CA SystemEDGE User Guide › Co-existence with Other SNMP Agents › Multiple SNMP Agents Support

Multiple SNMP Agents Support

By default, SNMP agents attempt to use UDP port 161, but only a single process can bind to a given port at any one time. Therefore, only one SNMP agent can use UDP port 161 at a time. If you are running multiple SNMP agents simultaneously, you must develop strategies for their coexistence.

The following are potential solutions for enabling several SNMP agents to share UDP port 161:

• Multiplex UDP port 161 among several SNMP agents, usually in a master/slave relationship.
• Run agents simultaneously if each binds to a separate UDP port and management software is configured to communicate with them individually.

  Note: UDP port 1691 is reserved for use by the SystemEDGE agent and is the default port for agent deployment from CA Virtual Assurance. You can configure the agent to use that port instead of UDP/161. For more information about starting the agent on an alternate port, see the chapter “Starting the Agent."

• Code agents to conform to every existing proprietary master/subagent API. This solution has an exceedingly high cost in terms of coding, testing, and licensing the numerous proprietary APIs.

The most common notion of agent multiplexing involves a master agent bound to UDP port 161 that communicates with separate subagents or slave agents that implement different MIBs. The master and subagents communicate using a defined protocol for registering the subagent and exchanging messages between them. Several protocols exist for governing such a communication protocol between master and subagent.

The SystemEDGE installation also provides you the opportunity to replace the native operating system agent with the SystemEDGE agent. If you do replace the agent, you have the option of automatically inheriting the native agent's settings. For more information about replacing the native SNMP agent during installation, see the chapter "Installation and Deployment."