using an oid in this way specifies to the managed element that the first row in the table identified by the oid u201c 1 3 6 1 2 1 10 u201d whose type matches one of the types specified in the lt qualifier gt field should be retrieved 0031 fig2 a illustrates a mib tree for the above request without the lt qualifier gt specified fig2 b illustrates the mib tree in which an additional level is added to specify the various types or subclasses in the qualifier field according to this protocol the shortcomings of the first noted prior art solution are overcome because the me does the filtering of objects from the table before sending information to the nms the shortcomings of the second noted prior art solution are overcome because the nms can retrieve any single type or combination of types of data from a series without having to use predetermined identifiers for each logical series operation of the protocol in relation to getnext and getbulk requests according to the invention is illustrated in the following fig3 shows an example a table stored on the me namely the atm switching system in fig1 which table contains information about cross connections of various types these include svcc connections at id 1 and id 4 pvcc connections at id.