Using SNMP, you can collect Windows data from servers that have SNMP Informant installed.  Data that can be collected from SNMP Informant depends upon the provider type installed.  SNMP Informant providers act as a bridge, connecting SNMP to various Windows subsystems.

• Find out about SNMP Informant Performance Providers here

• Find out about SNMP Informant WMI Providers here

• Find out about SNMP Informant Custom Providers here

Why use SNMP Informant?

All Microsoft Windows operating systems (and application servers) are composed of many systems and sub-systems that are responsible for carrying out certain tasks.

When under stress (i.e. low memory, insufficient disk space, high CPU or network utilization), these computer sub-systems provide feedback to the Host Operating System through the Performance Monitor sub-system.

Here's the Problem: If you are not actively monitoring the performance of your Windows servers, you're probably reacting to problem situations.  Disks can run out of space, processors can "max out", memory can drop to dangerously low levels, services can shut down and network bandwidth can be saturated.

The results can be catastrophic. Your servers (and the applications they support!) can grind to a halt.

And WE have the solution: Install SNMP Informant, and you can rapidly shift your server monitoring approach from REACTIVE to PROACTIVE, and:

    BE ALERTED when critical counters exceed threshold levels **
    KNOW IN ADVANCE when capacity will become an issue
    PLAN FOR UPGRADES, because you KNOW your utilization patterns

** SNMP Informant provides the data, and the Network Management Application generates the alerts.

By simply installing SNMP Informant, you can monitor hundreds of performance counters using industry standard (commercial and open source) SNMP-based tools * such as EM7, PRTG, HP Openview NNM, Whatsup Gold, SNMPc, MRTG, RRDtool, Big Brother, Cricket and Cacti to name but a few.

Custom SNMP Informant providers do not connect to either the performance or WMI subsystems of a server.  Rather they connect to a server "connectivity" program (called a DLL), which allows SNMP Informant to collect data about that server.

• The Custom Provider is a custom Informant Systems resource library that bridges SNMP to Registry, performance and customer executable scripts/programs allowing a high degree of customization and flexibility.
   

• The MSCS Provider connects into the Cluster Servers resource libraries to allow accesses to Cluster Service operational and state information.

• The free MBM Agent behaves similarly to the WMI agent, but accesses shared memory used by Motherboard Monitor.

SNMP Traps

At present, our agents do not provide SNMP Trap services (although they will eventually).  Therefore, you must configure the management (polling) station itself to generate alerts based on data collected from SNMP Informant.  This design model works well for the vast majority of network monitoring products, including but not limited to:

• ScienceLogic EM7

• Ipswitch WhatsUp Gold/Professional *

• HP Network Node Manager *

• Paessler PRTG/IPCheck Server Monitor *

• LUTEUS SARL LoriotPro *

• Tobi Oetikers' MRTG/RRDTool *

• ipMonitor *

• Somix Denika and NMS *

SNMP SET Support

SNMP Informant WMI-OS Agent (from version 1.1.1) supports SNMP SETs to remotely pause, stop and restart services, initiate remote program execution and restart servers.  Check out the WMI-OS Product page for more information!

SNMPv3 Support

Our agents are SNMP extension agents, and as such require an SNMP stack in order to function.  The native Microsoft SNMP stack only supports SNMPv1 and SNMPv2, and NOT SNMPv3.  Therefore, our agents cannot process SNMPv3 commands.  This is not a fault of our extension agents, but a limitation of the Microsoft SNMP stack.

If implementing SNMPV3 is is a requirement, you may find success with a third party replacement for the MS SNMP stack.  One such example is the Agent Service for MS Windows by NuDesignTechnologies (http://www.ndt-inc.com).  These replacements claim to be 100% compatible with the MS stack, and support all extension agents.  Since SNMP Informant is such an extension agent, you may find that upgrading to SNMPV3 is less painful than you thought!  We suggest you get a demo of the third party agent, and the free SNMP Informant Standard edition, and try for yourself.  Our preliminary testing has been successful.  Look for us to provide more direction in this area soon.