Autonomous Network Monitoring System based on Agent-mediated Network Information

Tohoku University, Sendai, Miyagi, JAPAN Summary The growing complexity of communication networks and their associated information overhead have made network management considerably difficult. This paper presents a novel Network Management Scheme based on the novel concept of Active Information Resources (AIRs). Many types of information are distributed in the complex network, and they are changed dynamically. Under the AIR scheme, each piece of information in a network is activated as an intelligent agent: an I-AIR. An I-AIR has knowledge and functionality related to its information. The I-AIRs autonomously detect run-time operational obstacles occurring in the network system and specify the failures' causes to the network administrator with their cooperation. Thereby, some network management tasks are supported. The proposed prototype system (AIRNMS) was implemented. Experimental results indicate that it markedly reduces the network administrator workload, compared to conventional network management methods.