Motorola BSR 64000, Reference Manual

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SNMP Commands
3-1
Introduction
This chapter describes the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)
commands used to manage the BSR 64000.
Since it was developed in 1988, SNMP has become the de facto standard for
internetwork management. SNMP is an application layer protocol and is based on the
manager/agent model. SNMP is referred to as simple because the agent requires
minimal software. Most of the processing power and the data storage resides on the
management system, with a subset of those functions residing in the managed system.
A typical agent usually implements the SNMP protocol, stores and retrieves
management data (as defined by the MIB); can asynchronously signal an event to the
manager; and can be a proxy for some non-SNMP network node.
A typical manager implemented as a Network Management Station (NMS)
Network-management stations implements the SNMP protocol; learns of problems by
receiving event notifications, called traps, from network devices implementing
SNMP; is able to query agents; gets responses from agents; sets variables in agents;
and acknowledges synchronous events from agents.
The primary protocols that SNMP runs on are the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) and
IP. SNMP also requires Data Link Layer protocols such as Ethernet to implement the
communication channel from the management to the managed agent.