On accomplishing context awareness for autonomic network management

Future generation networks are characterized by a high level of complexity and dynamicity due to a relevant level of heterogeneity in terms of nodes and devices as well as provided services. In this context, network operators face the challenge of managing this complexity, while lowering the operational expenses. Context awareness becomes a necessity for the efficient management of resources, dynamic deployment of value added services towards guaranteeing the end to end quality of services. This paper presents a novel framework for the context management of future networks, that is able to collect, transform and reason on context information. Embedded in this framework, mechanisms for the building of knowledge are also introduced, with special focus on autonomic context discovery, monitoring, diagnosis and prediction.