Simple management network protocol (SNMP) is a network management system through which a user can have precise information related to the devices connected to a network.
The central console has to be installed on a single system, and agent software has to be deployed on the systems that are to be monitored.
SNMP gives you information about the health of the devices connected to the network and alerts you if any issues are found.
These devices can be servers, printers, hubs, routers, etc.
The purpose of SNMP is to provide a similar communication language to devices for exchanging information among network information systems.
What is the Importance of SNMP?
Since the architect of SNMP is around a single management system through which multiple other nodes are managed.
It thus gives the network administrator the feasibility to efficiently manage the functioning of connected devices and networks.
Network administrators, because of the centralized system, need not individually change the behavior of a particular network, instead, they can conveniently do so from a central station.
Since SNMP works at application layers, thus it can be run along with other programs.
No set of additional hardware is required for installing SNMP applications.
Also Read: Fundamentals of SNMP You should Know About
SNMP is aimed at performing better with different vendor products.
As long as SNMP protocols are followed in the managing software and agent software, communications among each other can be done successfully for an infinite time.
SNMP is arranged to be functional with peer-to-peer topology.
Here the managing software communicates directly to the agent and vice versa.
Usually, higher-level network components pass down the information to the end ones in a hierarchical topology, but here it is the opposite.
Moreover, because of this peer-to-peer topology, a lot of time is saved in terms of communications.
Within a communication network, MIB is used for managing entities.
Since these MIB variables can be used for multiple network devices and their operations, a network administrator can even alter the existing routes for better traffic management.
MIB is a formatted text file used for collecting information and saving it hierarchically.
SNMP uses the data from MIB to interpret messages for end users.
Suppose any vendor wants to add a variable to manage its network better. In that case, SNMP provides them the feasibility to do so by allowing them to add these variables to their private MIB.
SNMP has a simple architecture based on four operations only.
These four operations are get, get-next, set, and trap.
Data is stored in the format of rows and columns only.
Moreover, when data has to be retrieved from a table only a single entry is retrieved and not the complete table.
Network administrators can monitor the health of the devices with SNMP centralized architecture.
They can receive information like bandwidths, memory usage, CPU load, etc.
Network administrators can quickly attend to any of the faults that happened within a network because of the alert systems.
Conclusion
SNMP protocol is a simple and flexible network protocol allowing the network admins to manage the organization network efficiently.
However, its effectiveness depends on how well it has been configured within the existing network process.
Also Read: Benefits of SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol)
