Desktop-based Network Management

In the management world, the web is considered by many people the best user interface for next generation management systems. This is because the use of the web has several benefits with respect to non web-based management applications such as: • Web browsers are provided with almost every OS. • Hypertext facilities can be profitably used for on-line help and documentation. • Web pages can integrate multiple heterogeneous services and living Java ap-plets. Beside all these benefits, the use of the web as alternative to platform native applications has shown some limitations such as: • Limited Operating System Integration Contrary to a common belief, the desktop has been web-ised and not the other way round. • No Scriptability and Task Automation HTML is meant for human display and not for batch processing. • Resource Integration vs. Resource Composition The web allows people to easily integrate various resources and Java applications in a HTML page. Resource composition (software composition) instead , allows developers to compose different resources such as software applications and documents, and produce yet another composable resource. Basically, most of the problems above arise from the fact that the web has been used as a desktop replacement. This has been the driving force for going beyond web-based management, towards a new management paradigm capable of exploiting web technologies while being integrated into the desktop. Desktop-based management is the activity to manage networks and systems using standard desktop tools (for instance a text editor), methods (drag and drop) and paradigms (trashcan). The principles behind desktop-based management are: • Every management resource/information must be accessible from the desk-top. • The composition of management information (for instance weekly router usage) should be accessible from the desktop, hence virtually from every appli