Accessing status, configuration and performance information from network and system components using just one uniform, central network management software is now a reality! Product Specific Modules (PSMs) guarantee the management of all SNMP-enabled devices in the network, regardless of manufacturer, and all from just one uniform user interface!

By giving the user a graphical reproduction of each device, the configuration or performance analysis of network components is considerably simplified. All modules and plug connections are visualized, current status is indicated by varying colors or with LEDs. All important functions and device configurations can be called up from right within this depiction.

theGuard! NetworkManager integrates a powerful tool in its Device Manager, able to handle the most demanding of tasks. To do so, Device Manager needs information on the implemented device-specific properties such as graphic layout, functions and properties, current status, etc. Manufacturers document these attributes in the MIB (Management Information Base), automatically loaded into theGuard! NetworkManager MIB database during installation. When a user then starts Device Manager, it loads the respective PSM based on device type. A PSM contains all the SNMP attributes identifying the manufacturer-specific properties of the selected type of device.

Device Manager not only furnishes an exact graphical visualization of a node, the image is at the same time the interface through which the user can manage all implemented properties of network components, given the appropriate authorization. Most functions follow from a simple mouse click, for example a context-sensitive pull-down menu for a port. Further configuration properties are accessed using a uniformly-structured menu. When PSMs are being developed, care is taken to ensure that products of any and all manufacturers can be managed as uniformly as possible. Users especially come to appreciate this unique function when they start configuring network components in a heterogeneous system environment.

More than 280 vendor-independent PSM integrations have been realized to date (see list of available PSMs) and the list is continually being updated and expanded. Thus making theGuard! NetworkManager the only network management software in the world able to guarantee the following:

Should there not yet be a PSM for a specific device,
REALTECH guarantees the PSM integration at a fixed price
within just a few short weeks!