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Java in the management sphere, Part 1

A historical look at Java's emerging role in the changing system and network management

By Max Goff, JavaWorld.com, 10/20/99

Understanding the Java platform and its relation to the problem space of system and network management applications on the Internet is a little like trying to understand the nature of the Web itself. There are no edges, no linear models, no apparently singular, limited set of protocols and APIs that you can neatly stack up, reference, and understand. Movement through the jungle of management technologies is an intricate and complex journey, fraught with peril for the uninitiated. But you cannot underestimate the importance of network resource management, not with Internet usage (now approaching 200 million users worldwide) growing almost as fast as such underlying technology drivers as runaway ecommerce and embedded systems growth. The challenge and the opportunity in this problem space represent fertile ground for the ambitious Java developer as well as the budding Javapreneur.

To understand the relationship of the Java platform to the management space, a bit of history is in order. We will spend most of our time in this, the first installment of our series, laying contextual groundwork -- defining the management space, acknowledging its history and legacy, and setting the stage for Java's entrance into it.

Management and the Internet

Though the Internet started as a research project funded by the US Department of Defense (DOD) in 1972, it was effectively born in its more modern incarnation in 1983, when TCP/IP replaced ARPANET at the DOD.

Given the proliferation of technologies based on Internet-related standards (TCP/IP, HTTP, HTML, CGI, and of course, Java, to name a few), it stands to reason that management software will be involved somewhere in the cycle of any given device's life. From design to manufacturing, distribution to tracking, connection and configuration to repair and recycling, management software of some kind will be employed.

What is management?

What, strictly speaking, is meant by the phrase management software? While some applications might have obvious management functionality, such as the ability to react to a fault on an arbitrary network node, other applications might not. Based on traditional approaches, and, consequently, the capabilities expressed by existing or legacy infrastructures, we can define the high-level functional areas for system and network management:

• Configuration management: Inventory, configuration, and provisioning
• Fault management: Reactive and proactive network fault management
• Performance management: Number of packets dropped, timeouts, collisions, CRC errors
• Security management: Not traditionally covered by SNMP
• Accounting management: Cost management and charge-back assessment
• Asset management: Equipment, facility, and administration personnel statistics
• Planning management: Trend analysis to help justify a network upgrade or bandwidth increase

Management applications built since the adoption of TCP/IP have tended to add value to a network in one or more of these areas. Noticeably absent from this functional list is the general area of storage management. And while storage management does deserve mention, for the purposes of this discussion, I'll avoid much detail in that particular space. Arguably, storage management is a proper subset of the management space; in order to solve the problems inherent in a storage area network, you must provide and utilize much of a generic management infrastructure. But, until I cover Jiro in a future installment, storage will be treated separately.

 

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