An Adaptive Policy Based Framework for Network Management
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Department of Computing Imperial College London University of London An Adaptive Policy Based Framework for Network Management Leonidas A. Lymberopoulos A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Engineering of the University of London, and for the Diploma of the Imperial College London London, October 2004 Στους γονείς µου, Αντρέα και Γεωργία To my parents, Andreas and Georgia Abstract Policy-based management has emerged as a promising solution for the management of large-scale and heterogeneous networks. This approach has been adopted in several network management areas, such as in the areas of Quality of Service (QoS) and security management. However, although policy-based management has been the subject of considerable research, proposed solutions are often restricted to static condition-action rules where conditions determine when actions should be performed on the managed entities. The static policy configurations require manual intervention to cater for configuration changes and to enable policy deployment. However, changes in the system such as QoS violations, network failures or denial of service attacks in a secured network may require adaptation of existing policies to new circumstances. Thus, policies themselves need to be managed and adapted. Policies define management strategies for network devices, access control systems or internet services. However, little work has been done on validating whether the policies will lead to a feasible implementation for the specific environment to which they apply. Validation requires checking that the policy is consistent with the functional or resource constraints within the target environment. For example, one can check whether the policies assume functionality or specific operations, which do not exist in target devices, or bandwidth in excess of the capacity of data links. Where possible, static checking should be done prior to policy deployment in order to detect invalid policies at design time, but there are some policies, related to resource allocation, that depend on the current state of the system, and require constraints, specified within the policy rules themselves, that must be checked dynamically at execution time. This thesis introduces a novel framework to address the problems identified above. Our framework supports automated policy deployment and dynamic adaptation of policy in response to changes within the managed environment. It implements a flexible architecture where policy adaptation is specified and enforced by other policies, specified in the same Ponder policy notation. Policy adaptation includes both dynamically changing policy parameters and selecting which policies should be selected from a set of predefined ones to be enforced within the network. Furthermore, using the Common Information Model (CIM) as the modelling framework for managed entities, we provide solutions for validating policies with respect to the capabilities of the target network environment. 3 Acknowledgements First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor Morris Sloman for his constant support during my PhD studies. This thesis would certainly not have been completed without him. His technical guidance, helpful critique and belief in me, have been an endless source of motivation and support throughout my studies. I also feel gratitude to Morris for arranging my financial support and for his honest patience and tolerance. I also thank Dr. Emil Lupu for his precious guidance and critical observations. Our edifying discussions have helped me develop several research skills. Many thanks to my colleagues and academics at Imperial, Dr. Naranker Dulay, Dr. Dan Chalmers, Krish Krishnakumar and Arosha Bandara for providing a friendly and productive atmosphere. As for all the other members of Imperial College whom I may have forgotten to mention, thank you. I also thank my friends in London for making me feel at home: my best friend George Stephanopoulos, George Mournos, Yiannis Georgiadis, Nikos Damianou and Tyrone Grandison. Finally, I thank my parents Andreas and Georgia, to whom this thesis is dedicated, for their endless support during my stay in London. They gave me courage and the strength to never give up. I also thank my sister, Anna, and Alexandra for her encouragement and support. The work carried out in this thesis was partly funded by: • The UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) as part of the PONDS and the PolyNet (GR/R31409/01) research projects. • Cisco Systems as part of the Language Based Policy Specification, Analysis and Deployment for Large-scale Systems (Polyander) Project (http://www- dse.doc.ic.ac.uk/Projects/polyander/) 4 Contents Abstract.............................................................................................................................. 3 Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... 4 Contents ............................................................................................................................. 5 List of Figures.................................................................................................................... 7 List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... 9 List of Abbreviations ...................................................................................................... 10 Publications ..................................................................................................................... 11 1. Introduction.................................................................................................................12 1.1. Motivation ....................................................................................................... 13 1.2. Requirements................................................................................................... 16 1.3. Contribution..................................................................................................... 16 1.4. Structure .......................................................................................................... 18 2. Background and Related Work................................................................................. 19 2.1 Ponder Policy framework ....................................................................................... 19 2.2 Differentiated Services ........................................................................................... 23 2.2.1 Differentiated Services Architecture............................................................... 24 2.2.2 Management Protocols for Differentiated Services ........................................ 26 2.2.3 Differentiated Services support on Linux ....................................................... 28 2.3 Policy Based Network Management ..................................................................... 30 2.3.1 IETF Policy Workgroup.................................................................................. 30 2.3.2 Commercial Products ...................................................................................... 32 2.3.3 Other network management policy approaches .............................................. 34 2.3.4 Policy based frameworks for other management areas ................................. 38 2.4 Service Level Specification and Service Management .......................................... 40 2.5 QoS Adaptation ...................................................................................................... 43 2.6 Policy Adaptation ................................................................................................... 45 2.7 Policy Validation .................................................................................................... 47 3. Policy Based Configuration of Differentiated Services Networks .......................... 50 3.1 Policy Specification for Differentiated Services .................................................... 50 3.1.1 Policy rules for managing a set of devices...................................................... 53 3.1.2 Policy rules for implementing DiffServ Per Hop Behaviours......................... 54 3.2 Implementation of Policy Enforcement for DiffServ Routers................................ 57 3.3 Usage Example of Policy Enforcement for Linux Routers .................................... 63 3.4 Discussion............................................................................................................... 69 4. Policy Adaptation within the Ponder Framework ................................................... 71 4.1 Run-Time Modification of Policy Parameters........................................................ 72 4.2 Adaptation by Dynamically Selecting and Enabling Policies from a Set of Policies ...................................................................................................................................... 73 5 4.3 Enforcement architecture........................................................................................ 75 4.4 Adaptive Management of Differentiated Services Networks................................. 76 4.5 Implementation of a Prototype Adaptive Management System ............................. 82 4.6 Discussion..............................................................................................................