A distributed computing environment for building scalable management services

Marvel is a distributed computing environment that allows the creation of scalable management services using intelligent agents and the World-Wide Web. Marvel is based on an information model that generates computed views of management information and a distributed computing model that makes this information available to a variety of client applications. Marvel does not replace existing element management agents but rather builds on top of them a hierarchy of servers that aggregate the underlying information in a synchronous or asynchronous fashion and present it in the form of Java-enriched Web pages. It uses a distributed database to reduce the cost associated with centralized network management systems and mobile agent technology to: (a) support thin clients by uploading the necessary code to access Marvel services; and (b) extend its functionality dynamically by downloading code that incorporates new objects and services. A prototype implementation in Java is presented together with results from its first application on a broadband home access network using cable modems