simple management protocol (SMP)
Introduced in 1988, Simple Management Protocol(SMP) was improved in 1993 in a newer version in terms of performance and security. This enhanced definition is called Simple Management Protocl (SMP) and can coexist with Simple Network Management Protocol( SNMP) on management platforms.
The key differences between the SNMP protocol and the SMP protocol are that the SMP protocol uses not only the UDP protocol and the IP protocol, but also a whole spectrum of possible transport protocols, including Appletalk, the IPX protocol, and OSI protocols. In addition, a bulk retrieval mechanism ensures that one can obtain table-like information from agents using a brisk protocol.
In revision of the Secure SNMP proposals, security features are provided that have better performance than in Secure SNMP with the same security. SMP defines some new data types and even allows the definition of subtypes depending on the context.
An SMP management station can send information to another SMP management station as part of a connection-oriented manager-to-manager communication service and request acknowledgement of receipt. For this purpose, there is a new SMP MIB that governs the exchange of information, in particular the way in which events are processed and distributed to other management stations. This communication allows hierarchical management structures to be set up.
Unlike Secure SNMP, SMP makes the use of the Data Encryption Standard( DES) optional rather than mandatory. This is also due to the fact that the US government prohibits the export of DES-encrypted source code.
An important SMP goal is backward compatibility with SNMP: