Reliable Distributed Network Management by Replication

This paper presents a new clustering architecture for SNMP agents that supports semi-active replication of managed objects. A cluster of agents provides fault-tolerant object functionality: replicated managed objects of a crashed agent of a given cluster may be accessed through a peer cluster. The proposed architecture is structured in three layers. The lower layer corresponds to the managed objects at the network elements. The middle layer contains management entities called clusters that monitor and replicate managed objects. The upper layer allows the definition of management clusters as well as the relationship between clusters. A practical tool was implemented and is presented. The impact of replication on network performance is evaluated as well as a probabilistic analysis of replicated object consistency.