Software agents in network management

The globalisation of Internet technology had a strong impact on technology price and availability, which resulted in the emerging of more opportunities and more services in distance learning, electronic commerce, multimedia and many others. From the user perspective, there is a need for more comprehensive interfaces. From the network perspective, the introduction of QoS and the upcoming of new and more complex services led to additional bandwidth and management requirements. The amount of management information produced by applications, workstations, servers and all kind of network components is increasingly hard to process. All this information can be filtered by an intelligent network management system, capable of proactive management. This paper intents to highlight the role of newer paradigms, such as Software Agents, in Network Management frameworks. The use of intelligent programs that substitutes the user in boring, repetitive or information intensive tasks can help in the resolution of problems such as congestion, reliability, real-time response and many others.