Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

The management of computer networks is an increasingly complex and error-prone task. On the one hand, the equipments that form a network must behave as a group; however, on the other hand, each of these equipments is managed and configured individually. In that context, network operators such as Ericsson are faced with a common issue: how can they be assured that a service installed on a client's network works correctly, or that the network itself is exempt from faults of any kind?The proposed project attempts to address this problem. More precisely, it aims at the research and development of an integrated tool, called a Configuration Management and Reasoning Engine, to assist managers and engineers in their task of configuring and troubleshooting network systems. In particular, the CMRE is aimed at the semi-automated discovery of faults in a system that result from one or many configuration parameters in the system's devices being set to inappropriate values. In time, the project's deliverable could prove a crucial tool in managing the increasing complexity of network configurations, thereby reducing the occurrences of faults and improving the overall quality of a provider's network.