Re: What is the best practices for SNMP polling ?

ytwong · ‎04-22-2003

What is the best practices for SNMP polling ? Should I directly polled the targeted interface or should I only ping the router's loopback IP address, so that from that I can retrieve the MIB for all the interfaces that I am interested in ? This is including those interfaces that are not reachable due to the security design reason (bcs of no routing, ACL filtering, etc).

I look forward to the anwser to this. Thanks ! :-)

rmushtaq · ‎04-22-2003

As long as you dont poll the device too frequently at very short intervals like every sec or so, it should be ok. http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/126/NMS_bestpractice.html is also relevant.

ytwong · ‎04-22-2003

Can you please give me a sample of configuration on how to do it ? Thanks ! :-)

rmushtaq · ‎04-23-2003

Performance and Fault Management, ISBN: 1578701805 by Cisco Press is also a good reference.

jegrimm · ‎04-23-2003

Hello,

I would always poll the loopback if possible. This would allow you to monitor the device's interfaces and not count on a single interface. You can use the ifEntry table to determine if all interfaces on a device are up/down.

It also depends on the tool you are using as to the best means of polling. Some tools you have to configure what you are polling in advance and others you can walk the table.

Also to get only the interesting interfaces I use mutliple SNMP variables...I have our team place KEYWORDS on an interface description and then I poll for the ifXEntry.ifAlias and parse on that KEYWORD (PORT, ATM,etc...) and from that I then look at the ifEntry table for status...If there isnt a KEYWORD I dont care about the interface.

Cheers!

Jim