Applications of policy-based network management

The problem with current network management systems is that they lack the ability to state long-term, network-wide configuration objectives, and have them automatically realized in the network. Our vision for policy-based management completes the feedback loop between network monitoring and network re-configuration. The management system must be able to automatically react to network events by performing actions described in predetermined policies. These policies are created ahead of time by the network operator; once they are created and stored as part of the management system, the latter can automatically enforce these policies. This takes the human out of the loop and allows nearly fully automated network management. The system described in this paper has been implemented and used to experiment with MPLS traffic engineering in our laboratories. The results of this experimentation have shown a significant decrease in the amount of manual intervention required to manage an MPLS network as a result of using policy-based management.