Is there a way to monitor server ports using SNMP (I'm using net-snmp-python to check this with python). 
So far I've checked pretty simple with "nc" command, however I want to see if I can do this with SNMP. 
Thank you for your answers and patience.
It's hard to see where SNMP might fit in.
The best way to monitor would be to use a protocol specific client (i.e., run a simple query v.s. MySQL, retrieve a test file using FTP, etc.)
If that doesn't work, you can open a TCP or UDP socket to the ports and see if anyone is listening.
Check ports with SNMP (net-snmp)