NETMATE: management of complex distributed networked systems

Summary form only given. The overall architecture of NETMATE is the following. Observation and Control Points (OCPs) are supported via managing agents placed in networked devices. These agents can monitor local device behaviors and affect device control functions, when instructed by a manager. Managers communicate observation/control requests to agents via a manager-agent protocol. Two protocol standards are currently evolving: SNMP, used to manage Internets, and CMIP, proposed by OSI. The NETMATE manager is centered around a network Modeler database. The role of the modeler is to maintain a network Management Information Base (MIB) and provide active access services to dynamic operational network data. The manager presents network status data to users in a visual form. Users can navigate within a very large and complex network data space and control complex behaviors in a simple visual form. Finally, a collection of interpretation and diagnosis tools is used to analyze observed data, and automatically identify/classify fault conditions. The authors briefly describe the key problem domains for long term NETMATE research efforts