A web services based framework for efficient monitoring and event reporting.

Network and Service Management (NSM) is a research discipline with significant research contributions the last 25 years. Despite the numerous standardised solutions that have been proposed for NSM, the quest for an "all encompassing technology" still continues. A new technology introduced lately to address NSM problems is Web Services (WS). Despite the research effort put into WS and their potential for addressing NSM objectives, there are efficiency, interoperability, etc issues that need to be solved before using WS for NSM. This thesis looks at two techniques to increase the efficiency of WS management applications so that the latter can be used for efficient monitoring and event reporting. The first is a query tool we built that can be used for efficient retrieval of management state data close to the devices where they are hosted. The second technique is policies used to delegate a number of tasks from a manager to an agent to make WS-based event reporting systems more efficient. We tested the performance of these mechanisms by incorporating them in a custom monitoring and event reporting framework and supporting systems we have built, against other similar mechanisms (XPath) that have been proposed for the same tasks, as well as previous technologies such as SNMP. Through these tests we have shown that these mechanisms are capable of allowing us to use WS efficiently in various monitoring and event reporting scenarios. Having shown the potential of our techniques we also present the design and implementation challenges for building a GUI tool to support and enhance the above systems with extra capabilities. In summary, we expect that other problems WS face will be solved in the near future, making WS a capable platform for it to be used for NSM

Sistema de correlação de eventos e notificações - SCEN

Mestrado em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de ComputadoresAs redes actuais, com um crescimento de eventos nos sistemas de gestão cada vez mais sofisticado, um dos grandes ojectivos para o futuro é condensarem uma grande quantidade desses eventos num pequeno número de eventos, mas mais significativo para o relatório de falhas. Esta necessidade prática pode ser realizada recorrendo a mecanismos de correlação de eventos. A correlação de eventos é uma área de intensa investigação na comunidade científica e industrial. Neste contexto surgiu o desejo de realizar um projecto no âmbito da correlação de eventos em redes com gestão e monitorização na infra-estrutura SNMP. O objectivo do trabalho realizado foi a definição e criação de uma infra-estrutura de software com capacidade de correlacionar autonomamente e de forma inteligente os eventos recebidos a partir de sistemas informáticos. A ideia para a criação desta infra-estrutura nasce da dificuldade que surge na constante configuração e adaptação dos parâmetros de análise dos actuais sistemas. É por isso, apresentado uma plataforma de valor acrescentado que permite auxiliar os responsáveis pela gestão de infra-estruturas de sistemas informáticos. Para melhorar a sua eficácia na resolução dos problemas dos seus sistemas e redes, através da observação de um subconjunto de eventos que é relevante na globalidade de eventos recebidos. Para tal foram estudadas outras soluções, várias ferramentas comerciais, de fonte de código aberto e foram estudadas as suas características e os seus modelos. Foi posteriormente desenvolvido um novo modelo adaptado com base numa ferramenta escolhida e que contempla a interacção de vários elementos de monitorização de rede. Estes elementos criam a capacidade de observar mudanças de estado dos serviços definidos e corrrelacionar as referidas alterações com os eventos que vão sendo obtidos dos sistemas. A infra-estrutura de monitorização proposta visa assim permitir a avaliação da relevância dos eventos recebidos a partir de sistemas de pooling ou de notificação e daí inferir a importância dos eventos, deixando de ser necessário ao administrador da plataforma de gestão ou ao administrador de sistema ter esse trabalho. Para validar o modelo foi implementado um laboratório virtual onde foram criados os elementos constituintes do modelo proposto e foram feitas simulações, com vista à obtenção e validação de resultados. Como conclusão, a infra-estrutura que foi definida e testada reflectiu o funcionamento pretendido, baseando-se apenas nas definições preexistentes sobre os serviços monitorizados, no conhecimento das bases de dados do sistema de monitorização existente através de pooling e cruzamento de tabelas das bases de dados, e dos vários tipos de equipamentos de rede e nas suas mensagens de estado. No final foram apresentados a resposta do sistema á saída e desenvolvimento futuro.Current networks, with increasingly sophisticated systems management events, one of the major objectives is to condense a large amount of these events in a small number, but more significative in the report of their failures. This practical necessity can be accomplished through event correlation mechanisms. Event correlation is an area of intense research in scientific and industrial community. From this context, came the desire to accomplish a project work within the network event correlation data management based on SNMP infrastructure.The aim of this work was the development of an infrastructure for monitoring with the ability to correlate autonomously and intelligently events received from computer systems. The idea for the creation of this infrastructure was born of the difficulty that arises on the constant setting and adjustment of parameters of analysis of existing systems. It is presented as a value-added platform, that enables help who those responsible for managing an infrastructure of computer systems. To improve the effectiveness of the resolution of the problems of their systems and networks, through observation of a subset of events that is relevant to the whole of events received. For such other solutions were studied, several commercial tools and open source code, were studied their characteristics and their models. Was subsequently developed a new model adapted on the basis of the chosen tool and that contemplates the interaction of various elements of network monitoring. These elements that create the ability of observe state changes and correlation services defined these amendments with the events that are being obtained from the systems. Infrastructure monitoring proposal aims therefore allow an assessment of the relevance of the events received from pool systems or notification and inferred the importance of events, leaving to be necessary for the management platform administrator or system administrator to have this job. To validate the model was implemented a virtual lab where they were created the constituent elements of the proposed model simulations, and were made with a view to obtaining and validating results. As a conclusion, the infrastructure that was defined and tested reflected the intended operation, relying only on pre-existing settings on services monitored, knowledge of databases existing monitoring system through pooling and crossing connecting tables of databases, and various types of network equipment and its status messages. At the end were presented the system response will output and future development

