Active Virtual Network Management / News: Recent posts

The Atropos (formerly AVNMP) system description can be found on the IEEE website: http://www.comsoc.org/livepubs/ni/public/2002/jul/nisoftt.html.

The Atropos Toolkit is an active network toolkit that allows experimentation with predictive capability within a network while the network is operating. The toolkit is an active application that executes within a network assuming an overlay active network exists (included in the Atropos Toolkit). Active networking provides a framework in which executable code within data packets executes on intermediate network nodes. The Atropos Toolkit provides an infrastructure that maintains state and enforces event causality, easing the development of numerous small and predictive network component models. User-defined algorithms, injected into the network, allow system state to be predicted and efficiently propagated throughout the network.

A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts directories.

Title : In-Line Network Management Prediction
Author(s) : S. Bush, A. Kulkarni, N. Smith
Filename : draft-bush-inline-predictive-mgt-00.txt
Pages : 46
Date : 01-Aug-02

In-line network management prediction exploits fine-grained models of
network components, injected into the communication network, to
enhance network performance. Accurate and fast prediction of local
network state enables more intelligent network control resulting in
greater performance and fault tolerance. Accurate and fast
prediction requires algorithmic capability. Active and Programmable
Networking have enabled algorithmic information to be dynamically
injected into the network allowing enhanced capability and
flexibility. One of the new capabilities is enhanced network
management via in-line management code, that is, management
algorithms embedded within intermediate network devices. In-line
network management prediction utilizes low-level algorithmic
transport capability to implement low-overhead predictive management.
A secondary purpose of this document is to provide general
interoperability information for the injection of general purpose
algorithmic information into network devices. This document may help
in some manner to serve as a temporary bridge between Internet
Protocol and Active and Programmable Network applications. This
may stimulate some thought as to the content and format of
'standards' information potentially required for Active Networking.
Management of the Internet Protocol and Active and Programmable
Networking is vital. In particular, coexistence and interoperability
of active networking and Internet Protocol management is specified
in order to implement the injection of algorithmic information into a
network.... read more

We are organizing a special session for following conference titled "Complexity
Theory and its Applications to Systems, Networks and Information Assurance".

The goal of this session is to bridge the gap among the large and growing body of work in Complexity Theory and discuss its applications to the health, management, and security of information systems. Examples of specific session topics include, but are not limited to, the following:... read more

Prediction and Controlling Resource Usage in a Heterogeneous Active Network by Virginie Galtier and Kevin L. Mills (NIST) and Yannick Carlinet and Stephen F. Bush and Amit Kulkarni, Third Annual International Workshop on Active Middleware Services 2001, San Francisco, CA, August 6, 2001 in http://www.crd.ge.com/~bushsf/an/nist-ge-ams2001.pdf

The Magician Active Network Execution Environment upon which the Active Virtual Network Management Prediction Application (http://www.crd.ge.com/~bushsf/an) currently resides will be released soon in http://www.geocities.com/akulkarn with a discussion list located in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/magician-users. Magician is also described in more detail in Active Networks and Active Network Management: A Proactive Management Framework by Stephen F. Bush and Amit Kulkarni, Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, Boston, March 2001, 200 pp. Hardbound, ISBN 0-306-46560-4.

The use of Kolmogorov Complexity for super-efficient forms of Active Network implementation are being explored in http://www.crd.ge.com/~bushsf/ImperishNets.html. Kolmorogov Complexity-based results are yield rich sources of new information regarding the optimum mixture of active and passive data as well as new forms of vulnerability analysis and fault detection. The algorithmic content comprising active network applications are being managed and self-composed using results from this research. A demo application built upon either the Magician, or Magician-like Active Execution Environment is likely to be avaliable in the near future.