SNMP stands for Simple Network Management Protocol, and was designed to enable communication between different types of network and allow different types and brands of network peripheral (hubs, bridges, routers, etc) to be managed by a single piece of network management software.
The theory behind SNMP is that a network administrator should be able to send and receive messages to and from all peripheral devices on his network without leaving his workstation. Under SNMP, the administrator should be able to:
- Know the status of the peripheral device
- Configure the device parameters
- Receive notification of any failure
- Understand the nature of the failure
