A research study submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering, School of Advanced Technologies

Research Studies Project Report (M. Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1997

Network management is indispensable in today's ever expanding communication network scenario wherein traffic flows through several interconnected heterogeneous network segments. For a network to be optimally and efficiently utilized it is essential that it be continually monitored for fault diagnostics, quality of service, performance throughput, network statistics, routing strategy follow-up, and health of the subsystems and the system, etc. The networks must be efficiently administered and maintained to satisfy user's ever increasing quality traffic demands. Several protocols exist to carry out the above mentioned management chores. The basic concepts about Internet, Network Management, user-to-user communication, etc is introduced first. The key management functional areas around which any network management framework is based is also discussed. This study is confined to discussions on two mainstream protocols, Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMJ>) and Common Management Information Protocol (CMIP). This study presents a comparative study of the two protocols. It shows that CMIP is a consummate protocol and has many features, making it a very complex protocol. On the other hand SNMJ> is very simple and easy to implement and use. Because of this reason it is very popular today. A discussion on user-to-user communication, which essentially means, in our context, that user's demands must be satisfied by coordinating the functions in heterogeneous networks, is also presented. The user demands strategic use of information processing systems and networks. For achieving this, some kind of network management entity should be there, which will take care of the users request across different networks from source to destination.