Autonomic Networking: Fundamentals and Applications

By Fouad Sabry

What Is Autonomic Networking

The idea behind autonomous networking is similar to that of autonomous computing, which was initially introduced by IBM in 2001 as an initiative. The long-term objective is to design networks that are capable of managing themselves, which will enable the Internet and other networks to continue expanding well beyond their current scale in order to meet the challenges posed by the Internet's continuously increasing complexity.

How You Will Benefit

(I) Insights, and validations about the following topics:

Chapter 1: Autonomic networking

Chapter 2: Autonomic computing

Chapter 3: Simple Network Management Protocol

Chapter 4: Provisioning (technology)

Chapter 5: FCAPS

Chapter 6: Policy-based management

Chapter 7: Network Access Control

Chapter 8: Attribute-based access control

Chapter 9: Software-defined protection

Chapter 10: Information security

(II) Answering the public top questions about autonomic networking.

(III) Real world examples for the usage of autonomic networking in many fields.

(IV) 17 appendices to explain, briefly, 266 emerging technologies in each industry to have 360-degree full understanding of autonomic networking' technologies.

Who This Book Is For

Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information for any kind of autonomic networking.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Billion Knowledgeable
• Release date: Jul 4, 2023

Book preview

Chapter 1: Autonomic networking

The idea behind autonomous networking is similar to that of autonomous computing, which was initially introduced by IBM in 2001 as an initiative. Its ultimate goal is to create networks that are capable of self-management in order to combat the rapidly increasing complexity of the Internet and other networks, and to enable the expansion of these networks well beyond the size they are at present.

Some industry experts believe that the ever-increasing management complexity of the Internet, which is caused by its rapid growth, is a major problem that will limit its usability in the future.

In addition, devices such as smartphones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), audio and video equipment that is connected to the internet, and gaming consoles have to be interconnected. Not only does pervasive computing add new features, but it also loads the existing networking infrastructure with an increasing number of new tasks. Eventually, these new responsibilities will be too much for human intervention alone to handle.

The cost of manually controlling a large number of devices that are critically important in today's network infrastructures is another important factor to consider.

The portion of the nervous system in higher life forms that is not under the direct control of the conscious mind is referred to as the autonomic nervous system (ANS). It controls the activity of particular organs and the functions of the body as a whole. According to a suggestion made by IBM, the architecture of future communication systems might be modeled after that of the ANS.

Because the study of autonomics is conceptually derived from biological entities such as the autonomic nervous system of the human body, each of the subfields can be metaphorically related to the structural and functional components of a living being. The autonomic nervous system is responsible for facilitating and regulating a wide range of functions in the human body. These functions include breathing, blood pressure and circulation, and emotional response. The autonomic nervous system is the connecting fabric that supports feedback loops between internal states and various sources, which are used for monitoring both internal and external conditions.

The term autognostics refers to a variety of self-discovery, awareness, and analysis capabilities that give the autonomic system a perspective on its overall state at a high level. This is a metaphor for the perceptual subsystems that collect, analyze, and report on internal and external states and conditions. For instance, this could be interpreted as the system's eyes, visual cortex, and other perceptual organs. The autonomic nervous system is provided with a basis for response and validation by autognostics, which can also be translated as self-knowledge..

A sophisticated autognostic capability might involve the use of a wide variety of perceptual senses. For instance, the human body collects information through its traditional five senses, through the so-called sixth sense of proprioception (the sense of body position and orientation), and through emotional states that are representative of the overall health of the body. Sensory monitors are able to pick up on shifting conditions and states as they occur, which provides the foundation for related systems to adapt to new circumstances. It is possible to assign a relative value to any perceived state because such a system includes embedded models of both the internal and the external environments. For example, a perceived physical threat (such as a snake) can cause rapid shallow breathing related to the fight-or-flight response, which is a phylogenetically effective model of interaction with recognizable threats.

When autonomic networking is used, the state of the network may be determined by inputs from a variety of sources:

individual components of a network, such as switches and interfaces between networks, for example

specification and configuration

records from the past and the present situation

traffic flows

end-hosts

application performance data

logical diagrams and design specifications

The majority of these sources offer perspectives that are relatively unrefined and unprocessed and have little bearing on the topic at hand. Post-processing and numerous forms of analysis are required in order to generate meaningful measurements and evaluations, which are then used as a benchmark against which to derive the current state.

The autognostic system is designed to work in conjunction with:

management of configuration — to exercise authority over network components and interfaces

Policy management is the process of defining performance goals and limitations.

Autodefense is the process of recognizing threats and modifying one's behavior to counteract the effects of defensive measures.

The interaction with different network elements and interfaces is the responsibility of the configuration management system. It comes with an accounting capability that has a historical perspective and allows for the tracking of configurations over time, taking into account a variety of different circumstances. In terms of the biological analogy, these components represent the hands and, to a certain extent, the memory of the autonomic system.

Remediation and provisioning are carried out on a network by adjusting the configuration settings of individual devices. In addition, applications include implementations that affect access and selective performance with regard to role and relationship. This domain encompasses the vast majority of the actions that are currently being carried out by human engineers. Interfaces are, with very few notable exceptions, either set by hand or, alternatively, by an extension of the hand using automated scripts.

The maintenance of a dynamic population of devices under management, a historical record of changes, and the directives that invoked change are all necessary parts of the configuration process, and they are both implicit in the process. Configuration management, like many other accounting functions, should be able to operate on devices and then roll back changes to recover previous configurations. This is typical of accounting functions. The subsystem should be able to qualify the consequences of changes before they are issued if there is a possibility that the changes will lead to states that are not recoverable.

The shared language for change directives needs to be abstracted from the specifics of the devices that are involved because change directives must originate from other subsystems. Either the configuration management subsystem must be able to translate unambiguously between directives and hard actions or it must be able to signal the need for further detail on a directive. Both of these capabilities are required. It's possible that an inferential capacity would be useful for supporting sufficient flexibility (i.e. configuration never takes place because there is no unique one-to-one mapping between directive and configuration settings). In situations where standards are not adequate, a capacity for learning may also be necessary in order to acquire new knowledge of devices and the configurations they use.

The configuration management system communicates and collaborates with each and every one of the other subsystems, including:

autognostics is the process by which one obtains guidance and validation regarding changes.

management of policies is responsible for putting policy models into action by mapping to underlying resources.

security — the process of applying access and authorization constraints to specific policy targets

autodefense - is given instructions for making adjustments

Policy management encompasses a wide range of activities, including policy specification and deployment, as well as reasoning about policies, policy updating and maintenance, and policy enforcement. It is necessary to use policy-based management for:

putting limits on a variety of behaviors, including those pertaining to security, privacy, resource access, and collaboration

configuration management

defining performance standards and providing a description of business processes

establishing trust and a reputation, in addition to determining roles and relationships

It offers models