UNIFIED MODEL BASED THREE DIMENSIONAL TOOL FOR

MANAGING COMPUTER NETWORKS

Meva Dodo, Patrice Torguet, Michelle Sibilla, Jean Pierre Jessel

Institut de Recherche en Informatique de Toulouse (IRIT), Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France

Keywords: 3D Visualization, Computer network management, Common Information Model.

Abstract: Computer network management is a field where several researches have been done and many tools created.

The last decades have seen the appearance of a new generation of management tools introducing a new

approach based on graphical visualization enabling the users to explore visually a complete system. The

main objective of the graphical visualization is to facilitate the different tasks of the administrators. This is

particularly important when the system is becoming complex due to the growth of information flow, the

heterogeneity of devices and environments or applications that handle this information. In this perspective

this research is led with as a goal to study the benefit of the use of 3D graphical representation combined

with an object-oriented information model (CIM - Common Information Model - proposed by the industrial

consortium DMTF - Distributed Management Task Force). Through this research we have particularly

focused on the necessary requirements to offer a high quality of visualization and the ways or languages

allowing the modelling of all resources present in a complex computer network.

1 INTRODUCTION

The heterogeneity of devices increases inevitably the

complexity of computer systems and particularly

networked computer systems. That implies an

increase of complexity of system administrator’s

tasks. Many tools are proposed to the users by

industries and research laboratories which main goal

is to minimize the effort needed to understand a

complex system in order to fully focus on improving

the overall performance or solve problems. To fulfil

this goal the researches have been directed towards

the use of graphical representations that allow easier

human understanding of complex systems. As an

example field, the techniques used for network

visualization may be classified in two groups: those

that use a node-link paradigm and the virtual worlds

based techniques. The main advantage of using a

node-link diagram to represent network structures is

that a person can directly see the relationships that

are drawn as a set of graphical edges appearing in

the diagram. This makes easier for the process of

human perception to understand the relational

structures of information. 2D and 3D representations

are the two well-known techniques using this

paradigm. A new technique used to visualize

networks is based on virtual worlds. Its main benefit

is that it enables to create a visual metaphor and use

novel devices to provide a natural and intuitive form

of navigation and interaction with the data.

However these tools will never be effective if

there are no ways or languages for gathering and

modelling all the system resources to be managed. In

this work we have chosen to use the CIM object-

oriented information model. The main motivation of

the industrial consortium DMTF (DMTF, 2005) in

providing this model was to solve the problem of the

heterogeneity of different devices and environments

forming a complex system by facilitating the

integration of applications and entire systems

developed by different vendors. We think that this

object-oriented model can also benefit a lot the

understanding of the system complexity if it is

associated with a good graphical visualization.

2 RELATED WORK

2.1 Node-Link Representation

The traditional method used in network visualization

is the use of a 2D graphical representation combined

with a network management protocol (Hewlett-

Packard, 2005) (Gus Estrella, 2005) (Bradley

256

Dodo M., Torguet P., Sibilla M. and Pierre Jessel J. (2006).

UNIFIED MODEL BASED THREE DIMENSIONAL TOOL FOR MANAGING COMPUTER NETWORKS.

In Proceedings of WEBIST 2006 - Second International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies - Internet Technology / Web

Interface and Applications, pages 256-263

DOI: 10.5220/0001251302560263

 SciTePress

Huffaker, 2005). The principal shortcoming of these

tools resides in their inability to generate an accurate

picture of the resource’s information specifically

when the system is getting too complex. Many

techniques have been used to reduce this limitation,

for example the use of animation (Deborah Estrin et

al., 2005), the optimisation of display space use

(Nguyen and Huang, 2005)…

3D visualization eliminates increasingly many of

the restrictive issues found in 2D representation

techniques such as display clutter and device

overlap. The main advantage of the 3D graphical

representation is this easiness to provide a tool

offering a high quality of visualization according to

Schneiderman’s precept “The Visual Information

Seeking Mantra is: Overview first, zoom and filter,

then details-on-demand” (Le Grand and Michel

Soto, 1999).

Among the tools using a 3D graphical

representation, UNIVIT (UNiversal Interactive

VIsualization Tool) (Le Grand and Michel Soto,

1999) is one of the most innovative systems in term

of ideas for offering a good visualization. It allows

visualising any kind of hierarchical data that can be

described with the XML format.

Another popular tool based on 3D visualization

is CyberNet (Abel et al., 1999) which main feature is

its ability to collect data and visualize large amount

of dynamical information. The collected information

is structured and mapped on visual parameters

(shape, colour, size, location...) of 3D objects in

order to build a dynamical metaphoric world where

the user may navigate and interact.

