KR20040022517A - Network management system and method - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A system for managing a network is provided to enable the second network equipment to transmit physical connection information to the first network equipment, and to analyze data link information in real time, thereby efficiently managing a data network as reducing cost. CONSTITUTION: A network managing device(10) collects and manages physical connection information of network equipments(20,30) configuring a data network. The first network equipment(20) collects the physical connection information by communicating with other network equipments at the request of an SNMP manager, and transmits the collected information to the network managing device(10) by using an SNMP. The second network equipment(30) is physically connected to the first network equipment(20), and transmits a self MAC address and self port information to the first network equipment(20) by communicating with an SNMP agent of the first network equipment(20).

Description

Network management system and method

The present invention relates to data network management, and more particularly, to a MAC address capable of uniquely identifying a network device constituting a data network, and a standard port identification scheme for identifying a port belonging to the device. It is a data network management system and management method that can manage the information of the port of a partner station physically connected to a specific port regardless of the equipment manufacturer or the type of equipment by using the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP).

In general, the network facility information management constituting the data network and the data network management system that manages the failure, performance, etc. of the data network by using it automatically collects the configuration information of the network equipment using SNMP (Simple Network Manangement Protocol) Use the function.

SNMP provides information about the device, port information pertaining to the device, and the interface used as a logical port, assigned IP address, bandwidth, etc. according to the standard network management information base (MIB) protocol. It allows you to gather information about your equipment from a distance using management IP and passwords.

However, SNMP is a protocol for providing a function of collecting configuration information and routing information of individual devices, and does not provide physical connection information between devices.

In the case of a specific equipment manufacturer, physical connection information may be automatically provided between devices manufactured by the company, but there is no function to automatically provide connection information between devices of different companies. I manage the data links by hand.

Therefore, communication operators who need to manage a large network are investing a lot of manpower and money to manage the connection information between the network equipment, but it is difficult to solve the problem of inconsistency and error of information brought by hand.

In the case of network equipment, the MAC address system is a system that can identify equipment worldwide. Also, the only system that can identify the port is ifNum or ifDescription object of ifTable among the standard MIB of SNMP, but ifTable includes not only physical port but also logical port information (channel or VLAN) belonging to the physical port. However, this information is difficult to use as a port identification scheme for managing connection information between physical ports because ifNum of the same port may be changed by a simple device reset command.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention to solve the above-described problem is to use a new standard port identification scheme to easily obtain the physical connection information between the network equipment regardless of the manufacturer and equipment type of the network equipment.

1A-1D illustrate the shape of a physical port mounted on network equipment.

2 is a port table in accordance with the present invention.

Figure 3 is a schematic diagram showing the overall configuration of a network system according to the present invention.

4 illustrates a communication relationship between SNMP agents in accordance with the present invention.

5 is a flowchart illustrating a method of collecting physical connection information for network equipment according to the present invention.

Network management system of the present invention for achieving the above object is a network management device that collects and manages the physical connection information of the network equipment constituting the data network, other network equipment connected to it in response to a port table request from the network management device Physical connection information between the first network device and the device according to a request of at least one first network device and the first network device, which collects the physical connection information with each other and matches it with the port information and transmits the same to the network management device. At least one second network equipment for transmitting to the first network equipment.

The network management method of the present invention for collecting physical connection information between network devices includes a first step in which a network management device requests a port table from a first network device, and a first network device that receives a port table request from itself. A second step of requesting physical connection information to the connected second network devices; and a third step of receiving, by the second network device receiving the request for physical connection information, information indicating a physical connection relationship with the first network to the first network device. And a fourth step in which the first network equipment matches its port information with information from the second network equipments to generate port table information and transmit it to the network management apparatus.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

The present invention uses an identification scheme that generalizes and identifies a physical port using mounting location information of the port.

1A to 1D are diagrams illustrating the shape of a physical port mounted in network equipment.

