Ontologies: giving semantics to network management models

Abstract

The multi licity of network management models may imply in some scenarios the use of multip P e management information languages defining the resources to be monaged. Each language has a different level of semantic expressiveness, which is not easily measurable. Also, these mono ement information models cannot be easily integrated due to the difficulty of tronjation of the semantics they contain. This article proposes the use of ontologies a s o new approach to im rove the semantic expressiveness of management information languages. OntoPogies are currently used, for instance, to provide Web pages and Web services the semantics they usuall lack (known today os the Semantic Web]. Applying ontologies to management inLrmation languages can also be useful for inte ration of information definitions specified by different management languages anda%ing behavior information tothem. urrently, there are several integrated network management models using different technologies for resource management, 'such as Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), Common Management Information Protocol (CMIP), Desktop Management Interface (DMI) and Web Based Enterprise Management (WBEM). Even distributed processing technologies such as Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) have been applied to network management [l].Every integrated managcment-model has identified the need for a management information definition language to describe the resources to be managed (its management domain), in order to ensure cooperation between managers and agents. Therefore, each model has defined its own management information definition language, with different capabilities and exprcssiveness: * Structure of Management Information (SMI), with its dif--Guidelines for the Definition of Managed Objects (GDMO) -Management Information Format (MIF) for DMI 9 Managed Object FormatKommon Information Model (MOFICIM) for WBEM -Interface Definition Language (IDL) for CORBAThe problem arises when different management technologies are used for the same networked system. Interoperability among all different management models involved is necessaly to pr0vide.a unified view of the whole managed system. However, only syntactic translations among management languages have been applied to date. This implies that when the same resource is described by two different management information definition languages, it is possible to apply a direct translation between the defined structures of the descriptions, but not betwecn their meanings. The problem is to achieve integrated management using different models simultaneously. Semantic interoperability becomes necessary tu solve this question. ferent versions for SNMP for CMIP Meanwhile, ontologies have been successfully used to solve similar semantic problems in other domains such as the Semantic Web, where these knowledge-based techniques provide Web pages and services the semantics they usually lack.This article explores how ontologies can also be useful for network and system management as a way to unify heterogen...

On harnessing information models and ontologies for policy conflict analysis

“…The use of ontologies to represent management information for network management is well researched area, attracting considerable attention over the past few years (Lopez de Vergara et al, 2003;Wong et al, 2005;de Vergara et al, 2004). The primary focus was to enrich existing information models with semantic information to aid interoperability.…”

Ontology-Based Policy Refinement Using SWRL Rules for Management Information Definitions in OWL

“…The ontology-based semantic management framework [3] proposes a single manager working with a unique information model, which integrates all the different definitions of the managed resources, taking into account the semantic aspects of those definitions (i.e. their meaning).…”

“…At the network level we would have an Integrated Network Management Ontology, such as the Common Management Ontology proposed in [3]. For simplicity purposes, we have restricted the information used in this example to what is strictly needed.…”

An Ontology-Based Approach to the Description and Execution of Composite Network Management Processes for Network Monitoring

“…The use of ontologies to represent information related to the network management scope has been addressed to a significant extent in recent research [8,9,10,11,12,13]. In the work presented here, the line started in [8] is extended by using a common representation ontology to formalize a set of specifications for network traffic monitoring.…”

“…In the work presented here, the line started in [8] is extended by using a common representation ontology to formalize a set of specifications for network traffic monitoring. In this way, those definitions can be used to obtain a uniform access to a set of basic functions, common to different network management protocols, which will be used as a base to define a set of composite management processes based on these definitions.…”