Agent for communication between a manager and at least one resource, and tool library for creating the agent

• US 20040064527A1
• Filed: 04/22/2003
• Published: 04/01/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/1998
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Magnolia Licensing LLC (IP Edge LLC)
• Original Assignee: Gerald Sedrati, Jean Brunet
• Inventors: Brunet, Jean, Sedrati, Gerald
• Granted Patent: US 7,562,126 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/218
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0213 Standardised network management protocols, e.g. simple network management protocol [SNMP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/046 comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor

Abstract

The agent for communication between a manager (20) and at least one resource (30) comprises a protocol core (111) created automatically from a formalized description of the resource (30), this core (111), once created, comprising in compiled form an interface (14) for communication with the manager (20) and a model (11) of the resource (30) comprising the values of the instances of the resource (30), these values being accessible by the administrator (20) through the communication interface (14).

Claims

1. Agent for communication between a manager (20) and at least one resource (30) of a data processing system, characterized in that it comprises a protocol core (111) created automatically from a formalized description of the resource (30), this core (111), once created, comprising in compiled form a first interface (14) for communicating with the manager (20) and a model (11) of the resource (30) comprising the values of the instances of the resource (30), these values being accessible by the manager (20) through the first communication interface (14).

2. Agent according to claim 1, characterized in that it comprises, in a second interface (13), at least one method (12) of access to the resource (30) for communicating with the protocol core (111) and updating and/or reading at least one value of an instance of the model (11) of the resource specific to the method (12), and for responding to requests from the core (111) related to the updating of at least one instance value of the model of the resource.

3. Agent according to claim 2, characterized in that, the resource being modeled in the form of attributes, access to each attribute managed by the agent can be obtained in either a “

direct”

mode or a “

signal”

mode, defined in a configuration file (<

agt.confget>

).

4. Agent according to claim 3, characterized in that when the access method uses sockets interface primitives, the configuration file includes an identifier of the method that is associated with the instance.

5. Agent according to any of claims 1 through 4, characterized in that the formalized description of the resource is in the form of an MIB (management information base), and the model (11) of the resource comprises a sorted database constructed from the formalized description of the resource.

6. Agent according to any of claims 1 through 5, characterized in that the protocol core (111) includes a compiled file containing sorted data (115) for the management of the objects specific to its operation.

7. Agent according to any of claims 1 through 6, characterized in that the communication between the manager and the protocol core takes place in accordance with the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) ASN1 (Abstract Syntax Notation One), by means of verbs that allow the operations for reading an instance (GET), for reading the next instance (GET-NEXT) and for modifying an instance (SET).

8. Agent according to any of claims 1 through 7, characterized in that when the manager (20) sends, in the same request, an operation for a modification (SET) on a list of instances, the core (111) transmits instance modification messages (SET) one by one to the methods (12) corresponding to each instance, the last message for modifying the last instance being transmitted by a modification message (SETLAST) indicating that it is the last instance in the list;

as long as the method (12) has not received the last message from the core (111), the modifications of the instances are stored without being validated, and as soon as the last message (SETLAST) is received by the method (12), if all the modifications of the instances are possible, they are all validated, whereas if not, they are all cancelled.

9. Agent according to any of claims 2 through 8, characterized in that the communication between the method (12) and the core (111) takes place through online TCP/IP communication software.

10. Agent according to any of claims 2 through 9, characterized in that the communication between the protocol core (111) and at least one method (12) of access to the resources (30) in the “

sockets”

mode takes place through two TCP/IP connection processes that communicate through sockets executable primitives, making it possible to perform the operations for reading the value of an instance (readInstSock), for modifying an instance (writeInstSock), for reading the next instance (readNextSock), for writing a new instance, and for deleting an instance.

11. Agent according to any of claims 2 through 10, characterized in that the communication between two methods (12) of access to the resource (30) in the “

sockets”

mode is established by calling a function (notifymeth).

12. Agent according to any of claims 2 through 11, characterized in that the communication between the protocol core and at least one method for accessing the resources in the “

direct”

mode takes place through named pipes and executable primitives, making it possible to perform the operations for reading the value of an instance (readInstDirect), for modifying an instance (writeInstDirect), for reading the next instance (readNextDirect), for writing a new instance, and for deleting an instance.

