Hierarchical Management Protocol for Large Networks

A computer network management system presents one manager and several agents. The management of large networks demands much computer resources and management system capacity, impossible to achieve with just one manager. The TMN standard, that intends to standardize management systems for telecommunication networks offering those resources, already foresees the use of several managers organized in a hierarchical architecture. This work presents a study of the problems in managing a large network and proposes a protocol for a Hierarchical Management System (HMS). Although we use a example of telecommunication network, the HMS system is suitable for Internet. The HMS protocol is specified using the formal description language Estelle and its functionality is verified using a test model