[KLUG Members] What is this snmp thing all about?

[Adam Williams]

>I did little bit of browsing on SNMP and I was surprised on what I saw.
>Have I been oblivious to SNMP or are there just not a lot of people using
>it?

I've never met a network of much more than fifty computers that wasn't
using it.  No management software is the short bus to the looney farm
when you get that many systems.

>What can snmp be used for?  Some examples of use would be great.

Monitoring systems,  collecting statistics information (performance,
utilization, etc...)  Then when you've been collecting for awhile it
actually starts to mean something.

> Where can I learn more? any good resources out there?

O'Rielly's SNMP book

>Any recomandations on a SNMP manager?  

http://www.opennms.org

>Comercially it seems HP Openview and
>IBMs Tivoli is tops 

Yikes! $$,$$$.  Did I mention $?

>but what is availible out ther for Linux?

http://www.opennms.org

>If I have a network of unix workstations/NT workstation is possible or
>feasible to monitor the some o all of its resource? 

Yes.

>It would kind of be nice
>to know when t is time to upgrade CPU/HD/Memory etc.

Yes.