Patent ID: 7293052

Claim:
A method for managing access to network management information associated with a network device, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of: receiving from a requestor a message requesting access to a set of one or more managed objects associated with the network device wherein the network device comprises a network node and the managed objects are stored in a management information base (MIB) of a network management information system agent in the network device; retrieving a set of one or more managed object instances with associated values, wherein each object instance is associated with an object from the set of managed objects; reading an access policy associated with the requester, wherein the access policy specifies one or more restricted values associated with an object instance and includes instructions regarding whether to permit or deny access to the object instance when the object instance contains a specified restricted value; comparing a current value of the object instance with the one or more restricted values; and controlling access to the object instance based on the current value; wherein the current value comprises one or more of: a correspondence with a given restricted value; or a comparison with one or more operator values.