Distributed Big Brother

Distributed Big Brother (DBB) is a distributed network management system consisting of cooperating autonomous computing agents. The techniques for distributed network management that were developed to build DBB are described. DBB represents a pragmatic blending of diverse technologies from the field of distributed artificial intelligence (AI), such as contract formation, organizational structuring, election for role assignment, and hierarchical control. The result is a network management system in which separate management agents reconfigure themselves when hardware and software failures occur to assure the authority structure demanded by network operators. The efforts illustrate how integrating existing distributed AI technologies can meet realistic needs and can highlight open problems that require the development of new technologies