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Rapid prototyping and development tool for building SNMP agents, TL1 agents, and CLI agents in ANSI C.

Overview

WebNMS Agent Toolkit C Edition is a rapid application development platform to generate multi-protocol (SNMP, TL1, CLI, HTTP, and others) agents. It offers end-to-end development solutions to compile, test and develop multi-protocol agents with adaptors, such as SNMP adaptor, TL1 adaptor, CLI adaptor, HTTP adaptor, and other such adaptors. Agent developers can increase productivity with easy-to-use GUIs for configurations, such as master agent - subagents, SNMP proxy, TL1 security, and CLI string mode. WebNMS Agent Toolkit C Edition offers the complete development experience in building multi-protocol agents.

WebNMS Agent Toolkit C Edition’s generated source files are ported and tested in leading operating systems, such as Windows Vista, 2000, XP, and NT, Solaris, Linux, Unix, Free BSD, Net BSD, HP-Unix, and OS-2. The developed multi-protocol agents are fully supported in embedded operating systems, such as VxWorks, QNX Nutrino, Windows CE, and OSE. Agent source files can also easily be ported to other new operating systems.

Key Features

• Protocol adaptors, such as SNMP adaptor, TL1 adaptor, CLI adaptor, and HTTP adaptor.
• Asynchronous message processing.
• Modular agent source code that provides option to include/exclude the necessary protocol adapters during compilation, with clean separation of platform dependent and platform independent and instrument (stub) files.
• Timer Service and Monitor Service. The Timer service enables to send notifications at specific dates and times. The Monitoring service allows you to observe the variation over time of attribute values in an observed module.
• Multi-protocol agent design is based on the model of common instrumentation with multi-protocol access to the agent.
• Framework to plug-in other protocols.
• Master agent - subagent architecture for SNMP and TL1 in multi-protocol agent.
• Supports Code generation for CLI Command Set file apart from MIB file
• IPv6 addressing support in addition to IPv4

Developer Benefits

• End-to-End tools enable complete agent development cycle to reduce time-to-market.
• Intuitive visual MIB Editor to create and edit SNMP MIBs.
• Intuitive visual CLI Editor to create and edit CCS files.
• MIB to TCS (TL1 Command Set) and CCS (CLI Command Set) mapping.
• Agent Compiler to generate and compile the code to build an agent.
• Incremental agent development support through the concept of project workspace.
• Complete testing of developed multi-protocol agent using different browsers (MIB Browser, TL1CraftInterface, CLI Browser, and Web Browser).
• Value added services, such as persistence, logging, and database storage, command usage, command line editing, command history, and command completion.

Multi-Protocol Agent Developer Experience

WebNMS Agent Toolkit C Edition offers a productive six-step agent development experience for multi-protocol agents.

1. Define / Edit MIBs: MIB Editor offers user-friendly GUIs to define and edit MIBs, design the data layout and data types conforming to ASN.1 syntax.
2. Generate Source Code: The defined MIBs can be loaded into the Agent Compiler to generate code that offers the basic multi-protocol agent framework. For a multi-protocol agent, the MIB to TCS and CCS mapping is also done when the MIB is loaded in the Agent Compiler. Currently, the Agent Compiler also supports MIB to TCS customization.
3. Add Desired Instrumentation: Once the basic framework is ready, developers can add their necessary instrumentation to meet their specific requirements.
4. Compiling the Generated Source: The generated multi-protocol agent framework and specific instrumentation code need to be compiled to generate the multi-protocol agent with desired functionality.
5. Test the Developed Multi-Protocol Agent: The developed agent can be queried and tested using different browsers, such as MIB Browser, TL1CraftInterface, CLI Browser, and Web Browser.
6. Package and Deploy: The developed multi-protocol agent is ready to be packaged and deployed in the target environment.

Multi-Protocol Agent Runtime Architecture

WebNMS multi-protocol agent runtime architecture is standards based and its open architecture offers you advantage of standard communication for integration. The architecture components and functions are explained below:

Standalone Multi-Protocol Agent Components

• Adaptors: The various adaptors through which the manager can communicate with the agent are SNMP, TL1, CLI, and HTTP. The MPA architecture provides a support to plug in other adapters also apart from the ones mentioned above.
• Agent Server: This module receives all the queries from the manager and processes the information, communicates with the various modules to retrieve the necessary data, verifies the data (both the input and the response), and then sends the response back to the manager.
• Managed Data: This module is updated either by an external device, or the database, or the text file where the necessary information is stored. These data are instrumented based on individual requirement.
• Services: The Timer and Monitor service are supported in the MPA agent. The Timer service enables sending notifications at specific dates and times. The Monitoring service allows you to observe the variation over time of attribute values in an observed module.
• Notification Broadcaster: This is used to broadcast a notification to the registered listeners. Notifications emitted from the agent instrumentation uses this module to send notifications to protocol adapters. Also, timer and monitor service use this module to send alarm if timer is expired and if threshold value is exceeded.

Supported Standards

Protocol	Version	Standard
SNMP	Version 1	RFC 1155, RFC 1157, RFC 1213, RFC 1215
	Version 2	RFC 1901, RFC 1907
	Version 3	RFC 3411, RFC 3412, RFC 3413, RFC 3414, RFC 3415, RFC 3584
TL1		GR 199, GR 815, GR 831, TR 835
CLI		RFC 854, RFC 855
HTTP		RFC 1945, RFC 2068

System Requirements

System Requirements
Hardware Requirements
Processor Speed	256 MHz or higher
Memory	128 MB RAM or higher
Hard Drive Space	100 MB
Software Requirements
Supported Platforms	Windows Vista/NT/2000/XP, Linux, Solaris or any OS that provides JVM support.
Java Version	1.4.0 & above.
C/C++ Compiler	Microsoft Visual C++ 4.0 onwards or Borland C++ 4.0 onwards for Windows. GNU C / C++ compiler (any version) for UNIX platform.

Runtime Agent Specifications
Ported OS/RTOS	Windows Vista, 2000, XP, and NT, Solaris, Linux, Unix, Free BSD, Net BSD, HP-Unix, OS-2, VxWorks, QNX Nutrino, Windows CE, and OSE
Footprint	321 KB. Multi-protocol agent (SNMPv1/v2, HTTP, CLI, and TL1 adaptors) with security disabled, single thread enabled, developed in Linux 9.0, without the MIBs, debug, and warning information, and other optimization options enabled.

About ZOHO Corporation

Zoho Corporation provides affordable software for database migration, management and provisioning of complex networks, systems, and IT applications. With a broad product portfolio and an active customer base ranging from enterprises, equipment vendors, and service providers, Zoho Corporation has emerged as a very affordable and high-quality alternative to expensive software that is common in this industry.

Zoho Corporation has offices in CA, Austin, New Jersey, Chennai, Singapore, Tokyo and Beijing. It has a well-trained partner base around the globe and thousands of customers world-wide. For more information, call 925-924-9500 or visit our Web site at: www.webnms.com.