Advanced%20Network%20Management%20(NM)%20with%20mobile%20agents%20The%20Perpetuum%20Mobile%20Procura%20Project

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Advanced Network Management (NM) with mobile
agentsThe Perpetuum Mobile Procura Project

• Dr. Andrzej Bieszczad
• Carleton University

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Problem with legacy NM Systems

• Few managers - many agents model
• lots of data transmission
• high CPU costs
• synchronization of the databases and the network
• Heterogeneous environment
• interoperability problems
• proliferation of human-machine interfaces (HMI)
• Monolithic applications
• often price paid in size and performance
• hard to maintain
• Manager/operator intensive

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Project goals

• Explore the use of mobile agents to overcome the
  problems of legacy systems
• Explore intelligent distributed management
  methods
• Deliver a Java-based platform for simulated and
  actual network management
• Educate

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Description

• Address the throughput problem by delegating
  authority
• Limit the use of processing resources through
  periodic execution
• Synchronize views of a network by automatic and
  continuous provisioning
• Limit the requirements for human attention by
  delegation and employing intelligent managing
  methods

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Description (continued)

• Address the HMI problems with NM tools based on
  Web standards
• Engineer a suite of simple NM tools rather than a
  monolith, so the size and performance are not
  sacrificed
• Use distribution and extensibility to keep
  maintainability under control
• Overcome the interoperability issues by
  plug-and-play capability

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Technology used

• Mobile code
• servlets
• netlets
• applets
• JAVA
• portability
• code mobility
• Web support
• very strong support from the industry

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Technology generated

• code mobility toolkit
• mobility mechanism
• transport
• migration
• Virtual Managed Components
• attributes
• constraints
• recovery
• plug and play

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Technology generated (continued)

• interface to legacy systems (initially through
  SNMP/DPI)
• extensibility scheme for legacy systems
  (initially through SNMP/DPI)
• Web-based NM tools
• simulated environment for explorations

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Competitive Analysis (technology)

• JMAPI (Sun)
• complete NM solution for traditional NM
• Servlets (Sun)
• uses Javas RMI (RPC-like framework)
• Aglets (IBM)
• addresses high level software utility agents
• uses Javas RMI
• SAIC Afterburner Agent Framework
• a DAI workbench re-implemented in Java
• Java2go
• a toolkit for mobile code

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Competitive Analysis (research)

• Agents are popular almost at every research
  center
• most work falls into Distributed AI
• theories rooted in logic
• NM with mobile agents - few centers
• NM by delegation
• Columbia U., Y. Yemini
• Mobile agents for telecommunications
• Technical University of Berlin, T. Megadantz
• Diagnosis with agents
• University of Hannover, W. Nejdl

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Staff

• Bernard Pagurek, Professor
• head
• supervisor
• Andrzej Bieszczad, Adjunct Professor
• senior researcher
• co-supervisor
• Cheryl Schramm
• software engineer
• Agent-oriented Web-based management tools

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Masters students/projects

• Gatot Susilo
• A Java-based mobile code framework for advanced
  network management
• Ahmed Mohgrabi
• Problem-based management with mini-experts
  (intentional)

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Other projects

• 4th year projects
• Andre Campeau
• Simulated network environment for explorations in
  network management based on mobile agents
• NM course project
• Pierre Ernst
• Novel approaches to agent extensibility

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Collaborators

• Tony White (principal NM researcher, NRC Ph.D.
  candidate, SCE)
• swarm intelligence for intelligent networking
• Amir Zeid (Ph.D. candidate, SCS)
• system management (TINA, ODP)
• Towards plug-and-play networks

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Projects not staffed

• Towards self-repairing networks
• automatic fault recovery
• Towards plug and play networks
• automatic provisioning
• Network and netlet security
• preventing piglets
• density control
• Intelligent methods for NM
• particularly diagnosis and fault management
• prospects for many projects applying Distributed
  Artificial and Computational Intelligence

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Schedule

• Mobility toolkit - available now
• Simulator - April97
• Virtual Managed Component Interface - Summer97
• Manager tools - will start to appear in
  April/May97
• Problem-based management - end of 1997
• Other DAI methods - 1998
• Plug and play networking - 1998
• Self-repairing networks - 1998

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FOR MORE INFO...

• URL http//www.sce.carleton.ca/netmanage/perpetum
  .shtml