Back INTEGRATED NETWORK AND SYSTEM MANAGEMENT
by Heinz-Gerd Hegering with Sebastian Abeck

Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. - Wokingham, England ; Reading, Mass.
0-201-59377-7 * Hardcover * 504 pages * ©1994

PREFACE

There is no doubt that, as a component of corporate information processing, communication within and between enterprise plays a strategic role. Accordingly, the technical systems which support this communication have an importance in terms of the infrastructure. The ongoing effort over a number of years to achieve manufacturer- independent communication architectures and standardized protocols has met with some success. Both interconnectivity and interoperability in a heterogeneous system environment have become possible.

Communication systems, internetworks and distributed systems have developed on a large scale. The availability of increasingly high performance communication technology and the dramatically fast development of ever more powerful workstations have led to the development of new forms of work-related coordination. Thus, at the same time, there is an increased need for telecooperation, to bring together information which originated in different places and to operate distributed systems like one virtual system, etc.

We now know that the effective use of these facilities without adequate management of heterogeneous network and system environments is virtually impossible. In this context, by adequate management, we mean that the long-term goal should be an integrated management which, in particular, satisfies the following requirements:

This book is concerned with integrated network and system management. It is both a textbook and a reference book for the state of the art in this area, and is intended both for network and system planners in practice and for students of the relevant disciplines.

The book is divided into five parts, each consisting of several chapters.

Part I is concerned with the foundations of communication networks, distributed systems and network and system management.

Part II is a detailed discussion of the various approaches to management architectures which form the basis for an integrated management. This includes a description of manufacturer-independent architectures such as OSI management, Internet management, OSF DME, TMN and the IEEE LAN/MAN management, together with other activities. In addition, gateways between management architectures and approaches to migration towards an opening-up of the architecture are discussed using the examples of IBM and Siemens Nixdorf.

Part III is initially concerned with the isolated management tools used today; it then includes a detailed discussion of management platforms as carrier systems for integrated management systems. This is followed by a description of management development tools and approaches to the integration of isolated tools.

Part IV introduces tried and tested management scenarios, namely component management and system management.

Finally, Part V gives an overview of management scenarios which the authors anticipate will soon form part of an integrated management solution, namely application management and enterprise management. The final chapter includes a number of open questions in network and system management.

Each of the 19 chapters begins with an outline of the structure of the chapter and its motivation; taken together, these introductions represent the central theme of the book and a detailed summary of its contents. Some prior knowledge of the concepts of data communication and their application, and of the operation of networks and systems, is required.

The principal authors are indebted to the co-authors of certain sections:

The book could not have been written without the help of the Munich Network Management Team, a group of scientists at the University of Munich, the Technical University of Munich and the Leibniz computer centre, who have been heavily involved in this field in both theory and practice for many years.

More than 100 diploma students, numerous doctoral students, close cooperation with industrial companies and standardization authorities, together with international contacts with developers and researchers in the area of network and system management, have all contributed pieces to the fabric of the book. We should like to thank all those concerned for numerous fruitful discussions and valuable suggestions; we should also like to thank Frau Elke Michels for her careful typing of the (German) manuscript.

Neither should we omit to mention the great patience of our families and friends.

Heinz-Gerd Hegering
Sebastian Abeck
Munich
Back Top February 1994