SNMP support for remotely distributed devices

A method operable on a network access device operating remotely from a data center, comprising:

• connecting the network access device to an Internet-coupled, wide-area, wireless network;
• via a persistently-executing, device management program running on the network access device, establish a persistent network socket connection over the wireless network with a Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) agent program that runs at the data center and manages SNMP services on behalf of the network access device;
• based on commands received via the persistent network socket connection, performing one or both of reading and changing a status of the network access device via the device management program;
• and
• in response to the commands, sending status data to the SNMP agent program which uses the status data to communicate the status of the network access device to a network management station via SNMP.

A method operable via a data center, comprising:

• receiving connection requests from persistently-executing, device management programs running on respective network access devices, the network access devices coupled to the data center via one or more Internet-coupled, wide-area, wireless networks, the connection requests establishing respective persistent network socket connections to the data center;
• coupling the persistent network socket connections to a multithreaded socket server that interfaces to dedicated SNMP agent programs on behalf of each of the network access devices;
• initiating SNMP commands via the SNMP agent programs that cause corresponding non-SNMP commands to be sent via the persistent network socket connections to the respective device management programs;
• and
• in response to the non-SNMP commands, receiving non-SNMP status data at the SNMP agent programs which use the non-SNMP status data to communicate statuses of the respective network access devices to a network management station via SNMP.