All network equipment is divided into four types, that is, modular, slotted, sticked and ported according to the mounting position of the ports as shown in FIGS. 1A to 1D.

In the modular type as shown in FIG. 1A, a device is composed of a plurality of modules, and each module manages ports independently of each other, so that ports having the same ifNum may exist between modules.

Slot type as shown in Figure 1b is a device that can be equipped with a number of slots in the device and a number of cards with a plurality of ports in one slot.

In the stack type as shown in FIG. Do.

The port type as shown in FIG. 1D is a method in which a port is directly attached to a network device without a slot and a card.

In this case, each port of the network equipment may represent each port as a stack module number, a slot number, a card number, and a port number according to the mounting position and the order of the ports regardless of the type of the network equipment. In this case, the number refers to the mounting order of each stack module, slot, card, port.

That is, in the modular equipment as shown in FIG. 1A, the dotted line portion may be represented as 'card 2 of slot 2 of module 2', and the arrow portion may be represented as 'port 2 of card 1 of slot 4 of module 2'.

In addition, in the port type equipment as shown in FIG. 1D, the port of the arrow portion may be represented as 'port 13' using only the order of the ports.

In the case of FIGS. 1B and 1C, each port may be generalized as shown in the drawing.

If you include the MAC address of the corresponding network device, the physical port information of all network devices can be represented by the device's MAC address, stack module number, slot number, card number, and port number. And stored.

That is, if only the {address, stack module number, slot number, card number and port number} of the network device of the other station can be identified, the physical port of the network device of the other station can be identified.

For example, {0000.0c12.3456, 2, 5, 1, 8} becomes an identifier indicating the 8th port of the 1st card of the 5th slot of the 2nd module of the network device whose Mac address is '0000.0c12.3456'. .

However, in order to automatically recognize a data link using this identification scheme through SNMP polling, a new object type is required in the conventional standard MIB scheme.

In the conventional MIB scheme, there is an object type called ifTable representing both physical and logical ports, so all ports belonging to the device are managed in ifTable.

However, ifDescription and ifNum are used as unique port identification schemes by device manufacturer and device type in this ifTable, it is impossible to identify each other's physical ports by the same scheme among different network devices.

Therefore, the present invention creates a port table as shown in FIG. 2 as a new object for storing physical port information.

The port table stores the physical location information of all ports of the device and the physical location information of the port of the other device connected to each port of the device.

3 is a schematic diagram showing the overall configuration of a network system according to the present invention.

The network management apparatus 10 collects and manages physical connection information of network devices constituting the data network by driving an SNMP manager.

The first network device 20 is a data network configuration device managed by the network management device 10 and other network devices that have an SNMP agent running on each device and are physically connected to themselves according to a request from the SNMP manager. After collecting the physical connection information through communication with the network and transmits the information to the network management device 10 using SNMP.

The second network device 30 is a network device that is physically connected to the first network device 20 to communicate data. An SNMP agent is driven to each device to communicate with the SNMP agent of the first network device 20. It transmits its port information connected to the MAC address and the first network equipment to the first network equipment using the identification scheme according to the present invention.

That is, in the present invention, unlike the conventional SNMP agent, the SNMP agent should be capable of requesting physical connection information and transmitting the corresponding information between the SNMP agents as shown in FIG.

5 is a flowchart illustrating a method of collecting physical connection information between network devices according to the present invention.

The SNMP manager requests port table information from the first network device 20 physically connected to the network management device 10 (①).

The SNMP agent (hereinafter referred to as the first SNMP agent) of the first network device 20 that receives the port table information request is port information for each port based on the mounting location and the order of the corresponding network device 20 ports. Create (②).

That is, all ports of the corresponding network equipment 20 are assigned port numbers with identification numbers made in the same manner as described above.

The first SNMP agent generating port information for each port broadcasts a specific signal to all ports and requests connection information from all second network equipment 30 physically connected to the corresponding first network equipment 20. (③).

