Application-oriented network modeling with mobile agents

Abstract

The research thrust of the Perpetuum project is the use of mobile intelligent agents for network management. Mobile agents are migratory programs that move from one host to another to access remote data and services at their location, rather than transporting the data to a central location. The use of mobile agents affords new opportunities for the distribution of processing and control in network management due to their autonomous and cooperative nature. We envision a network manager as a suite of problem-specific applications that launch and/or communicate with autonomous mobile network agents that we call netlets. The intent is to provide an extensible set of tools that shift the operator's focus from MIB browsing to problem-solving. In this poster, we demonstrate this shift by applying mobile agents to network modeling. Instead of regarding the network model as the repository of the network topology, a network model is defined as an application-oriented view of the network. Depending on the application, the view will not only be defined in terms of a set of static components, but also in terms of the dynamic status of these components. The mobile agent implementation of a network model browser is explained, followed by an exploration of innovative extensions that transform this model discovery tool into a problem-browser.