Fault management and Management Information Base (MIB)

Fault management function mostly rely on SNMP protocol and SNMP agent capabilities, where SNMP agents are implemented over different network elements. Structure of management information is described in Management Information Base (MIB) for every single SNMP agent class. Hence, integrated management systems needs to implement different SNMP managers capable to communicate with number of different SNMP agents, obtaining management information from real telecommunication network. Those managers are often called access modules. In order to decrease delivery time for SNMP management solutions, number of generic fault management MIBs are designed (e.g. Alarm Management Information Base). Theoretically, if different SNMP agents rely on the same management information base, only one SNMP manager (access module) is enough to manage different network elements. It is very logical way of thinking, if we consider that in real life different network elements share the same management information structure. For instance, alarm message from many different network elements consists of start time, probable cause, additional information, affected network element, etc. However, state of the art is not so idyllic, from the integrator's point of view. Number of MIBs exist in real telecommunications network. In this paper we will make short research on MIBs implemented on different network elements, in order to detect real integrator position in network management solution's development. At the end, solution is proposed for SNMP agent software development.