nctional- ity is implemented at the manager with minimum capabilities in the agent. For managing large heterogeneous networks RMON (remote network MONitoring) is used. The RMON collects data from the elements and processes the data locally and sends processed data to the manager using SNMP. This takes care of scalability and decentralized management at the SNMP manager implementation. For distributed and client-server environments, CORBA (common object request broker architecture) is popularly used. To use SNMP in this domain interop- erability between CORBA and SNMP needs to be worked out. Performance and security play a critical role in working in distributed management domain. There is a separate Internet group called, the distributed management (DISMAN) group working toward defining standards in this area. New protocols based on XML are now becoming popular for network man- agement and most of the legacy NMS solutions are based on SNMP. Adapters for conversion between protocols are getting popular and some of the NMS solutions support multiple protocols in addition to different versions of SNMP. The simplicity of SNMP made it one of the most popular network manage- ment protocols. Though other management protocols were introduced, SNMP is still the protocol that has the highest number of implementations. To support new devices or extend existing devices only change in the MIB is required when using SNMP. SNMP still needs changes and new specifications to make it a complete management protocol that supports all forms of FCAPS functionality, but that would probably take out the biggest power of SNMP, which is simplicity as at stands for simple network management protocol. Additional Reading 1. Marshall T. Rose. The Simple Book: An Introduction to Internet Management. New York: Prentice Hall-Gale, 1993. 2. William Stallings. SNMP, SNMPv2, SNMPv3, and RMON 1 and 2. 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Addison-Wesley, 1999. 3. Allan Leinwand and Karen Fang. Network Management: A Practical Perspective. 2nd ed. Upper Sad