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Potential Pitfall #3: Losing Valuable Monitoring Capabilities

Even if your budget will cover it, replacing your existing equipment with SNMP-native equipment is not always your best course of action. There's no guarantee that your new SNMP equipment will have the same functions, or be as capable, as the equipment it replaces.

Even if you're installing entirely new equipment, native support for SNMP shouldn't be the deciding criterion for selecting equipment.

Being locked into one telemetry protocol is just as dangerous as being locked in to one equipment vendor - it severely limits your equipment choices. And in network monitoring, not having all the features you need can limit your visibility of network problems, and possibly leave your network more vulnerable to a service-affecting outage.

If there is a piece of equipment - old or new - that meets all the other essential criteria for your network's needs, but
doesn't support SNMP, it shouldn't just be discarded.

A protocol mediation solution can free you to select the equipment that's right for your network.

You can integrate many different types of equipment into your SNMP monitoring by using a protocol mediation solution.

Common telemetry protocols such as TABS, TBOS, and ASCII can all be mediated to SNMP. These protocols often provide more detailed information than pure SNMP.

With protocol mediation, you can select the equipment you want, confident that it will work with your SNMP monitoring. You can still use valuable features from existing equipment and other telemetry protocols.

And not least, protocol mediation offers a way of preserving existing equipment in place, saving your budget from more highly expensive replacement costs.

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