Realizing on Demand Networking

The promise of e-business is being increasingly adopted. However, applications are getting more sophisticated, and often require conflicting resources and/or conflicting network configurations. Meanwhile, the environment in which these applications operate is becoming more complex. This paper describes what is needed to build On Demand Networking capabilities. It will be shown that two related problems need to be overcome. First, the services that the network provides are in general not related to how the business operates. Second, network management must undergo a revolutionary change – one that enables it to become autonomic. The result of this approach is a new genre of management applications that ensure that the network delivers the services asked of it by the business, on demand.