Brocade Fabric OS Administrators Guide (Supporting Fabric OS v7.3.0) - Manual (Page 185)

Basic SNMP operation
Every Brocade device carries an agent and management information base (MIB). The agent accesses
information about a device and makes it available to an SNMP network management station.
FIGURE 10 SNMP structure
When active, the management station can get information or set information when it queries an agent.
SNMP commands, such as get , set , and getnext are sent from the management station, and the
agent replies once the value is obtained or modified. Agents use variables to report such data as the
number of bytes and packets in and out of the device, or the number of broadcast messages sent and
received. These variables are also known as managed objects . All managed objects are contained in
the MIB.
FIGURE 11 SNMP query
The management station can also receive traps , unsolicited messages from the switch agent if an
unusual event occurs. For more information, refer to
Traps on page 187.
FIGURE 12 SNMP trap
The agent can receive queries from one or more management stations and can send traps to up to six
management stations.
Understanding MIBs
The management information base (MIB) is a database of monitored and managed information on a
device, in this case a Brocade switch. The MIB structure can be represented by a tree hierarchy. The
root splits into three main branches: International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Consultative
Committee for International Telegraph and Telephone (CCITT), and joint ISO/CCITT. These branches
have short text strings and integers (OIDs) to identify them. Text strings describe object names, while
integers allow software to create compact, encoded representations of the names.
Each MIB variable is assigned an object identifier (OID). The OID is the sequence of numeric labels on
the nodes along a path from the root to the object. For example, as shown in , the Brocade SW.MIB
OID is:
1.3.6.1.4.1.1588.2.1.1.1
Basic SNMP operation
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