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SNMP Monitoring

The CA SiteMinder® SNMP module enables many operational aspects of the CA SiteMinder® environment to be monitored by SNMP-compliant network management applications.

SNMP Overview

Network management takes place between two types of systems: those in control, called managing systems, and those observed and controlled, called managed systems. Managed systems can include hosts, servers, and the software components that run on those systems, or network components such as routers or intelligent repeaters.

To promote interoperability, cooperating systems adhere to the industry standard Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), an application-layer protocol designed to facilitate the exchange of management information between network devices.

A complete SNMP solution comprises three components:

• SNMP Management Information Base (MIB) is a database of managed objects. The managed objects, or variables, can be read by a managing system to provide information about the managed system.
• SNMP Agents are low-impact software modules that access information about the managed system and make it available to the managing system. For software systems, agent functionality is sometimes split between a master agent (provided by the host operating system) and subagent (provided by the managed application).

  Note: SNMP agents, which are a standard component of all SNMP implementations should not be confused with CA SiteMinder® Agents.

• SNMP Manager is typically a Network Management System (NMS) application such as HP OpenView.

The CA SiteMinder® SNMP module provides SNMP request handling and configurable event trapping for the CA SiteMinder® environment. It does this by collecting operational data from the CA SiteMinder® OneView Monitor and making it available in a MIB to third-party NMS applications that support the SNMP protocol (for example, HP OpenView).

Note: The 6.0 SNMP agent is backwards compatible with all CA SiteMinder® 5.x-based Agent applications.

CA SiteMinder® SNMP Module Contents

The CA SiteMinder® SNMP module consists of:

• CA SiteMinder® SNMP MIB is the database of CA SiteMinder® objects that can be monitored by an SNMP-compliant network management system.
• A CA SiteMinder® SNMP Subagent responds to SNMP requests (GET and GETNEXT only) passed to it from an SNMP master agent.
• CA SiteMinder® Event Manager captures Policy Server events and, if configured to do so, generates SNMP traps (unsolicited messages sent by an SNMP agent to a SNMP NMS indicating that some event has occurred).

More information:

Configure the SiteMinder Event Manager

CA SiteMinder® MIB

Start and Stop SiteMinder SNMP Support

Dependencies

The CA SiteMinder® SNMP Module has the following dependencies:

• CA SiteMinder® OneView Monitor—The CA SiteMinder® SNMP Module obtains operational information from the OneView Monitor. OneView Monitor must also be configured and running on any Policy Server on which you want to run the CA SiteMinder® SNMP Module.
• SNMP Master Agent—The CA SiteMinder® SNMP Module does not provide an SNMP Master Agent. You will need to ensure that the SNMP Master Agent (Windows SNMP Service or Solstice Enterprise Master Agent) appropriate to the Operating System of the Policy Server on which you are running the CA SiteMinder® SNMP Module is also installed and enabled.

SNMP Component Architecture and Dataflow

The following figure illustrates SNMP module dataflow:

CA SiteMinder® SNMP Dataflow:

1. The SNMP Master Agent receives SNMP requests from a management application.
2. The SNMP Master Agent forwards the SNMP request to the SNMP Subagent.
3. The CA SiteMinder® SNMP Subagent retrieves the requested information from OneView Monitor.
4. The CA SiteMinder® SNMP Subagent passes the retrieved information back to the SNMP Master Agent.
5. The SNMP Master Agent generates an SNMP response and sends it back to the requesting management application.