Chapter 7: Management Software

Chapter 4: described management interfaces in the context of protocol software interfaces and outlined how the management agent and manager communicate. It also indicated the type of information exchanged. This chapter details the components of the management subsystem for an embedded communications device and its implementation, with a specific focus on device management. Supporting issues such as configuration saving and restoration are also covered.

7.1 Device Management

Figure 4.3 outlined an embedded communications device managed by SNMP from a remote management station. Not surprisingly, SNMP is only one of several protocols and schemes used for device management. Though it is common in the data networking devices, it has not seen wide deployment in telecom equipment. The telecom world uses several protocols, including Common Management Information Protocol (CMIP), Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), and Transaction Language 1 (TL1) for management of the devices. In addition, a Command Line Interface (CLI) is often used by the operator to configure devices. In the last few years, using a Web browser and HTTP for device management has been gaining popularity. In this method, a network manager connects to the embedded communications device using a browser which presents a screen to configure the various parameters for the device.