Developing an SNMP agent protocol entity with object oriented Perl

Abstract

The Damocles project at the University of Twente is developing an SNMP prototyping vehicle. The motivation for such a vehicle stems from the fact that the IETF will develop new versions of SNMP in response to evolving user needs. Whereas the transition to newer versions is attractive from a functional or performance point of view, the effort and cost involved in such a transition should not be underestimated. The Damocles project investigates how modular design and implementation methods and OO techniques facilitate modification and reduce the effort and cost of version transition. In this paper, we discuss an SNMP agent protocol entity written in OO Perl. We discuss the design and implementation of the protocol entity, and how this development effort contributes to the objectives of the Damocles project