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[SNMP] Re: HP Openview Slowness.

  • From: Alex P. Rudnev
  • Date: Thu Jun 10 06:38:55 1999

And the worst thing, If someone think _SNMP IS SUITABLE PROTOCOL_ he is 
wrong. In case of CISCO (as an example) we was caused to use boths 'SNMP' 
and 'rsh show ....' methods to get appropriate information. I think 
those who developed SNMP was the childs of the hell (it's terrible 
example of _how you should not develop protocols_; for example, compare

 'rsh -t 120 -l monitor "show ip route"'

request and requesting ip route table by SNMP; compare 'sh interface 
Serial0' and SNMP (10 - 20 different MIB tables with the very euristic 
INDEXES), try to ask _how much BGP router does router have_ or _how mach 
packets was received by ISL sublink_ etc etc. If someone answer _that's 
because of CISCO don't like SNMP_ I can't agree - no, thet's because SNMP 
is wrong protocol at all.

Such protocol should be:

- ascii text based;
- with domain-like names, with the asterisk;
- based on reliable UDP and/or TCP;
- use something like MD5 checksumming for the simple protection.

For example, I'd like to ask

 'BASE 'router'
  GET interface Serial*
 '

and get
 ORIGIN router.interface.Serial1
 in-packets: 223334 u32
 in-errors: 1122 u23
 in-bytes: 124563874 u64
 ....
 ORIGIN router.interface.Serial2
....

(1) TEXT mode, no terrible binary octets, etc etc;
(2) SIMPLE variables, withouth terrible MIB descriptions (they are not 
usefull here);
(3) Another hierarchy (interface.variable, not variable.index)
(4) simple addition private variables

 CISCO.in-bad-frames: 223344
 instead of (as now)

 vendor.cisco.mgrt....interface.lapsha-na-palochke.INDEX

etc etc...

And then, if the protocol (SNMP) is BAD, don't think the tools for this 
protocol should be GOOD.

// And compare this with the WEB interface implemented into some new 
routers and switches - simple, robust, can be used easily, and 100 times 
more flexible. Through it's only simple interfaces with the operator, not 
for the tools, for now.

Alex.

			



On Wed, 9 Jun 1999, Scott Call wrote:

> Date: Wed, 09 Jun 1999 12:51:33 -0700
> From: Scott Call <[email protected]>
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: HP Openview Slowness.
> 
> 
> "Alex P. Rudnev" wrote:
> 
> > If you begin to use commercial soft after free one, then:
> > - don't drop free soft, ypu'll use it anyway;
> 
> I know :) I'm doing HPOV because the 'suits' want a pretty network map on a projector
> somewhere.  MRTG/etc will still be very present in the system :)
> 
> > - increase memory, CPU and disk up to 2 - 4 times (if you had 64RAM,
> > install 512);
> 
> Noted, thanks.
> 
> > - be ready to be disappointed;
> 
> :)
> 
> > Through HP OV is not bad piece of software.
> 
> It's not, but I am disappointed it's not more router-centric.  I appreciate the need to
> monitor workstations, but I've got multitudes more network devices that workstations/servers.
> 
> Thanks for all the responses everyone.
> -scott
> 
> --
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> |Scott Call           |"How could this be a problem in a country where  |
> |Router Geek          | we have Intel and Microsoft"-AlGore on y2 k     |
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

Aleksei Roudnev, Network Operations Center, Relcom, Moscow
(+7 095) 194-19-95 (Network Operations Center Hot Line),(+7 095) 230-41-41, N 13729 (pager)
(+7 095) 196-72-12 (Support), (+7 095) 194-33-28 (Fax)