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Chapter 30 Access Control
ES-3148 User’s Guide
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30.3  About SNMP  
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is an application layer protocol used to 
manage and monitor TCP/IP-based devices. SNMP is used to exchange management 
information between the network management system (NMS) and a network element (NE). A 
manager station can manage and monitor the Switch through the network via SNMP version 
one (SNMPv1), SNMP version 2c or SNMP version 3. The next figure illustrates an SNMP 
management operation. SNMP is only available if TCP/IP is configured.
Figure 139   SNMP Management Model  
An SNMP managed network consists of two main components: agents and a manager. 
An agent is a management software module that resides in a managed Switch (the Switch). An 
agent translates the local management information from the managed Switch into a form 
compatible with SNMP. The manager is the console through which network administrators 
perform network management functions. It executes applications that control and monitor 
managed devices. 
The managed devices contain object variables/managed objects that define each piece of 
information to be collected about a Switch. Examples of variables include number of packets 
received, node port status and so on. A Management Information Base (MIB) is a collection of 
managed objects. SNMP allows a manager and agents to communicate for the purpose of 
accessing these objects.
SNMP itself is a simple request/response protocol based on the manager/agent model. The 
manager issues a request and the agent returns responses using the following protocol 
operations: 
Table 97   SNMP Commands
COMMAND
DESCRIPTION
Get
Allows the manager to retrieve an object variable from the agent.
GetNext 
Allows the manager to retrieve the next object variable from a table or list within an 
agent. In SNMPv1, when a manager wants to retrieve all elements of a table from an 
agent, it initiates a Get operation, followed by a series of GetNext operations. 
Set
 Allows the manager to set values for object variables within an agent. 
Trap
 Used by the agent to inform the manager of some events.