Intelligent Resource Management for Local Area Networks: Approach and Evolution

The Data Management System network is a complex and important part of manned space platforms. Its efficient operation is vital to crew, subsystems and experiments. AI is being considered to aid in the initial design of the network and to augment the management of its operation. The Intelligent Resource Management for Local Area Networks (IRMA-LAN) project is concerned with the application of AI techniques to network configuration and management. A network simulation was constructed employing real time process scheduling for realistic loads, and utilizing the IEEE 802.4 token passing scheme. This simulation is an integral part of the construction of the IRMA-LAN system. From it, a causal model is being constructed for use in prediction and deep reasoning about the system configuration. An AI network design advisor is being added to help in the design of an efficient network. The AI portion of the system is planned to evolve into a dynamic network management aid. The approach, the integrated simulation, project evolution, and some initial results are described

Secure Configuration and Management of Linux Systems using a Network Service Orchestrator.

Manual management of the configuration of network devices and computing devices (hosts) is an error-prone task. Centralized automation of these tasks can lower the costs of management, but can also introduce unknown or unanticipated security risks. Misconfiguration (deliberate (by outsiders) or inadvertent (by insiders)) can expose a system to significant risks. Centralized network management has seen significant progress in recent years, resulting in model-driven approaches that are clearly superior to previous "craft" methods. Host management has seen less development. The tools available have developed in separate task-specific ways. This thesis explores two aspects of the configuration management problem for hosts: (1) implementing host management using the model-driven (network) management tools; (2) establishing the relative security of traditional methods and the above proposal for model driven host management. It is shown that the model-driven approach is feasible, and the security of the model driven approach is significantly higher than that of existing approaches

zCap: a zero configuration adaptive paging and mobility management mechanism

Today, cellular networks rely on fixed collections of cells (tracking areas) for user equipment localisation. Locating users within these areas involves broadcast search (paging), which consumes radio bandwidth but reduces the user equipment signalling required for mobility management. Tracking areas are today manually configured, hard to adapt to local mobility and influence the load on several key resources in the network. We propose a decentralised and self-adaptive approach to mobility management based on a probabilistic model of local mobility. By estimating the parameters of this model from observations of user mobility collected online, we obtain a dynamic model from which we construct local neighbourhoods of cells where we are most likely to locate user equipment. We propose to replace the static tracking areas of current systems with neighbourhoods local to each cell. The model is also used to derive a multi-phase paging scheme, where the division of neighbourhood cells into consecutive phases balances response times and paging cost. The complete mechanism requires no manual tracking area configuration and performs localisation efficiently in terms of signalling and response times. Detailed simulations show that significant potential gains in localisation effi- ciency are possible while eliminating manual configuration of mobility management parameters. Variants of the proposal can be implemented within current (LTE) standards

Penerapan Fault Management Untuk Network Management System (NMS) Berbasis Open Source Pada World Wide InteroperabilityFor Microwave Access (WiMAX)

Network Management System (NMS) is an application that is used to monitor WiMAX Network and Services. The Network Management model that issued by ISO is the main model that consists of 5 (five) concepts: Fault Management, Configuration Management, Accounting Management, Performance Management and Security Management (FCAPS). The function of Fault Management is to detect, record, notify, and possibly to repair faults in order to maintain the effective network. OpenNMS is an open source NMS application which can be modified to be a Fault Management application which is a standard for WiMAX network. The WiMAX network monitoring is simulated with Net-SNMP using the OID from MIB IEEE 802.16f. The result suggests OpenNMS is applicable to manage faults.

Exploring natural resource management tradeoffs in an agricultural landscape - an application of the MOSAIC model.

We describe a landscape scale non-linear discrete choice spatial optimisation model for identifying cost-effective strategies for achieving environmental goals. Spatial heterogeneity and configuration issues such as fencing costs, patch sizes and network linkages are explicitly accounted for and quasi-optimal allocations are determined using simulated annealing. Applications of the model being developed with New South Wales Catchment Management Authorities are discussed. These focus on targeting investments in revegetation to control dryland salinity and erosion and provide biodiversity benefits whilst minimising direct and opportunity costs. We compare our approach with alternate investment approaches.natural resource management, cost effectiveness, land use change, multicriteria, spatial optimisation, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Meta-CLI configuration model for network device management

