Java - based Mobile Intelligent Agents as Network Management Solutions

Traditional mechanisms for " moving " network management solutions from producers to consumers require sophisticated human intelligence and expertise, high costs in installation and maintenance , or impose high traffic load/availability requirement on the global networks. To address these problems, this paper proposes a new framework for developing, marketing and deploying management solutions using Java-based Mobile Intelligent Agents. The management solutions are regarded as knowledge, defined as Java objects and structured into a hierarchy by the hierarchical specialization relationship among the problem situations which the solutions are addressing. With this hierarchical organization of solutions, we can obtain the Object-Oriented style of reusability/interoperability, and accumulative construction/standardization, of management functionalities in the distributed open environment. To manage the real resources, Java-based Mobile Intelligent Agents (IA) carrying a hierarchy of management solutions are envisaged, which travel among the managed network sites to solve the problems in the environment, by finding out and applying locally the most suitable management solution. The knowledge of an IA can be further extended by the local, specific management solutions of the network sites it visits, in order to support the optimal management of the local resources. The emerging global information society based on the advanced telecommunication infrastructure ([2] [12]) introduces a new, open world with a huge amount of very heterogeneous players and roles. Most resources in this environment will be provided to the consumers through a long value added chain of producers, providers, vendors etc., which are widely separated by administrative or geographical distances. The complicated and versatile interrelation -ships/distributions of the resource-associated players and roles have significant impact on the frameworks for managing the resources. In this context, management solutions addressing problems related to the resources can be developed by any players in any operation or role contexts, and in any geographical or administrative positions within the open world of telecommunication. At the same time, in a global market, each of such management solutions will be used in a variety of heterogeneous domains, which can be geographically or administratively far away from the source or provider of the solution. The effectiveness and the market chance of these management solutions depend heavily on the following characteristics: – Intelligence Once a management solution leaves its manufacturer , it will be installed at some remote customer sites and has to operate autonomously in a foreign environment. Such reusability of the management solution depends on its ability, or intelligence, to …