A study of encoding overhead in network management protocols

Abstract

Next-Generation Network (NGN) is a critical scenario in terms of network management because of its network dimension, its number of users and its heterogeneity. Since the introduction of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) at the beginning of the 1990s, much effort has been devoted to the development of new network management technologies. Both the Desktop Management Task Force (DMTF) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) have developed different network and system management protocols, such as Common Open Policy Service, Web-Based Enterprise Management, Network Configuration and even adapted other protocols, such as Diameter and Web Services. A network management technology with poor scalability could compromise NGN management and ultimately NGN network behaviour. This paper analyses the network overhead of several management technologies developed by the DMTF and IETF, and goes on to compare their results with the usage of SNMP. Furthermore, some deployment recommendations are proposed for performance optimization in NGNs. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.