OSI systems and network management

Data communications standards to allow exchange of information between two application processes in different heterogeneous computing environments have been developed by International Standards groups. With the development of these standards, the need for managing the communications protocols was realized as part of both the Internet and OSI standards suites. This article addresses the network management paradigm developed as part of OSI standards. The OSI network management application includes three different aspects: categories of network management, a protocol that specifies the structure for transferring network management information, and information models that define resource-specific management information for the specific management functions. These three aspects will be described in this article. Network management functions are grouped into five categories: configuration, fault, performance, security, and accounting. The resource is managed to accomplish these functions. These five categories have been used not only in OSI network management but also in specifying the management functions for telecommunications network. These five categories are briefly discussed in the paper. The protocol structure for OSI network management is defined as an application service element known as CMISE. Regardless of the resource being managed, the protocol defines a basic set of operations applicable to network management. The article discusses the semantics of the various operations and the parameters associated with each operation. Using the structure defined by the protocol, for the various management functions, information is modeled to represent the managed resource. Object-oriented principles are used in defining information models. An introduction to these principles is provided. The management information exchanged is a combination of the three aspects. As part of OSI network management, information models to represent communication entities have been developed. An example is shown to illustrate the exchanged message for a management function. The article reiterates the three aspects and points out the advantages offered by this network management paradigm