Integrated, Distributed Fault Management for Communication Networks

: This report describes an integrated, distributed fault management (IDFM) system for communication networks. The architecture is based on a distributed intelligent agent paradigm, with probabilistic networks as the framework for knowledge representation and evidence inferencing. A static strategy for generating the suggestive test sequence is proposed, based on which a heuristic dynamic strategy is initiated. Another dynamic strategy, formulated as a Markov decision problem, is also provided. To solve this problem, reinforcement learning techniques are investigated.