A BGP / MPLS PPVPN Management Information Model and a J 2 EE-based Implementation Architecture for Policy and Web-Based Configuration Management Systems

IETF's Policy Framework Workgroup is developing a policy model that covers the utilization of signaled and provisioned QoS. This model links high-level QoS business requirements to low-level device specific parameters through a policy architecture named PCIM (Policy Core Information Model). The policy architecture was first proposed for DiffServ and its policy components are distributed in a three-tier model formed by a policy repository, the policy decision points (PDP) and the policy enforcement points (PEP). On the other hand, the DMTF (Distributed Management Task Force) is proposing the Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) Initiative, which takes the CIM (Core Information Model) management information models from DMTF and maps into XML Document Type Definitions (DTD). This work presents the information model and implementation architecture of a policy management system for BGP/MPLS PPVPN configuration. The first goal is the proposal of BGP/MPLS PPVPN configuration policies to be mapped into LDAP through a given LDAP schema, so that the policies can be stored at the repository, retrieved and interpreted by the PDP. The second goal is the abstraction of the device management information base through the implementation of an XML layer, based on the WBEM standards. This layer allows the policy manager to communicate with different devices using HTTP on XML/HTTP aware devices or traditional mechanisms such as HTTP, SNMP, RMON and CLI through an XML-policy proxy translator. Finally, a software architecture based on the J2EE standards is proposed for the implementation of the whole system.