On the Development of IETF-based Network Monitoring Probes for High Speed Networks

In the recent years network managers have increasingly relied on monitoring tools to characterize and measure high-layer protocol traffic in order to (a) justify investments on network equipment acquisition, (b) identify most network-consuming users, (c) detect bottlenecks, to mention just a few reasons. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), aware of the mentioned demand, has been making efforts to standardize management mechanisms that allow the characterization and measurement of both protocols and networked applications behavior. However, the development of IETF compliant probes so that they sustain the traffic generated in high speed networks is a current challenge, since communication links operating at 100 Mbps or higher rates require efficient packet filtering and processing mechanisms so that probes do not discard packets. This paper reports the development, by our research group, of an RMON2 compliant SNMP agent. The paper focuses on the project decisions, including the architecture and data structures used (having in mind that the agent is supposed to be deployed in high speed network environments). The paper also presents a performance evaluation of the agent.