Ontology-Based Network Management for Autonomic Communications

This chapter is focused on state-of-the art issues in the area of ontology-based autonomic communications and it considers how ontologies can be useful for network management as a way to achieve semantic interoperability among different network management models. In addition, it presents the autonomic communications paradigm as a possible solution to the ever-growing complexity of commercial networks due to the increasing complexity of individual network elements, the need for intelligent network and communication services and the heterogeneity of connected equipment. Finally, the chapter analyses how ontologies can be used to combine data correlation and inference technologies in autonomic networks. Such technologies are used as core components to build autonomic networks.