A Generic Network and System Management Framework

Networks and distributed systems have formed the basis of an ongoing communications revolution that has led to the genesis of a wide variety of services. The constantly increasing size and complexity of these systems does not come without problems. In some organisations, the deployment of Information Technology has reached a state where the benefits from downsizing and rightsizing by adding new services are undermined by the effort required to keep the system running. Management of networks and distributed systems in general has a straightforward goal: to provide a productive environment in which work can be performed effectively. The work required for management should be a small fraction of the total effort. Most IT systems are still managed in an ad hoc style without any carefully elaborated plan. In such an environment the success of management decisions depends totally on the qualification and knowledge of the administrator. The thesis provides an analysis of the state of the art in the area of Network and System Management and identifies the key requirements that must be addressed for the provisioning of Integrated Management Services. These include the integration of the different management related aspects (i.e. integration of heterogeneous Network, System and Service Management). The thesis then proposes a new framework, INSMware, for the provision of Management Services. It provides a fundamental basis for the realisation of a new approach to Network and System Management. It is argued that Management Systems can be derived from a set of pre-fabricated and reusable Building Blocks that break up the required functionality into a number of separate entities rather than being developed from scratch. It proposes a high-level logical model in order to accommodate the range of requirements and environments applicable to Integrated Network and System Management that can be used as a reference model. A development methodology is introduced that reflects principles of the proposed approach, and provides guidelines to structure the analysis, design and implementation phases of a management system. The INSMware approach can further be combined with the componentware paradigm for the implementation of the management system. Based on these principles, a prototype for the management of SNMP systems has been implemented using industry standard middleware technologies. It is argued that development of a management system based on Componentware principles can offer a number of benefits. INSMware Components may be re-used and system solutions will become more modular and thereby easier to construct and maintain

Internet Security Management: A Joint Postgraduate Curriculum Design

This paper presents the structure and content of a series of a postgraduate curriculum in Internet Security Management developed and presented jointly by the Schools of Information Systems and Computer Science at Curtin University of Technology in Western Australia. The integration of generic skills (including problem solving, risk and project management, change management and research methods) with specialist security knowledge and practical project courses is also discussed

A Modular Systems Perspective of IT Infrastructure Configurations and Productivity

Research on IT infrastructure investments and organizational productivity has been marked with ambiguity, evidenced by the much debated productivity paradox. Part of the ambiguity arises from a paradigmatic aggregated treatment of IT infrastructure and productivity constructs along with a disregard for contingencies and time lags. The focus in this paper is to extend the component based view to understand IT infrastructure productivity. Using a modular systems perspective, revisiting the constructs in an attempt to disaggregate them for a more detailed examination is proposed. This study adds to the body of knowledge through a holistic examination of the relationship between IT infrastructure configurations, contingencies, and organizational productivity

IP-based virtual private networks and proportional quality of service differentiation

IP-based virtual private networks (VPNs) have the potential of delivering cost-effective, secure, and private network-like services. Having surveyed current enabling techniques, an overall picture of IP VPN implementations is presented. In order to provision the equivalent quality of service (QoS) of legacy connection-oriented layer 2 VPNs (e.g., Frame Relay and ATM), IP VPNs have to overcome the intrinsically best effort characteristics of the Internet. Subsequently, a hierarchical QoS guarantee framework for IP VPNs is proposed, stitching together development progresses from recent research and engineering work. To differentiate IP VPN QoS, the proportional QoS differentiation model, whose QoS specification granularity compromises that of IntServ and Diffserv, emerges as a potential solution. The investigation of its claimed capability of providing the predictable and controllable QoS differentiation is then conducted. With respect to the loss rate differentiation, the packet shortage phenomenon shown in two classical proportional loss rate (PLR) dropping schemes is studied. On the pursuit of a feasible solution, the potential of compromising the system resource, that is, the buffer, is ruled out; instead, an enhanced debt-aware mechanism is suggested to relieve the negative effects of packet shortage. Simulation results show that debt-aware partially curbs the biased loss rate ratios, and improves the queueing delay performance as well. With respect to the delay differentiation, the dynamic behavior of the average delay difference between successive classes is first analyzed, aiming to gain insights of system dynamics. Then, two classical delay differentiation mechanisms, that is,proportional average delay (PAD) and waiting time priority (WTP), are simulated and discussed. Based on observations on their differentiation performances over both short and long time periods, a combined delay differentiation (CDD) scheme is introduced. Simulations are utilized to validate this method. Both loss and delay differentiations are based on a series of differentiation parameters. Though previous work on the selection of delay differentiation parameters has been presented, that of loss differentiation parameters mostly relied on network operators\u27 experience. A quantitative guideline, based on the principles of queueing and optimization, is then proposed to compute loss differentiation parameters. Aside from analysis, the new approach is substantiated by numerical results

Aviation System Analysis Capability Executive Assistant Design

In this technical document, we describe the design developed for the Aviation System Analysis Capability (ASAC) Executive Assistant (EA) Proof of Concept (POC). We describe the genesis and role of the ASAC system, discuss the objectives of the ASAC system and provide an overview of components and models within the ASAC system, and describe the design process and the results of the ASAC EA POC system design. We also describe the evaluation process and results for applicable COTS software. The document has six chapters, a bibliography, three appendices and one attachment