Temporal network management model: Concepts and implementation issues

Networks grow in scale and become more complex and heterogeneous as well. A lot of research effort is focused on the topic of network management. This is because nowadays a network management system is a vital component of any network installation. In this paper, we propose an extended network management information model that includes the time dimension. This view leads us to adopt a temporal data model as the underlying information model. Moreover, the services provided by this model, as well as the architecture supporting them, are presented. In addition to that, we have implemented a prototype incorporating the proposed network management view. The description of the prototype is also presented in this paper. q 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.