ZyXEL Communications AAM1212, User Manual

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AAM1212 User’s Guide
144 Chapter 19 Access Control
19.3 About SNMP
Simple Network Management Protocol is a protocol used for exchanging management
information between network switches. SNMP is a member of TCP/IP protocol suite. A
manager station can manage and monitor the AAM through the network via SNMP version
one (SNMPv1) and/or SNMP version 2c. The next figure illustrates an SNMP management
operation. SNMP is only available if TCP/IP is configured.
Figure 73 SNMP Management Model
An SNMP managed network consists of two main components: agents and a manager.
An agent is a management software module that resides in a managed switch (the AAM). An
agent translates the local management information from the managed switch into a form
compatible with SNMP. The manager is the console through which network administrators
perform network management functions. It executes applications that control and monitor
managed devices.
The managed devices contain object variables/managed objects that define each piece of
information to be collected about a switch. Examples of variables include such as number of
packets received, node port status etc. A Management Information Base (MIB) is a collection
of managed objects. SNMP allows a manager and agents to communicate for the purpose of
accessing these objects.