Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is the standard for collecting data from network devices. Routers, switches, and firewalls all speak SNMP.
How SNMP works:
Manager. Your monitoring server. It polls devices for data and receives alerts.
Agent. Software on each device that responds to queries.
MIB. Management Information Base. Defines what data is available.
Basic operations:
- GET retrieves a single value
- SET changes a configuration
- TRAP sends unsolicited alerts
SNMP runs on UDP port for queries and port for traps.