Prnjat, Ognjen; (2001) Development of integrity policies for network management. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D.), University College London.

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Abstract

Modern telecommunications systems are becoming complex due to technological advances, increased interconnection, and market demands. In this context, the crucial issue is the ability of systems to retain high integrity and low risk. Currently, there are no established methodological approaches to managing integrity, and there is a lack of integrity-preserving techniques. Here, we pin-point the integrity attributes of telecommunications systems, and develop a complete methodological framework for integrity management throughout the system lifecycle. The methodology is based on our original ODP-UML model, and focuses on the analysis of integrity requirements, and specification of integrity-preserving techniques - policies. This methodology is appropriate for any telecommunications system, while its application was explored in the context of management systems developed by ACTS projects TRUMPET and FlowThru. In this context, we focus on the development of two integrity policies. The first policy is based on object-oriented software metrics, which yield the complexity/coupling measurements of system classes. These measurements are related to the integrity/risk status of the classes, thus being able to pin-point potential risk areas in the design. We demonstrate the applicability of this policy through three experiments involving TRUMPET and FlowThru. Experiments show that a specific suite of seven object-oriented metrics can be used as the integrity indicator early in the development lifecycle; and that the highest risk for management systems' operation is exhibited at the interconnection points between either administrative domains or stand-alone components. Moreover, we uncover a strong ordinal relationship between the individual metrics within the suite. The second policy focuses on the testing of integrity aspects of management systems' interconnection across domains and is based on the concept of the Xuser Test-MIB. The applicability of this policy is demonstrated through a brief case study of the TRUMPET Xuser interface, the outcome indicating how complex inter-domain interactions might appear sensitive to the introduction of additional sophisticated security features.

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