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What is SNMP?
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is a network standard communications protocol used for monitoring, managing and transferring data between network devices. This application layer protocol is one of the most popular network management protocols and most network devices in the market come with SNMP agents installed. Typically, the sorts of devices that would support SNMP would be: routers, cable modems, switches, servers, printers, and more – though SNMP can also be support by industrial devices as well. in many cases the vendors will pre-configure the SNMP agent, leaving the admins to simply enable SNMP and start managing the device.
The 3 key elements of SNMP:
- Managed devices
- Agents
- The network management station (NMS)
Why should SNMP be monitored?
Differing from other communications protocols like Modbus or BACnet, SNMP Network admins tend to manage network devices and allocate and free up ports and interfaces to avoid downtime and less excessive bandwidth operations. To ensure efficient operations in this way, SNMP devices must be closely monitored and managed. To do this, an admin must configure the SNMP agent to send the data to an SNMP manager. Since The Hark Platform takes care of monitoring, operational managers are empowered to spend time implementing corrective measures for increasing efficiency.
Unlike some other communication protocols, SNMP does have some security and authentication risks to be considered.
SNMP to MQTT adapter
The ability to take information from SNMP agents and send it to MQTT is extremely useful because SNMP devices typically aren’t secure enough to be on the internet, and MQTT is supported by many more data collection systems. SNMPv1/v2 are insecure because they use a password for authentication that is sent in plain text. Typically, anything outside of the internal network wouldn’t talk to it. It’s worth noting however that SNMP v3 has encryption.
MQTT on the other hand is preferred by developers due to its ease of use, speed and user-friendliness.
For this reason MQTT is a standard protocol for our solutions, which is why we have created these easy protocol adapters for OPC-UA, BACnet and more.
When is SNMP used in IoT?
SNMP allows admins to monitor the status and performance of devices and assets included in an IoT project. They can configure devices remotely using an IoT platform (such as The Hark Platform) which SNMP integrates seamlessly into. By doing this, admins are able to instantly identify and begin to resolve any issues with devices or assets.
SNMP has been specifically designed for network management, meaning it is a consistent and lightweight protocol which can be used to monitor a large amount of devices.
To learn more and understand how our solution can fit into your system. Please get in touch with our team.
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