Using semantics to learn about routing data for improved network management in the Future Internet

One of the most fundamental management aspects of the Future Internet is the representation of management and operational data. The vast majority of languages and data structures used by network device manufacturers, such as SNMP-based designs and Command Line Interfaces, are data-oriented and are incapable of representing semantics. In addition, such languages have no ability to represent business concepts, such as a Service Level Agreement, or higher-level concepts, such as the ability to maximize revenue for all users. This paper proposes a knowledge representation based on the combination of models, which represent facts, and ontologies, which enable machine-based reasoning and learning based on facts. We then define an approach to route information based on the underlying semantics of data. Our approach to semantic routing can be used for both semantic querying and network management tasks. It is implemented via a set of semantic overlay networks.