Summer Research Project

(Intended for a student applying to hold an NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award during summer 2017)

Network devices have traditionally been configured and managed using a combination of Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) interactions and Command Line Interface (CLI) scripts.  A new development is the use of the Network Configuration (NETCONF) protocol and the YANG data description language.

One of my current students has developed a methodology to allow combining these two approaches when managing legacy equipment (supporting any of the versions of SNMP---v1, v2c, or v3) and more modern equipment (supporting NETCONF + YANG) within one organization.  His tests have been limited to certain simple cases such as SNMP GET and SET commands, but exclude SNMP traps, notifications and views.

The project would be to develop a flexible NETCONF agent with supporting sub-modules for the Linux environment, and then integrate it into his test environment.  If time permits, this could be extended to a Raspberry Pi environment, to simulate Internet of Things (IoT) or Industrial Control device management.  Another possible extension would be to incorporate the developed code into a test environment managed by CISCO's Network Services Orchestrator (NSO).

Details of financial support available, application procedures, etc., are available at http://www.concordia.ca/students/financial-support/scholarships-awards/internal/nserc-usra-competition---summer-2017.html.

For additional information about the project, or to discuss my support for your application, please contact Dr. J.W. Atwood at william.atwood@concordia.ca.

Last updated 2016-12-04 by J.W. Atwood.