ces-Structure of management Information: Management Information Model. Washington, DC: ANSI, 2007. Chapter 16 Management Information Base (MIB) This chapter is intended to give the reader an overview of the Management Information Base. After going through this chapter, the reader will have a basic understanding and the different types of MIB. A detailed explanation of MIB-II and SNMP MIB is also available in this chapter. 16.1 Introduction A management information base is a collection of managed objects. This is a virtual database that stores management data variables (managed objects) that correspond to resources to be managed in a network. The management information is moni- tored by updating the information in a MIB. The network manager will request information from the MIB through an agent (see Figure 16.1). The agent fetches the management information and responds to the manager. The network manager can use the MIB to monitor the network and it can also update the MIB. The actual MIB definition is just a file giving the format information and the MIB instance is the actual variables associated with the managed object. So the MIB is instantiated within the agent and an actual copy of the values associated with the MIB variables are available in the network element that also houses the agent. The manager usually keeps a local copy of the MIB variables for ease of access in performing and rendering the management information. A suitable synchronization mechanism is usually in place to ensure that the copy available with the manager is updated periodically based on the actual information collected using the agent. Fundamentals of EMS, NMS and OSS/BSS Network element Manager Agent Figure 16.1 Manager-MIB interaction using agent. Practical implementations with MIB do not define all objects of a managed element in a single definition. From a product development perspective this makes sense as the architect having expertise in ethernet may not have expertise in stor- age or switching. Also the management functionali