Toward efficient distributed network management

The emerging next generation of routers exhibit both high performance and rich functionality, such as support for virtual private networks and quality-of-service (QoS). To achieve this, per flow queueing and fast IP filtering are incorporated into the router hardware. The scalable management of a network comprising such devices and efficient use of the new functionality introduce new challenges. A promising approach is to distribute the network management applications and execute them with minimal central control. This work concentrates on the way multiple distributed control tasks can be deployed in IP networks. By a prototype that uses active network techniques we show how truly distributed applications can be used for control and monitoring. We study basic management applications, show the potential gain from running them distributively, and demonstrate their implementation.