An Integrated Network Management Framework Using CORBA, Mobile Agents and Web-Based Technologies

Abstract

Today’s network management is still dominated by the platform-centered paradigm based on client/server technologies. This centralized approach has drawbacks in scalability, reliability, efficiency and flexibility, and is unsuitable for large and heterogenerous networks. Modern networks require an open management architecture, which can provide standard interfaces for information sharing among management systems, has extensibility for handling change quickly, and has means to manage large networks. Emerging technologies such as Web-, CORBA-, and Mobile Agent-based technologies represent an excellent opportunity to solve these problems. In this chapter a new Web-based network management framework is proposed, which combines the strengths of these novel ways of managing networks and the results of a prototype implementation are discussed. Our preliminary results indicate that the integration of Web-, CORBA-, and Mobile Agent-based technologies within an Integrated Network Management System framework can dramatically improve the performance of the networked environment.