RFC 1565 (rfc1565) - Page 3 of 17
Network Services Monitoring MIB
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 1565 Network Services Monitoring MIB January 1994
2.1 Object Definitions
Managed objects are accessed via a virtual information store, termed
the Management Information Base or MIB. Objects in the MIB are
defined using the subset of Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1)
defined in the SMI. In particular, each object type is named by an
OBJECT IDENTIFIER, an administratively assigned name. The object
type together with an object instance serves to uniquely identify a
specific instantiation of the object. For human convenience, we
often use a textual string, termed the descriptor, to refer to the
object type.
3. Rationale for having a Network Services Monitoring MIB
Much effort has been expended in developing tools to manage lower
layer network facilities. However, relatively little work has been
done on managing application layer entities. It is neither efficient
nor reasonable to manage all aspects of application layer entities
using only lower layer information. Moreover, the difficulty of
managing application entities in this way increases dramatically as
application entities become more complex.
This leads to a substantial need to monitor applications which
provide network services, particularly distributed components such as
MTAs and DSAs, by monitoring specific aspects of the application
itself. Reasons to monitor such components include but are not
limited to measuring load, detecting broken connectivity, isolating
system failures, and locating congestion.
In order to manage network service applications effectively two
requirements must be met:
(1) It must be possible to monitor a large number of components
(typical for a large organization).
(2) Application monitoring must be integrated into general
network management.
This specification defines simple read-only access; this is
sufficient to determine up/down status and provide an indication of a
broad class of operational problems.
Kille & Freed