NETWORK MANAGEMENT

UNIT 2: BASIC FOUNDATION — STANDARDS, MODELS &

LANGUAGE

NETWORK MANAGEMENT STANDARDS

OSI/CMIP
• International standard (ISO/OSI)
• Management of data communications networks--LAN & WAN
• Deals with all 7 layers
• Object oriented
• Well structured & layered
• Consumes large resource in implementation
• The OSI management protocol standard is CMIP (Common Management Information Protocol) , & has
built-in services ,CMIS (Common Management Information Service) that specify the basic services needed
to perform the various functions
SNMP/Internet
• Industry standard (IETF)
• Originally intended for management of Internet components, currently adopted for WAN &
telecommunication systems
• Easy to implement
• Most widely implemented
TMN
• International standard (ITU-T)
• Management of telecommunications network
• Based on OSI network management framework
• Addresses both network & administrative aspects of management
IEEE
• IEEE standards adopted internationally
• Addresses management of LANs & MANs
• Adopts OSI standards significantly
• Deals with first 2 layers of the OSI reference model
Web Based Management
• This is based on using Web technology, a web server for the management system and web browsers for
network management stations
• Web Based Enterprise Management (WBEM)
• Java Management Extensions (JMX)
• DMTF (Desktop Management Task Force) is developing specifications for WBEM.
• JMX is based on a special subset of Java applets developed by Sun microsystems that runs in the
network components

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NETWORK MANAGEMENT MODEL
• OSI network management architecture model comprises of 4 models: organization model, information model,
communication model & functional model (Figure: 3.1).
• The functional model deals with the user-oriented requirements of network management.
• The information model deals with the structure & organization of management information.
• The communication model has 3 components: management application processes that function in the application
layer, layer management between layers and layer operation within the layers.
• The organization model describes the components of a network management system, their functions and their
infrastructure.

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ORGANIZATION MODEL
• The organization model describes the components of network management & their relationships.
Two Tier Network Management Organization Model
• In two tier model (Figure: 3.2), network objects consists of network elements such as hosts, hubs, bridges, routers
etc.
• They can be classified into managed & unmanaged objects or elements.
• The managed elements have a management process running in them called an agent.
• The manager manages the managed element.
• There is a database in the manager but not in the agent.
• The manager queries the agent & receives management data, processes it & stores it in its database.
Three Tier Network Management Organization Model
• In 3 tier model, the intermediate layer acts as both agent & manager (Figure: 3.3),
• As manager, it collects data from the network elements, processes it & stores the results in its database.
• As agent, it transmits information to the top-level manager.
Network Management Model with MoM
• Network domains can be managed locally and a global view of the networks can be monitored by a MoM
(Manager of managers).
• This configuration uses an enterprise network management system & is applicable to organizations with sites
distributed across cities (Figure: 3.4).

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INFORMATION MODEL
• An information model is concerned with the structure & the storage of information (Figure: 3.6).
• Information on network components is passed between the agent & management processes.
• The information model specifies the information base to describe managed objects & their relationships.
• The SMI defines the syntax & semantics of management information stored in the MIB.
• The MIB is used by both agent & management processes to store & exchange management information.
• A manager MIB consists of information on all the network components that it manages whereas an agent MIB
needs to know only its local information, its MIB view.
• The MDB is a real database & contains the measured or administratively configured value of the elements of the
network. On the other hand, the MIB is a virtual database & contains the information necessary for processes to
exchange information.

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COMMUNICATION MODEL
• Management data is communicated between agent & manager processes, as well as between manager processes.
• Three aspects need to be addressed in the communication of information between 2 entities: transport medium of
message exchange, message format of communication and the actual message.
Management Communication Model
• In the communication model (Figure: 3.11), the applications in the manager module initiate requests to the agent
in the Internet model.
• The agent executes the request on the network elements and returns responses to the manager.
• The notifications/traps are the unsolicited messages such as alarms, generated by the agent.
Management Communication Transfer Protocols
• Figure: 3.12 presents the communication protocol used to transfer information between managed object &
managing processes, as well as between management processes.
• The OSI model uses CMIP along with CMIS. Internet uses SNMP for communication.
• OSI uses both connection oriented and connectionless protocols for transportation. Internet uses connectionless
UDP/IP protocol to transport messages.
• CMIP & SNMP specifies the management communication protocols for OSI & Internet management
respectively.

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MANAGEMENT INFORMATION TREES
• Managed objects are uniquely defined by a tree structure specified by the OSI model & are used in the Internet
model (Figure: 3.8).
• There is root node & well-defined node underneath each node at different levels.
• Each managed object occupies a node in the tree (e.g. Internet is designated as 1.3.6.1).
• In the OSI model, the managed objects are defined by a containment tree that represents the MIT.
• The root node does not have an explicit designation.
• The iso defines the International Standards Organization and itu defines the International Telecommunications
Union.
• The 2 standards organizations are on the first layer & define management of objects under them.
• The joint iso-itu node is for management objects jointly defined by the 2 organizations.

