Entity agent configuration

You can configure the Entity agent to specify how much data the agent should retrieve. You can optionally choose to download this extra information from the entity MIBs of the Asset, ExtraPhysData, Module, Power®, and Sensor entities.

Configure the Entity agent by setting the following variables in the Entity.agnt file:
  • GetAssetData
  • GetExtraPhysData
  • GetModuleData
  • GetPowerData
  • GetSensorData

In each case, set a value of 1 to retrieve the data, and set a value of 0 if you do not want to retrieve the data. The default value is 1.

In addition, you can specify how the Entity agent retrieves data from devices. The options are as follows:
0 GetNext
This is the default value.
Using this data retrieval option, the system requests one SNMP variable at a time from the device in series, that is, retrieval of one column in a table, one value at a time for a given device. This approach is slower but puts least pressure on the device. In a discovery with multiple entities the expectation is that overall this approach will not slow down the discovery as the SNMP helper is still busy with other activities. This approach might take a long time for individual large devices. This method works with SNMP version 1.
1 Asynchronous GetNext
Similar to the GetNext method in that one index is retrieved at a time with the difference that all the columns are retrieved in parallel. This is also supported by SNMP version 1 and is faster but it also puts slightly more load on the device.
2 GetBulk
Requests the entire column or multiple columns and individual Get commands in one go. This method requires SNMP version 2 support. If the device only supports version 1 then the retrieval method is broken down into multiple SNMP Get Next and Get commands. This is the fastest retrieval and it does not put much more load on the device than the Asynchronous GetNext method. This method also involves larger packets on the network.
Note: The Entity.agnt file, together with all other agent configuration files, can be found in the $NCHOME/precision/disco/agents directory.