What Is Proxy Agent?

Let's face it—if you're a manager, you hate doing things yourself. You'd rather not deal with getting in there and setting up each device individually when managing your network. What if one of them breaks? What if they need updates? What if they need to be upgraded? That's where proxy agents come in! A proxy agent is a network management element that acts as a middleman between a management system and an unmanaged device, allowing management by proxy. The proxy agent appears to the device or client as the server itself, which is also an element of security since the management server is entirely invisible to connected devices. Many proxy agents are meant for different purposes, such as SNMP proxy agents, WINS proxy agents and DHCP proxy agents. In a network, the proxy agent is the go-between that allows a management server to manage devices and clients in other domains. The proxy agent is the mediator between your managed and unmanaged devices. Why would you need a proxy agent? Well, it's pretty simple: if you don't have one, your management server is blind. It can't see what's going on outside of its domain because it doesn't have any way to communicate with those devices. It also can't send control signals to those devices or receive information from them. But with a proxy agent? You've got access to all that data! If you want to be able to control things outside of your domain, then you'll need one, too (at least for now). When it comes to security, there are many things you can do. For example, you can use a proxy agent as a stand-in for an actual server. That way, clients can't communicate directly with the virtual server and are less likely to attack it.