Comparison: Forwarding Third-Party SNMP Traps to Another Application

If you want to forward the SNMP traps that NNMi receives from managed devices to another application, you can use either of the following approaches:

• Use the NNMi SNMP trap forwarding mechanism. For information about how to configure NNMi SNMP trap forwarding, see Configuring Trap Forwarding in the NNMi help.
• Use the NNMi northbound interface SNMP trap forwarding mechanism. For information about configuring the NNMi northbound interface to forward received SNMP traps, the NNMi Northbound Interface chapter in the NNMiIntegration Reference.

The approach to trap identification by the receiving application varies with the SNMP trap forwarding mechanism:

• Windows (all) and Linux without original trap forwarding

  This description applies to the default and SNMPv3 to SNMPv2c conversion forwarding options.

  The NNMi SNMP trap forwarding mechanism on a Windows NNMi management server enriches each SNMP trap before forwarding it to the trap destination. The trap appears to originate from the NNMi management server. (This information also applies to a Linux NNMi management server for which the original trap forwarding option is not selected on the Trap Forwarding Destination form.)

  To ensure the correct association between the trap-sending device and the event in the receiving application, the rules for these traps must be customized for the enriched varbinds. Interpret the value from the originIPAddress (.1.3.6.1.4.1.11.2.17.2.19.1.1.3) varbind. to the Netcool @NodeAlias field. The originIPAddress value is a byte string of generic type InetAddress, either InetAddressIPv4 or InetAddressIPv6 as determined by the value of originIPAddressType (.1.3.6.1.4.1.11.2.17.2.19.1.1.2) varbind. The rule must read the originIPAddressType varbind to determine the type of Internet address (ipv4(1), ipv6(2)) value in the originIPAddress varbind. The rule might also need to convert the originIPAddress value to a display string.

  For more information about the varbinds that NNMi adds to forwarded traps, see Trap Varbinds Provided by NNMi in the NNMi help, RFC 2851, and the following file:

  • Windows: %NNM_SNMP_MIBS\Vendor\Hewlett-Packard\hp-nnmi.mib
  • Linux: $NNM_SNMP_MIBS/Vendor/Hewlett-Packard/hp-nnmi.mib

• Linux with original trap forwarding

  A Linux NNMi management server can forward the traps in the same format as NNMi receives them. Each trap appears as if the managed device sent it directly to the trap destination, so existing trap processing configured in the receiving application should work without modification.

  For more information, see the original trap forwarding option in Trap Forwarding Destination Form in the NNMi help.

• NNMi northbound interface (all operating systems)

  The NNMi northbound interface enriches each SNMP trap before forwarding it to the trap destination. The trap appears to originate from the NNMi management server. To ensure the correct association between the trap-sending device and the event in the receiving application, the rules for these traps must be customized for the enriched varbinds. The IncidentNodeHostname (1.3.6.1.4.1.11.2.17.19.2.2.21) and IncidentNodeMgmtAddr (1.3.6.1.4.1.11.2.17.19.2.2.24) varbinds identify the original source object.