Patent ID: 7877469

Claim:
A system, comprising: a manager device configured to execute a Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) manager; and an agent device configured to execute a SNMP agent, the SNMP agent in communication with the SNMP manager and configured to selectively provide access including for the SNMP manager to managed data, wherein the SNMP manager is configured to issue an SNMP data packet comprising a login command, a community name, a user identifier and a password to the SNMP agent and wherein the SNMP agent is configured to processes the login command and, if the login command is authenticated, is configured to allow access to the managed data, and wherein the SNMP agent is configured to forward the user identifier and the password instead of the community name to an authentication server and wherein the authentication server is configured to attempt to authenticate a user based on the user identifier and the password instead of the community name.