Cavendish University Uganda (CUU) Commented [A1]: 36/40

YEAR OF STUDY…………………………….1…………….……………………
MODULE CODE……………………………MBA710…………………………...
MODULE NAME…………………..Management Theory and Practice………….
SEMESTER……………………………………I………………………….............
CAT 1 & 2 Coursework (Class Presentations)

on

Management by Delegation

by

German S. Goldsmith

Group 5: Members Student ID

1. MULES JAMES 152-944

2. SAKILA DANIEL 207-712

3. ASHERURE IMMACULATE 209-493

4. MATTY NJIE 205-934

5. SANTINO DENG 208-265

SUBMISSION DATE: MAY 1ST, 2024

 Table of Contents
Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................... ii
Management by Delegation .................................................................................................................... 1
Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 1
What is Management by Delegation? .................................................................................................. 2
Purpose of the Study ........................................................................................................................... 2
Conceptual Framework........................................................................................................................ 3
Study Variables .................................................................................................................................... 4
Objectives of the study ........................................................................................................................ 7
Relationships of the study variables ..................................................................................................... 7
CASE STUDY: The Gartner Group ......................................................................................................... 8
Local Case Study: South Sudan’s Digitel Co. ltd .................................................................................... 9
Challenges based on the study variables ............................................................................................ 10
Recommendations............................................................................................................................. 10
Lessons learned ................................................................................................................................. 11
Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 11

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 Management by Delegation
Introduction

Network delays have become the most critical performance problem for distributed applications.
Organizations that currently strive to be competitive must integrate technology to deal with
network delays for distributed applications. Worth noting, the current network management
systems follow a platform-centric, static software paradigm that allocate most responsibilities to
the platform-based hosts and leaves network devices with minor service support roles. This
paradigm results in efficient allocation of management responsibilities and intrinsically unreliable
systems and force management application to micro-manage devices, and results in failure prone
management bottlenecks and limitation for the real time responsiveness.

German S. Goldszmidt book emphasizes on addressing Network delays which are becoming more
critical performance problem for distributed application in the globe. For instance, the traditional
client server interaction does not scale well to the environments where the delays are relatively
long. However, the elastic processes are executing programs that can dynamically integrate new
functionality sent from external processes as delegated agents. On the other hand, the elastic
applications overcome network delays by dynamically moving computations closer to the
resources that they need to access.

A more flexible model that can improve reliability and availability of network systems to deal with
the delays in networks has to be introduced. Elastic applications overcome network delays by
dynamically moving computations closer to the resources they need to access. This happens when
organizations adopt an approach known as Management by Delegation (MbD) which addresses
issues to do with the rapidly changing network environments. MbD permits programmable
extensibility of network functions to improve the reliability and availability of networked systems
by dynamically embedding in them the intelligence required for autonomous self-management.

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What is Management by Delegation?

Management by delegation (MbD), is understood as an innovative network management paradigm

that applies elastic processing technologies to address many of the problems of current network
management systems. This network management approach centres around the use of delegation
agents or mobile agents. These agents are programs that can be dispatched to remote processes,
dynamically linked, and executed under local or remote control. The novel technology for this
mobile agent computing is known as elastic computing.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study is to understand the relationship between information networks, mobile
agents, management functions, network systems and Management by Delegation.

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 Conceptual Framework

Information Networks
• Internet
• Local area networks
• Wide area Networks

Mobile Agent Management by

• Autonomy Network Systems Delegation (MbD)
• Social ability • Bandwidth • Efficiency
• Mobility
• Software • Reliability
• Topology • Scalability
Management Function
• Robustness
• Accounting
• Configuration
• Performance
• Security

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Study Variables

Information Networks

Modern networks tend to be more intricate. Systems with multiple participants typically use client-
server networks. In these networks, a central computer (the server) provides resources to other
participants (the clients). This architecture allows efficient resource sharing and management.
Hence, this is a key variable in both network management and distributed computing. The key
constructs with which this variable can be measured include internet availability and efficiency of
the Local Area Network (LAN) and/or Wide Area Networks (WAN).

The management application needs to compute useful information from raw data collected in
management information base (MIB). Often times, computation cannot be accomplished through
remote interaction between application and simple network management protocol (SNMP) agents.
Information networks requires technologies to support extensibility of simple network
management protocol (SNMP) agent to compute information from raw data.

