Overview of RMON

Definition

Remote Network Monitoring (RMON) is a standard monitoring specification defined by the IETF. It is an enhancement of Management Information Base II (MIB II) specification used to monitor data traffic on a network segment or across an entire network. RMON allows network administrators to more easily select specific networks.

RMON implements the traffic statistics and alarm functions. These functions allow the NMS to remotely manage and monitor devices.

• Traffic statistics function enables a managed device to periodically or continuously collect traffic statistics on its connected network segment. The statistics include the total number of received packets and the number of received long packets.
• Alarm function allows a managed device to generate a log and send a trap message to the NMS after the managed device finds that a bound variable of a MIB object exceeds the alarm threshold (for example, an interface rate or the percentage of broadcast packets reaches a specific value).

Purpose

RMON enables the NMS to monitor remote network devices more efficiently and proactively. In addition, it decreases the volume of traffic between the NMS and agents and facilitates large-size network management.

Benefits

RMON allows the NMS to effectively and efficiently collect statistics of a device, lowering network maintenance costs.