Project specifications.

The goal of this project is to provide a prototype - a partially working, principle-proving engine for a LAN data collector and its interaction with a central database of Local Area Network nodes, enhanced with a Command Line and a Graphic User Interfaces. Prototype, it still is a working mechanism within itself, though limited, and is for usage by LAN engineers.

The project is not a standalone one. It has to interact with several other Local Area Network data collecting systems, which will be discussed below. It will also serve a base for a development of a new, full-ranged mechanism that would cover the entire Local Area Network of a high-tech company. The project is written for Intel Israel Ltd. and is its property. It also was issued with help and guidance of the academic support - Software Laboratory of The Technion.

We approach the Local Area Network as a chain of nodes, each of them having two connections to the neighbours, and always a derivation of one neighbour is possible from another one. Most of the tools providing such a derivation must exist in the system and are not part of the project, which mostly runs them in a correct way and analyzes and settles the data into a base. The LAN engineer must be aware of the tools the project uses and must make sure they are present. An installation interface prompts the user about those tools as well as their needed parameters. Those tools allow the project to present the full LAN picture as an unbroken chain of initeracting nodes.

We avoid writing some of the tools by ourselves because of three reasons:

  1. We want the system to be easily portable for any local area network.
  2. We consider that existing tools for sure emit the data in a standard format, thus the LAN engineer using the project will feel better oriented.
  3. The project is a prototype, and the power investment into it is limited.

We attempt to provide as much choice for an information for the querying engineer, as possible. Still, we reduce slightly the power of the queries to stay within "prototyping" boundaries. We present a Graphic User Interface as an HTML file, usable on any OS containing an HTML browser and a Command Line Interface which is convenient to be run on schedule.

Special attention should be paid at the error processing. We may overestimate the intelligence of the equipment involved, and generate an erroneous data. An once-in-a-while overview by the LAN engineer is required for the database and log files, to check whether any of the LAN equipment might malfunction.

The project is written in PERL, HTML and CGI, it is not compiled, and therefore installable for any OS which supports PERL. It was written mostly on UNIX(TM) operating system (AIX 3.2.5 and DEC OSF 3.2). Due to the nature of the project no specific demo file is supplied, but rather a manual is being presented.

romm@empire.tau.ac.il
Last modified: Sun Jun 1 02:36:30 1997