SyMON Software Architecture
The overall architecture is shown in FIGURE 12-1. Multiple Java-based GUIs can be installed that allow several administrators to use the system at the same time. The GUIs, which can be installed on a Solaris system or a Microsoft Windows or Windows NT system, can communicate using Java RMI calls to a central server process that is partly written in Java, but includes other native Solaris processes to perform some functions, so must run on a Solaris system. The SyMON server process talks to SyMON agent processes and other generic devices using the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). When talking to a system that is managed by a SyMON agent, the enhanced SNMPv2 protocol is used with secure authentication from the GUI to the system being managed. Other tools can obtain data from a SyMON agent via SNMP.
Figure 12-1. SyMON Software Architecture
The initial SyMON software screen is a login authorization process. When the authorization is completed, the network-wide view is displayed. Multiple administrative domains containing hundreds of nodes can be configured, but it is a powerful and useful tool even using the free single system license.
SyMON software has a dynamically extensible agent. At run time, you can request it to load a new module, and this module will be automatically loaded the next time the SyMON agent starts up.