Description: An index that uniquely identifies an entry in the hostTime table among those entries associated with the same hostControlEntry. This index shall be between 1 and N, where N is the value of the associated hostControlTableSize. The ordering of the indexes is based on the order of each entry's insertion into the table, in which entries added earlier have a lower index value than entries added later. Thus the management station has the ability to learn of new entries added to this table without downloading the entire table.

It is important to note that the index for a particular entry may change as an (earlier) entry is deleted from the table. Because this order may change, management stations should make use of the hostControlLastDeleteTime variable in the hostControlEntry associated with the relevant portion of the hostTimeTable. By observing this variable, the management station may detect the circumstances where a download of the table may have missed entries, and where a previous association between a value of hostTimeCreationOrder and a hostTimeEntry may no longer hold.