On a rule based management architecture

The paper describes a hybrid approach towards distributed systems management. In our distributed environment the management policies are represented by rules. Interpretation of the rules and automated activation of appropriate management tools is done by the software development environment Marvel. Rule chaining is supported in forward and backward direction. The encapsulation feature of Marvel allows an easy integration of separate management tools. Policy enforcement is guaranteed, because every management activity is controlled by Marvel. Activity is initiated either by a human administrator or automatically by monitoring the status of the system. This allows the delegation of simple management tasks to the system. The potential for incorrect management decisions is reduced, because the rule interpreter checks every request for conformance with the given rules and the actually recorded status of the system