RESEARCH ON A FRAMEWORK FOR LOCAL NETWORK RESOURCE ACCOUNTING

IN THE MUSHROOMING POPULATION OF UNIVERSITIES, COLLEGES, AND BUSINESSES JOINING THE NSFNET, HETEROGENEOUS, MULTI-VENDOR LOCAL NETWORKS ARE THE NORM. IN LAN MANAGEMENTLITTLE ATTENTION HAS BEEN PAID TO CAPACITY PLANNING, RESOURCE ACCOUNTING AND COST RECOVERY ON MULTI-PROTOCOL NETWORKS. WHILE THIS PROBLEM IS REASONABLY WELL-DEFINED (AND SOLVED) IN TELEPHONY AND BATCH-COMPUTING, IN THE CASE OF LANS THERE ARE MORE COMPLEX TECHNICAL AND ECONOMIC ISSUES. WE REQUEST FUNDING FROM THE NSF TO DEVELOP A PRACTICAL SOLUTION IN THE AREA OF LOCAL NETWORK RESOURCE ACCOUNTING. WE PROPOSE TO DESIGN AND BUILD A DISTRIBUTED, PROGRAMMABLE TRAFFIC/RESOURCE ACCOUNTING MONITOR FOR THE IEEE 802 FAMILY OF LANS. OUR PROPOSAL DIFFERS FROM CURRENT WORK IN THAT 1) WE WILL BE DECODING PACKETS AT A HIGHER LEVEL IN THE ISO MODEL (LEVEL-4 AND ABOVE); 2) OUR DESIGNS ARE FUNDAMENTALLY GEARED TO MULTI-PROTOCOL NETWORKS; 3) OUR ARCHITECTURE WILL BE EXTENSIBLE TO HIGHSPEED, FIBER-BASED LANS; AND 4) THE SYSTEM WILL BE FLEXIBLE TO ACCOMODATE DIFFERING ADMINSTRATIVE/ACCOUNTING GOALS OF DIVERSE ORGANIZATIONS. THE RESEARCH OBJECTIVES OF THIS PROPOSAL ARE CONCERNED WITH THE DETAILED MODELLING OF TASK AND SUBSEQUENT DESIGN OF A LOW-COST PLATFORM FOR NETWORK ACCOUNTING.