J(TMN): A Java-based TMN development and experimentation environment

Within the last two years, the Java technology has largely entered the worl d of element, network, and service management and has undoubtedly proven us eful in combination with the SNMP framework for bath manager and agent side developments. However, very few experiments have been made so far trying t o provide an in depth integration of this technology within the TMN framewo rk. In this paper we present a free software which offers a generic environment which provides a basis for reaching this integration. This environment, ca lled J(TMN,) is composed of a set of Java software packages which enable bo th development and deployment of TMN compliant components. Not bound to any specific management platform and easily portable to any TMN system, its go al is to allow experimentation and deployment of more advanced features suc h as mobile agents, active network management, and advanced delegation in h armony with existing TMN approaches.