Application of Mobile Agent in Distributed Network Management

Current management models based on client/server suffer from scalability and flexibility problems. Furthermore, the staleness of gathered data (due to network latency involved) and probable error in the selection of management task being carried over (owing to the staleness of data) reduces the reliability of the management applications. In this sense, use of mobile agents offer many possibilities for designing the next generation of distributed network management systems by reducing the management traffic around the management station and distribute processing load.. This paper discusses various mobile agent based network management models, the key advantages of mobile agents in the distributed network management systems and presents a mathematical model for the purpose of comparing client/server vs. mobile agent paradigms in terms of responsiveness and traffic generated around management station.