Network management and operations: application oriented management in distributed environments

The use of application management systems has become a valuable approach in dealing with dynamic information filtering, resource allocation, and resource control. Traditionally, management systems provide the application or the user with capabilities to statically monitor and control the resources. This work presents a knowledge-based management system that offers dynamic service to distributed applications as well as dynamic control of the application's environment. It also studies the roles of different agents in an application management environment. The presented framework deals with heterogeneity of distributed environments and enables agents to utilize dynamic information regarding the resources. Agents are used as resource administrators, application agents and user agents. They utilize control mechanisms to manage the resources with respect to the application requirements, control the user's environment and monitor-control-report management information. The paradigms of control mechanism presented here exploit the agent capabilities and their communication environment.