A network management proxy agent development for the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) IP router-based networks using the Web technology

The MITRE Corporation in support of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has developed a proxy agent functionality that allows DISA's major customers to have a network management status view of the DISA's IP router-based networks. The network management proxy agent, which operates at the element management level of the router network management hierarchy, has been developed using the World Wide Web (WWW) technology. To provide this functionality, MITRE has developed a network management Web server (NMWS) software that takes information from DISA's network management system (NMS), namely Hewlett Packard's Open View (HPOV) software and publishes it on the Web. This software, which is a collection of Perl scripts that run on a dedicated NMWS host, takes X windows screens from HPOV, converts them to GDF files, and publishes them on a Web server. In addition, the NMWS software provides a non-graphical form-based interface to the HPOV database to provide a near real-time status of circuits that are identified by their IP addresses or customer circuit service descriptor (CCSDs) to DISA's customers. The NMWS software was developed and operates on Solaris 2.5 with an X11R5 distribution. Network users access the NMWS host via their Web browser and are presented with (1) a list of available views, which is the same as the views on the screen of the NMWS host at the time of the last NMWS invocation, and (2) a form, which may be used to provide access circuit status using the text file of the Open View database. They can pull down a view via the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and with most browsers this view will automatically update. This paper discusses the results of our testing and experimentation, and our lessons learned and recommendations for using a Web-based approach for network management of large networks.