Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

As mentioned in Wikipedia, Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is an Internet-standard protocol for collecting and organizing information about managed devices on IP networks and for modifying that information to change device behavior. Devices that typically support SNMP include routers, switches, servers, workstations, printers, modem racks and more.

SNMP is a component of the Internet Protocol Suite as defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It consists of a set of standards for network management, including an application layer protocol, a database schema, and a set of data objects.

One of the starting point to get details on SNMP, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Network_Management_Protocol

SNMP is based on the manager/agent model consisting of an SNMP manager, an SNMP agent, a database of management information, managed SNMP devices, and the network protocol. SNMP agents expose management data on the managed systems as variables. The protocol also permits active management tasks, such as modifying and applying a new configuration through remote modification of these variables. The variables accessible via SNMP are organized in hierarchies. These hierarchies, and other metadata (such as type and description of the variable), are described by Management Information Bases (MIBs).

SNMP itself does not define which information (which variables) a managed system should offer. Rather, SNMP uses an extensible design, where the available information is defined by management information bases (MIBs). MIBs describe the structure of the management data of a device subsystem; they use a hierarchical namespace containing object identifiers (OID). Each OID identifies a variable that can be read or set via SNMP.

I have used SNMP in Datapower Appliance, Cast Iron Appliance for Monitoring. I have enabled SNMP in Datapower and with the help of Nagios Software Component, I was able to Monitor DP appliance and could gather all the information which Customer asks me to monitor at a single place. Similarly, I have enabled SNMP in Cast Iron and could perform Monitoring using the set of MIBs. I am also planning to use SNMP protocol in Websphere, so that I can configure Websphere Application Server for monitoring.