KR100689413B1 - Apparatus and method for remote monitoring of network equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention discloses an apparatus and method for efficiently remotely monitoring network equipment. In the present invention, the low-priority task and the memory shared by the Ethernet driver are provided to reduce packet delay time, and the processing of the Almon (RMON) module is not dependent on the processing of the Ethernet driver, thereby maximizing the unique function of the RMON module. To be handled.

Description

Apparatus and method for remote monitoring of network equipment

The present invention relates to a system for managing network equipment, and more particularly, to an apparatus and method for efficiently remote monitoring network equipment.

In general, a network management system (NMS) for managing a network device such as a router uses a simple network management protocol (SNMP) for network monitoring. Communicate. The Request For Comments (RFC) 1757 standard, defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), describes these SNMP functions, as well as remote monitoring (RMON). Remote monitoring (almon) is a technology for observing traffic on the network efficiently. Network equipment uses its own database (DataBase) to monitor and control traffic on the network independently of NMS.

1 is a module 200 for performing such a remote monitoring function is included in the network equipment 20, the network equipment 20 through the Ethernet (10) Ethernet management system (NMS) ( 30). At this time, as shown in the figure, the network equipment 20 and the NMS 30 use SNMP.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a processing flow of a remote monitoring operation according to the prior art performed by the RMON module 200 included in the network equipment 20 shown in FIG. 1. As illustrated in FIG. 2, when the packet is received (step 201), the network device 20 forwards the received packet to the RMON module 200 (step 202). Receiving this packet, the RMON module 200 analyzes the packet according to the group-specific configuration, updates the database if necessary, checks a predetermined threshold, and event for this. Raises (Event) When the packet processed by the RMON module 200 is a packet for a higher layer, the packet is delivered to a higher layer such as IP / IPX (step 205), and the packet is not a packet for a higher layer. The packet is released (step 206).

On the other hand, when the RMON module 200 performs the above operation, since the time that the RMON module 200 occupies the packet is considerable, the packet processing time is relatively long. In addition, due to the processing of the Ethernet driver, the unique function of the RMON module 200 is dependent, so that the unique function of the RMON module 200 is reduced.

It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method for reducing the time of packet processing in remotely monitoring network equipment.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and method for reducing the packet occupancy time by the RMON module in remotely monitoring network equipment.

In order to achieve these objectives, the present invention reduces the packet delay time by placing a low-rank task and memory shared by the Ethernet driver, and does not allow the processing of the RMON module to be processed by the Ethernet driver. We propose an apparatus and method for maximizing and processing.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION A detailed description of preferred embodiments of the present invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the following description of the present invention, if it is determined that a detailed description of a related known function or configuration may unnecessarily obscure the subject matter of the present invention, the detailed description thereof will be omitted. In addition, the terms to be described below are terms defined in consideration of functions in the present invention, which may vary according to the intention or custom of the user or chip designer, and the definitions should be made based on the contents throughout the present specification.

3 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of a remote monitoring apparatus according to the present invention, and includes an Ethernet driver 210, an almon task 220, and a shared memory 230.

In FIG. 3, the Ethernet driver 210 has a function of receiving a packet on the Ethernet, and has a function of copying the received packet to the shared memory 230. In addition, if the received packet is a packet for a higher layer, the Ethernet driver 210 transmits the packet to a higher layer, and releases the packet if the packet is not for a higher layer.

The RMON TASK 220 is set to a lower priority than the priority of the Ethernet driver 210, and fetches a packet copied to the shared memory 230 to perform a unique process. Here, the unique processing column by the almon task 220 analyzes packets for each group, updates a database, checks thresholds, and events. Refers to the action of generating.

The shared memory 230 performs an operation of storing the copied packet. The shared memory 230 is controlled by two pointers. One is the first pointer ("Used" buffer) and the other is the second pointer ("Free" buffer).

Figure 4 is a view showing the processing flow of the remote monitoring operation according to the present invention, Figure 5 is a view showing the processing flow of the remote monitoring operation by the Ethernet driver according to the present invention, Figure 6 is an almon task according to the present invention The flow chart of the remote monitoring operation is shown.

The remote monitoring operation according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. 3 to 6 as follows.

Now, assuming that the packet arrived on the Ethernet, the Ethernet driver 210 of FIG. 3 performs an operation of searching for the buffer of the free pointer in the shared memory 230, and if found (if not the buffer pool) (step 402). A copy operation is performed on the received packet (step 406 of FIG. 4 and step 503 of FIG. 5). At this time, the buffer of the free pointer is a space where the RMON task 220 processes the previous packet. After copying, the Ethernet driver 210 performs a unique process (steps 403 to 405 of FIG. 4 and steps 504 to 506 of FIG. 5). That is, if the received packet is a packet for a higher layer, the Ethernet driver 210 delivers the packet to a higher layer such as IP / IPX (step 404 of FIG. 4 and step 505 of FIG. 5). If not, the received packet is released (step 405 of FIG. 4 and step 506 of FIG. 5).