Engineering self-managed adaptive networks

In order to meet the requirements of emerging services, the future Internet will need to be flexible, reactive and adaptive with respect to arising network conditions. Network management functionality is essential in providing dynamic reactiveness and adaptability but current management approaches have limitations which prevent them from meeting these requirements. In search for a paradigm shift, recent research efforts have been focusing on autonomic/self-management principles, whereby network elements can adapt themselves to contextual changes without any external intervention through adaptive and flexible functionality. This thesis investigates how autonomic principles can be extended and applied to fixed networks for quality of service and performance management. It presents a novel resource management framework which enables intelligence to be introduced within the network in order to support self-management functionality in a coordinated and controllable manner. The proposed framework relies on a distributed infrastructure, called the management substrate, which is a logical structure formed by the ingress nodes of the network. The role of the substrate is illustrated on realistic resource management application scenarios for the emerging self-managed Internet. These cover solutions for dynamic traffic engineering (load balancing across multiple paths), energy efficiency and cache management in Internet Service Providers. The thesis addresses important research challenges associated with the proposed framework, such as the design of specific organisational, communication and coordination models required to support the different management control loops. Furthermore, it develops, for each application scenario, specific mechanisms to realise the relevant resource management functionality. It also considers issues related to the coexistence of multiple control loops and investigates an approach by which their interactions can be managed. In order to demonstrate the benefits of the proposed resource management solution, an extensive performance evaluation of the different mechanisms described in this thesis have been performed based on realistic traffic traces and network topologies

Scalable Monitoring Support for Resource Management and Service Assurance

Continuous monitoring of network status and its resources are necessary to ensure proper network operation. Deployment of QoS-based value-added services in IP networks necessitates the employment of resource management techniques and specifically the use of traffic engineering. The latter typically relies on monitoring data for both offline proactive and dynamic reactive solutions. The variety of data to be collected and analyzed using different measurement methods and tools, and the extent of monitoring information to use demand a proper QoS monitoring infrastructure. A monitoring system should be scalable in terms of network size, speed, and number of customers subscribed to value-added services. This article investigates the requirements of scalable monitoring system architectures, proposes principles for designing such systems, and validates them through the design and implementation of a scalable monitoring system for QoS delivery in IP differentiated services networks. Experimental assessment results prove the accuracy and scalability of the proposed monitoring system