A Study of the Behaviour of the Simple Network Management Protocol

The long-standing dominance of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), in its various flavours (though particularly the original SNMPv1) is being challenged by the development of agent-based (and more specifically mobile-agent based) network management support. One of the criticisms of SNMP is that it suffers from a common failing of such client-server based paradigms, namely the performance problems caused by all traffic being directed to and from a single location (the network management platform). The behaviour of such client-server applications has been explored through the use of the OPNET simulation system, populating the model using data collected from a study of the way a network management platform is used both to monitor a properly-functioning network and to collect information in response to fault situations. Initial results are presented for version 1 of SNMP showing the behaviour of the resultant system over a network configuration which includes both local and wide area network links