Patent ID: 8914490

Claim:
A non-transitory medium holding computer-executable instructions for acquiring and deploying Management Information Base (MIB) modules, the instructions when executed causing a least one computing device to: transmit a query from a Network Management Station (NMS) to a Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) agent associated with a network device to obtain an enterprise number identifying a vendor of the network device; receive at the NMS, in response to the query, the enterprise number identifying the vendor of the network device; verify by using the enterprise number in a communication between the NMS and a MIB module repository that the MIB module repository holds at least one MIB module associated with the vendor of the network device, the MIB module repository located externally to the NMS, the agent and the network device; identify at the NMS, using the received enterprise number, whether a local MIB database in the NMS holds any MIB modules associated with the vendor of the network device; transmit a request from the NMS to the MIB module repository based on the identifying, the request requesting all of the MIB modules for the identified vendor that are not present in the local MIB database that are present in the MIB module repository; receive at the NMS the MIB modules for the identified vendor requested in the request; and install in the local MIB database the received MIB modules for the identified vendor.