On the other hand, the RMON task 220 continuously checks the shared memory 230, and if it is determined that there is a packet, fetches the packet to be in the buffer state of the free pointer (step 407 of FIG. 4).

In the present invention, as described above, two pointers, Used and Free, are used for efficient use of the shared memory 230. At initialization, these two pointers are in the same place. The Ethernet driver 210 continues to increment the Used Pointer while copying the packet. At this time, when the used pointer becomes the same as the free pointer, the Ethernet driver 210 does not perform a copy operation on the received packet in this case.

Meanwhile, the RMON task 220 fetches the free pointer while fetching the packet (step 407 of FIG. 4 and step 602 of FIG. 6) until the used pointer and the free pointer become the same (step 402 of FIG. 4 and step 601 of FIG. 6). Increase (step 603 of FIG. 6). The RMON task 220 that fetches the packet performs its own processing, that is, analyzing packets for each group, updating the database, generating a threshold check and an event thereof (step 408 of FIG. 4 and step 604 of FIG. 6). .

As described above, in the present invention, the priority of the ROM task 220 is lower than the priority of the Ethernet driver 210. Therefore, this task is operated in the system idle time (System Idle Time), so that the Ethernet driver 210 does not affect the operation of purely processing the packet.

As described above, the present invention provides the following advantages by implementing the RMON operation using a shared memory and a low priority task.

First, minimization of inherent performance of network equipment due to RMON implementation. By ensuring that the RMON implementation has a lower priority than the Ethernet driver, the RMON task is processed after all of the Ethernet driver's processing has taken place, so it does not affect the performance of the Ethernet driver.

Second, task independence can be maintained through shared memory. By sending and receiving packet information through the shared memory, the RMON task and the Ethernet driver are provided with independence of each other to ensure the independence of error handling. In addition, the interface can be simplified to maintain program robustness.

Meanwhile, in the detailed description of the present invention, specific embodiments have been described, but various modifications may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. Therefore, the scope of the present invention should not be limited to the described embodiments, but should be defined not only by the scope of the following claims, but also by the equivalents of the claims.

1 is a view showing a connection configuration between a network management system and network equipment to which the present invention is applied.

2 is a flow chart illustrating a process of remote monitoring operation according to the prior art.

3 is a view showing the configuration of a remote monitoring apparatus according to the present invention.

4 is a flow chart of a remote monitoring operation according to the present invention;

5 is a flowchart illustrating a process of remote monitoring operation by an Ethernet driver according to the present invention.

6 is a flowchart illustrating a process of remote monitoring operation by an Almon task according to the present invention.

Claims (10)

An apparatus for remotely monitoring network equipment, An Ethernet driver for copying the received packet to the shared memory when the packet is received, incrementing the first pointer of the shared memory, and forwarding or releasing the received packet to a higher layer if the packet copy is completed; If there is a stored packet by continuously checking the storage state of the shared memory, the packet is fetched, the second pointer of the shared memory is increased, the fetched packet is analyzed by groups, the database is updated, and An almon task that generates hold checks and events, And a shared memory for storing the packet received by the Ethernet driver and shared by the Ethernet driver and the Almon task. The remote monitoring apparatus of claim 1, wherein the almon task fetches the stored packets until there are no packets stored in the shared memory. A method for remotely monitoring a network device including an Ethernet driver and a shared memory and performing an Almon task having a priority lower than that of the Ethernet driver, (A) the Ethernet driver determining whether the shared memory is a buffer pool when an Ethernet packet arrives, (B) increasing the first pointer of the shared memory after the Ethernet driver copies the arrived packet to the shared memory when the shared memory is not the buffer pool; (C) the Almon task fetches a packet copied to the shared memory, increments a second pointer of the shared memory, analyzes the packet by group, updates a database, and generates a threshold check and an event (c) Process, (D) forwarding or releasing the arrived packet to a higher layer by the Ethernet driver, wherein the shared memory is shared between the Ethernet driver and the Almon task. 4. The remote monitoring method of claim 3, wherein in the step (c), the almon task fetches the stored packets until the packets stored in the shared memory do not exist. 5. The method of claim 4, wherein in the step (c), the unique processing is an operation of analyzing a packet by group, updating a database, and generating a threshold check and an event. 4. The remote monitoring method of claim 3, wherein step (b) is not performed when the shared memory is a buffer pool. 7. The remote monitoring method of claim 6, wherein step (d) is performed on an arrival packet corresponding to the case where the shared memory is a buffer pool or an arrival packet on which step (b) is performed. The method of claim 1, And the first pointer and the second pointer of the shared memory are at the same location when the remote monitoring device is initialized. The method of claim 1, And the first pointer is a used pointer of the shared memory, and the second pointer is a free pointer of the shared memory. The method of claim 3, And the first pointer is a used pointer of the shared memory, and the second pointer is a free pointer of the shared memory.