Five network management categories making up the FCAPS model - Essay Example

RMON and RMON Probes RMON and RMON Probes Introduction Organizations are usually faced with the challenge of meeting the increasing needs of their customers and business. It is due to this reason that frequent additions are witnessed in the scale of networks and IT infrastructure. Such progression demands effective monitoring and management to ensure that network continues to fulfill the required needs of the employees and their customers. Remote network monitoring has become one of the well-known forms of network management. 2. Remote Monitoring (RMON) Remote monitoring (RMON) is defined as the specification for exchanging network information between different network monitors and console systems.

CISCO (2009) provided the information that this specification was introduced by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and became known as a draft standard in 1995 in RFC 1757. This specification enables the network to be monitored from various aspects with the help of functions and statistics that facilitate communication with the console managers and network probes. SearchSecruity.com (1998) defined network probe as the act of attaining knowledge about a network by inserting a program or a device at a certain point on the network.

The exchange of information between the RMON probes and RMON console managers takes place on the basis of simple network management protocol (SNMP). Figure 1: RMON probes being sent to the console manager from different points in the network (CISCO, 2009)2.1 RMON and RMON Probes RMON probes are programmed to communicate with the console managers on the basis of their IP. The primary function of the RMON probe is to measure the packet flow at a certain juncture in the network to generate statistical information.

The information is sent to RMON console managers where the network manager can analyze the data and judge the condition of the network. Aoshima (2000) stated that the RMON probes send statistical data to the RMON managers where it is converted into more comprehensive statistical formats, for example, lists and graphs. The statistical nature of the information facilitates fast and effective decision making and analysis. Aoshima (2000) also pointed out that the format of statistical data is based on the RMON Management Information Base (MIB).

MIB possesses different monitoring mechanisms, namely RMON1 and RMON2. RMON1 possesses statistical information regarding the data link layer and physical layer, while the other one contains information about the network layer and application layer. The information in RMON1 relates to the MAC addresses and ports, whereas RMON2 contains information about IP addresses and applications. RMON managers are designated to overlook all the branch networks to ensure that statistical information is being received from the probes.

The monitoring of the branch network takes place through wide area network (WAN) depending on the basis of the scale of the network. RMON probes are expected to perform efficiently (without any delays) to ensure that all packets are measured. RMON probes possess enough memory spaces to save statistical information about the current and previous observations. This aspect proves to be helpful for the network manager in the emergence of issues; past records in the RMON probes can be analyzed to investigate the root of the issues.3. Conclusion RMON enables the administrators to choose the network probes that would be able to provide them most effective results for monitoring their unique network designs and infrastructure.

The presence of RMON probes at different junctures of the network can ensure the provision of effective and reliable network service. ReferencesAoshima, K., Ohnuki, Y., Kuriyama, M., Echizenya, T., (2000), RMON (Remote network Monitoring) Probe, Hitachi Cable Review, No, 19. CISCO, (2009), Remote Monitoring, Retrieved from: http://docwiki.cisco.com/wiki/Remote_Monitoring#Figure:_An_RMON_Probe_Can_Sen d_Statistical_Information_to_an_RMON_ConsoleSearchSecurity.com, (1998), Probe, Retrieved from: http://searchsecurity.

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