Network management information for system control

Proposes to extend the network management philosophy to a more comprehensive system management framework (SMF). The SMF would target highly optimized control of traffic (with varying degree of importance and security) and network assets. This would be well suited for the multimedia traffic of the future. The current network management framework (NMF) is woefully short of such capabilities. Central to the idea of the SMF are four databases. The first one contains security and accounting information. The second has information about the topology of the network and network assets; the third possesses dynamic information regarding health of the assets; and the fourth contains traffic data on a dynamic basis. The authors extend the management information base (MIB) of the current NMFs to a system information base (SIB) for SMF to capture the functionality of the databases