Resumen
Network management systems have become an increasingly important part of today's computer networks. As the complexity of networks increases, so have requirements of systems managing these networks. These requirements include providing standard interfaces for information sharing among management systems, having extensibility for handling change quickly and providing a means to manage large networks. One possible approach to handle these requirements is to design an open, standards-based, extensible and distributed network management system using Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA). The CORBA interface to the system facilitates easy communication with other systems. Its extensible nature allows the system to grow in future. Finally, CORBA's distributed capabilities make it possible to manage large numbers of network devices in a scalable manner. ProSphere is a CORBA-based product line. This product line includes network edge and backbone automated teller machine switches, which are deployed in many telecommunications carriers and private networks worldwide. The ProSphere architecture consists of a set of CORBA servers, which provide Network Management Services and Java client applications that present information from the servers in graphical interfaces. The architecture is extensible, allowing new kinds of network devices to be supported with little or no change to existing software. The architecture is open, allowing end-user integration through CORBA Interface Definition Language interfaces. The architecture is portable-Java clients can run from any type of host machine or Web browser. Finally, the ProSphere architecture is distributed in that system components (clients, servers, and objects) can reside in separate processes and hosts. The article describes the ProSphere architecture here and show how it benefits from the use of CORBA.