Towards Plug-and-Play Networks With Mobile Code

Abstract

In this paper, we present an innovative approach to managing telecommunication networks based on mobile agents or, more general, mobile code. Our approach addresses the issues in traditional client/server, or in this context manager/agent, Network Management systems like the amount of data that needs to be transmitted, problems inherent to heterogeneous environment, like interoperability issues, problems with maintainability of involved software, etc. The necessary elements of the infrastructure have been implemented in Java. The infrastructure includes mechanisms for code migration and communication with managed resources. Network simulator has also been built to provide a testbed for the research. We explain innovative management ideas through demonstrations of the use of the infrastructure for several simple applications of mobile code that we categorize into servlets, deglets and netlets. We address the network security issues by defining a piglet as a hostile, malicious mobile c...