Web-Based Network Management
93
RMON utility viewer provides you with functionality through an easy-to-use
interface especially designed for management of RMON compliant devices.
Network management works by placing a small degree of intelligence into
network devices (routers, bridges, hubs, NIC
, etc.) to be managed. This
intelligence takes the form of an agent that is capable of collecting statistics
and status information, as well as performing control operations that affect
the operation of the network. The agent responds to queries for information
from the centralized network management system, allowing the health and
performance of the network to be monitored and controlled.
RMON, an acronym for Remote MONitoring, was developed by the IETF
(Internet Engineering Task Force) to provide a standard protocol for moni-
toring and managing different groups of information over a network. The
features of RMON are organized into cohesive collections simply called
groups. These groups are the basic unit of conformance.
The D-Link devices utilize four key RMON groups. These four groups are
described in the table below.
Group Name
Description
Statistics
Contains statistics measured by the agent
for each monitored Ethernet interface on
this device. This includes, but is not limited
to, packets, octets, broadcasts, multicasts,
collisions on the total segment, and the
number of dropped packets by the agent.
History
Records periodic statistical samples from an
Ethernet network and stores them for later
retrieval. With this group, comparisons
with current statistics can be made and fore-
casts about segment performance can be
inferred.
Alarm
Periodically takes statistical samples from
variables in the agent and compares them to