Both the above mentioned tools have a common

characteristic: they only display information

structured hierarchically. In comparison to the two

precedent tools, PatrolVisualis (BMC, 2005) offers

different sorts of 3D visualization, such as graphs

and trees. Its other main feature is the use of natural

metaphors for device representation.

Designed for network performance visualization,

Cichlid (Brown et al., 2000) supports two types of

view: 3D bar charts used for displaying numeric

quantities, and vertex/edge graphs for representing

network topologies in three dimensions. Although it

does not use natural metaphors for the devices

representations, the main advantage of Cichlid is its

capability to offer 3D representations of the

performance measures via different types of

diagrams such as packet length distribution, traffic

volume by address block…

3D graphical representations have proved that

they can adequately eliminate the limitations

associated with 2D visualization systems, but like

most systems they have their own glitches. A

possible drawback is the choice of metaphor used to

represent the different devices that sometimes does

not reflect the real form of an element, or the

additional charge for 3D rendering.

2.2 Virtual Worlds

The emergence of multimedia technologies such as

video conferencing and streams-based applications

has increased the hugeness of information

throughout the network. Due to that, the network

management tasks exceed the capability of a single

administrator and need new tools minimizing the

necessary effort to understand a complex system.

Virtual worlds offer new solutions to the limitations

found in existing network visualization tools. By

providing an interactive three dimensional

environment in which several users can move

around and interact, the virtual world techniques

greatly enhance the network manager’s

understanding.

Based on the CoRgi (Schmidt, 1999) virtual

reality toolkit, a study was done using a landscape

metaphor as a visual representation for network

visualization. The network is totally converted to a

natural landscape where mountains and trees

represent respectively network switching equipment

and computers. An interesting characteristic of this

environment is the use of thunder 3D sounds

associated with a trouble indicating the source of

network errors.

Flatland (Fisk et al., 2003) is an environment

designed to monitor traffic at an administrative

boundary between the Internet and an internal

network. Using the concept of territory, the internal

address space of the network is mapped into a

circular region while the external address space, the

Internet at large, is mapped into a hemispherical

region. The two regions are separated by a shield

that represents the administrative boundary, the

firewall. The colour of rays connecting an

originating host to the destination host through the

shield indicates the state of intrusions.

In order to provide a way to control high-speed

computer networks, VENoM (Virtual Environment

for Network Monitoring) (Cubeta et al., 1998) has

been developed as a suite of models and applications

based upon collaborative virtual worlds. It was

designed specifically to visualize large ATM

(Asynchronous Transfer Mode) optical fibre, wide

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257

area networks. The environment includes physical

room layouts, system resource abstractions, real-

time, and system-specific information. It also allows

multiple network administrators to collaborate in the

same virtual world regardless of the person’s

physical location. The administrators are represented

by virtual humans. Similarly all resources are

represented by virtual objects which look like them.

In the next section, we talk about the necessary

requirement in having a standard model for

management system. Indeed, in the management

system, all resources should be modelled uniformly

in order to make their exploitation easier (CIM,

2000).

3 A STANDARDIZED MODEL

REQUIREMENT

3.1 Discussion

As mentioned above, managing complex network is

always a great challenge due not only to the growth

of information throughout the system but

specifically to the variety of technology used in each

resource that handles this information. Sometimes

each product defines its management data in

different ways by creating its own semantics,

terminology, data structures and protocols. In an

attempt to address those issues DMTF (WBEM,

2005) proposes an object-oriented model, CIM,

which goal is to provide a common way to represent

the computing and networking elements and the

relationships between them.

3.2 CIM Model Advantages

Originally CIM was developed to support the

integration of multi-vendor applications into Energy

Management System (EMS). By combining the most

powerful concepts from relational databases, such as

normalization and views, with the most powerful

concepts from object-oriented analysis, such as

generalization, aggregation, and design patterns,

CIM supports the integration of a wide range of

utility systems and applications (Podmore et al.,

1999). Extensions have been made to handle

computer and communication networks.

Through the CIM concept, DMTF proposes a set

of grammars carrying:

- Structural concepts derived from the object

paradigm: schema, class, property, method,

association (seen as a specialisation of the

class concept) and reference (seen as a

specialisation of the property concept).

- New specific concepts (qualifier, trigger,

indication) expressing constraints and/or

meta-information on the structural

concepts, and the dynamic of modelled

elements.

Using those grammars, a modelling approach with

three levels of abstraction is proposed: the “Core

Model” introducing high level abstract classes

allowing organizing the managed elements into

physical and logical elements; the “Common

Model” that is the extension of the “Core Model” to

the following domains: system, application,

network, physical equipment and functional

equipment; and the “Extension Model”: specialises

the “Common Model” to the technology domains

relating to the implementation of the managed

resources. Extension Models are defined by

individual companies or organizations, but not by

the DMTF. From all elements defined in this meta-

model will be modelled the different resources to be

managed (CIM, 2000). Figure 1 shows the basic

elements of CIM model.

