Mission-driven tactical network management

In the tactical military context, the network exists to support a mission. Consequently, part of the process of mission planning is to define the required network performance in terms of measurable quantities (metrics). These metrics, such as required message delivery rates, maximum acceptable latencies, and acceptable-loss thresholds are used to design the network. This paper presents the TITAN (Tactical Information Technologies for Assured Networks) Network Management System (NMS), which uses these metrics to manage the network as well. The TITAN NMS generates maintenance policies from the stated mission goals and the generated network plan. The maintenance policies describe the metrics to be measured, the acceptable values of those metrics and the actions to take on various levels of the management hierarchy when values of the metrics are not acceptable. If the policy-defined actions do not restore the network performance to acceptable levels, the TITAN NMS dynamically replans the network to meet the mission needs. We describe the TITAN NMS system and its application to the problem of automating the management of future military tactical networks, along with scenarios illustrating the operation of the system.