Management information to object mapping and correlator

• US 20050027850A1
• Filed: 08/31/2004
• Published: 02/03/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 05/08/1998
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Ahmed, Syed N., Osborne, Kenneth M., Menzies, Steven J., Byrisetty, Rajeev
• Granted Patent: US 7,290,049 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/258 Data format conversion from or to a database
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0213 Standardised network management protocols, e.g. simple network management protocol [SNMP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0233 Object-oriented techniques, for representation of network management data, e.g. common object request broker architecture [CORBA]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/046 comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99944 Object-oriented database structure
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99946 Object-oriented database structure network

Abstract

A method and system to provide management information of network devices by mapping between SNMP MIB module schema and Common Information Model (CIM) schema. MIB modules are tree-structured lists of objects for describing SNMP network device information, whereas CIM schema employs user-intuitive, object-oriented classes to model such information. A mapping process enumerates the MIB objects and then maps the objects into CIM Managed Object Format (MOF) classes using defined mapping tables. A correlation mechanism is further provided to efficiently determine in real time which MIBs (or portions thereof) and corresponding CIM classes a network device supports.

Claims

1. In a computing environment, a method of determining which object classes are supported by a given network device, comprising:

a) traversing trees of groups to create a range table of groups and corresponding ranges of object identifiers;

b) selecting a range starting object identifier from the range table;

c) requesting that the network device to return its next highest object identifier beyond the selected object identifier;

d) receiving a returned object identifier;

e) determining whether the returned object identifier falls into a range in the table, and if so, maintaining information that a group corresponding to that range is supported; and

f) returning to b) using remaining ranges to provide starting object identifiers until the range table has no untested entries remaining.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the returned object identifier falls into a range in the table, and further comprising, eliminating that group'"'"'s subsequent entries from the range table and eliminating any prior ranges below the returned object identifier from the range table.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein requesting that the network device to return its next highest object identifier beyond the selected object identifier comprises transmitting at least one SNMP GetNext function.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein traversing trees of groups maintained to create a range table of groups comprises selecting a first group in lexicographical order.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein traversing the trees of groups to create a range table of groups comprises arranging the trees in a lexicographical order from top down and left to right.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein traversing the trees of groups to create a range table of groups comprises tracking a maximum range object identifier under the current group.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein traversing the trees of groups to create a range table of groups comprises selecting a group and determining whether that group is a parent of a subgroup that has not yet been processed in creating the range table.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein a selected group is a parent of a subgroup that has not yet been processed in creating the range table, and wherein traversing the trees of groups to create a range table of groups further comprises, writing into the range table an associated starting range object identifier of the group and an ending range object identifier of the subgroup'"'"'s object identifier.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising, extracting the marked groups to identify the objects supported by the device.

10. At least one computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions, which when executed perform the method of claim 1.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein claim 1 wherein the object classes comprise MIB object classes.

17. The method of claim 1 wherein creating the range table comprises selecting a group and determining whether that group is a parent of a subgroup that has not yet been processed in creating the range table.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein a selected group is a parent of a subgroup that has not yet been processed in creating the range table, and wherein creating the range table comprises writing into the range table an associated starting range object identifier of the group and an ending range object identifier of the subgroup'"'"'s object identifier.

19. At least one computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions, which when executed perform the method of claim 1.

11. In a computer system, a method of determining a group of object classes supported by a network device, comprising, creating a range table of entries comprising at least one group and any subgroups under that group, each entry having an associated range of object identifiers, transmitting a request to the network device requesting a returned object identifier, the request providing an object identifier corresponding to a range value and seeking the next lexicographically larger object identifier supported by the network device, receiving a returned object identifier, and determining a supported group based on a range of object identifiers in the range table that the returned object identifier is between.

13. The method of claim 11 wherein transmitting the request comprises transmitting at least one SNMP GetNext function.

14. The method of claim 11 wherein traversing trees of groups maintained to create a range table of groups comprises selecting a first group in lexicographical order.

15. The method of claim 11 wherein creating the range table comprises arranging trees of groups and subgroups in a lexicographical order.

16. The method of claim 11 wherein creating the range table comprises tracking a maximum range object identifier under the current group.

20. In a computing environment, a system comprising:

a correlation mechanism that determines a group of objects supported by a network device, the correlation mechanism comprising;

a range creation mechanism that creates a range table by traversing at least one tree of groups and subgroups to write into the range table starting range object identifiers and ending range object identifiers based on object identifiers of the groups and subgroups; and

a range table processing mechanism that accesses information in the range table to query the network device determine which groups and subgroups are supported by the network device.

21. The system of claim 20 wherein the objects comprise MIB objects.

22. The system of claim 20 wherein the range table processing mechanism queries the network device by transmitting at least one SNMP GetNext function to the device.