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Applying and Evaluating Active Technologies in Distributed Management

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Abstract

The idea of Distributed Management has been around for quite some time. In recent years, several different technologies have been developed to implement this paradigm. However, until today a practical comparison of these technologies with the implementation of various management applications has—to the authors knowledge—not been made. Therefore, this paper discusses and compares the application of different active technologies to distributed Internet management. Three management application areas that profit from the Distributed Management paradigm are investigated: scalable monitoring, explicit placement of management tasks, and remote systems management of network nodes. The specific requirements of these application areas are analyzed and compared to the capabilities of three different active Distributed Management technologies: the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Script MIB, the active network backbone (ABone), and the mobile agent platform Voyager. For all combinations of technologies and application areas, prototype implementations have been made, that demonstrate strengths and weaknesses of current Distributed Management technologies. The paper evaluates the tested technologies and concludes with suggestions for improvements.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. NEC Europe Ltd., Network Laboratories, Kurfürsten-Anlage 36, 69115, Heidelberg, Germany

    Jürgen Quittek & Marcus Brunner

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  1. Jürgen Quittek
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  2. Marcus Brunner
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Correspondence to Jürgen Quittek.

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Quittek, J., Brunner, M. Applying and Evaluating Active Technologies in Distributed Management. Journal of Network and Systems Management 11, 171–197 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023719032187

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