Delegated agents for network management

Current network management depends on centralized monitoring, analysis, and control by operations staff who must manipulate detailed and often obscure element instrumentation. This complex and labor-intensive management paradigm has been stretched to its limits by the scale and complexity of emerging networks. This article describes the use of delegated agents to distribute and automate management functions. With delegated agents, management intelligence can be dynamically embedded in elements and domains so that networked systems can be programmed to be self-managed.