Networking / Beginners

Making the Choice

Making the choice between configuration methods may be constrained by what protocols and techniques are supported by the equipment in your network. At the worst, you will need to use the CLI on each piece of equipment, operating via Telnet and possibly with the use of a terminal server.

If standardized management protocol support is available there are many advantages to using it, but it should not be forgotten that there will often be more detail and flexibility available through proprietary configuration interfaces than are available through the standards. Nevertheless, except for the configuration of advanced features or for debugging, the benefits of a consolidated management system dictate the use of a standardized technique.

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In this tutorial:

  1. IP Network Management
  2. Choosing to Manage your Network
  3. Choosing a Configuration Method
  4. Command Line Interfaces
  5. Graphical User Interfaces
  6. Standardized Data Representations and Access
  7. Making the Choice
  8. Management Information Base
  9. Representing Managed Objects
  10. Simple Network Management Protocol
  11. Requests, Responses, and Notifications
  12. SNMP Versions and Security
  13. Choosing an SNMP Version
  14. Extensible Markup Language
  15. Extensibility and Domains of Applicability
  16. XML Remote Procedure Calls
  17. Simple Object Access Protocol
  18. XML Applicability to Network Management
  19. Common Object Request Broker Architecture
  20. Interface Definition Language
  21. The Architecture
  22. CORBA Communications
  23. Choosing a Configuration Protocol
  24. Choosing to Collect Statistics
  25. Policy Control
  26. Choosing to Apply Policy
  27. Policy Information Base