Incorporating business process management into network and systems management

Abstract

Integrated network and systems management for communications networks is relatively mature. In addition, techniques for offline simulation and analysis of business processes is relatively mature. Since many of the components of a business process now include network communications, devices, and applications, the time is ripe for integrating business process (BP) modeling methods and network management into real time BP monitoring and control. We describe our direction and results towards this end, where we employ the Spectrum network management platform, the AppControl systems management agent, and the NerveCenter process modeling tool in an integrated, decentralized architecture.