Distributed control of performance management traffic with accuracy objectives

One of the important functions of a network management system (NMS) is performance management (PM). PM deals with collecting statistical information to track the effectiveness and utilization of the network and network elements (NE). While this may be done offl ine, it is often necessary to monitor the network statistics online in real time. The aim of real-time monitoring is to achieve high accuracy of the statistics while minimizing the use of scarce network bandwidth. The accuracy objective can vary depending on the priority and dynamic severity state of the NE. We defi ne cost, which needs to be optimized, as a function of network traffi c and achieved accuracy. Based on the cost, a comparison of push and pull data collection alternatives is done. We have developed a push-based distributed data collection system that tunes the accuracy objectives, based on the network traffi c and the dynamic severity state of the NE. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.