Towards the three levels of abstraction, CIM

provides a common definition of management

information for systems, networks, applications and

services, and allows for vendor extensions. Within

CIM schema all classes modelling managed

elements are derived from the ManagedElement

class which is an abstract class. It is in the Core

Model. One of its subclass is the

ManagedSystemElement class. This class is the base

class for the system element hierarchy. It represents

systems (computers, networks, storage libraries and

application systems); the software that runs on them,

the functionality provided by them and abstractions

of the hardware that composes them.

CIM_Dependency and CIM_Component are two

classes abstracting the relationships between

managed elements.

This concept is specifically important because it

allows to understand well how the different elements

are interconnected and how they are hierarchically

organised. Another important class is

CIM_Indication. It abstracts all events that can

change the system’s behaviour. Using this class it is

possible to associate an action to be carried out when

an event is received by an object.

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Figure 1: Basic elements of the CIM model.

4 OUR 3D VISUALIZATION

APPROACH

From advantages offered by traditional tools and the

powerfulness of virtual world techniques we propose

through this paper a three dimensional tool to

enhance the user’s understanding of complex

network system. The aim of this study consists in

offering complex network administrators an

environment allowing them to perform effectively

their tasks. To fulfil this goal the future application

should provide a high quality of visualization

following the Schneiderman’s precept. For this,

seven high level tasks should be supported (Wiss et

al., 1998): Overview- Gain an overview of the entire

collection of data that is represented; Zoom- Zoom

in on items of interest; Filter- Filter out

uninteresting items; Details-on-demand- Select an

item or group and get details when needed; Relate-

View relationships among items; History- Keep a

history of actions to support undo, replay, and

progressive refinement; Extract- Allow extraction

of sub-collections and of query parameters.

Thus, complex network management may be

facilitated by the use of 3D visualization techniques

if some measures of representation and navigation

are satisfied. Le Grand (Le Grand and Michel Soto,

1999) expresses the Schneiderman’s precept in term

of quality of representation and quality of

navigation. The quality of representation implies that

a global view should be offered so that the users can

identify the main interest in the system before

deciding where to begin the navigation. Throughout

this process the user should be able to explore some

parts of the system and gather information details

according to his/her demand. On the other hand, the

quality of navigation is expressed by the need to

allow users to explore the system and to access the

data. The effectiveness of the navigation system may

be measured by its capability to allow the user to

answer three questions: “Where am I?”, “Where

have I been?” and “Where can I go?” (Mayer, 1999)

The first question refers to orientation that is

inseparable to the navigation process because it sets

up a prerequisite to decide where to begin the

navigation. And the two last questions resume the

major problems of users during complex system

exploration.

We also underline the importance of

metaphorical choice that is not included into the

information visualization’s Mantra. Indeed (Abel et

al., 1999) “the metaphors provide ways of

introducing concepts to users with the aid of

analogies with familiar real-objects”. Thus, using

metaphors that the user is already familiar with can

enhance legibility of information. Tsygae (Tsegaye,

2003) studied the contribution of metaphor in the

network visualization process and concluded that an

appropriate form and model set up a first way in

system understanding. Nakakoji et al. (Nakakoji,

2001) remark that the 3D representations should not

be used abusively in order to avoid people

misinterpreting information or obscuring the focus

of the information. Indeed, it is important to

understand when, and how should complex

visualization be used to help people in order to

understand and to explore the information easily and

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259

accurately. Therefore in our application, all managed

resources will be represented with natural 3D

shapes.

4.1 Visualization System and

Metaphors

As complex systems may not be only structured

hierarchically, a graph representation will be

effective to represent how different devices are

interconnected. This type of visual representation is

particularly important to visualize for example an

overview of a server farm. The tree representation is

used to show how a domain or equipment is

composed of individual elements. Even though the

tool we are building will allow visualizing any type

of complex system, the first prototype is simpler.

We currently offer a 3D standard object forms used

to represent computer network (computers, switches,

printers…). Then another tool will soon be added

allowing the user to choose the colour and the

geometry of each object to be displayed according to

the system to be managed. The example in figure

2(a) shows association relationships are represented

by interconnections between 3D objects. Each link is

an instance of the CIM_Dependency class. They are

modelled by a cylinder which width and colour may

be changed to indicate the data flow between two

elements or simply the status of the connexion.

The button labelled “GlobalBehavior” allows the

user to move the scene entirely. After clicking this

button, one can translate, rotate or zoom the scene to

find interesting views. While the “SimpleBehavior”

button is used to move independently the objects.

