Master Subagent Architecture

In a distributed system, where different SNMP agents are located at different network nodes (IP address), a proxy agent is required to serve as a single point of contact to manage the distributed network of SNMP agents. This enhances effective management in distributed applications and is defined by the master-subagent architecture, where the SNMP proxy agent acts as the master agent and the SNMP agents to be managed must be registered as sub-agents to it. The SNMP master agent allows to manage any number of managed objects of the SNMP sub-agents.

Provides a single gateway to manage multiple SNMP agents in a network.

Used in proxying sub-agents with different management information

Used when more than one sub-agent has the same managed objects of a MIB.

Used when same table of a MIB object has different row implementation in its subagent.

Heartbeat Mechanism

Reports the network management system about the existence of SNMP agents in the network through alarms by constantly monitoring them.

Dynamic registration of sub-agents

Registering sub-agents at run-time without interrupting the processing of master agent.

AdventNet agents can be made as sub-agents to third-party agents or vice versa

Derives the management information of third-party agents, OS native agents, etc.

Filtering traps received from sub-agent using Trap Filtering Table

Restricts certain traps, sent to the manager applications, based on some conditions.

Manager can also communicate with the sub-agent directly

Provides the flexibility to directly access the sub-agent or through the master agent.