The initial work on the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) began in the late 1980s as a means to supplement the TCP/IP tools ‘ping’ and ‘traceroute’. Since these early beginnings, SNMP has evolved through three versions into the internet-standard management framework.

Version 3 of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMPv3) is published as IETF Internet Standard 62 in eight RFCs as follow:

RFC 3411 An Architecture for Describing SNMP Management Frameworks

RFC 3412 Message Processing and Dispatching for the SNMP

RFC 3413 SNMP Applications

RFC 3414 User-based Security Model (USM) for version 3 of the SNMP

RFC 3415 View-based Access Control Model (VACM) for the SNMP

RFC 3416 Version 2 of the Protocol Operations for the SNMP

RFC 3417 Transport Mappings for the SNMP

RFC 3418 Management Information Base (MIB) for the SNMP

An overview of IETF standard 62 (SNMPv3) is published as an informational RFC:

RFC 3410 The SNMP – An Introduction and Applicability Statements

Different versions of SNMP interoperate as described by the following RFC:

RFC 3584 Coexistence between Version 1, Version 2, and Version 3 of theInternet-standard Network Management Framework