Simple Network Management Protocol Version 2 (SNMPv2)

Definition - What does Simple Network Management Protocol Version 2 (SNMPv2) mean?

Simple Network Management Protocol version 2 (SNMPv2) is an Internet standard protocol used for managing computers and devices on an IP network. These devices include routers, switches, servers, workstations, enterprise-grade racks and many others. SNMPv2 revised or improved some features from version 1 such as performance, confidentiality and security, as well as changed the protocol operations from version 1. There are many different versions of SNMPv2, which serve different purposes but share the same protocol operations.

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Techopedia explains Simple Network Management Protocol Version 2 (SNMPv2)

SNMPv2 was intended to enhance version 1 after it had served many years and various issues were found and areas of improvement identified. The areas of improvement included management information base object definitions, security and how protocols fundamentally operated. Because of the security aspect, different versions of SNMPv2 have proliferated.

SNMPv2 changed a number of aspects from version 1, which led to numerous problems upon its introduction. This was due to security issues in the original SNMP, which eventually led to the proliferation of different SNMPv2 variants because of the many ways proposed to add security to SNMP with no real universal agreement on how to go about the change. In essence, SNMPv2 created protocols that people are simply not used to seeing in TCP/IP.

SNMPv2 variants include the following: