Patent ID: 7885940

Claim:
A method for monitoring objects in a Management Information Base (MIB) of a network device, the method comprising: identifying one or more Object Identifiers (OIDs) corresponding to the objects in the MIB for monitoring, wherein the objects represent configuration or state information about the network device; determining grouping rules for grouping the identified OIDs in a group; determining a rate for detection of changes in the group, wherein the rate of detection indicates a periodic monitoring time at which an application in a Network Management Station (NMS) desires the network device to periodically monitor at regular intervals for changes in the objects that correspond to the identified OIDs in the group, wherein one or more changes in the objects occur in between a first occurrence of the periodic monitoring time and a second occurrence of the periodic monitoring time; sending a monitoring request, the grouping rules, and the rate of detection, from the application to the network device, wherein the network device periodically monitors for changes to the identified OIDs in the group in response to the monitoring request; and receiving a notification from the network device, the notification indicating the one or more changes to the identified OIDs in the group, the one or more changes occurring in between the first and second occurrences of the periodic monitoring time, wherein the notification is provided from the network device at the rate of detection and at the second occurrence of the periodic monitoring time.