The SDM supports management of devices for which it has no device-specific firmware. Such devices are categorized as generic device types and are defined as devices that the SDM element management system has no knowledge about. Typically, the SDM gains knowledge about a particular device type through its firmware load process, which loads such items as device-specific MIB parameters and data files into the SDM. In the case of generic devices, a common set of generic firmware data is loaded (that is, firmware with no device specific MIB information, and data files) into the SDM. This common set of firmware is applicable to all device types for which the SDM does not have device-specific firmware loaded into its database. Generic devices can be ARRIS devices and/or non-ARRIS devices.
The SDM supports the following functionality for generic device types:
- BootP processing
- Trap processing (that is, receiving traps, displaying traps, and forwarding traps using the Trap Forwarding page)
- Polling (pinging) for status information
- Launching of device-specific applications
Since no device-specific firmware (such as MIB information, data files, configuration files, and so on) is loaded for generic devices, they are managed by the SDM as non-SNMP devices. As such, generic devices are not discoverable devices. They must be added into the SDM using the Add new devices utility of the SDM.