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From: J.Crowcroft@CS.UCL.AC.UK (Jon Crowcroft)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: 9 interesting & challenging problems for Netman
Message-ID: <9009210641.AA20321@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 20 Sep 90 08:20:41 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 46


Here are what we consider to be 9 interesting & challenging problems for 
network management (these are based on
real requirements, not tedious exhaustive MIB definitions):

1. given the trace of packets between two end points on a LAN, 
and a FSM, petri net, lotos/csp/ccs/Estelle spec for the protocol, 
detect protocol (elements of procedure) errors. (easier, do the same 
given ASN or XDR for packet formats:-)

2. Given same data, automatically ascribe performance problems 
to incorrect packet size, timeout, window etc...

3. given a traffic matrixfor a LAN, automatically find the best place
to partitionm the net with a bridge/switch/router (subject to any
sensible topographical/logical or other constraints).

4. Find a good way to visualise the "closeness" of hosts based on the
frequency with which they communicate (this is non-trivial)

5. Automatically draw a "tube" map (friendly/Metro) of the net given 
the topography...

6. Given a general traffic trace, detect patterns of communication
involving more than 2 parties (e.g. YP or DNS lookup followed by
telnet is triv. case).

7. Interpret auto-correllation between packets from/to and/or
same src/dst in a sensible fashion...

8. Given a trace of packets between 2 protocol entities at layer 4,
invent a pleasant and efficient programming language to describe &
enable the reconstruction of application level exchanges.

9. Do all of the above for an Internet.


--------
I am sure there are more - if any of these are covered by any of the
public domain management tools accumulated by IETF i'd be verra
interested

thanks


jon