Defining SNMP

SNMP is the Simple Network Management Protocol, typically used by advanced business users. This lightweight protocol was made to monitor network devices and connections, to assist healthy network infrastructure operation. It reads and writes statistical and configuration information from devices by accessing MIBs (Management Information Base files). MIBs store real-time statistical and configuration data locally in a device’s memory.

An NMS (Network Management System) uses GET to read a MIB, and SET to write to a MIB, which maintains configuration parameters.

Doc: N100000.asp Sept. 22, 2004