Application of an Asynchronous Transfers Mode (ATM) network that needs to detect problems
arising at virtual circuits (VC). Management application may need to quickly retrieve information
that is scattered among several management information base such as routing information specific
networks to certain types of interfaces and their current utilization.

Mobile Agents

The mobile agent as the study variable or independent variable describes a program that is
dynamically dispatched to a remote host, where it is linked and executed. It involves degenerated
forms of agents such as postscript program dispatched to a printer and HTML script dispatched to
a browser. Organizations need more general mobile agent technologies because the possibilities
provided by mobile agents computing have recently attracted enormous interest, and mobile
technologies became central to organization strategic vision of computing.

Several proposals for mobile agent technologies have been recently described by various groups
such including Java, tele-script. Agents are program script written in corresponding language that

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are dispatched to the remote interpreter where they are executed. Therefore, the study variable that
is to say, Mobile Agent (intendent variable) was described and measured through autonomy, social
ability and mobility that means mobiles applications.

Management Functions

The network managers need assistance for controlling and securing assets connected to the
network and improving the overall quality of information services. Managers are required to
control who can access network resources and provide satisfactory service to their users. This
requires implementation of specific management functions. These functions are often divided into
five major areas include:
 Fault management function - that is used to detect, correct abnormal behaviours, handle
devices break and network cleavages that is to say, connectivity lost due to repeater or cable
failure.
 Accounting management functions - that collect and process resource consumption data. For
instances, they compute the billing cost using a video conferencing application.
 Configurability management functions - that detect and control the state of the network
resources. For example, they can track the use of shared software licenses or patents by
different users.
 Performance management functions - that evaluate the effectiveness of communications for
instance, they monitor response time delays and uneven packet traffic distributions.
 Security management functions - that monitor and control access to resources such as
unauthorized reading of database records.

From the conceptual frames that measures the relations between different variables, the study
variable management functions which is the third independent variable (IV) and the attributes used
to describe and measure management functions includes, accounting, configuration, performance
and security.

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Network Systems:

Network systems refer to the interconnectedness of computing devices, allowing them to

communicate with each other. These devices can range from laptops, desktops, servers, and
smartphones to various Internet of Things (IoT) devices like cameras, door locks, and sensors. The
key measures that affect the effectiveness and efficiency of this variable include: bandwidth,
software and network topology.

In the contemporary world view most organizations depends on networked systems to support
their critical information functions. They are exposed to inherent risks associated with the
operating such systems. For example, their information system is vulnerable to network failures
and security compromise. This problem has led to severe costs for many business and financial
institutions. Thus, an effective management of network system is paramount in ensuring fault-free,
efficient and secure operations is literally a vital need for every institution.

Organizations network systems need to be properly managed in order to maintain the

communication network operation efficiency at all times. However, there are challenges in
network systems due to the explosive growth of the number of devices that are attached to
networks, the heterogeneity of devices in terms of brand and types. Therefore, in the conceptual
framework the study variable which is network system (independent variable) is measure and
described by attributes or constructs such as Bandwidth, software and topology.

Management by Delegation:

MbD aims to improve the efficiency of network management by distributing tasks and
responsibilities. MbD provides an environment for dynamically deploying network management
application code. As the network grows, the ability of MbD to scale and manage additional
elements becomes critical termed as its scalability. The resilience of network management in the
face of failures, changes, and dynamic conditions depends on the effectiveness of delegation
referred to as robustness. The adaptability of network management to varying requirements and
contexts relies on the flexibility provided by delegation. Therefore, the constructs of Management
by Delegation (MbD) are scalability, flexibility, robustness and efficiency.

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Objectives of the study

The study focuses on the following objectives:

i. To examine the relationship between information networks and management by
delegation.

ii. To establish the relationship between information networks, network systems and
management by delegation

iii. To examine the relationship between mobile agents, network systems and management by
delegation.

iv. To ascertain the relationship between management functions, network systems and
management by delegation

v. To establish the relationship between management functions and management by

delegation.

