Patent ID: 7822836

Claim:
In a network, a method for identifying Management Information Base (MIB) vendors, comprising: sending from a computing device a first Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) GetNext request to an SNMP agent for a network device, the first SNMP GetNext request including a first object ID; receiving with the computing device a first response to the first SNMP GetNext request from the SNMP agent, the response identifying a first vendor of a MIB; adding the first vendor to a MIB vendor list; dynamically determining based on the first response received from the SNMP agent an object ID determined to be numerically greater than the last implemented Object ID for the vendor previously identified in the first response; sending from the computing device a second SNMP GetNext request to the SNMP agent for the network device after the receipt of the first response, the second SNMP GetNext request including the Object ID dynamically determined to be numerically greater than the last implemented Object ID for the vendor previously identified in the first response; receiving with the computing device a second response from the SNMP agent following the sending of the second request; identifying the presence of a second vendor based on the second response; and adding the second vendor to the MIB vendor list; using the identified vendors to identify at least one MIB needed for management of an SNMP agent associated with the network device; retrieving programmatically one of the identified at least one MIB or an update for the identified at least one MIB needed for management of the SNMP agent from a MIB repository; loading said one of the identified at least one MIB or an update for the identified at least one MIB needed for management of said SNMP agent onto a Network Management Station, wherein the MIB being loaded is a non-compiled MIB or the update being loaded is for a non-compiled MIB.