The dynamic connection framework : intelligently creating and maintaining connections in a volatile network environment

Thesis (M.Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1999.Includes bibliographical references (p. 44).by Jaime A. Meritt.M.Eng

Present and Desired Network Management to Cope with the Expected Expansion, NM-AIST Study Case.

The network management as defined by the International Standards Organization (ISO) has five functional areas of network management. In this work we explore all functional areas for the present and desired network management to cope with the expected expansions.  We provide recommendations on each functional area to increase the overall effectiveness of current and future management tools and practices for the NM-AIST (Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology) network. The design guidelines for future implementation of network management tools are also explored

Model-driven performance evaluation for service engineering

Service engineering and service-oriented architecture as an integration and platform technology is a recent approach to software systems integration. Software quality aspects such as performance are of central importance for the integration of heterogeneous, distributed service-based systems. Empirical performance evaluation is a process of measuring and calculating performance metrics of the implemented software. We present an approach for the empirical, model-based performance evaluation of services and service compositions in the context of model-driven service engineering. Temporal databases theory is utilised for the empirical performance evaluation of model-driven developed service systems

Security issues in adaptive distributed systems

Adaptive Distributed Systems (ADSs) are distributed systems that can evolve their behaviors based on changes in their environments. In this work, we discuss security and propose security metrics issues in the context of ADSs. A key premise with adaptation of distributed systems is that in order to detect changes, information must be collected by monitoring the system and its environment. How monitoring should be done, what should be monitored, and the impact monitoring may have on the security mechanism of the target system need to be carefully considered. Conversely, the impact of implementation of security mechanism on the adaptation of distributed system is also assessed. We propose security metrics that can be used to quantify the impact of monitoring on the security mechanism of the target distributed system

Online failure prediction in air traffic control systems

This thesis introduces a novel approach to online failure prediction for mission critical distributed systems that has the distinctive features to be black-box, non-intrusive and online. The approach combines Complex Event Processing (CEP) and Hidden Markov Models (HMM) so as to analyze symptoms of failures that might occur in the form of anomalous conditions of performance metrics identified for such purpose. The thesis presents an architecture named CASPER, based on CEP and HMM, that relies on sniffed information from the communication network of a mission critical system, only, for predicting anomalies that can lead to software failures. An instance of Casper has been implemented, trained and tuned to monitor a real Air Traffic Control (ATC) system developed by Selex ES, a Finmeccanica Company. An extensive experimental evaluation of CASPER is presented. The obtained results show (i) a very low percentage of false positives over both normal and under stress conditions, and (ii) a sufficiently high failure prediction time that allows the system to apply appropriate recovery procedures

Online failure prediction in air traffic control systems

This thesis introduces a novel approach to online failure prediction for mission critical distributed systems that has the distinctive features to be black-box, non-intrusive and online. The approach combines Complex Event Processing (CEP) and Hidden Markov Models (HMM) so as to analyze symptoms of failures that might occur in the form of anomalous conditions of performance metrics identified for such purpose. The thesis presents an architecture named CASPER, based on CEP and HMM, that relies on sniffed information from the communication network of a mission critical system, only, for predicting anomalies that can lead to software failures. An instance of Casper has been implemented, trained and tuned to monitor a real Air Traffic Control (ATC) system developed by Selex ES, a Finmeccanica Company. An extensive experimental evaluation of CASPER is presented. The obtained results show (i) a very low percentage of false positives over both normal and under stress conditions, and (ii) a sufficiently high failure prediction time that allows the system to apply appropriate recovery procedures