Introducing Automated Reasoning in Network Management

This paper proposes the adoption of Artificial Intelligence techniques in the field of network management and moni toring. In order to allow automated reasoning on network ing topics, we constructed an accurate ontological model capable of fitting as more as possible networking concepts. The thoroughly representation of the domain knowledge is used by a Logical Reasoner, which is an expert system ca pable of performing management tasks typically executed by human experts. The Logical Reasoner is integrated in a distributed multi-agent architecture for network manage ment, which exploits the dynamic reasoning capabilities of the Situation Calculus formalism to provide a powerful sys tem capable of performing high-level management tasks in order to deal with network fault situations. The system ex ploits programmable network technology to make possible the deployment of code which implements teleo-reactive agents, distributed across the whole network. The informa tion related to network events, generated by programmable sensors deployed on the network devices, is collected by the logical entity where it is merged with general domain knowledge, with a view to identifying the root causes of faults, and to decide on reparative actions.