The Role of a Network Topology MIB in the Quality Control Management of Computer Networks

The rapid evolution of today's computer and communication networks, that are becoming the nervous system of economical and social life, indicates the need to give greater importance to the quality management and control of these networks and of the corresponding services offered to the end-users. In order to create an SNMP-based quality management framework that a network administrator could use, a number of quality features for these networks has to be defined. The topology of a computer network forms a major quality feature. In this paper we present a Network Topology MIB which is used for collecting and efficiently storing, in a formal way, management information related to the topological elements of a computer network. This MIB, in the future, will be integrated together with a Quality Control MIB, in order to determine the final SNMP-based quality management framework, that will be used to monitor and control the quality of the services offered by a computer network.