Designing and Managing Behavior Models - Defining Property Groups and Properties - Tips for Using Property Groups and Properties -
Using the Node List Window      Using Polls

Tips for Using Property Groups and Properties

Using property groups and properties is mainly a matter of common sense; however, the sections below give you a few suggestions for using them effectively.

Categorizing Nodes

We've said that property groups enable you to create groups of nodes, each of which is managed by a set of behavior models. As you create your groups, it's helpful to list a variety of criteria for categorizing your nodes and then to use the criteria that make the most sense for your network. For example, some criteria you could use in classifying your nodes are:

• Type of device (workstation, server, router)
• Location
• Importance (Which nodes need to be managed most closely?)
• Supported MIBs
• Business function

Apply whatever set of criteria is appropriate for your site.

Move from the General to the Specific

Set up property groups that establish general groups of devices first. Then create subcategories of nodes as necessary.

For instance, suppose that you have MIB-II agents running on all of your computers, including servers. You want to monitor the servers more closely than the personal computers, so you copy the existing Mib-II property group, name the copy Server, and add to the copy the property server. You can now set up polls and alarms that take one action, such as sending an e-mail message, when any workstation is unreachable, and another action, such as paging an administrator, when a server is unreachable.

Or maybe you want to refine how you monitor servers so that you can distinguish file servers from print servers. You can set up two new property groups, each a copy of Server. Name one Fserver and add the property fserver, and name the other Pserver and add the property pserver. Note that both groups still contain the property server because each is a copy of the Server property group. You can then set up polls and alarms to perform one action when any server is unreachable, perform a different action when a file server is unreachable, and perform a third action when a print server is unreachable.

MIB Objects

The property group for a device should contain a property for every MIB base object that might be used in a poll condition by a poll designed to contact that node. For further information on building poll conditions, see Writing a Poll Condition on page 150.

If a base object is not in the node's property group, polls whose poll conditions refer to that object will not contact the node.