Customer Reviews

Understanding SNMP MIBs

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have read a pretty good portion of this book, but I just can't continue.

My task at work is to learn about SNMP and start monitoring our equipment. This is a simple task that should be fairly straightforward. Unfortunately, I haven't found any two resources that can even agree on the definition of a MIB. Not even this book, one that's dedicated to MIBs, has helped me out.

If you're looking for a good beginner's guide, don't waste your money on this book. If you don't know where to begin to compile MIBs, don't buy this book. Unless you deeply understand SNMP and are to the point where you feel you have to write MIBs, don't buy this book. You'll be sadly disappointed.

I'm sure this is a wonderful book for the right audience, and I respect the authors for their technical abilities. My problem is not with the book, but with the way the book is marketed within the SNMP community.

I've been working with networks for almost a year now, a relative new comer to the field. However, I'm a degreed engineer from a pretty good school, and I've worked as an engineer for over six years. This book is for people who have worked with SNMP extensively for a number of years. This is definitely not an intro book, nor is it for anybody who just wants to gain a basic understanding of SNMP. I was lost after the second chapter.

I have read and reviewed most of these SNMP books. In general, they are not very good. This one is EXCELLENT. However, it is definitely for people developing mibs and not somebody looking to understand how SNMP works. It is a resource as an SNMP developer I could not live without.

This is simply one of the best books I've come across in any field. If you want to write your own mibs, or if you are writing an snmp agent, this book is invaluable. Very lucid, very neat illustrations. I highly recommend it. Yes, you do need some network management exposure to get the best out of this book.

This book is for experienced SNMP developers but could be very useful even for a novice willing to spend some time to understand SNMP in-depth.

This is the best SNMP book I've read and it is an outstanding addition to SNMP RFCS, not just a copy from RFCs as some other SNMP books.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who needs to understand the structure of the SNMP Management Information Base. This book takes them apart and puts them back together. With often irreverant comments, the information presented will help those who work with mibs and agents on a daily basis to fully comprehend the purpose and structures.

I found this book to be excellent in helping me write my own SNMP MIBs for my job. No other reference or book was even close.

The book focuses on explaining SNMP MIBs and their syntax. This is extremely important, because the SNMP MIB syntax, while standardized by the IETF RFCs, is not followed strictly by vendors (probably because they didn't have this book).

The strength of this book is that it provides PRACTICAL information on making your own MIBs. Whereas books like Stalling's SNMP book cover the standard, they don't always give you the practical day-to-day help for your job. The authors experience in SNMP MIBs is geniuine as evidenced by their development of a commercial MIB compiler.

Now the negatives:
1) This book was published in 1997 and needs updating
2) Book plugs the author's own MIB compiler. These days other
MIB compilers are available. Nice to have it included on the CDROM
3) Authors periodically express their "Own Opinion" regarding RFCs and make their recommendations. While these are interesting, I don't find them useful. For example, recommending disallowing hypens from labels from v1 to v2. At this point, the standard is the standard. Again, these may have made more sense in 1997.

In summary, buy this book if you are a need to understand MIBs - either a MIB writer or an SNMP developer.

This book is primarily intended for MIB developers. It teaches you MIB structure and syntax thoroughly enough that you could then author your own MIB. A secondary audience is people who need to be able to **truly** understand the behavior of a managed device-accomplished by reading the device MIB. Learning MIB syntax allows you to read vendor MIB files that accompany your routers, etc. This is the only book of its kind I've ever seen. Highly recommended.

I bought this book based on information provided by the reviews here. To be honest, this book is outdated, confusing, and probably a sales pitch for the so-called SMICng tool the authors had developed. I wish I could return the book and spend the money somewhere else.

Let's not kid ourselves, SNMP MIBs are messy and needlessly confusing. Most of this confusion stems from the fact that there are many ways to do the same thing. This book helps you identify the various ways of doing something so that you can make informed decisions.

I find this book to be a well organized reference about MIB design and SNMP at the protocol level. It assumes the reader already has some understanding of the topic.

If you are new to MIB design, I suggest that you check the web first to get a basic understanding. Note that this book is not geared toward SNMP network administration.