Projecting advanced enterprise network and service management to active networks

Abstract

Active networks is a promising technology that allows us to control the behavior of network nodes by programming them to perform advanced operations and computations. Active networks are changing considerably the scenery of computer networks and, consequently, affect the way network management is conducted. Current management techniques can be enhanced and their efficiency can be improved, while novel techniques can be deployed. This article discusses the impact of active networks on current network management practice by examining network management through the functional areas of fault, configuration, accounting, performance and security management. For each one of these functional areas, the limitations of the current applications and tools are presented, as well as how these limitations can be overcome by exploiting active networks. To illustrate the presented framework, several applications are examined. The contribution of this work is to analyze, classify, and assess the various models proposed in this area, and to outline new research directions.

Dynamic Service Management in Heterogeneous Networks

“…We implemented an AcMe prototype that manages single network domains where gateways (ingress and egress routers) are based on active network technology. Notice that this approach requires the introduction of active nodes only on boundary nodes [21].…”

Towards Autonomic Network Management: an Analysis of Current and Future Research Directions

“…The active networks technology is used to dynamically control network components through the injection of active programs at runtime [2]. A major limitation with this technology was that more programmability into routers necessitated the redesign of existing legacy systems.…”

“…Next, came more advanced approaches that relied on different technologies such as software agents [1], active networks [2] and policy-based systems [3] aiming at partially automating the management tasks in order to achieve higher response times and lower management costs. Nonetheless, NMSs kept struggling to cope with newly emerging issues due to the ever-increasing size and complexity of the underlying network components and services.…”

Customer‐managed end‐to‐end lightpath provisioning

“…Jini also provides a set of application programming interfaces that hide the underlying complexity of distributed computing from the customer. 9 The Jini Lookup Service (JLS), a distributed service registry, allows customers to find services without having to know where they are located. The whole network provides a lookup service.…”