In this case, the specific signal to be transmitted includes physical address information (stack module number, slot number, card number, port number) of the MAC address of the first network device 20 that transmits the signal and the port to which the signal is transmitted. Information indicating that the type of the signal is for searching the data link is included.

In addition, the above-described process ② may be performed after receiving the port table information from the network management apparatus 10, but since the physical mounting positions and the order of the ports are not changed, port information for each port is stored in advance. When the port table information is requested from the network management apparatus 10, the process may proceed immediately without performing the ② process.

The SNMP agent (hereinafter referred to as the second SNMP agent) of the second network device 30 that has received this connection information does not treat this signal as a normal data packet, but instead port information (stack) of the port that received the connection information request signal. Module number, slot number, card number, port number) together with the Mac address of the second network device 30 as connection information and transmits to the first network device 20 (④).

Receiving the connection information, the first SNMP agent matches the connection information from the second SNMP agents to their respective port information and stores it in the port table as shown in FIG.

In this way, if the port information is received from all the second network equipment 30 connected to it and all the received information is stored in the port table, it is transmitted to the SNMP manager (⑤).

The SNMP manager may manage the physical connection relationship between the network devices managed by the SNMP manager by analyzing the port table information received from the first network device 20.

Moreover, the above-described processes are performed every time SNMP polling is performed to update the physical connection information of the port so that the latest accurate information can be obtained.

As described above, the network management system of the present invention enables to analyze data link information necessary for managing data networks of large communication providers in real time, thereby reducing costs and efficiently managing data networks.

Claims (14)

A network management device for collecting and managing physical connection information of network devices constituting the data network; At least one first network device that collects physical connection information with other network devices connected to the network management device according to a port table request from the network management device, matches the port information with its own port information, and transmits the same to the network management device; And And at least one second network device for transmitting physical connection information between the first network device and itself to the first network device according to a request of the first network device. The method of claim 1, And the first network device and the second network device have port information for their respective ports based on the mounting position and the order of the ports. The method of claim 2, The first network device and the second network device each of the ports in the order of the stack module to which each port belongs, the order of the slot for the stack module, the order of the card for the slot number and the order of the port for the card number Network management system, characterized in that used as port information for. The method of claim 3, wherein The first network equipment broadcasts a specific signal to all its ports for collecting physical connection information with the second network equipment. The method of claim 4, wherein The second network equipment transmits port information of its own MAC address and a port connected to the first network to the first network equipment when the specific signal is received. The method of claim 5, wherein And the first network device generates and stores a port table matching the MAC address and the port information from the second network device with its respective port information, and transmits the port table to the network management device. The method of claim 1, The network management device, characterized in that for requesting port information to the first network device every time SNMP polling. In the method for collecting physical connection information of a network management device for collecting and managing physical connection information between network equipment, A first step of the network management apparatus requesting a port table from a first network equipment; A second step of the first network equipment receiving the port table request requesting physical connection information from second network equipment connected to the first network equipment; A third step of receiving, by the second network equipment receiving the physical connection information request, information indicating a physical connection relationship with the first network to the first network equipment; And And a fourth step in which the first network device matches its port information with information from the second network devices to generate port table information and transmit it to the network management device. The method of claim 8, In the second step, the first network equipment broadcasts a specific signal for requesting the physical connection information to all its ports. The method of claim 8, The port information is a network management method characterized in that using the mounting position and order of each port. The method of claim 10, The port information is a network management method characterized in that using the order of the stack module to which each port belongs, the order of the slot for the stack module, the order of the card for the slot number and the order of the port for the card number . The method of claim 11, And the information transmitted from the second network device to the first network device in the third step is port information of its own MAC address and a port connected to the first network device. The method of claim 12, And the port table is information stored by matching port information of a port connected to a MAC address of the second network device and the first network device with respect to each port information of the first network device. The method of claim 8, The first step is a network management method, characterized in that performed during SNMP polling.