What is SNMP? SNMP stands for Simple Network Management Protocol. It’s one of many network monitoring protocols, but SNMP is special because it’s designed to transmit messages between a central alarm master (an SNMP manager) and SNMP remotes (devices) at each network site. This allows for a more seamless communication channel between the multiple devices on a network and the monitoring tool. SNMP monitoring helps IT admins manage their servers and other network hardware such as modems, routers, access points, switches, and additional devices connected to the network. With a better view of these disparate devices, IT admins can obtain clear insights into key metrics like network and bandwidth usage , or they can track uptime and traffic levels to optimize performance. The SNMP architecture is based on a client-server model. In the case of network monitoring, the server is the monitor responsible for aggregating and analyzing information from clients on a network. The clients are the devices or device components, including switches, routers, and computers, connected to the network and monitored by the server. Some key concepts of the SNMP monitoring process are: Object identifiers (OIDs) – An OID is an address used to identify a device and its status. It can be thought of an IP address for a device’s value. However, because OIDs are just a bunch of numbers separated by seemingly random dots, it can be hard for IT admins to decipher what device they’re viewing when they monitor large-scale networks. Management information bases (MIBs) – Admins use MIBs to translate numerical OIDs into text-based OIDs. SNMP traps – Traps are unsolicited messages sent from an agent to a management station when an important event is detected. SNMP polling – Polling is when a network managed station asks devices for status updates during regularly scheduled intervals.

What is the purpose of SNMP monitoring?

What is the purpose of SNMP monitoring? SNMP can help you manage your network in a very simple yet effective manner. Because network monitoring requires admins to keep track of many network devices, SMNP can help streamline the process. For one, SNMP helps IT admins collect information about how much bandwidth is being used by different devices on a network. Likewise, SNMP can help IT admins aggregate error reports and organize them into a log. This allows admins to optimize troubleshooting efforts and more quickly identify network performance trends or issues. With these improved insights, admins can configure automatic email or text alerts notifying managers of urgent issues—for instance, when their networks’ servers are low on disk space or when a specific device isn’t performing well. There are two primary SNMP monitoring methods: Active monitoring – For active SNMP monitoring, admins inject test packets into their networks or send packets to servers and applications to create artificial network traffic. This allows admins to obtain meaningful measurements of how devices and equipment are faring on a network during cases of poor performance or after a critical incident. Passive monitoring – In the case of passive monitoring, devices are polled periodically so management information base data can be extracted during regularly scheduled intervals. This allows IT teams to better assess network performance and health from a more general standpoint.

Why is SNMP important?

Why is SNMP important? SNMP is important because it’s a granular, fast, and accurate way for organizations to understand what’s happening in their networks. As the industry standard protocol in network monitoring, SNMP is one of the best ways for IT admins to track network traffic, and one of the few ways to understand data transmission on such a detailed level. Using SNMP monitoring, admins can view actual packet information to gain a real-time overview of evolving traffic patterns as well as in-depth insights into specific bottlenecks.

What is SNMP management software?

What is SNMP management software? SNMP management software can help users better monitor critical performance metrics of network devices, such as server CPU and memory use. When usage exceeds normal thresholds, the software can send alerts so an IT admin can help the network avoid potential issues or downtime. Another key component of an SNMP management tool is to perform active polling. This involves retrieving management information base variables from devices to determine faulty behavior or connection problems.

What other network performance features does NPM have?

What other network performance features does NPM have? There are many different tools and features built into SolarWinds NPM software, including several exclusive to SolarWinds. One of the most popular features is the NetPath ™ network path analysis tool , which uses advanced connectivity tracing to help IT admins detect network paths from a source server to a destination service. This affords users better visibility into critical network paths, regardless of whether your infrastructure is built on the cloud, on-premises, or in a hybrid environment. Additionally, NetPath is built to help IT teams discover outages before users do and helps them see the exact location of the issue along a given network path. NPM also includes the PerfStack™ feature, which can help IT teams accelerate their root cause analysis practices in their network monitoring protocol. PerfStack comes with dashboards to help users troubleshoot projects and visually correlate historical time series data in a single interface. This can help IT teams analyze notable incidents, generate custom reports, optimize root cause analysis, and make data-driven decisions on infrastructure changes.

