SNMP-an overview of its merits and demerits

The paper is a tutorial which evaluates the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), which was propounded by the IAB (Internet Activities Board) in 1988 for managing TCP/IP networks. SNMP is relatively new and research activities are ongoing in the IAB task forces for enhancing SNMP. However, the usefulness of this protocol has made it already a popular candidate in enterprise networks. The latest version-SNMPv2-was released in 1993. As SNMP is relatively new, this tutorial is intended to bring out the salient features of this useful protocol.<>