network management software applications which avoids disadvantages involving high software maintenance, tedious software updates, lack of scalability and increased development time.
It is another object of the invention to provide a management information base (MIB) attribute discriminator (MAD) in the form of a software library developed to abstract MIB data from an application. The MAD provides a mechanism to describe MIB attributes in an external text file and organizes the MIB attributes by system object identifier (OED) and possibly agent software revision.
It is still another object of the invention to use the MAD essentially to eliminate the need to hardcode MIB information in an application and eliminate the need for an application to compile MIBs.
It is a further object of the invention to use the MAD to provide a simple programmatic interface to access MIB attributes and test whether they apply to a specific agent type and possibly agent software revision thus eliminating complex coding logic within the network management system (NMS).
According to the invention there is provided a computer network system with network devices with agents comprised of software running on an embedded device microprocessor. The parameters that an agent can control are described in a management information base (MIB). The network objects have a system object identifier (OID). A network management station (NMS) is provided with software for monitoring and configuring the network devices. A management information base (MIB) attribute discriminator is provided for organizing MIB attributes. The discriminator includes a MIB definition listing comprising a listing of device agent attributes organized by system OID. The MAD also includes a parser for parsing the MIB definitions and a MIB class stored in memory by the parser. The parser generates a set of MIB objects contained within the MIB class. A MIB definitions interface may be provided for accessing MIB data form the MIB class.
According to a further aspect of the invention a management information base (MIB) attribute discriminator process is employed for organizing MIB attributes for system network management station (NMS) software. The NMS software monitors and configures network devices having a system object identifier. The devices have agents comprised of software running on an embedded device microprocessor wherein the parameters that an agent can control are described in a management information base (MIB). A MIB definition text file is provided with entries described by grammar and tokens. The MIB definition file is parsed with an information parser class. MIB data is then stored in memory, described by grammar and tokens. The MIB data is then accessed through a MIB definitions interface and using the MIB data with software of the NMS.
The MIB attribute discriminator (MAD) provides a mechanism that abstracts the MIB data out of the application and provides a way to look up an attribute of interest and based upon the agent/device system object identifier (OID) and possibly the agent software revision. This mechanism can provide a yes or no answer if that feature is supported. If the feature is supported the NMS is provided with the appropriate information to control that feature. If a feature is not supported by a particular system and software revision then the NMS is informed appropriately.
The MAD was developed to provide a simple and extensible mechanism to organize MIB attributes according to the agent system OID and the agent software revision. The attributes are defined in a human readable text file that is parsed at startup. The entries in the text file are described by a grammar and tokens. The MAD can support various network manufacturer's equipment simply by making entries in a MibDefinitions.cfg file.
The entries in the MibDefinition.cfg file are described and defined by a grammar. The grammar is made up of tokens and attributes. The first token found may describe the type of file it is (i.e. the “MibDefinition” token). The second token, “Begin” and the last token “End” describe the beginning and end of the file. These are required so that the grammar parser can determine when to start and stop reading the device attributes.
Each main entry is preferably defined by the SysObjectID token followed by a quoted string value (i.e. “.1.3.6.1.4.1.43.1.9.13.3. I”). This quoted string value defines a particular system object identifier (OID). The OidDescr and OID pairs that follow define the attributes supported by a particular system OID (i.e. OidDescr “SystemConsoleAccess” OID “.1.3.6.1.4.1.114.1.4.1.18.0”).
Further discrimination can be accomplished by extending the MAD to filter upon the software version. This step can be easily implemented and may be added into the MAD.
A further object of the invention is to provide a grammar that can describe the supported attributes of an agent and organize them by system OID.
A further object of the invention is to create a file that can describe the attributes of an agent wherein the file is easily extensible by simply adding new entries in order to provide new support for a new agent type or new agent features.
Still another object of the invention is to reduce software maintenance costs by describing static information in a runtime file wherein changes can be made to this file and the changes are immediately available without changing any source code.
According to a preferred embodiment of the invention, the system is implemented with functionality provided using the Java programing stored as a package (a package is the SUN
3Com Corporation
McGlew and Tuttle , P.C.
Shah Sanjiv
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