This allows the user a full control of the display. In

fact, one of our goals consists in offering the user an

environment where he/she can adapt the presentation

following his/her needs.

The hierarchical composition of equipment or a

domain is displayed as shown in the figure 2(b).

This is very important because it enables the user to

understand how a large domain is set up or of what

specific equipment it is composed. The links used in

this figure are instances of the CIM_Component

class.

4.2 Navigation and Interaction

Using the Java3D API, we have taken advantage of

several of the features it offers to create a good

navigation. Zooming is used to allow users to

explore the detail or the context of the system. The

left mouse button allows rotating an object or an

entire scene. To avoid a possible clutter of the

display and to provide the user a full control of the

scene the right mouse button is used to move an

object and thus rearrange the disposition in order to

have a better presentation. By clicking an object

with the middle mouse button, a “popup menu”

appears. This menu allows the users to have details

about the clicked object such as: its description, the

objects with which it is associated and its

substructure (i.e. what it is composed of). For

example, from the submenu description one can

have a window describing the object. This is a

textual description of the object (for instance its

location in a WAN, LAN, or the devices that it is

composed of, or other parameters).

Figure 2: 3D display relationships (a) and composition relationships (b).

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5 SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE

Figure 3 shows an overview of our system. The 3D

visualization application communicates with a

complex system which deals with all the

management information.

The collection and the organisation of

information are not the main interest of our study;

however we think that it is always good to give a

brief explanation of the management system. In fact

it is based on WBEM (Web-Based Enterprise

Management) architecture proposed by DMTF. This

architecture consists of the Object Manager (OM)

and Object Provider (OP) notions.

An Object Manager is an application responsible

of one or more management domains that may be

functional (ex: security) or structural (ex: computer

or satellite component). In the WBEM architecture,

an Object Manager is implemented by a

management database called a MIB (Management

Information Base). All information of resources to

be managed is stored in the MIB described using

CIM model.

An Object Provider is a manager entity

responsible of the integration with a specific

environment. This environment may be an

environment to be managed (ex: UNIX, Windows),

a management environment (ex: SNMP) or any type

of environment. For each type of environment an

Object Provider will be necessary. The Object

Provider assumes an important role by providing a

homogenous view of heterogeneous environments to

be managed. The Object Providers act as gateways

between the management system representing OMs

and the real managed world (WBEM integration

viewpoint).

So in order to be managed, a node must

communicate with an object provider (e.g. through

SNMP) that pushes all management information to

an object manager responsible of its domain.

3D Visualisation

Object Manager

Object

rovider

Object Manager

Object manager

Software bus

Object manager Object manager

Object

rovider

Object

rovider

Object

rovider

Managed

objects

SUMO

Platform

Figure 3: Software architecture of our system.

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261

5.1 Implementation

To ensure portability and durability of solutions, all

components of the system are developed in Java. All

3D components are created with Java3D. The user

interface application communicates with the object

managers using CORBA.

When the network becomes complex, it may not

be easy for one administrator to ensure efficiently all

tasks. Therefore we plan to modify our system so

that two or more users can collaborate in order to

manage network.

Actually, the visualization application runs on a

laptop with a 1.8Gh processor. The graphic card is

an X200 series ATI. But the only requirement of our

application is an OpenGL or DirectX supported

card. As most current graphic cards support DirectX

this is not a big requirement.

6 CONCLUSION AND FUTURE

WORK

Managing complex systems is always a great

challenge and the technology progress makes this

task more complex. We can see through the many

tools currently in use that their usefulness depends

not only on the visualization quality, but also and

mostly on their capability to model all resources to

be managed. Another important remark in creating

an effective visualization is that the metaphors

should not be chosen abusively in order to avoid

small interpretation problems or a possible complete

misunderstanding of the system. The connections

between the data must also be shown in order to

facilitate the understanding process because they

reflect the relational structures of the managed

resources.

We have developed a tool allowing users to

explore, in 3D, objects and their dependency

relationships. Instead of developing and

implementing new platform we have coupled our

tool with CAMELEON, a CORBA/java/CIM based

management system (SUMO, 2005). In order to let

users select and display interesting data or events the

tool will soon be associated with a query system

(using CQL – CIM Query Language). Another goal

is to refine the semantic aspects with views

customisation.

In the future, the CIM_Indication class will be

exploited for system diagnostic. For example, we

plan to add 3D sounds that will attract the user’s

attention to a problematic event (errors, faults,

power downs…). Moreover, as Java3D loads a lot of

3D files, our tool will easily be modified to include

environmental models such as buildings. This will

allow the user to see the real location of the faulty

element.

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