Restrictions on management protocols for distributed version control of LAN configurations

Abstract

Ever-increasing scales of corporate networks configured as independently controlled sections having equal authority make it more and more difficult to maintain conformity of the configuration. The authors investigated methods of efficient implementation of network configuration modifications undertaken in large-scale networks by managing the network configuration versions using distributed database storing the configurational information for all management domains. In this article, we propose an interagent protocol necessary for consistent operation of the entire network consisting of domains managed by a management agent and identify conditions necessary for its implementation. We also provide data concerning the upper limits of the recovery time in the event of a failure as a result of network configuration management and propose an algorithm showing that the upper limits of the failure recovery time increase linearly with an increase in the network scale. © 2000 Scripta Technica, Electron Comm Jpn Pt 1, 83(6): 44–54, 2000