Benefits Of Rmon; Rmon And The Switch - 3Com 3C17300-US Implementation Manual

Benefits of RMON

RMON and the
Switch
Using the RMON features of your Switch has three main advantages:
It improves your efficiency
■
Using RMON allows you to remain at one workstation and collect
information from widely dispersed LAN segments or VLANs. This
means that the time taken to reach a problem site, set up equipment,
and begin collecting information is largely eliminated.
It allows you to manage your network in a more proactive
■
manner
If configured correctly, RMON can deliver information before problems
occur. This means that you can take action before they affect users. In
addition, probes record the behavior of your network, so that you can
analyze the causes of problems.
It reduces the load on the network and the management
■
workstation
Traditional network management involves a management workstation
polling network devices at regular intervals to gather statistics and
identify problems or trends. As network sizes and traffic levels grow,
this approach places a strain on the management workstation and
also generates large amounts of traffic.
RMON, however, autonomously looks at the network on behalf of the
management workstation without affecting the characteristics and
performance of the network. RMON reports by exception, which
means that it only informs the management workstation when the
network has entered an abnormal state.
The RMON support provided by your Switch is detailed in
Benefits of RMON 59
Table 4.