A Spreadsheet-based Snmp Scripting Environment for Battlefield Network Management

EEective management of battleeeld networks requires a hierarchical network management architecture wherein managers can dyanmically delegate management tasks to intermediate managers. In this report we describe a novel paradigm called the spreadsheet paradigm which extends the traditional at SNMP management model to a hierarchical architecture. We present a spreadsheet MIB, language, and event model that is located at a proxy node acting in the role of an intermediate manager and con-trollable by a manager. An important feature of the spreadsheet-based proxy is that it permits managers to conngure dynamic MIB views based on application requirements that can be quite diierent from the underlying MIB structures at the agents. The spreadsheet-based proxy architecture presents an easy to use and comprehend abstraction and interface to extend a standard management framework.