Our SNMP agent builder iwas designed and implemented using object-oriented methodology and well-recognized design patterns. One of itsthe design goals iwas to minimize the efforts expended in of building SNMPsnmp agents. Most of the hard works are has already been done in designing the base classes and is hidden from the users. For example, the developer does not have to worry about the complexities such as SNMPv3 engine auto-discovery, encoding and decoding, dynamic row creation and deletion, and inter-table indexing.etc, a All thisose functionality and logic areis already built into the core library.

All versions of SNMP, SNMPv1, SNMPv2c and SNMPv3 (USM and VACM), are all completely supported, andso the user does not have to learn the detailed underlying differences between the three SNMP versions. User can always uses a A single unified interface is used to build SNMP agents for allspeaking different SNMP protocols.

The Aagent builder canhas the flexibility to create three different types of agent: a traditional monolithic agent, a dedicated subagent only, and a flexibleor master/ and subagent. Master/subagent architecture is based on standard AgentX protocol. Agent eXtensibility (AgentX) technology,is a standard protocol that overcomes a very real needallows one to dynamically extend the managed objects in a node. Thise protocol allows you havingpermits a single SNMP Aagent and several Ssubagents that canto connect and register several managed objects simultaneously without having to interrupting the management service. This makesway the whole management system can be more flexible, as each subagent can be closer to itsthe managed information and the SNMP extensible Aagent needs to be started only once. For details onabout the AgentX protocol, please refer to RFC 2741.

Agent builder is built on top of Java Management Extensions (JMX^TM) technology, a standard for instrumenting manageable resources and developing dynamic agents. Each MIB table and group is modeled as a standard MBeans. An MBean (Managed Bean) is a Java object that implements a specific interface and conforms to certain design patterns. It encapsulates attributes and operations through their public methods, and exposes them to management applications according to follows thestandard design patterns for exposing them to management applications. Those sStandard MBeans specify the public operations accessible tofor SNMP clients. A GUI-based application can automatically generates MBeans for theaccording to specified MIBs. When the agent starts up, it registers all MBeans with MBeanServer. Upon receiving an SNMP request from a client, this server employs a quick search algorithm is employed to find the corresponding MBean and delegates part of the task to it. Developers do not have to learn details about JMX in detail, but, however, they must be aware that only methods in the MBeans interfaces are accessible from outside the agent. Although MBean’s implementation classes have moreadditional public methods, some of them are not accessible from to SNMPsnmp managers.