CALL FOR PAPERS

JOURNAL OF NETWORK AND SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT

Special Issue on

Mobile Agent-based  Network and Service Management




Since the beginning of the 1990s, a new paradigm has gained momentum in the
context of structuring and implementing applications for open distributed
systems: mobile agents. This paradigm has been used in applications ranging
from electronic commerce to mobile computing, and including network and
service management.

Mobile agents allow the delegation and automation of specific tasks to
autonomous software entities which could move between network nodes to
perform their tasks. In the specific case of network and service
management, they enable a better decentralization of control and management
tasks. The application of the mobile agent paradigm to network and service
management has been lately the subject of numerous research activities.
Hence it is time to collect the experiences gained from these activities.
It is also time to look at the trends in this promising area.

The automated configuration of fixed and mobile network systems represents
also a challenge for mobile agent-based network and service management. The
same applies to service creation; service customization, and service
subscription in multi-vendor telecommunications networks. However, the
integration of this new paradigm with the existing paradigms (i.e., SNMP,
OSI systems management and TMN) and the emerging ones (e.g., CORBA-based
management) is fundamental for the long-term success. Besides this, the
management of the mobile agent-based applications and systems also need to
be studied.

High quality contributions including research results and surveys are
solicited for this special issue which intends to provide a snapshot of the
current state-of-the-art in mobile agent-based network and service
management. The scope will include, but is not limited to, the following
topics:

4 Mobile agent models and architectures for network and service management
in fixed and mobile network environments (PSTN, N/B-ISDNs, PLMNs)
4 Mobile agent-based management applications (e.g., customer network
management, service creation, customization, subscription)
4 Integration of mobile agents with existing and emerging network and
service management paradigms (e.g., SNMP, OSI systems management,
CORBA-based management)
4 Management aspects, including security, of mobile agent-based
applications and systems

Instructions to authors:
Authors are requested to send six copies of their manuscripts not exceeding
20 double spaced type-written pages to one of the guest editors:

Dr. Thomas Magedanz			Roch H. Glitho 				
GMD FOKUS / TU Berlin			Ericsson Research				
Hardenbergplatz 2	 		8400 Decarie blvd.		
D- 10623 Berlin				Town of Mount Royal H4P 2N2
Germany					Quebec - Canada
email: magedanz@fokus.gmd.de		email: lmcrogl@lmc.ericsson.se

Please prepare manuscripts according to the Instructions to Contributors
which can be found in any copy of the Journal, or by visiting the JNSM web
site at http://www.cstp.umkc.edu/jnsm/.

Schedule:
Manuscript due: 			September 30, 1998
Notification of Acceptance: 		December 31, 1998
Revised Manuscript due: 		March 31, 1999
Publication Date: 			Third Quarter 1999