OSI Network Management Research Articles

The OSI network management model

It is useful to reconsider the central questions of network management: What should be monitored? How should it be interpreted? How should this analysis be used to control the network behavior? Management protocol standards provide syntactic structures to organize and access managed information. Such a syntactic framework can be useful in enabling systematic answers to these questions. However, the semantics of managed information, rather than its syntax, is the key to the answers. Clearly, the data that should be monitored needs to be derived from the model that is used to interpret the data. The model must be based on the semantics of the network operational behavior. Unfortunately, the manner in which interactions among network processes lead to faults or performance inefficiencies is not well understood. Significant research is needed to develop improved understanding of network operations and to build effective manageability. Standardization of managed information syntax is best viewed as a first step toward handling the semantics of network operations. Network management needs and scenarios are likely to continue and change as new types of networks, new applications, and better management technologies arise throughout the coming decade. As our understanding of the semantics of operations improves, new syntactic structures to support manageability will continue to emerge. Standardization of these mechanisms likely will continue and evolve in a manner not asimilar to the SNMP's evolution.

OSI systems and network management

Data communications standards to allow exchange of information between two application processes in different heterogeneous computing environments have been developed by International Standards groups. With the development of these standards, the need for managing the communications protocols was realized as part of both the Internet and OSI standards suites. This article addresses the network management paradigm developed as part of OSI standards. The OSI network management application includes three different aspects: categories of network management, a protocol that specifies the structure for transferring network management information, and information models that define resource-specific management information for the specific management functions. These three aspects will be described in this article. Network management functions are grouped into five categories: configuration, fault, performance, security, and accounting. The resource is managed to accomplish these functions. These five categories have been used not only in OSI network management but also in specifying the management functions for telecommunications network. These five categories are briefly discussed in the paper. The protocol structure for OSI network management is defined as an application service element known as CMISE. Regardless of the resource being managed, the protocol defines a basic set of operations applicable to network management. The article discusses the semantics of the various operations and the parameters associated with each operation. Using the structure defined by the protocol, for the various management functions, information is modeled to represent the managed resource. Object-oriented principles are used in defining information models. An introduction to these principles is provided. The management information exchanged is a combination of the three aspects. As part of OSI network management, information models to represent communication entities have been developed. An example is shown to illustrate the exchanged message for a management function. The article reiterates the three aspects and points out the advantages offered by this network management paradigm.

OSI systems and network management

Data communications standards to allow exchange of information between two application processes in different heterogeneous computing environments have been developed by International Standards groups. With the development of these standards, the need for managing the communications protocols was realized as part of both the Internet and OSI standards suites. This article addresses the network management paradigm developed as part of OSI standards. The OSI network management application includes three different aspects: categories of network management, a protocol that specifies the structure for transferring network management information, and information models that define resource-specific management information for the specific management functions. These three aspects will be described in this article. Network management functions are grouped into five categories: configuration, fault, performance, security, and accounting. The resource is managed to accomplish these functions. These five categories have been used not only in OSI network management but also in specifying the management functions for telecommunications network. These five categories are briefly discussed in the paper. The protocol structure for OSI network management is defined as an application service element known as CMISE. Regardless of the resource being managed, the protocol defines a basic set of operations applicable to network management. The article discusses the semantics of the various operations and the parameters associated with each operation. Using the structure defined by the protocol, for the various management functions, information is modeled to represent the managed resource. Object-oriented principles are used in defining information models. An introduction to these principles is provided. The management information exchanged is a combination of the three aspects. As part of OSI network management, information models to represent communication entities have been developed. An example is shown to illustrate the exchanged message for a management function. The article reiterates the three aspects and points out the advantages offered by this network management paradigm.

CNMA: a European initiative for OSI network management

The authors describe the concepts, developments, and achievements of the ESPRIT project Communications Network for Manufacturing Applications in the field of OSI network management. Though being concentrated on LANs in manufacturing environments, the CNMA approach to OSI network management could be applicable to a wide variety of computer networks.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Use of object oriented techniques for the realization of a fault management prototype

In order to prepare the next generation of network management systems, France Telecom/CNET experiments the newly standardized concepts of telecommunication management network. In this context a fault management prototype has been realised using an object oriented environment. This prototype is composed of a network element simulator and a management system connected through a full Q3 interface. It provides alarm surveillance functions compliant with the osi network management forum specifications. The software development allowed to prove that object oriented techniques are well suited to implementation of network management applications, and to assess the various tools and design choices.

The OSI network management model

Management systems are responsible for monitoring, interpreting, and controlling network operations. Management platform workstations query device data, or obtain event modifications through management protocols. The management platform supports tools to display the data graphically, interpret it, and control operations. It is argued that the main challenge of management standardization is to develop conventions to support integrated management of heterogeneous networks. Platform-centered management requires a few standards. First, access by platforms to multivendor devices must be unified through a standard management protocol. Second, the structure of the agent's management databases, manipulated by the protocol, must be standardized. Together, these standards permit a platform to access and manipulate managed information at multivendor device agents. The OSI and Internet management models developed to standardize both areas are discussed. >