A concept for hierarchical, decentralized management of the physical configuration in the Internet

One of the five functional areas of the OSI management framework is the configuration management In the Internet, the configuration management isn’t well developed and is usually restricted to the management of single components. Mainly, proposals for the standardized storage of the physical configuration of a network are lacking. By analysing the configuration information required, a Meta Management Information Base (Meta-MIB) is designed. The design follows the principles of simplicity, generality, orthogonality and compatibility. The Meta-MIB becomes the master data base for accessing the management information of the other functional areas. Several such Meta-MIBs can interoperate to describe large or worldwide Internets of hierarchical and even arbitrary structure. Finally, the prototype of a configuration management system using the Meta-MIB developed in the WILMA project is described.