An integrated management environment for network resources and services

Technological and human factors have contributed to increase the complexity of the network management problem. Heterogeneity and globalization of netw ork resources, on one hand, have increased user expectations for flexible a nd easy-to-use environments; on the other hand, they have suggested entirel y novel ways to face the management problem. Several research efforts recog nize the need for integrated solutions to manage both network resources and services in open, global, and untrusted environments. In addition, these s olutions should permit the coexistence of different management models and s hould interoperate with legacy systems. In the paper, we define a general a rchitecture based on a distributed processing environment (DPE) that offers a large set of facilities to the application level, We have developed the MESIS management environment shaped after the above architecture and its DP E facilities with the mobile agents technology. MESIS handles, in a uniform way, both resources and services, and focuses on two crucial properties: i nteroperability to overcome heterogeneity, and security to grant users safe and protected operations. The Agent Interoperability Facility supports com pliance with CORBA-based management systems and with MASIF agent platforms. The Agent Security Facility provides authentication, integrity privacy, au thorization, and secure interoperation with CORBA systems.