The Four Ms

Many existing books do an excellent job of describing SNMP, MIBs, proxies, and other technologies. While this book describes SNMP (including version 3), its primary focus is more on what might be called the four Ms:

• Manageability of NEs

• MIBs

• Multiservice devices

• MPLS

The manageability of NEs directly affects the cost attached to introducing them into large networks. The quality of the associated MIBs has an important bearing on the cost of introducing the NEs into existing and new management systems. Multitechnology NEs are increasingly the norm, supporting combinations of TCP/IP, MPLS, ATM, Frame Relay, Ethernet, SONET, DWDM, and so on. MPLS and GMPLS are now part of both the strategy and production environment of many service providers. MPLS is also finding its way into the WANs of some very large enterprises . MPLS is such an important technology that it forms a common thread throughout this book.