Reasons To Choose SNMP Monitoring

SNMP is the most commonly used method mainly because it is easy to set up and requires only minimal bandwidth and CPU cycles.

So if your network devices support SNMP and/or if you want monitor large networks with several hundred sensors we recommend to get started with SNMP.

Besides network usage monitoring one unique feature of SNMP is the possibility to also monitor other network parameters like CPU loads, disk usage, temperatures, as well as many other readings (depending on the device). This is only possible using SNMP.

Network issues: In order to use SNMP for monitoring it must be possible for UDP packets to travel from the machine running PRTG to the device you want to monitor and back, which is usually the case in LANs and Intranets. For Internet Connections, DMZ, and WAN connections this is usually not the case and some changes to the traversed firewalls may be necessary. Keep in mind that SNMP V1 and V2c are not secure protocols and should not be used across the Internet. Only SNMP version 3 supports encryption.