Patent ID: 8055746

Claim:
A method for managing a device in a communication network using Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), the device including an SNMP Agent for processing a status request, the communication network further comprising at least two Management Clients residing on separate computing devices, and an SNMP Manager providing interface between the Management Client and the SNMP Agent, the method comprising: (a) determining a respective network address of each Management Client the network address being an Internet Protocol (IP) address (b) originating the status request for the device in a requesting Management Client which is one of said at least two Management Clients, and sending the status request to the SNMP Manager; (c) including the status request in a request Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) Protocol Data Unit (PDU) in the SNMP Manager; (d) identifying the requesting Management Client by including an Embedded Management Communication Channel (EMCC) Variable Binding (VarBind) in the request SNMP PDU, the EMCC VarBind comprising the network address of said requesting Management Client; (e) forwarding the request SNMP PDU to the SNMP Agent; (f) processing the request SNMP PDU in the SNMP Agent to generate a response SNMP PDU comprising the EMCC VarBind and a status of the device; (g) forwarding the response SNMP PDU to the SNMP Manager; (h) determining the network address of the requesting Management Client in the SNMP Manager, the network address being included in the EMCC VarBind of the response SNMP PDU; and (i) forwarding the response SNMP PDU from the SNMP Manager to the requesting Management Client identified by the network address.