SNMP

This term might stand for several meaning depending upon the perspective it is dealt with; however, this article will only deal with this technology with respect to the networking world, where this term, SNMP is an acronym for Simple Network Management Protocol. It is basically an internet standard protocol for managing the devices that connect and communicate over the IP networks. The devices where this protocol is used extensively in the network are mentioned in the following material. They are switches, servers, routers, printers, workstation etc.

All of these mentioned devices and many other that are present in the market, which need to operate over the IP network makes use of this technology. Apart from these devices the most common use of this feature is in the network management systems where administrative attention is needed to monitor the network attached devices. The SNMP is defined in the IETF and it consists of application layer protocol, database scheme, set of data objects and set of standards for network management.

This technology can be broken down in to four major functional areas, all of which perform specific functions and these four major functional areas to allow the administrators to manage the agents or devices over the IP network. The following material will list down these four major features of this technology. The first feature is Data definition, which are basically the syntax conventions used to define the data to the agent or the manager. The second feature loaded in this protocol is MIBs, which are management information base. Thirdly, there is protocols, that are messages used by agents and managers to communicate and fourthly, the feature is security and administration, which define ways to securely transfer the data in the network between devices and hosts.

Since its release several version of the SNMP had been released in the market. These versions are version 1, Version 2, after which version 2c was introduced. The latest version is the version 3.