In SNMP MIB, what is the difference between "MODULE-IDENTITY" and "OBJECT IDENTIFIER"?

Question

In either of them I can assign an OID, but if I assign the OID using OBJECT IDENTIFIER, do I still have to make a MODULE-IDENTITY for the object?

Answer 1

For MIB authors, RFC4181 documents all explanation on each of the building blocks, including MODULE-IDENTITY. Thus, you might review that

https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4181

In short, many building blocks can be associated with OID, but they are there for different purposes. The module identity is used to describe the usage of the module, while the object identifier is only used to define an OID node.