Method and apparatus for persisting SNMP variable values

• US 20070050498A1
• Filed: 08/30/2005
• Published: 03/01/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 08/30/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Claise, Benoit
• Granted Patent: US 8,051,155 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0213 Standardised network management protocols, e.g. simple network management protocol [SNMP]

Abstract

A method of persisting SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) variable values associated with SNMP object IDs for an SNMP managed network element across network element reloads comprises implementing a generic persist operation at the network element; and defining, in conjunction with the generic persist operation, at least one object ID for which a value is to be persisted.

Claims

1. A method of persisting SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) variable values associated with SNMP object IDs for an SNMP managed network element across network element reloads comprising:

implementing a generic persist operation at the network element; and

defining, in conjunction with the generic persist operation, at least one object ID for which a value is to be persisted.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1 in which the SNMP object comprises a management information base (MIB) object and the value comprises an MIB object variable value.

3. A method as claimed in claim 1 in which the SNMP object comprises a specific object instance.

4. A method as claimed in claim 1 in which the SNMP object comprises a group object instance.

5. A method as claimed in claim 4 in which the SNMP objects are represented using a hierarchical structure and the group instance comprises a first SNMP object and all SNMP objects hierarchically depending from said first SNMP object.

6. A method as claimed in claim 1 in which the persist operation is configured via the command line interface (CLI) to the network element.

7. A method as claimed in claim 1 in which the persist operation is configured via a further SNMP object.

8. A method as claimed in claim 1 in which values to be persisted are written to memory.

9. A method as claimed in claim 8 further comprising, upon reload of a managed network element, identifying SNMP objects for which SNMP object values are to be persisted and retrieving the persisted values from memory.

10. A computer readable medium comprising one or more sequences of instructions for persisting SNMP MIB variable values which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the steps of the method of claim 1.

12. An apparatus for persisting SNMP variable values, the apparatus comprising:

one or more processors; and

a computer readable medium comprising one or more sequences of instructions for persisting SNMP variables values which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the steps of the method of claim 1.

11. An apparatus for persisting SNMP variable values associated with SNMP objects IDs for SNMP managed network element across network element reloads comprising means for, implementing a generic persist operation at the network element;

and means for defining, in conjunction with the generic persist operation, at least one object ID for which a value is to be persisted.