Object-oriented network model for the development of integrated network management systems

The proliferation of large internets has led to an urgent need for effective network management. This in turn depends on the formulation of a generic network model. This paper presents a generic object-oriented network model which satisfies several important criteria. The model supports multiple views of the network, including both hardware, software and protocol aspects as well as the control, administration and service aspects. Explicit modeling of the relationship between objects facilitates management of complex resources. Modeling of generic management services helps to incorporate traditional fault, configuration and performance management functions into the model. The generic model can also be customized for specific networks. By using a CASE supported object-oriented methodology, automatic code generation and linkages to object-oriented database management systems are possible.