13. Agent according to any of claims 2 through 12, characterized in that the structure of each message related to an operation on an instance of the resource, and constructed by the protocol core (111) of the agent to be sent to at least one method (12), comprises a field for identifying the instance, a field corresponding to the value of the instance, a code identifying the operation to be executed and a return code indicating whether the operation has been performed.

14. Agent according to any of claims 2 through 13, characterized in that the manager (20) and/or each method (12) can create an instance in the model (11) of the resource managed by the core, by means of a request sent to the core (111) containing the verb (SET) for an instance modification on an instance that is nonexistent in the model, the reception of this request by the core (111) resulting in the creation of the instance.

15. Agent according to any of claims 2 through 14, characterized in that the manager (20) and/or each method (12) can delete an instance in the model of the resource managed by the core (111) by means of a request comprising the verb (SET) for modifying an instance, which assigns the name of the instance to be deleted to a predetermined, pre-existing instance (gamDeleteObject) of the model (110 of the resource (30), the reception of this request by the core (111) resulting in the deletion of the instance.

16. Agent according to any of claims 1 through 15, characterized in that the model (11) of the resource (30) included in the core (111) is a database sorted in the lexicographical order of the protocol SNMP.

17. Agent according to any of claims 1 through 16, characterized in that the model (11) of the resource managed by the core (111) is initialized by an instance file (40) created by the user before the initialization of the core (111).

18. Agent according to any of claims 1 through 17, characterized in that the successive modifications of at least one instance value of the model of the resource are stored in a backup file (50) of predetermined maximum size.

19. Agent according to claims 17 and 18, characterized in that a merge between the instance file (40) and the backup file (50) is performed before the initialization of the core, or when the backup file (50) has reached the predetermined size, or when the user so desires, in order to create a new instance file (42) containing the last values of the instances saved in the back-up file, and to create an empty backup file (52).

20. Agent according to any of claims 17 through 19, characterized in that the values of the instances recorded in the backup file (50) are accessible by a user before the merge with the instance file (40).

21. Agent according to any of claims 17 through 20, characterized in that each line of the backup file (50) corresponds to a modification, a deletion, a creation, or a writing of an instance, and comprises a field containing the name of the instance, a field containing the value of this instance, and a field containing the identification of the type of operation performed on this instance.

22. Agent according to claim 19, characterized in that prior to the merging of the instance file with the backup file, both of these files are copied onto the hard disk of the resource.

23. A tool library for creating a communication agent (10) for communication between a manager (20) and at least one resource (30) of a data processing system, the tool comprising a command for creating a protocol core (111) as an executable program of the communication agent, (10) wherein the protocol core manages at least one resource, said command being created from a formalized description of the at least one resource.

24. A library according to claims 23, characterized in that said library comprises at least one development support function, which allows a user to develop methods (12) for communicating with the protocol core (111) and/or updating at least one instance of a model (11) of at least one resource (30) and/or reading at least one instance of the model (11) of at least one resource (30).

25. A process for communication between a manager and at least one resource using an agent having a protocol core (111) created automatically from a formalized description of at least one resource (30), said core (111) comprising in compiled form a first interface (14) for communicating with the manager (20) and a model (11) of at least one resource (30) comprising values of instances of at least one resource (30), said values being accessible by the manager (20) through the first communication interface (14) comprising:

a first step for sending a request from the manager (20) to at least one resource (30) in order to read information of at least one resource (30), and

a second step for decoding the request by the core (111) of the agent (10) in order to determine an instance corresponding to the desired information and a mode for obtaining this instance.

26. A process according to claim 25, wherein if the mode for obtaining the instance is “

direct”

mode, the protocol core (111) of the agent constructs, then sends a request for a response to the manager wherein the request includes a value of the instance existing in the model of the resource it manages.

27. A process according to claim 26, characterized in that if the mode for obtaining the instance is the “

signal”

mode, the protocol core of the agent constructs, then sends a message to the method corresponding to the instance, in order to obtain the value of the instance.

28. A data processing system including a manager, at least one resource and an agent for communication between the manager and the resource, characterized in that the agent comprises a protocol core (111) created automatically from a formalized description of the resource (30), said core (111) comprising in compiled form a first interface (14) for communicating with the manager (20) and a model (11) of the resource (30) comprising the values of the instances of the resource (30), said values being accessible by the manager (20) through the first communication interface (14).