The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) allows network devices and servers to be monitored and managed. It uses an agent-manager framework where SNMP agents collect data from devices and SNMP managers can retrieve and set this data. SNMP supports get, set, and notification operations to retrieve data, modify variables, and send traps. SNMP can be configured on CentOS 8 by installing SNMP packages and services, setting the SNMP daemon to listen on ports, and opening firewall ports to allow remote access.