Early in the days of computers, a central computer (called a mainframe) was connected to a bunch of terminals using a standard copper wire. Not much thought was put into how this was done because there was only one way to do it: they were either connected, or they weren’t. If something went wrong with this type of system, it was fairly easy to troubleshoot, the blame almost always fell on the mainframe system. Shortly after the introduction of Personal Computers (PC), came Local Area Networks (LANS), forever changing the way in which we look at networked systems. LANS originally consisted of just PC’s connected into groups of computers, but soon after, there came a need to connect those individual LANS together forming what is known as a Wide Area Network, or WAN, the result was a complex connection of computers joined together using various types of interfaces and protocols. Last year, a survey of Fortune 500 companies showed that 15% of their total computer budget, 1.6 Million dollars, was spent on network management (Rose, 115). Because of this, much attention has focused on two families of network management protocols; The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), which comes from a de facto standards based background of TCP/IP communication, and the Common Management Information Protocol (CMIP), which derives from a de jure standards-based background associated with the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) (Fisher, 183). In this report I will cover advantages and disadvantages of both Common Management Information Protocol (CMIP) and Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)., as well as discuss a new protocol for the future. I will also give some good reasons supporting why I believe that SNMP is a protocol that all network administrators should use.

The first protocol developed was the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). It was commonly considered to be a quickly designed “band-aid” solution to internetwork management difficulties while other, larger and better protocols were being designed. (Miller, 46). However, no better choice became available, and SNMP soon became the network management protocol of choice. It works very simply (as the name suggests): it exchanges network packets through messages (known as protocol data units (PDU)). The PDU contains variables that have both titles and values. There are five types of PDU’s which SNMP uses to monitor a network: two deal with reading terminal data, two with setting terminal data, and one called the trap, used for monitoring network events, such as terminal start-ups or shut-downs. By far the largest advantage of SNMP over CMIP is that its design is simple, so it is as easy to use on a small network as well as on a large one, with ease of setup, and lack of stress on system resources. Also, the simple design makes it simple for the user to program system variables that they would like to monitor. Another major advantage to SNMP is that is in wide use today around the world.

Some topics in this essay:
SNMP PDU’s, California York, Privacy Data, Protocol SNMP, John Romkey, SNMP CMIP, Managing TCP/IP, Network WAN, Protocol CMIP, SNMPv2 Stallings, network management, management information, management protocol, network management protocol, simple network, simple network management, management information base, information base, management protocol snmp, base network, information protocol, information protocol cmip, protocol cmip, system resources, protocol snmp,