METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CONFIGURING NETWORK DEVICES WITH SUBNETWORKS IN AN ATM ENVIRONMENT AND RETRIEVING PERMANENT VIRTUAL CHANNEL (PVC) CONFIGURATION INFORMATION FROM NETWORK DEVICES

A method and apparatus retrieves and stores configuration information for network endpoint devices from other devices in the network, such as a switch adjacent to the endpoint device. When the endpoint device establishes a connection with the network, it generates a sequence of SNMP getnext commands using the ILMI interface to obtain the configuration information from the network device. If the network device sends a trap to the endpoint device indicating a change has been made to the configuration parameters stored in the network device for a PVC, a series of SNMP getrequest commands are made using the ILMI interface to retrieve the configuration information for that PVC from the network device. If the endpoint device detects an interruption in communication with the network device, the endpoint device discards the information retrieved previously.