[SAGE] Re: SNMP vs. agents

[Roman Hochuli <roman.hochuli@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello

>> On a related note: do people find SNMP or agent-based systems
>> "better"? Or, what are the trade-offs between the two?

Well, in my humble opinion there are both ways to consider depending on
how and what you want to monitor.

SNMP is nice for simple stats (routers, ethernet interfaces, disk
usages, etc) but unfortunatly a lot of vendors neglect to support it
good or do not support it at all.

Furthermore if you start to dig deeper into monitoring of services and
service level management (with the obvious following reporting behemoth)
more and more specialized, agent-based tools come into action. For
example: do you know an (opensource?!) SNMP-based monitoring-system
which can send out a mail (handed out at a defined mailserver) and check
back how fast the mail has been delivered to the test-mailbox if it is
delivered at all?

Most probably you will end up with a half/half solution depending on
what you want or have to monitor thru all your infrastructure.

> I think the beauty of SNMP is that it gives you a proven agent for all
> devices on your network. 

Hmm. I guess I have seen too much error-prone or defective SNMP-agents
to second that... :-/

-- 
Best regards,
Roman Hochuli
Operations Manager

nexellent ag
Saegereistrasse 29
CH-8152 Glattbrugg

Phone:       +41 44 562 30 40
Fax:         +41 44 562 30 41
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