Monitoring printers using SNMP

Monitoring printers using SNMP

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I would like to share an interesting experience using the SNMP protocol to centrally monitor printer availability and settings. My company prints a lot. There are different printers and MFUs in the print unit pool – large, medium and small Small Office Home Office (SOHO) categories. They are all network devices, mainly from two manufacturers: HP and Canon. About a year ago, management began collecting data to analyze operations: availability, downtime, utilization, consumption of paper, toner and other consumables and spare parts.

.In addition, some data must be forwarded immediately to the management of our internal service providers and our external service companies. In my opinion collecting information on the printer statistics pages on a daily basis is ‘tiring’ as there are many printers in the organization. Due to the heterogeneity and the lack of static web addresses, the website statistics analysis option was not suitable for us.

I chose SNMP. SNMP – is a UDP-based control and monitoring protocol.Almost all devices with a network interface support this protocol and enable the collection of performance data. The data available via SNMP is also organized in a hierarchical order (OID). So it turns out that you can request an OID with a specific number from the printer. The use of special utilities – server monitoring tools – makes it much easier to monitor the printer.

I personally use IPHost Network Monitor.This program automatically searches for all printers and other network devices (network discovery), collects performance data from printing devices, generates basic reports for further analysis and sends timely alerts when performance or availability problems arise. monitoring system usage revealed: printer manufacturers try to maintain a uniform MIB structure and thus the OIDS group (printer accounting): 1.3.6.1.