The astounding Internet revolution brings more and more new and sophisticated technologies and services, like: MPLS, VPN, QoS, RSVP, DiffServ, VLANs, bandwidth-on-demand, VoIP, etc. Moreover, the sheer number of elements in a net work is skyrocketing. For instance, an ISP may have to deal with hundreds of routers and thousands of interfaces. The diversity and heterogeneity of the network elements, domains, hierarchies, routing technologies, services and management policies gives yet another dimension to the problem. This manifold complexity poses new challenges to the network engineers and specialists. The error-prone and slow manual device configuration process involves risks like bringing the elements or the systems into undefined states or rendering them unreachable from the rest of the network and is ineffective when faced with the network's fast-growing size and heterogeneity. In this context, an integrated fabric of high- and low-level, complementary approaches is demanded, involving global- and domain-level, business policies, automated configuration, combined with outsourced policies, filtering techniques, fine-grained instance- or device-specific configuration approaches and policy error and conflict avoidance and resolution mechanisms. The report presents a configuration model which translates the manual command line information into meta-CLI constructs and allows the manipulation and composition of configurations, features, services and parameters, in order to facilitate service activation, support, invoking and monitoring, policy integration at different abstraction levels, allow better control, validation and verification, optimisation, operational efficiency and a more reliable, scalable, flexible and cost-effective configuration of the network resources and traffi

Towards Automated Network Configuration Management

Modern networks are designed to satisfy a wide variety of competing goals related to network operation requirements such as reachability, security, performance, reliability and availability. These high level goals are realized through a complex chain of low level configuration commands performed on network devices. As networks become larger, more complex and more heterogeneous, human errors become the most significant threat to network operation and the main cause of network outage. In addition, the gap between high-level requirements and low-level configuration data is continuously increasing and difficult to close. Although many solutions have been introduced to reduce the complexity of configuration management, network changes, in most cases, are still manually performed via low--level command line interfaces (CLIs). The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has introduced NETwork CONFiguration (NETCONF) protocol along with its associated data--modeling language, YANG, that significantly reduce network configuration complexity. However, NETCONF is limited to the interaction between managers and agents, and it has weak support for compliance to high-level management functionalities. We design and develop a network configuration management system called AutoConf that addresses the aforementioned problems. AutoConf is a distributed system that manages, validates, and automates the configuration of IP networks. We propose a new framework to augment NETCONF/YANG framework. This framework includes a Configuration Semantic Model (CSM), which provides a formal representation of domain knowledge needed to deploy a successful management system. Along with CSM, we develop a domain--specific language called Structured Configuration language to specify configuration tasks as well as high--level requirements. CSM/SCL together with NETCONF/YANG makes a powerful management system that supports network--wide configuration. AutoConf supports two levels of verifications: consistency verification and behavioral verification. We apply a set of logical formalizations to verifying the consistency and dependency of configuration parameters. In behavioral verification, we present a set of formal models and algorithms based on Binary Decision Diagram (BDD) to capture the behaviors of forwarding control lists that are deployed in firewalls, routers, and NAT devices. We also adopt an enhanced version of Dyna-Q algorithm to support dynamic adaptation of network configuration in response to changes occurred during network operation. This adaptation approach maintains a coherent relationship between high level requirements and low level device configuration. We evaluate AutoConf by running several configuration scenarios such as interface configuration, RIP configuration, OSPF configuration and MPLS configuration. We also evaluate AutoConf by running several simulation models to demonstrate the effectiveness and the scalability of handling large-scale networks

Propuesta de un marco conceptual para el análisis comparativo de las redes de distribución de dos supermercados online = Proposal of a conceptual framework for the comparative analysis of the distribution networks of two online supermarkets

In this article the network configuration for fulfillment and distribution of online orders of two British retailers is analyzed and compared. For this purpose, it is proposed a conceptual framework that consists of the key following aspects: network configuration, transportation management and location of demand. As a result is not obvious to determine the ideal centralization degree in each case. Finally, it is suggested the future development of an analytic tool that helps to choose the most appropriate model

Network-based telemetry to facilitate the programmable management plane for optical transport infrastructure

Large network operator environments are composed of thousands of nodes and devices capable of performing multiple roles. This network infrastructure is multi-layered, multi-vendor and underpinned by a high capacity and complex optical transport network. Managing this network requires millions of lines of configuration files and hundreds of Operational Support Systems. Typically, the management data structure uses a hierarchical namespace containing tens of thousands of object identifiers (OID). Each OID identifies a variable that can be read, modified or set via management protocol. The British Telecom network collects many millions of OIDs every 10 minutes, and executes many thousands of configuration changes per month via many tools, and multiple generations of protocols, data models and software components. Blending Software Defined Network (SDN) model-driven management and Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV), for on-demand (scale-in and scale-out) virtual network functions (Big Data nodes, network heuristics and analytics), provides an exciting opportunity for significant operational savings: reduced outage impact, simplification of management stack, fault correlation and network healing, and network usage trending for efficient resource allocation and scaling. This paper and talk outlines the management plane challenges and use cases for complex tier-1 optical environments. It discusses how we need to rethink network analytics and embrace streaming telemetry for real-time resource adaptation. It outlines a guiding network telemetry framework being developed by leading operators and the enabling community-driven technologies, and how they may be used to facilitate the programmable management plane for optical transport infrastructure