Design and implementation of a prototype for model-driven network service management

Abstract

At present, business are very dependent on networking services. So, network management is increasingly important. There are different technologies that seek to facilitate development of management business applications, such as Model-driven Management. This technology aims to abstract a system by way of separating system architecture from platform architecture. This serves to make easier to understand a system because it is divided in layers. Models work in a high level, it means that is not necessary to understand low level protocols. If these technologies are mixed with a network management protocol, such as Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), it can be achieved a management application more powerful, easier to develop, easier to manage and easier to modify. These features are desirable in order to develop applications easily scalable. But this project aims a new approach of Model-driven Management: network management via a runtime model. It is possible thanks to model@runtime. This concept seeks to communicate a model with the real world without additional code development, directly from the model. This project is focused in the study and applicability of Model-driven Management and model@runtime concepts. It seeks to take advantage of use of models in the development of business applications, but applied to network management. For this purpose, it will be develop an UML model which serves as a network monitor of a set of spare switches. This model will be use an existing SNMP library developed in C++ in order to communicate the model with the switches using SNMP messages that contain SNMP commands. _______________________________________________________________________________________

At present, business are very dependent on networking services. So, network management is increasingly important. There are different technologies that seek to facilitate development of management business applications, such as Model-driven Management. This technology aims to abstract a system by way of separating system architecture from platform architecture. This serves to make easier to understand a system because it is divided in layers. Models work in a high level, it means that is not necessary to understand low level protocols. If these technologies are mixed with a network management protocol, such as Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), it can be achieved a management application more powerful, easier to develop, easier to manage and easier to modify. These features are desirable in order to develop applications easily scalable. But this project aims a new approach of Model-driven Management: network management via a runtime model. It is possible thanks to model@runtime. This concept seeks to communicate a model with the real world without additional code development, directly from the model. This project is focused in the study and applicability of Model-driven Management and model@runtime concepts. It seeks to take advantage of use of models in the development of business applications, but applied to network management. For this purpose, it will be develop an UML model which serves as a network monitor of a set of spare switches. This model will be use an existing SNMP library developed in C++ in order to communicate the model with the switches using SNMP messages that contain SNMP commands.