Troubleshoot network issues with SNMP monitoring

Use SolarWinds^® Network Performance Monitor (NPM) to poll SNMP-enabled devices and review availability, performance metrics, and network health from a centralized interface.

Download Free Trial Email Link to Trial

Fully functional for 30 days

Learn More

Improve Network Visibility With SNMP Monitoring

Monitor Device Health, Availability, and Performance

Automatically Discover Network Devices

Collect data from SNMP v1, v2c, and v3 devices

Monitor SNMP and Other Network Protocols

Receive and Analyze SNMP Traps

Monitor Device Health, Availability, and Performance

NPM uses SNMP monitoring to poll the management information bases (MIBs) on your devices to obtain critical performance metrics. With NPM, you can monitor network fault, availability, interface status, utilization, and performance of all compatible devices. Create custom monitors to poll an object identifier (OID) for devices not supported out-of-the-box. NPM provides fully customizable dashboards and charts to simplify the detection, diagnosis, and resolution of network issues before outages occur.

Learn More

Automatically Discover Network Devices

Use automated network discovery to identify SNMP-enabled devices and build topology views that show relationships between nodes and interfaces. See how devices connect, narrow your investigation to the affected part of the network, and troubleshoot with the supporting performance data in NPM.

Learn More

Simplify SNMP Monitoring Setup and Deployment

NPM makes SNMP monitoring easy to deploy on your network. Once SNMP device discovery is complete, you can immediately start monitoring SNMP trap receivers, network devices, and overall network performance from a unified web console. NPM comes with out-of-the-box network alerts, reports, and interactive charts so you can identify and resolve performance bottlenecks more quickly.

Learn More

Monitor SNMP and Other Network Protocols

NPM's robust toolkit gives you deep visibility into network devices. NPM can monitor any device that sends syslog messages or responds to SNMP, Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP), API, or Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). For Windows-based servers, NPM utilizes the WMI protocol to gather core node metrics, and it integrates seamlessly with SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) for deeper application-level insights. NPM lets you create dynamic and custom maps to visualize network performance in real time. Dynamic maps are generated automatically using network topology data, so you can quickly drill through network layers to identify root causes and performance insights.

Learn More

Resolve Outages Faster with Intelligent Alerts

NPM includes an SNMP trap receiver monitoring tool that provides immediate notifications of traps and events. The trap receiver software listens for SNMP traps generated by devices on the monitored network. When an event occurs, the tool logs trap details along with helpful context like time, IP address, hostname, and trap type. NPM also uses historical baselines to help you understand what normal looks like on your network. You can configure pre-built and custom alerts to notify the right teams when utilization, latency, or hardware health exceeds expected thresholds.

Learn More

Learn More About SNMP Monitoring

Get answers to common questions about SNMP, monitoring, and Network Performance Monitor.

What is SNMP And How Does It Work?
What is SNMP Monitoring Used For?
Why is SNMP Important For Network Monitoring?
What is SNMP Monitoring Software?
How Does SNMP Monitoring Work In NPM?
What Else Can NPM Track?

What is SNMP and how does it work?

SNMP stands for Simple Network Management Protocol. It is one of the foundational network monitoring protocols, designed to transmit messages between a central management station (like NPM) and SNMP agents installed on network devices at each site. This allows for a seamless communication channel between the monitoring tool and multiple devices on a network. SNMP monitoring helps IT admins manage their servers and network hardware such as modems, routers, access points, and switches. With a better view of these disparate devices, IT admins can obtain clear insights into key metrics like bandwidth usage, uptime, and traffic levels to optimize performance.

The SNMP architecture is based on a manager-agent model. The manager (the monitoring tool) is responsible for aggregating and analyzing information. The Agents are the software modules residing on the monitored network devices that collect the data and return it to the Manager.

Some key concepts of the SNMP monitoring process are:

SNMP Polling: Polling is when the management station actively asks device agents for status updates at regularly scheduled intervals.
SNMP Traps: Traps are unsolicited messages sent from a device agent to the management station when an important event is detected.
Object identifiers (OIDs): An OID is a unique address used to identify a specific variable or metric on a device, such as CPU utilization or interface status.
Management information bases (MIBs): An MIB is a hierarchical database that defines managed objects. Admins and monitoring tools use MIBs like a dictionary to translate numerical OIDs into human-readable text.

