Simple Network Management Protocol

By: Jesse Miller

The simple network management protocol (SNMP) provides a set of fundamental operations for monitoring and maintaining an internet. SNMP uses the concept of manager and managed devices. A few hosts are managers. To aid in monitoring, every managed device contains a combination of hardware and software called an agent, which acts as a book keeper for the host and can be accessed by a manager. Inside of each agent is a management information base (MIB).

The MIB is a list of the variables that the protocol supports and tracks. A variable is a performance record of an agent. Managers can check variables to see if the numbers look healthy. They can also set the value of a variable to change or monitor its behavior. Management on TCP/IP internet works is accomplished by setting and checking these variables. To monitor the network, the management software polls the agents looking for problems. Alternatively, when an agent is in trouble, rather than wait to be polled and tested, it issues a trap.

If the management software is listening, the trap gets read. Intelligent management software can fix the problem automatically or page the system administrator.

SNMP is a simple request/response protocol built upon UDP. As such, it provides little reliability and no security. Because most monitoring and maintenance is done using single datagram's, the level of reliability available through UDP usually is sufficient. The lack of security however raises problems for the management of confidential system. In 1993, a version of SNMP called SNMPv2 was proposed. The new protocol does provide security and rectifies other weakness of SNMP. It is however, less a set of operations than a frame work upon which applications can be built. As such, it is more difficult to implement, though more powerful, than SNMP.

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