Designing the core components of an operator-driven, framework for unifying autonomic network and service management

Future Internet (FI) constitutes a demanding environment that requires joint management of networks and services. It is also widely believed that autonomic/cognitive management systems offer a suitable and viable choice for confronting the problems of the complex FI. In this regard, Unified Management Framework (UMF), is an extensible management framework with the goal to unify and establish autonomics in the management of networks and services, it is developed within UniverSelf research project and appears to be a promising solution. UMF provides the processes, tools and methods for achieving unification of diverse autonomic solutions, governance of automatically managed infrastructures and services, and “plug and play” of autonomic solutions within existing and future management ecosystems. This paper describes the approach followed for the design of UMF, whereas it also details the set of functional blocks that comprise the first UMF functional view as a result of this design approach. Based on the elaboration and evolution of these functional blocks, three components namely, governance, knowledge, coordination are introduced as the so called UMF core that will monopolize the effort towards deriving the upcoming releases of UMF.