Network and Data Management Techniques for Converged IP Networks

Abstract

In this paper an attempt has been made to design and develop a prototype of Web Based Server of Servers (WBSOS) which will automatically configure some network parameters for various servers such as DHCP, NETCONF, etc, connected in a network and maintain the data in a centralized manner in an RDBMS, through a browser based application.

In WBSOS, various servers can be managed using a single browser based application. Testing is being done using two servers’ viz. Dynamic host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) and Internet Engineering Task Force’s (IETF), Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF) implemented in the same browser based application. The system is being tested on windows platform. As NETCONF based Network Management System (NMS) is being implemented, constraints in existing SNMP based NMS have been removed.

NETCONF is being implemented using Web Services Description Language (WSDL) that imports the definitions of XML types and elements from the base NETCONF schema. Using the conversion tools, basic JAVA APIs are generated. These APIs are modified to access the parameters from the graphical user interface (GUI) and generate a request message. This message is encapsulated with SOAP envelope and HTTP and then encrypted with SSL agent and finally sent to the agent. At the agent, after decryption by SOAP & HTTP, the message is parsed by the XML parser and sends to the operation processor to get back the operation commands such as get, edit, etc. The command is executed at the agent and reply is send back to the server. On receiving the reply, the manager saves the data in the centralized data store. Here, data is stored in My SQL database.

The WBSOS will share the data of the network thus reducing the overall burden on the network. As the data is shared, collective and relative analysis can also be carried out. Use of NETCONF finds many benefits in this environment: from the reuse of existing standards, to ease of software development, to integration with deployed systems. Thus WBSOS will be capable of handling a wide range of devices in converged network system.