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CONCEPTUAL VIEWS OF MANAGED OBJECTS (INTERNET & OSI PERSPECTIVE)
• A managed object in the Internet model is defined by 5 parameters (Figure: 3.9a):
→ object identifier & descriptor: unique ID & name for the object type
→ syntax: used to model the object
→ access: access privilege o a managed object
→ status: implementation requirements
→ definition: textual description of the semantics of object type
• The Internet object model is a scalar model & is easy to understand. In contrast, the OSI perspective of a
managed object is complex & has a different set of characteristics
• OSI specifications are object-oriented, and hence a managed object belongs to an object class
• The attribute of an object defines the external perspective of the object
• An OSI managed object has the following characteristics
→ object class: managed object
→ attributes: attributes visible at its boundary
→ operations: operations that can be applied to it
→ behaviour: behavior exhibited by it in response to an operation
→ notification: notifications emitted by the object
• Operation in the Internet model is done by get & set commands. Notification is done by response & alarm
messages.
• In OSI, we can create & delete objects. These concepts do not exist in the Internet.

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ASN.1
• ASN.1 stands for Abstract Syntax Notation One.
• This is a formal language developed jointly by CCITT & ISO for use with application layers for data transfer
between systems.
• This is also applicable within the system for clearly separating the abstract syntax and the transfer syntax at the
presentation layer.
• Abstract syntax is defined as the set of rules used to specify data types and structures for storage of information.
• Transfer syntax represents the set of rules for communicating information between systems.
• Abstract syntax is applicable to the information model and transfer syntax to the communication model
• The algorithm to convert the textual ASN.1 syntax to machine readable code is called BER (Basic Encoding
Rules).

ASN.1 CONVENTIONS
• ASN.1 is based on the Backus system & uses the formal syntax language & grammar of the BNF (Backus-Nauer
Form) ,which looks like
<name>::=<definition>
where the notation <entity> denotes an "entity" and the symbol ::= represents "defined as"
e.g.: <BooleanType>::= BOOLEAN
<BooleanType>:= TRUE | FALSE
The definitions on the right side are called primitives
The format of each line is defined as a production or assignment
Entities that are all in capital letter such as TRUE and FALSE are called keywords
• A group of assignments makes up an module.
eg: person-name Person-Name ::=
{
first "john"
middle "T"
last "smith"
}
Here "person-name" is the name of the module which is a data type. "Person-Name" is a module
• Following are 3 constructive mechanisms:
→ alternatives: CHOICE
→ list: SET and SEQUENCE
→ repetition: SET OF and SEQUENCE OF
• ASN.1 definition allows both backward & forward references as well as inline definition.

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ASN.1 DATA TYPE
Simple Type
• A simple type one for which the values are specified directly. For example, we can define a page of a book as
PageNumber of simple type.
i.e. PageNumber::=INTEGER
ChapterNumber::=INTEGER
Structured Type
• A data type is a structured type when it contains other type.
• Types that are within a structured type are called component types. For example ,we can define all the pages of
the book as a collection of individual pages.
i.e. BookPages::=SEQUENCE OF
{
SEQUENCE {ChapterNumber , Separator ,PageNumber}
}
• SET is distinguished from SEQUENCE in 2 respects:
1) The data types should all be distinct and
2) The order of values in SET is of no consequence whereas it is critical in the SEQUENCE construct.
Tagged Type
• Tagged type is a type derived from another type that is given a new tag id.
• A tagged type is defined to distinguish types within an application.
Other Type
• Other type is a data type that is not predefined.
• This is chosen from CHOICE and ANY types, which are contained in other types.
• Type CHOICE defines the selection of one value from a specified list of distinct types.

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ENCODING STRUCTURE
• The ASN.1 syntax that contains the management information is encoded using the BER defined for the transfer
syntax.
• The ASCII text data is converted to bit-oriented data.
• Example of encoding structure is TLV which denotes type, length & value components of structure (Fig: 3.18).
• The type has 3 subcomponents: class, P/C & tag number (Table: 3.6).
• P/C specifies whether the structure is a primitive, or simple, type or a construct.
• This is encoded as a one byte (an octet) field.
• The value of P/C is 0 for primitive & 1 for construct.

FUNCTIONAL MODEL
• The functional model component addresses the user-oriented applications, which are formally specified in the
OSI model (Figure: 3.22).
• The functional model consists of 5 submodels: configuration management, fault management, performance
management, security management and accounting management.
(same as in chapter 1).

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