The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is a useful tool for examining the state of devices on a network. The open source world offers a number of consoles designed to manage the information from these devices and produce reports. However, there are circumstances in which access to the devices at a more customizable level is more beneficial. Given that the programming involved is minimal, it is worth considering custom applications for SNMP reporting.
Some examples might be:
* Keeping a history of values stored to MySQL back end
* Alarm systems
* Cron jobs
* Password-protected access to special reports
* Applications to be dovetailed into other custom systems
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