Reduced polling in an SNMPv1-managed network

Details Reduced polling in an SNMPv1-managed network Reduced polling in an SNMPv1-managed network

1998-10-22

2001-09-18

Hsu, Alpus H. (Department: 2731)

Multiplex communications

Network configuration determination

C370S401000, C370S408000, C370S449000, C709S202000, C709S223000, C379S030000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06292472

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Technical Field
This invention relates to a network; and more particularly relates to a network having a network management system coupled to a wide area network having high speed switches.
2. Description of Prior Art
In a known wide area network (WAN) having a network management System (NMS) and various nodes (switches) communicating via an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and/or frame relay, each node sends status information to the network management system in traps containing status information. In an implementation of a network management system according to the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) v1, the protocol for communicating traps to the network management system does not call for confirming that a trap reaches the network management system, so there is the possibility that relying on only receiving traps from each node could result in the network management system not being made aware in a timely manner of a change in status of a node. Therefore, each node is regularly polled for such status information. This polling is an inefficient use of network bandwidth.
One disadvantage of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) v1 is that the amount of network management polling required to circumvent potential trap loss leads to excessive management traffic.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides a network configuration having a network management system coupled to a wide area network having high speed switches (nodes).
Each high speed switch has a respective SNMP/file transfer protocol agent sub-system that emits a trap message containing event change information such as equipment error or interface association error and a sequential trap number.
The network management system has a fault status agent that receives the trap message; and if the trap number is not next in sequence, then the fault status agent initiates a lost trap default procedure and immediately polls the high speed switch for current status information.
Moreover, if a predetermined time elapses with no trap message from the high speed switch, then the fault status agent polls the high speed switch for the current trap number.
The basic idea of the present invention is to reduce the need for periodic polling of a node's status information using a node's trap number to determine whether any of the node's trap information has been lost.
One advantage of the present invention is that based on an average of 200 periodic polls per node, expect a 99.5% decrease in periodic polling requests, partially offset by conditional polling on trap loss detection, which is not easily quantified. The present invention requires discovery of SNMP party indexes, which provides an increase of about 1% of initial poll requests.


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