SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) management software is an application or program used to manage and monitor many network devices – such as servers, printers, hubs, switches, and routers – that are SNMP-aware and which an SNMP agent software can poll and receive alert traps when needed.
SNMP is currently considered the best choice by professionals for IP (Internet Protocol) network management, and as a result, SNMP is widely supported and featured in many hardware devices and network management software packages. SNMP is designed to be able to be deployed on a large number of network devices, to have minimal impact and transport requirements on the managed nodes and to continue working when most other network applications fail.
The fact that SNMP is so popular means that there are many different software tools available for managing SNMP-aware networks and administering the complexity of the data that is provided by the SNMP protocol. SNMP software includes both open and closed source applications, as well as both free and licensable programs.
In order to efficiently use SNMP to maintain, configure and monitor all network devices, one needs to be able to manage SNMP from one work station and with one software tool. All of the network information and network configurations SNMP collects through SNMP agents can amount to sizable volumes of information, and SNMP management software is the most efficient way to handle such administration and troubleshooting tasks.
An SNMP agent interacts with third-party SNMP management software to enable the sharing of network status information between monitored devices and applications and the SNMP management system that monitors them.
An important component of SNMP is the Management Information Base (MIB) data. MIB data is contained in a text file in all SNMP-enabled devices, and is converted by SNMP into a format usable by the management software. A structure to the data is important to be able to monitor all manageable features from different vendors.
SNMP will “poll” devices and request MIB data, but SNMP can also receive what are called “traps.” An SNMP “trap” alerts the network administrator to an immediate problem at the time of the occurrence, and the ability to work with traps is an important feature of any SNMP manager application.
WhatsUp Gold’s SNMP monitoring software capabilities were designed to be flexible, full featured and intuitive. From the novice user to the advanced custom-monitoring expert, WhatsUp Gold provides exactly what you need to get the job done, quickly and easily.
WhatsUp Gold lets you discover devices on your network, initiate monitoring of those devices, and execute actions based on device state changes, so you can identify network failures before they become catastrophic.