What is SNMP and how does it work?

SNMP stands for Simple Network Management Protocol. It is one of the foundational network monitoring protocols, designed to transmit messages between a central management station (like NPM) and SNMP agents installed on network devices at each site. This allows for a seamless communication channel between the monitoring tool and multiple devices on a network. SNMP monitoring helps IT admins manage their servers and network hardware such as modems, routers, access points, and switches. With a better view of these disparate devices, IT admins can obtain clear insights into key metrics like bandwidth usage, uptime, and traffic levels to optimize performance.
The SNMP architecture is based on a manager-agent model. The manager (the monitoring tool) is responsible for aggregating and analyzing information. The Agents are the software modules residing on the monitored network devices that collect the data and return it to the Manager.
Some key concepts of the SNMP monitoring process are:
SNMP Polling: Polling is when the management station actively asks device agents for status updates at regularly scheduled intervals.
SNMP Traps: Traps are unsolicited messages sent from a device agent to the management station when an important event is detected.
Object identifiers (OIDs): An OID is a unique address used to identify a specific variable or metric on a device, such as CPU utilization or interface status.
Management information bases (MIBs): An MIB is a hierarchical database that defines managed objects. Admins and monitoring tools use MIBs like a dictionary to translate numerical OIDs into human-readable text.
What is SNMP monitoring used for?
SNMP helps manage your network by streamlining the tracking of hundreds or thousands of devices. It allows IT admins to collect crucial metrics, such as device bandwidth usage, CPU load, and memory utilization. Additionally, SNMP helps aggregate device error reports and event logs, enabling admins to spot performance trends and accelerate troubleshooting. With these insights, NPM can trigger automatic email or text alerts when thresholds are crossed—such as when a server's disk space is low or a router interface is dropping packets.
Within SNMP, there are two primary monitoring methods:
Active Monitoring (Polling): The monitoring server (like NPM) actively queries network devices at scheduled intervals using SNMP GET requests to extract MIB data. This allows IT teams to regularly assess network performance and general hardware health.
Passive Monitoring (Traps): The monitoring server acts as a listener, waiting for unsolicited messages (SNMP Traps) sent by network devices. This method is crucial for immediate notification when a device detects an important event or critical failure, without waiting for the next polling cycle.
How does SNMP monitoring work in NPM?
SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM) is a robust monitoring solution designed to help IT pros seamlessly track network fault, availability, and performance.
Within NPM, SNMP monitoring operates across three core functions:
Automated Discovery: NPM utilizes automated network discovery to perform SNMP sweeps across the infrastructure. This allows the system to collect detailed hardware and topology information, scaling easily to support even the most complex, large-scale networks.
Passive Trap Reception: NPM includes a built-in SNMP trap receiver that listens for unsolicited traps generated by network devices. When an event occurs, NPM logs the details—including time, IP address, hostname, and trap type—providing immediate notifications for quicker time-to-resolution during critical incidents.
Active Polling & Visualization: NPM actively polls the MIBs on network devices to obtain valuable, real-time performance metrics. This data is then aggregated and visualized through fully customizable dashboards and charts, allowing IT teams to correlate events and optimize overall network health.
What else can NPM track?
There are many different tools and features built into SolarWinds NPM, including several exclusive to the platform, such as:
NetPath™ Network Path Analysis: This feature uses advanced connectivity tracing to help IT admins detect network paths from a source server to a destination service. This affords users better visibility into critical network paths, regardless of whether the infrastructure is built on the cloud, on-premises, or in a hybrid environment. NetPath is built to help IT teams discover outages before users do and pinpoint the exact location of the issue along a given path.
PerfStack™ (Performance Analysis Dashboard): NPM also includes PerfStack, which accelerates root cause analysis practices during network troubleshooting. PerfStack allows users to visually correlate historical time-series data from across the IT stack in a single interface. This helps IT teams analyze notable incidents, optimize their root cause analysis, and make data-driven decisions on infrastructure changes.

