MIB Makes Life Easier for LAN Managers

January 1996 / Reviews / Best Low-Cost Printer on the LAN / MIB Makes Life Easier for LAN Managers

Susan Colwell
The LaserJet 5Si MX is one of the first printers to support the standard SNMP management information base (MIB) for printers. To provide administrators with a consistent means of managing LAN printers, the Printer Working Group developed, and the Internet Engineering Task Force accepted, the standard MIB in mid-1995.
The standard MIB means that each printer will store status information and respond to SNMP requests in a consistent manner through its SNMP agent software. In the case of the LaserJet 5Si MX, the SNMP agent resides in the upgradable firmware of the printer's JetDirect netw ork card. The agent software monitors network traffic directed at the printer, filters out SNMP commands, and returns or sets values stored in the printer MIB to monitor status or change printer configuration.
To provide better response (asynchronous) to SNMP and other management software, HP changed the LaserJet 5Si multifunction I/O port, creating a separate channel for printer management (a datagram service). As a result, you can still control the printer while it is receiving print data -- canceling a print job before it finishes, for example.

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Matthew Wilson
My approach to software engineering is far more pragmatic than it is theoretical--and no language better exemplifies this than C++.

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