Molex Premise Networks has released Version 2.0 of MIIM, its intelligent physical-layer management system. As was the case with previous versions of MIIM, it detects all physical-layer connections from switch to work area in real time. The system's intelligence enables it to sense any physical change made in the channel, which devices are affected by the change, and identify the specific location of the device on a building map.
What's new about Version 2.0 are the ability to communicate with other systems using SNMP, which enables faster and more-accurate updates on the status of Ethernet channels, Molex says. MIIM 2.0 also can provide information to other network tools, including network management systems, about events such as work orders, channel changes, alarms and log entries. A user can configure the system to send alarms to multiple other systems. The user can also define the set of alarms each system will receive from MIIM.
Another new feature included in 2.0 is the Device Discovery Toolkit, which includes global discovery, detected discovery and event-driven discovery. All three discovery types populate the MAC and IP addresses of any discovered devices to the MIIM database, including wireless access points and Voice over Internet Protocol phones, as well as the discovery of other devices that are attached to the device at the end of the channel. According to Molex, global discovery of devices enables the discovery of any device attached to any switch connected to MIIM. Directed discovery allows the user to determine end device information for specific switch addresses. Event-driven discovery is unique to MIIM, Molex says; it immediately detects and communicates changes to a complete channel when devices are added or removed.
The new version also includes a number of report templates, definable reporting parameters and the ability to view reports on the screen or export files in several different file formats.