Relationships of the study variables

i. They offer a paradigm for distributed, flexible, scalable, and robust network management,
and overcoming the limitations of current centralized management schemes

ii. They are effective paradigms that overcome the network delays which are the major
performance bottlenecks

iii. They assist the application developers to address several generic problems of distributed
environments

iv. They use network resources to improve the effectiveness of network management for
instance, utilization of bandwidth.

v. Detect and handle of device failures, performance, inefficiency and security compromise
or unauthorized access

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CASE STUDY: The Gartner Group

Situation before Actions Outputs Outcomes

• The company experienced a • Decentralization of • Application of mobile •Wide management across
labor-intensive management labor. agent technologies heterogeneous devices.
• High operations and • Inventory control • 90 inventory equipment •
maintenance costs • Deployed intrusion and software installed. •Network resources became
• Costs estimated at 65-90% of & fault detection • 5 management functions accessible
the business computing. solutions. executed. •Network satisfactory service
• Actual costs in excess of 200 • Integrated • Simple network attained
billion dollars. delegation agents. management protocol •Communication networks
• Network was unable to • Launched SNMP. (SNMP) provided. operated efficiently.
handle problems in real-time.

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 Local Case Study: South Sudan’s Digitel Co. ltd
Situation before
• Encountered severe network
system failure.
• Over $40,000 was needed to
improve its information
networks.
• 60% of its equipment and
network software’s were
dormant.
• Low capacity to detect system •
failures, and correct network
abnormal behaviors.
• The coverage of the company •
was centralized to the nation’s
capital.
Actions
• Collaborated with creative
python and ZTE technologies.
• Re-designed the network
system.
• Fast-tracked connectivity to
remote areas.
Trained managers on remote
control.
Developed the local
infrastructure in remote areas
Output Outcomes
• 2 partnerships (with ZTE • Improved project management
and Python) reached oversight at each phase
• 10 network equipment,
and software installed • Increased reliability and efficiency
in network connectivity
• 5 Network managers • Improved effectiveness.
trained.
• Improved local capacity • Increased network functionality.
to manage the network
system.
• Sustained improved capacity to
• 10 states benefited from
manage the network system.
the extended network
coverage
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Challenges based on the study variables

i. Information systems are vulnerable to network failure and security compromises.

ii. Network latency or time delay may be experienced due to long data travel channels during
delegation using mobile agents.
iii. One user can authorize another user to access resources on its behalf posing additional
security threats.
iv. Due to language diversity, difficulty in interoperability, debugging and maintenance can
be experienced.
v. Applications must efficiently bind management code within the scope of each network
device
vi. A mechanism is needed to resolve non-deterministic action.
vii. Many network management applications are centralized.
viii. There are several problems related to scalability, reliability, resource constraint and
semantic heterogeneity.
ix. Failure to allocate sufficient resources for network and system management limits the
benefits and raises cost of newer technologies.
x. Data inconsistency - Ssynchronization, replication, and conflict resolution are hard to
achieve without compromising performance and scalability.

Recommendations

i. Use of automated management tools to filter and sort management information needed
from a sea of management data
ii. Handling problems related to the reliability, configurability, accountability, efficiency and
security
iii. Initiating an effective management framework that enables the proper utilization of
network resources
iv. Implementation of management functions to achieve a higher-level goal

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 v. Securing asset connected to networks and improving the overall quality of information
services

Lessons learned

i. Organizations depend on networked systems to support their information functions.

ii. Use of modern technologies brings about huge benefits to the society.
iii. Network administrators and operators need automated tools to maintain operating
networks. Elastic applications overcome network delays by dynamically moving
computation closer to the resources that they need to access.
iv. Effective manageability of distributed systems is a critical need for all modern
organizations.
v. As networks grow in size and become more complex, their operational costs increase
substantially. Management functions are divided into five major areas: fault management,
accounting, configuration, performance and security management.
vi. Network managers need to monitor, control, and secure the computing assets connected to
the network including the detection and handling of device failures

Conclusion

The practical handling and resolution of many challenging technical problems fall under the aegis
of network and system management. Many network management applications in use are
centralized because the current network management paradigms do not support the temporary and
spatial decentralization required to compute real-time management functions effectively.

Moreover, the main goal of network management system is to ensure the quality of the services
that networked element provide. To achieve these goals, network management systems must
implement specific management functions and mechanism to resolve non-deterministic
management action.

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Network management system plays a vital role in maintaining efficient network operations, while
elastic processes adapt resources dynamically to optimize efficiency and effectiveness. Balancing
these factors ensures robust network management and performance. While delegation enhances
flexibility, its effective management requires thoughtful design, robust policies, and careful
consideration of the challenges outlined before.

MbD offers a paradigm for distributed, flexible, scalable, and robust network management,
overcoming the limitations of current centralized management schemes.

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