Patent ID: 7337209

Claim:
In a computer network comprising a plurality of network elements, a network management architecture comprising: a plurality of agents, each of said agents corresponding to a different one of said network elements; and a plurality of device components, each of said device components modeling at least one aspect of one of said network elements, said aspect being either of a physical and a functional characteristic of said network element, wherein each of said agents comprises a plurality of said device components, wherein a first agent comprises a first device component that is associated with a first OSI Reference Model network protocol layer and a second device component that is associated with a second OSI Reference Model network protocol layer that is different from the first OSI Reference Model network protocol layer, and wherein a second agent comprises a third device component that is associated with the first OSI Reference Model network protocol layer; wherein at least two of said device components within at least one of said agents are logically interconnected, each logical interconnection corresponding to either of a physical and a functional interconnection found within or between any of said network elements, wherein any of said device components is operative to send a message regarding an event within its area of responsibility to any other of said device components neighboring said device component, whereupon any of said message-receiving device components is operative, responsive to said message receipt, to autonomously change a state of its corresponding area of functionality within its associated network element, wherein the first device component is operative to send to the second device component a second message that maps any of configuration parameters, status monitoring, statistics, or accounting parameters of the first OSI Reference Model network protocol layer to different parameters of the second OSI Reference model network protocol layer.