On service-oriented network measurement architecture with mobile agent

Interoperability and adaptability are two major problems that embarrass network measurement practices today on how to finely integrate heterogeneous measurement systems and functionalities. This paper proposes a service-oriented approach based on Web Service for building integrated network measurement architecture that's scalable and adaptable for change. Measurement functionalities are wrapped in Web Service that can be described in WSDL, discovered by UDDI and accessed through SOAP openly. Mobile Agent, as an autonomous entity, is employed to implement the global control of network measurement, which migrates from site to site calling these Web Services to perform the measurements and returns with the data collected from them. This approach de-couples network measurement control and supporting network measurement functionalities thus introduces flexibilities into the implementation of both sides. The architecture promised by this approach allows not only fast deployment of network measurement functionalities but also simple introduction of measurement control policies.