A scalable manager-agency-based network management design to provide adaptive configuration management for tactical battlefield networks

Tactical battlefield network management presents unique challenges in so far as to (a) provide seamless end-to-end management operations involving inter-administrative domain management and heterogeneous networking technologies, and (b) support terminal and network equipment mobility management with large user population and over a wide geographical area. Furthermore, the volatile and unpredictable nature of these networks can cause the network elements to disappear sporadically, calling for an adaptive configuration management system that can adapt to the dynamics of the underlying network. Additionally, since the battlefield networks span side geographic domains, an efficient and scalable network management system (NMS) is of paramount importance. We propose a scalable NMS using a manager-agency paradigm together with an adaptive configuration management system (ACMS) for the tactical battlefield networks, that addresses each of the above mentioned challenges. We have also developed a proof-of-concept (POC) simulation model to demonstrate the proposed manager-agency-based NMS and ACMS. The ACMS, manager and agencies have been implemented using CORBA. Additionally a directory service system (DSS) that is designed to help the ACMS, is implemented in LDAP.