Which standard agents to use

The standard agents that you need to use depend on the information you require and the devices on your network.

  • The TraceRoute agent can be used if there is a firewall on the network, because SNMP calls cannot always be made through firewalls. If you use the TraceRoute agent, you must specify, as a discovery seed, the subnet node for the subnet on the other side of the firewall.
  • The ArpCache agent retrieves the physical address of a device, so is only required (in conjunction with the Switch agents) when performing layer 2 discoveries.
  • Frame Relay agents should be run in conjunction with the IP layer agents if you need to add DLCI information to the interfaces of Frame Relay devices.
  • Switch agents must be run for a layer 2 discovery.
  • The device-specific and protocol-specific agents are only required to discover the devices or protocols to which they relate.