APSSNMP as a protocol for managing network appliances

Network appliances are getting more popular and common both in the household and in industry. As more items become network aware, the variety of items also increases drastically. This leads to more heterogeneous systems with different vendors providing different implementations. As network appliances' functionality is expanded, people develop a greater dependence on them and hence their status and the ease of controlling them become of paramount importance. It is also beneficial for the network appliances to be able to integrate with a large existing network for easier access. TCP/IP is a protocol with a large user base and is also the protocol of choice for the Internet. It is also a well-tested and used protocol that is robust with many well developed hardware and even wireless access. capabilities. This makes TCP/IP a suitable protocol to link network appliances or at least to link them to the outside. Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is the network management protocol of choice for TCP/IP. It is vital that the management protocol has sufficient security, as it might be disastrous for many networked appliances if exposed to unauthorized access such as alarms and temperature control. APSSNMP (Application Secure SNMP) as proposed, is a simpler implementation that is easier and less costly to implement. It is also resistant to masquerade, modification, replay threats and also provide confidentiality. APSSNMP can be easily extended on the agent and provide backward compatibility with other devices implementing SNMP.