Trusted by Network Teams

SolarWinds greatly helps us ensure that potential network issues are resolved before they affect service delivery which goes a long way to justifying the investment.

Phil Rogers

Head of Networks

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Stay Ahead of Network Issues

Network Performance Monitor

Automatically discover and monitor SNMP-enabled devices
Generate interactive topology maps to visualize network relationships and health
Poll devices for fault, availability, and performance metrics

Download Free Trial Email Link to Trial

Fully functional for 30 days

Learn More

Let's talk it over.

Contact our team. Anytime.

Explore more network tools

Check popular SolarWinds products designed to improve network visibility, performance, monitoring, and troubleshooting.

Network Monitoring Software Network Diagnostic Tool LAN Monitor Wi-Fi Analyzer Wi-Fi Monitoring

NetPath Network Path Analysis Network Device Scanning Network Performance Testing Real-Time Network Monitoring Network Mapping Tool

Network Monitoring System Network Troubleshooting SNMP Scanner Network Latency Test

Explore More Resources

View All Resources

Troubleshoot network issues with SNMP monitoring

Use SolarWinds^® Network Performance Monitor (NPM) to poll SNMP-enabled devices and review availability, performance metrics, and network health from a centralized interface.

Improve Network Visibility With SNMP Monitoring

Monitor Device Health, Availability, and Performance

Automatically Discover Network Devices

Simplify SNMP Monitoring Setup and Deployment

Monitor SNMP and Other Network Protocols

Resolve Outages Faster with Intelligent Alerts

Learn More About SNMP Monitoring

What is SNMP and how does it work?

What is SNMP monitoring used for?

Why is SNMP important for network monitoring?

What is SNMP monitoring software?

How does SNMP monitoring work in NPM?

What else can NPM track?

What is SNMP and how does it work?

What is SNMP monitoring used for?

Why is SNMP important for network monitoring?

What is SNMP monitoring software?

How does SNMP monitoring work in NPM?

What else can NPM track?

Trusted by Network Teams

Stay Ahead of Network Issues

Explore more network tools

Explore More Resources

What is SNMP and how does it work?

What is SNMP monitoring used for?

Why is SNMP important for network monitoring?

What is SNMP monitoring software?

How does SNMP monitoring work in NPM?

What else can NPM track?

What is SNMP and how does it work?

What is SNMP monitoring used for?

Why is SNMP important for network monitoring?

What is SNMP monitoring software?

How does SNMP monitoring work in NPM?

What else can NPM track?

Troubleshoot network issues with SNMP monitoring

Use SolarWinds® Network Performance Monitor (NPM) to poll SNMP-enabled devices and review availability, performance metrics, and network health from a centralized interface.

Improve Network Visibility With SNMP Monitoring

Monitor Device Health, Availability, and Performance

Automatically Discover Network Devices

Simplify SNMP Monitoring Setup and Deployment

Monitor SNMP and Other Network Protocols

Resolve Outages Faster with Intelligent Alerts

Learn More About SNMP Monitoring

What is SNMP and how does it work?

What is SNMP monitoring used for?

Why is SNMP important for network monitoring?

What is SNMP monitoring software?

How does SNMP monitoring work in NPM?

What else can NPM track?

What is SNMP and how does it work?

What is SNMP monitoring used for?

Why is SNMP important for network monitoring?

What is SNMP monitoring software?

How does SNMP monitoring work in NPM?

What else can NPM track?

Trusted by Network Teams

Stay Ahead of Network Issues

Explore more network tools

Explore More Resources

What is SNMP and how does it work?

What is SNMP monitoring used for?

Why is SNMP important for network monitoring?

What is SNMP monitoring software?

How does SNMP monitoring work in NPM?

What else can NPM track?

What is SNMP and how does it work?

What is SNMP monitoring used for?

Why is SNMP important for network monitoring?

What is SNMP monitoring software?

How does SNMP monitoring work in NPM?

What else can NPM track?

Use SolarWinds^® Network Performance Monitor (NPM) to poll SNMP-enabled devices and review availability, performance metrics, and network health from a centralized interface.