In order to step over the heterogeneity and the miscellaneous equipment of modern network components, an unification of the management information and of the administration protocol became compulsary.

Two main protocol appears : SNMP and CSMIE/CMP (stands for Simple Network Management Protocol and Common Management Information Service Element / Common Management Information).

The original idea was that everything must converge, with the same protocol, you had to be able to access and share the same data.

In the facts, the two standards appear to be barely compatible. Thus CMOT (CMIP Over TCP) has fade out in and had a smallest growth than SNMP .
The requirements specification had been minimised so that the SNMP was developed faster.

Due to the IETF standard and his RFC , the SNMP standard has been established in a few month only. Where as by the OSI rules, the establishment would have take a few years.

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