Monitoring routers

Question

I have some network monitoring software to use at work, Do I need to install or set up anything on my routers etc so I can monitor them, i.e how to I configure snmp on the device, what do the traps do ? and how and where do I install the MIBS ?
thanks a million

Answer 1

What "snmp server" are you using? If it is capable of monitoring bandwidth utliization, you may or may not have to load MIBs on it - there are both generic MIBs and Cisco-specific ones that provide varying degrees of fucntionality.
A general purpose monitor such a SolarWinds can just be pointed to your target devices, given the snmp ro passwords and, assuming the devices have snmp enabled, will start monitoring and reporting the utilization.
If you have a more stripped down product like one of the open source distributions, you may need to do more work in setting it up, loading MIBs, creating target directories, etc.
Traps are only necessary if you want to alert an operator or process that the device itself is encountering a condition that needs to have operator or process attention - things like interface down or route flapping, etc.
Hope this helps. Please rate helpful posts.