Home / Definitions / SNMP – Simple Network Management Protocol

SNMP – Simple Network Management Protocol

Vangie Beal
Last Updated May 24, 2021 7:55 am

Short for Simple Network Management Protocol, a set of protocols for managing complex networks. The first versions of SNMP were developed in the early 80s. SNMP works by sending messages, called protocol data units (PDUs), to different parts of a network. SNMP-compliant devices, called agents, store data about themselves in Management Information Bases (MIBs)and return this data to the SNMP requesters.