Resource monitoring on an application layer active network server

Demand for diverse telecoms services is growing while currently the process of infrastructure innovation involves the lengthy task of standardisation, and large-scale deployment inevitably leads to a backlog of services. However, the time to introduce a particular service must be low, in order to meet the demand. An approach to accelerate the pace of innovation is by decoupling network services from the underlying infrastructure and allowing new services to be demand loaded into the network. One such architecture is the application level active network (ALAN), providing an environment in which developers can engineer applications through the network by utilising platforms on which 3/sup rd/ party software (proxylets) can be dynamically loaded and run. The ALAN system consists of regular client and server applications that are located in the existing Internet. The communication is enhanced through customised services provided by user-deployed proxylets which run on the Execution Environment for Proxylets - EEP, which is essentially a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) running on an active server (the host platform). The IST project Active Network DistRibuted Open Infrastructure Development (ANDROID) is focusing on management of ALAN-enabled networks. The objective is to provide a flexible, policy-based management system that enables monitoring and control of active nodes and services. The key tasks in this context are to define a combined resource model for both processing and network resources, and to reduce management traffic and human intervention in running the network and managing the application services provided.