To retrieve management information using the third version of the Simple Network 

Management Protocol (SNMP), it is necessary to know  the identifier of the remote 

SNMP protocol engine. This document introduces a discovery mechanism which can 

be used to learn the engine identifier of a remote SNMP protocol engine. The proposed

mechanism is independent of the features provided by SNMP security models and 

may be used also by other protocol interfaces to discover the engine identifier.