Providing Customisable Network Management Services Through Mobile Agents

Telecommunications network management has attracted a lot of attention in terms of research and standardisation in the last decade. TMN and TINA architectural frameworks try to address the management needs of broadband networks and services. They both cater for multi-domain, multi-operator environments while they also allow for electronic customer access to management services. These services, though, are fixed in the sense that new features can only be added after a full research-standardisation-deployment cycle and are static as far as their use: they execute according to their in-built logic and clients may customise their operation only through tuning standardised operational parameters before service execution. The advent of mobile agent technologies opens new possibilities, allowing dynamic and customisable services to be offered to clients. In this paper we explain how mobile agents can enhance traditional connectivity management services, presenting the relevant architecture and design of a customisable network management system based on mobile agents.

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