Software agents are critical to the management of network elements as they present these devices to managing applications using a structured interface and use a standards conformant protocol for communications which allows for interoperability.
For a software development organisation the key is to be able to efficiently deliver software agents for network elements to its customers. Toolkits provide a method for improving the delivery of the agents.
This paper describes our experiences in constructing OSI software agents with the Hewlett Packard OpenView Managed Object Toolkit (MOT) and the lessons learned.