Because it is a simple solution, requiring little code to implement, vendors can easily build SNMP agents to their products. SNMP is extensible, allowing vendors to easily add network managment functions to their existing products. SNMP also separates the managment architecture from the architecture of the hardware devices, which broadens the base of multivendor support. Perhaps most important, unlike other so-called standards,SNMP is not a mere paper specification, but an implementation that is widely available today. The Manager is the console through which the network administrator performs network managment functions.
Agents are the entities that interface to the actual device being managed.
Bridges, Hubs, Routers or network servers are examples of managed devices that contain managed objects. These managed objects might be hardware, configuration parameters, performance statistics, and so on, that directly relate to the current operation of the device in question. These objects are arranged in what is known as a virtual information database ,called a managment information base, also called MIB . SNMP allows managers and agents to communicate for the purpose of accessing these objects. Stores and retrieves managment data as defined by the Managment Information Base Can asynchronously signal an event to the manager Can be a proxy for some non-SNMP manageable network node.