ICON: A System for Implementing Constraints in Object-based Networks

Abstract

In today's Network Management scenario, the network operator's interface to the network is through a Management Information Base (MIB). The MIB stores all management related data such as configuration information, performance statistics, and trouble logs and so on. Configuration management, which is at the core of network management, is implemented through the MIB in a three step process: making updates to MIB data elements, checking the validity of the updates, propagating the effects of the updates to the network elements. While all three steps need to be executed efficiently for the MIB to serve its intended goal, the second step of checking update validity is especially important from the management viewpoint. For example, if an operator mistakenly configures a ninth port on an eight port card, it is essential that the MIB should both detect and prevent this error. Allowing such operations to go through would have adverse impact on the performance of the network (since it increases the network management traffic). Therefore, we focus primarily on the problem of checking the validity of updates to MIB data elements, which can be viewed as a specific instance of the general problem of constraint management in database systems. We introduce the design of ICON (Implementing Constraints in Object-based Networks), a proposed constraint management system. In ICON, constrains are expressed through rules. Each rule is composed of an event, a condition, and an action. Occurrence of the event triggers the rule, the condition is a boolean check, and the action is executed if the condition is satisfied. Rules and events are also treated as objects so that they can be created, modified, and deleted like other objects, thus providing a uniform view of rules and events in an OO context. The OO paradigm results in an extensible and a reusable system. To our knowledge, not much work has been done in this area and this paper would trigger further research in this area.