Managing Agent PlatformsManaging Agent Platformswith SNMPwith SNMP

Brian Remick

Research Proposal Defense

April 18, 2023

April 18, 2023 2

OverviewOverview

Motivation

Agent Management Requirements

Network Management

Research Overview

Architecture

Research Plan

Schedule and Questions

April 18, 2023 3

MotivationMotivation

Agent platforms are very complex.– Difficult to debug from a software perspective.

– Difficult to analyze from an administrator’s perspective.

No formal management specification.– FIPA leaves this up to the platform implementation.

– Thus, each implementation does it differently (if at all).

April 18, 2023 4

Basic RequirementsBasic Requirements

Create agents

Destroy agents

Move agents between containers

Change agent state

April 18, 2023 5

Advanced RequirementsAdvanced Requirements

Load balancing

Agent mobility

Communication pattern analysis

April 18, 2023 6

Load BalancingLoad Balancing

Agents can overload resources– System resources (CPU, memory)

– Programmatic resources (Slow data structures)

Identification of overloaded agents by:– Communication level

– Resource usage

– Response time

– Platform-specific knowledge

Management system should be able to:– Identify agents that are degrading system performance.

– React to achieve balance in the platform.» Redistribute agents.» Create more agents to handle load.

April 18, 2023 7

Agent MobilityAgent Mobility

Agents move between containers/platforms.

Management system must keep track of this.– Identify new agents arriving on platform.

– Follow agents to other platforms?

April 18, 2023 8

Communication PatternsCommunication Patterns

Provide framework for communication analysis.– Types of messages sent to/from an agent.

– Size

– Frequency

– Content

Administrator can use this information to analyze communication patterns.

– Identify agent defects through communication behavior.

– Closely related to load balancing.

April 18, 2023 9

Network ManagementNetwork Management

Basic Idea– Manage various resources of vastly different types.

– Scalable, Flexible

– Non-intrusive» As much as possible

Components of a network management system– Proxy “agents”

– Communication protocol (SNMP)

– Management system(s)

April 18, 2023 10

Network Management - OverviewNetwork Management - Overview

Proxy Agent Proxy Agent Proxy Agent

Database

Analysis / Threshold Monitors

Display / Graphs / Reports

Polling

(TCP)

Pol

ling

(TC

P)

Polling (TCP)

Management System

April 18, 2023 11

Proxy “Agents”Proxy “Agents”

Unfortunate terminology.– Related to autonomous agents but not the same.

Distributed pieces of software.

Act as representatives for network resources– Printers, routers, etc.

Implement a standard interface accessible through a protocol.

– Exposes attributes / functionality of resource.

Broadcast “traps” back to managers.

April 18, 2023 12

Protocol (SNMP)Protocol (SNMP)

A standard protocol is used to communicate between proxy agents and managers.

Flexibility is key.– Need to be able to facilitate interface for any resource.

Simple Network Management Protocol– One of the first.

– Industry standard.

April 18, 2023 13

Management SystemsManagement Systems

MIB Browsers– Provide simple access to proxy agent interface.

– Get / set values associated with resource.

Enterprise Management Systems– Sophisticated control over resources.

– Ability to set thresholds, gather temporal data, graphs, etc.

– Customizable: views of data, resource graphs

– Designed for more than strictly network management.

Examples– HP Openview

April 18, 2023 14

Network and Agent ManagementNetwork and Agent Management

Both solve similar problems– Distributed resources

– Overload conditions

– Crashes

– Management of varying types of resources

Use network management techniques in agent management domain

– Network management can be used to meet the requirements of agent management.

April 18, 2023 15

Research OverviewResearch Overview

Goal: Build an agent platform management system.– Based on network management techniques.

Details:– Needs to meet the requirements mentioned earlier.

– Using SNMP as the communication protocol.

Integrate with enterprise management system.– HP Openview

Demonstrate– Test the system with behaviorial patterns and simulations.

April 18, 2023 16

AssumptionsAssumptions

Based on FIPA specification– Provides a standard platform specification to work from.

– Research could lead to a proposal for the FIPA spec.

Implementation specific to Jade.– Basic framework will be more general.

Access to managed data is assumed.– Platform must allow access to necessary data.

April 18, 2023 17

ArchitectureArchitectureManagement Layer

CustomPlugin

Enterprise ManagementSystem

MIB Browser

SNMP LayerAgentX Master

Agent

Agent Platform Layer

SNMPSNMP

AMS

Agent 1 Agent 2 Agent 3 Agent N

ACLACL ACL

ACL

ProxyAgent

TCP/IP

Platform-SpecificCommunication

April 18, 2023 18

Agent Platform LayerAgent Platform Layer

Need to implement the “proxy agent” for the platform.– Implements a standard interface for agent management.

– Hides platform-specific details from the manager.

Implementation in Jade framework:– Actual FIPA-compliant agent living inside the platform.

– Allows accessibility to platform-specific information.

– Makes use of platform events / Introspection.

April 18, 2023 19

SNMP Layer (AgentX)SNMP Layer (AgentX)

Need to allow proxy agent and managers to communicate via SNMP.

AgentX– Framework that hides networking details of SNMP (UDP, etc.)

– Allows interface definition in SNMP without detailed knowledge of the underlying protocol.

– Focus more on effectiveness of interface than protocol itself.

Managers communicate with AgentX– Requests passed on to proxy agent via RPC.

– Proxy agent can send traps through AgentX to listening managers.

April 18, 2023 20

Management System LayerManagement System Layer

Interface with management systems.– MIB browser

– Enterprise system

Take advantage of enterprise customization– Customized views of containers

– Views of communication between agents

HP Openview– Event SDK

– GUI customizations

April 18, 2023 21

Research PlanResearch Plan

Interface definition in SNMP

Proxy agent implementation in Jade

Integration with AgentX framework

Management system integration– MIB browser

– Openview

Testing– Patterns of agent behavior

– Simulations

April 18, 2023 22

SummarySummary

System will be able to:– Perform basic management tasks.

– Detect overloaded agents and perform load balancing.

– Monitor communication between agents.

– Detect agent mobility.

Integrated with industry-standard management tools.– HP Openview

April 18, 2023 23

Schedule for CompletionSchedule for Completion

Task Completion Date Percent Complete

Proposal document 10/1/2001 95%

Proposal defense 10/29/2001  

Interface definition/MIB 11/10/2001 40%

Proxy agent implementation 11/20/2001 40%

AgentX integration 12/5/2001 30%

MIB browser integration 12/15/2001  

HP Openview plugin 1/20/2002  

Pattern implementation 2/1/2002  

Thesis document 3/1/2002  

Thesis defense 4/2002