DELEGATION AGENT IMPLEMENTATION FOR NETWORK MANAGEMENT

We have developed a management agent that adapts the delegation concep t to achieve efficient network management. In conventional delegation architecture, a network management operator details management operati ons in an operation-script that describes management operation flow an d such network management functions as event management and path traci ng. The operator sends this script to agents to execute. In our delega tion architecture the operator sends only a script skeleton describing management operation flow alone; management functions are built into the agents in the form of function objects. This helps keep management traffic low. Each function object is designed by utilizing three oper ational objects: enhanced, primitive, and communication. Each enhanced operational object (EOO) provides a script skeleton with an individua l network management function. A primitive operational object (COO) pr ovides an EOO with managed object (MO) access functions. A communicati on operational object (COO) provides an EOO with a mechanism for acces sing the functions of other remote EOOs. We have tested our design by applying it to a path tracing application. and we have measured the to tal data transfer size between a manager and an agent and the amount o f memory usage in our agent's running environment. Evaluation of our i mplementation suggests that our design can be applied such network man agement functions as connection establishment and release, fault isola tion, and service provisioning.