A Survey of Distributed Enterprise Network and Systems Management Paradigms

Since the mid 1990s, network and systems management has steadily evolved from centralized paradigms, where the management application runs on a single management station, to distributed paradigms, where it is distributed over many nodes. In this survey, our goal is to classify all these paradigms, especially the new ones, in order to help network and systems administrators design a management application, and choose between mobile code, distributed objects, intelligent agents, etc. Step by step, we build an enhanced taxonomy based on four criteria: the delegation granularity, the semantic richness of the information model, the degree of specification of a task, and the degree of automation of management

A Survey of Distributed Network and Systems Management Paradigms

Since the mid 1990s, network and systems management has steadily evolved from a centralized paradigm, where all the management processing takes place in a single management station, to distributed paradigms, where management is distributed over a potentially large number of nodes. Some of these paradigms, epitomized by the SNMPv2 and CMIP protocols, have been around for several years, whereas a flurry of new ones, based on mobile code, distributed objects or intelligent agents, only recently emerged. The goal of this survey is to classify all major network and systems management paradigms known to date, in order to help network and systems administrators design a management application. In the first part of the survey, we present a simple typology, based on a single criterion: the organizational model. In this typology, all paradigms are grouped into four types: centralized paradigms, weakly distributed hierarchical paradigms, strongly distributed hierarchical paradigms and cooperative paradigms. In the second part of the survey, we gradually build an enhanced typology, based on four criteria: delegation granularity, semantic richness of the information model, degree of specification of a task, and degree of automation of management. Finally, we show how to use our typologies to select a management paradigm in a given context. KEYWORDS Distributed Network Management, Distributed Systems Management, Integrated Management, Mobile Code, Distributed Objects, Intelligent Agents, Typology

User

Transaction monitors (a.k.a. transaction processing monitors, a.k.a. TP monitors) were the first kind of middleware to support distributed transaction processing, and thus also the first kind of application servers. They were (originally) designed for environments with very high processing demands, such as banks or airlines, that could not be properly supported by 2-tier architectures and by DBMS alone. Architectures using transaction monitors as middleware for transaction control are also called TP-heavy transaction processing environments, because this solution is much heavier to implement.

The DataTAG transatlantic testbed

Wide area network testbeds allow researchers and engineers to test out new equipment, protocols and services in real-life situations, without jeopardizing the stability and reliability of production networks. The Data TransAtlantic Grid (DataTAG) testbed, deployed in 2002 between CERN, Geneva, Switzerland and StarLight, Chicago, IL, USA, is probably the largest testbed built to date. Jointly managed by CERN and Caltech, it is funded by the European Commission, the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. National Science Foundation. The main objectives of this testbed are to improve the Grid community's understanding of the networking issues posed by data- intensive Grid applications over transoceanic gigabit networks, design and develop new Grid middleware services, and improve the interoperability of European and U.S. Grid applications in High- Energy and Nuclear Physics. In this paper, we give an overview of this testbed, describe its various topologies over time, and summarize the main lessons learned after two years of operation. copy 2004 The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)