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Object-Types: Data you can read and sometimes write

When reading the MIB, you'll also want to know what information you can directly request from the device, and what information you can send to the device. These functions are controlled by the SNMP commands GetRequest and SetRequest.

If you want to translate these commands into classic telemetry terms, you can roughly think of a GetRequest as an alarm poll and a SetRequest as a control command.

GetRequests and SetRequests operate on a type of element called an object-type. Object-types are called out in the MIB like this:

tmonAState OBJECT-TYPE
      SYNTAX DisplayString (SIZE (8))
      ACCESS read-only
      STATUS mandatory
      DESCRIPTION "The current alarm state."
      ::= {tmonAlarmEntry 4}

There are many different kinds of object-types. The specific object-types you might find in a MIB depend on the type of device, what kind of components it has, what the functions of those components, are, etc.

You're probably not going to be interested in every object-type listed in the MIB, because you're not going to be interested in everything about the device's functions.

When searching for object-types, it's helpful to start with a plan of what functions of the device you want to manage. What information do you want to retrieve? What controls do you want to set? Knowing the device's functions and how you want to use them will help you narrow down what object-types you should look for in the MIB.

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