MQTT-like Network Management Architecture
Oliver Jukić, Renato Filjar, I. Heđi, Enes Ciriković · 2021
Network management correlates data from different sources. It enables integrated view on telecommunication network and service status to network personnel. Typically, the same management data are used by number of network management platforms and tools. Unfortunately, these data are very often collected in parallel, from the same sources. It overloads network and network management systems. In this paper we have proposed an MQTT-like architecture of network management system. MQTT is a protocol that uses a publish and subscribe model. It allows „publisher” to send messages belonging to specific topic to one or multiple „subscribers” that are subscribed to the topic. However, there is no direct connection between these entities. Central point of MQTT architecture is a „broker”, acting as router between publishers and subscribers. In architecture proposed, publishers are software agents collecting data from managed objects (network elements). Data are published to subscribed entities (e.g., network management applications). Every subscriber can process data received and publish processing results, acting as a publisher of data from higher abstraction level. Main improvement of MQTT architecture is that broker can store published data for a certain amount of time. This promotes broker as a central point from which is possible to obtain management data. In the case of crisis (e.g., earthquake or flooding), proposed architecture allows external stakeholders to obtain data about network availability in real-time manner.