Providing a Web-based view of your managed network

Supplying a network management view of your network is an excellent way to keep members of the network community informed on the status of your network. To demonstrate this, network management Web server (NMWS) software was developed to take images from Hewlett Packard's Open View (HPOV) network management software (NMS) and make them accessible via the World Wide Web. An NMS console from the operational database is started and displayed on a remote proxy management station dedicated to the NMWS software. The NMWS software determines what views of the network are displayed on its X window server and those windows are captured and saved as GIF files that are incorporated into HTML Web documents. The documents use HTML and HTTP techniques to provide timely and efficient client access to the NMS views. Since the interface between HPOV and the NMWS is X windows, this method could easily be adapted to other NMS platforms. Potential users of the NMWS software include ISP network operations centers (NOC) as well as Enterprise NOCs. These sites could use the software to provide a network management view to the network community in general. Techniques are also available to implement a restricted access policy.