SNMP is a standard TCP/IP protocol for network management. Network administrators use SNMP to monitor and map network availability, performance, and error rates.
SNMP stands for Simple Network Management Protocol and consists of three key components: managed devices, agents, and network-management systems (NMSs). A managed device is a node that has an SNMP agent and resides on a managed network. These devices can be routers and access servers, switches and bridges, hubs, computer hosts, or printers. An agent is a software module residing within a device. This agent translates information into a compatible format with SNMP. An NMS runs monitoring applications. They provide the bulk of processing and memory resources required for network management.
